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SANITARY BOARD.
A meeting of the Sanitary Board was held on Feb. 2nd at the Board Room. Mr. R. O. Hutcheson presided, and there were present Hon. Mr. W. Chatham, M.G., (Vice President) Colonel Bedford, Hon. Mr. Irving, Mr. A. Shel- ton Hooper, Dr. G.H. L. Fitzwilliams, Mr. Lau Chu Pak, Dr. Pearse (Medical Officer of Health) | Dr. McFarlane (ssistant Medical Officer of Health) and Mr. A. Gibson (Secretary.)
* A WORD OF WELCOME. The PRESIDENT-Gentlemen, before going on with the business to-day, I should like to welcome our newly elected members. The election this year has been more important than usual, and I think they ought both to be con- gratulated on their most successful poll. Mr, Shelton Hooper we have seen before, and I hope he will continue to be with us for a long time to come. Dr. Fitzwilliam is a new member, and I hope his stay with us will be long, and both a pleasure to himself and a benefit to the Colony (applause.)
EXHUMATION OF CORPSES IN CHINESE CEMETERIES.
Mr. HOOPER, pursuant to notice, asked the following questions:
(1.) Is it a fact that permission of any officer of the Sanitary Department or other Govern- ment Department has been granted for the exhumation of any corpse in any Chinese Cemetery and for its re-interment in the Colonial Cemetery, Happy Valley, commonly known as the Protestant Cemetery, since the passing of the Public Health and Buildings Amendment Ordinance 1901 ?
(2.) If so, what is the number of such cases, and dates of each?
(3.) Who was the officer who granted the per- mits and by what authority did he do so?
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(4.) Has any portion of the Colonial Cemet- ery been reserved for such re-interments referred to in question No. 1?
The PRESIDENT's replies were:
1. Yes.
2. One. The permit was issued in December 1908.
3. The form of permit was issued by the Registrar General, the Medical Officer of Health having no sanitary objections. The issuing of this permit was a continuation of the practice that obtained under the old byelaws Printed copies of the new byelaws were not circulated
until December 30th. 4. No.
Mr HOOPER said he wished to call attention to this question, and moved the suspension of the standing orders.
The Vice-President seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
Mr. HOOPER said his reason for calling atten- tion to this matter was clearly indicated in the four questions he had put. He thought members could see what he was driving at, and that was to find out if any bodies which had been legally buried in any other authorised ceme- teries had been exhumed and re-interred in the Colonial Cemetery without good rea- son. The Colonial Cemetery, commonly known as the Protestant cemetery, was intended, and had been used for the interment of the European community here of all classes and denomina- tions. It had been divided up into sections to enable the military and the naval men to be buried in their respective sections which had been reserved for them, as other sections were reserved for residents of different periods of living in this Colony. The Hon. Director of Public Works would bear him out, he was sure, when he said that the area was becoming so restricted that that official had had the greatest difficulty, and Government had been put to very great expense, in extending this cemetery in other directions to enable them to bury people
for whom it was intended. After the case
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[February 6, 1909.
Board of the election of Mr. A. Shelton Hooper and Dr. G. H. L. Fitzwilliams as members of their body.
BAT RETURN.
The rat return for the week ending January 16th showed that 1672 rats were caught in the Colony, four of which were found to be in- fected. For the week ending January 23rd 923 rats were caught, none of which were in- fected with plague.
MORTALITY STATISTICS.
The mortality statistics gave the following figures: Based on a death rate per 1000 per annum the percentage of death in the whole
olony for the week ended 2nd January was - 194, and for the week ended 9th January it was 19-9 as against 24-6 for the corresponding week of last year.
LIMEWASHING RETURNS.
For the fortnight ended 12th January 1929 houses were limewashed in the Eastern and 1070 in the entral District.
the Board nominated. The date of this permit an December 19th, and as was given 85 apology for the error it was stated that the byelaws were not circulated until December 30th. Mr. Hooper failed to understand what that meant. Circulated to whom? He ventured to say that every member of the public com- munity of Hongkong was notified in the Government Gazette (which he produced) of December 4th. And it was the duty of every public officer to make himself cognizant with the contents of that paper. What was more astounding still was that the Registrar-General, | from whose department this permit came was himself present at the Council meeting at the matter was brought up, and which was a party to the confirming of the byelaws He. But this, perhaps, was a little slip. said this not so much with the idea of find- ing fault as with the object of preventing it happening in future. On looking into the law we could not find that anyone in this Colony has authorised to grant a certificate for exhum- ation, and the speaker appealed to the Registrar General to enlighten him if he imagined he had that power.
Under the Births and Deaths Registration Ordinance of 1896 he found there was power given to the Secretary of the Sanitary Board or the Registrar-General to permit the removal of dead bodies from That was all he could find the Colony.
Mr. Hooper asked the on the subject. Registrar-General to enlighten the Board, all the members of which appeared to be in ignor- ance. He concluded by moving "that the Govern-J. W. C. Bonnar, Mr. W. G. Humphreys, Mr. ment be asked to obtain for the information of H. R. B. Hancock, Mr. E. G. Barrett (com- this Board the opinion of the Law Officers of mittee), Mr. A. S. D. Cousland (secretary), the Hon. Mr. H. E. Pollock, the Hon. Mr. the Crown as to who has power to grant per- mission for the exhumation of any corpse which W. J. Gresson, Mr. J. M. R. Smith, and had been interred in any authorised cemetery Mr. J. Armstrong, Mr. J. C. Peter, Mr. E. F. of this Colony."
Mackay, Mr. Shellim, Mr. C. 8. Gubbay, Mr. A. Forbes, Mr. W. S. Bailey, Mr. D.
After a period of silence
THE CHINA ASSOCIATION.
ANNUAL MEETING OF THE HONGKONG BRANCH.
The annual general meeting of the Hongkong Branch of the China Association was held at the City Hall yesterday afternoon. Mr. Murray Stewart presided, and there were also present Ross, Mr. H. E. Tomkins, Mr. Mr. C.
The VICE-PRESIDENT seconded the motion Macdonald, Mr. G. Morton Smith, Mr. J. D. pro forma.
The resolution was then put to the meeting and carried.
Mr. HOOPER-I should like one, but it should have come before the resolution was carried.
The REGISTRAR-GENERAL-I am simply in a sense supplementing the answer to the third of these questions-that answer was that the per- son who granted a permit was the Registrar- General. That is not absolutely correct, because the document issued by the Registrar- General is a document addressed to the Medical Officer of Health, I think, or to the Secretary of the Sanitary Board.
The MEDICAL OFFICER of HEALTH-Not in this case.
The REGISTRAR-GENERAL-It is a document simply informing an officer of the Sanitary Board-I am not sure whether the Medical Officer or Secretary that a certain person desires to exhume a body. It is in no sense order.
Auld, Mr. D. K. Moss, and Mr. J. Cochrane. The CHAIRMAN said:-The notice calling this meeting and the annual report having The REGISTRAR-GENERAL-Mr. Chairman, been in your hands for some days I presume if I am in order in making a personal explana-that the formality of reading them may be dispensed with, and accordingly I propose to tion-
proceed at once with our first business,-the consideration of the repert. In moving its adoption, I should perhaps explain its form. Its form differs from that of most of those which have preceeded it. Most of these have con- tained an appendix in which has appeared much of the year's correspondence. This time no letters have been printed in full. The reason for that is twofold. For one thing the proportion of correspondence requiring to be treated as con- fidential was last year larger than usual. This is not in any degree due to a desire on the part of your committee to shroud their doings in mystery. Confidential treatment of correspondence has in all cases been imposed upon us; we merely keep faith' in thus dealing with it. I mention this because I have seen it suggested that your Committee is unduly enamoured of secretive methods. The notion is a mistaken one. correspondence is at all times open to the inspection of members, but all of it is not necessarily therefore suitable for publication. As regards correspondence not requiring to be treated confidentially, the reason why it does not appear is simply that it seemed on re- perusal to be insufficiently interesting for in detail. As I am mainly repro uction responsible for this I feel free to state the fact. By way of doing penance I volunteered to wade through these two formidable bundles of stale stuff which you see on the table, picking out the least uninteresting passages, and string- ing them together in a brief relation of the year's work, thus enabling you rapidly to scan it, and to see at a glance what we have been doing. My object was to save your patience. Some of the patience thus saved will, I hope, be available for supplementary reference to the topics touched upon.
an
Mr.HOOPER-I didn't say an order, & permit. The PRESIDENT-It was under the old byelaws that the Medical Officer of Health signed these permits if there was no objection. There was a standing rule that no such signature was necessary if a death was over seven years old.
Mr. HOOPER referred the President to the old byelaw which said that no grave should be reopened, if a corpse was interred therein, without the written permission of the Medical Officer of Health or other officer duly appointed by the Board for that purpose. There was not one word about the Registrar General. He had no locus standi.
The REGISTRAR-GENERAL-The sole func- tion of the Registrar-General, under the old byelaw, was to refer the matter to the Medical Officer of Health. A letter of introduction given to a person who wanted to open a grave is not to
be called a permit.
Mr. HOOPER-Is it a printed form? The REGISTRAR-GENERAL-Yes. Mr. HOOPER-Then I think it would be just as well if the Registrar-General would let us have that form to forward to the Law Officers.
The REGISTRAR-GENERAL promised to do so, and the PRESIDENT stopped the discussion.
which was admitted to have taken place, he thought they should endeavour to prohibit any in future. The thing was to find out how this had happened Personally he did not think such a thing possible, for under the byelaws passed at a Board meeting, after having been considered by a committee composed of the President, the Vice-President and the speaker, and which had since been approved by the Legislative Council, power to grant permits in such cases was reserved for the Board, and was taken away from the The Colonial Secretary wrote, by direction of Medical Officer of Health or any other officer His Excellency the Governor, informing the
THE NEW MEMBERS.
Our
The
The first is for the moment threadbare. We sympathise with the desire of the British com- munity of Tientsin to maintain a British Post Office. With them we rest in hope. There is nothing else to be done in the meantime. same remark applies to the lottery ticket question, while the adage "least said soonest mended, precisely meets the present case of the boycott.
of Concerning the problem of the protection c Trade Marks its vital importance to the pros
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