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NOTES FROM SINGAPORE.
542
NOTES FROM SINGAPORE.
Jlyiiig visits every year or two, are amongst the chief reasons accountable for the slow progress of civilisation in the provinces of Spain. A notable exception, however, may be found in some of the northern provinces, such as Galicia, where the more equable distribution of land tends to produce not only greater personal freedom, coupled with more satisfactory social intercourse, but also a much higher intellectual average. It therefore follows that in most of the provinces the medical man has to fall back upon one or two equals in education in the villages and perhaps half a dozen to ten in the more important townships, and of these probably half are, through no desire of his own, political adversaries and therefore just barely civil. It is hardly to be wondered at, then, if in the course of years he drifts down to the intellectual level of his patients, loses the enthusiasm of early days, gradually forgets what he knew, and gets completely behind the age. In my introductory remarks I have referred to bleeding as being still practised in Spain. It is only fair, however, to gay that the present generation of medical men there are in every way equal to the average practitioners of other countries and have set their faces against this practice, which, by some of the older men, is still considered the panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to. I have known a patient insist on being bled by his medical attendant, who, however, only complied under protest and in the conviction that a little judicious blood-letting by himself would be preferable to handing his patient over to the village barber, whose discretion in the matter might not be so great. This worthy is a recognised though uncertified minor surgeon. Besides his razors, brushes, and scissors he provides himself with lancet, leeches, corn knife, and a variety of surgical and dental instruments. Occasionally, also, he does a little bone-setting, though this is, strictly speaking, within the province of the curandero, or bone-setter, to whom I shall shortly refer. On the barber’s shelves may sometimes be found a work on anatomy and occasionally a treatise on the virtues of herbs in the cure of ailments. His lack, however, of a good elementary education, to say nothing of the rudiments of medical science, renders these works worse than useless to him, except inasmuch as they enable him to secure a good vocabulary of technical phrases, which, however misapplied to the case in point, have the desired effect of confusing and impressing his already too credulous
NOTES FROM SINGAPORE. (FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
Tile Influenza Epidemic. THE influenza epidemic of 1895 has not been limited to the "home"countries. During the past three months the Straits Settlements and the adjoining native states have suffered severely from this well-known scourge. The general characteristics of the disease have in no way differed from those which have been noted in Europe. The native Malay, the Eurasian, the immigrant European, Chinaman, Indian, and Arab have all fallen victims to the disease. Amongst Europeans severe or fatal cases have been rare, but the deathrate in the case of Asiatics has been exceptionally high. We have seen the gastro-intestinal, the cerebro-spinal, and the pulmonary forms in great frequency, the last being by far the most common. Pneumonia, broncho-pneumonia, and other forms of pulmonary affections have carried off many of the natives. In a large proportion of these cases the duration of sickness was extremely short. Heart complications have been far from uncommon, and the writer of these notes has met with at least a dozen well-marked examples. The majority have shown acute dilatation of the left ventricle, slow pulse or else a very rapid and feeble one, with frequent irregularity in rhythm, and death from cardiac asthenia in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. When life in these cases is prolonged various murmurs are to be noted, chief among which are those showing mitral and aortic insufficiency. Irregularity of pulse has persisted in some cases for months after the initial attack, and attacks of angina are frequently met with. As at home, patients who already suffer from heart disease stand a bad chance when struck down by "the grip," and die from cardiac syncope or from a low form of pneumonia. More especially is this the case in beri-beri, for in patients suffering from this disease influenza is exceedingly fatal. When "the grip" occurs in an acute attack little else than cardiac collapse, without appreciable fever or the characteristic pains, the resemblance to an acute attack of beri.beri is most marked. This resemblance is rendered greater in cases, two of which came under my notice, where peripheral neuritis follows close upon influenza as a complication. Both patrons. Whilst being shaved in a small town I have had some of my cases made perfect recoveries, although one was accomby dilatation of the ventricles. Malaria as a sequela startlingly new ideas propounded on the theory and practice panied of medicine. I am afraid, however, that they produced has been frequently noted, and in a few cases has been fatal. Amongst Europeans especially I have seen a number of cases more amusement than instruction, and though careful not to contradict one who, with a razor to my throat, might justly of acute phthisis arising as a rule out of unresolved pneube considered the arbiter of my destiny, I can hardly refrain monia, and in these a fatal termination usually ensues in one from hoping that the practice thereof may be strictly confined or two months. Some cases linger on, however, for a longer Finally, although I have not the exact figures to the confiding patrons of’ each village Figaro. The art and period. before me, during the last two months or mysteries of a curandero are handed down from father to soil. more has the death-rate greatly exceeded that for the corresponding months He devotes himself to setting bones and repairing injuries generally, and his attentions are not confined to man, his field of last year. Epidemic Asiatic Oholera. of operations extending to all such members of the animal world as have a master willing to pay the recognised fee, Unfortunately, influenza has not been the sole cause of our and on the whole his work seems to be fairly well done. present high rate of mortality. Asiatic cholera in an Attempts have at various times been made to suppress epidemic form is a rarity in Singapore, and we have hitherto. citranderos, but the ’Cox populi is with them, and thus far congratulated ourselves on our immunity from its ravages. they have been able to maintain their own even in some of Jur excellent municipal water-supply has been long held up the larger towns. I have heard of a noble family sending M the main agent in preventing epidemics of cholera, but miles for a celebrated curandero when they had the services ;hat a good water-supply is not a sine q1lâ non in this respect ef two really good surgeons within easy reach. The reasons lias now been demonstrated to us in a very emphatic manner. for their continued prestige are complex and somewhatI Dther factors have been at play, such as back-to-back houses, want of proper drainage, and the filthy habits curious. In the first place, the bone-setter has generally aI >vercrowding, town and some four to six villages as his field of operations, vhich are a characteristic of most Asiatics. These have and in each he, with characteristic modesty, details the mar- ] inally led to consequences which were sooner or later vellous cures he has achieved in the others ; secondly, the i nevitable. At a meeting of the Municipal Commission on medical man is an accepted fact, his remedies are supposed rune 19th the medical officer of health, Dr. Middleton, to be known quantities, and a knowledge of them open to alli :tated that "the death-rate began to rise about the beginning who may have the inclination or the means to study them. ( )f April, but no cases of cholera were reported. Still it was With the enrandero, on the other hand, things are differentlyf uspected that there was some epidemic going about the viewed. His art is a secret one possessed by few, and is 1 own, though they were unable to get hold of it. Since then, looked upon as something like a special gift from Heaven, on ( luring the last week, the death-rate had risen to 75 per 1000. the principle of Omne ignotu’ln pro mirabile. If we add to r [’he first indication of cholera they had was on Monday, the this the fact that he has, as a, rule, the simpler cases to deal 7 .Oth of this month [’June], and since then forty cases had with, and can therefore often show a greater percentage of 1 )een reported, of which thirty-six’ had proved fatal....... cures than the certified surgeon, who would be invariablyr _’here was considerable difficulty in dealing with these cases, called in to attend a badly fractured limb, it becomes 1 )ecause the Chinese and natives concealed them in order easier to understand how it is that bone-setters still t o prevent patients being sent to hospital, nor were they Hour ish in a country too long deprived of just educationali lsually called in until after death had taken place." The facilities. 1 oeans adopted to check the spread of’ the disease are, in
.
SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR AND PEMBA.
Dr. Middleton’s own words, these : "’Whenever a case was dis,covered the man was sent to hospital at once, his mats and bedding burnt, and his drinking vessels broken, compensation
being given where
such articles
were
destroyed."
In all
too, the infected house is thoroughly cleansed and ,disinfected by the municipal authorities. cases,
The Governrnent and the
Mnnicipality.
received by the President of the 1’lunicipal Commission from the Colonial Secretary, was read at a meeting of the Commission on June 19th :"Colonial Secretary’s Office, Singapore, June 14th, 1895. " SlR,—I am directed by the Governor to direct the attention of the
The
following letter,
’Commissioners to the exceptionally high death-rate in Singapore for the month of April last, as shown in the Registrar-General’s return, a
copy of which was sent to you on the lst inst. (2) It will be seen that the number of deaths in that month recorded was no less than 770, as compared with 477 in the corresponding month of last year, and .exceeded by 172 the highest number previously recorded for the month .of April during the last ten years. (3) His Excellency is of opinion that the abnormal figures appear to indicate the prevalence in Singapore 4uring the month referred to of some cause of death intentionally or .carelessly kept back by the natives from fear of consequences which might result if it were reported, and I am to request that the Com’missioners will give their consideration to a matter which would appear at first sight to indicate that much closer attention and supervision on the part of their medical officer may be desirable. " I have, &c.,
--’ &I Jf.’ A.SWETTENH9Ii, Colonial Secretary.’
The irony of this letter is evident when one notes that the death return for April was delivered by the Government to the municipal authorities so late as June lst, that this was the first official indication to the medical officer of health that the death-rate in April was so unusually high, and that the entire onus of such a lax state of affairs rests with the Government by reason of the present erroneous and inefficient system of death registration. Such a wanton censure of an able and energetic medical officer, such an attempt on the part of the Government to make the Municipal Commission a scapegoat for its failings, have led to universal expressions of indignation from the public of Singapore, who now call emphatically for an immediate and radical change in the methods by which vital statistics are at present obtained.
The Preseott
System of Registration of Deaths in the Colony. The present law makes it the duty of the occupier of a ouse, in which a death happens to take place, to notify the death within twenty-four hours to the deputy registrar of the district, who is in all cases a police-constable. These are usually Malays or Tamils. Failing a medical certificate, the oonstable fills up a form and states the cause of death, either following the notifier’s statements or giving his own diagnosis from inspection of the corpse or otherwise. In many cases, as was described by Dr. Dumbleton, a retired municipal medical officer, in a paper read before the Straits Medical Association, a medical certificate is by no means a guarantee of correct registration, but is often altered according to the fancy of the deputy registrar. These registers, usually made out in Tamil or Malay, are translated into English at the end ofthe month and are then forwarded to the Registrargeneral. The latter tabulates them, and finally, well on in the following month-in the specific case referred to in the Colonial Secretary’s letter fully a month later-they are In this transmitted to the municipal medical officer. way this official is kept in total ignorance of the - death-rate in the district which. is his special care, and he can have no guide or indication which might lead him to suspect the presence of any unusual fatal element until some weeks later. It might be argued that the Infectious Diseases Notification Act is a help to him in this direction, but the present epidemic shows the fallacy of this. Almost all the cases have occurred amongst the poorest class of natives, who either do not by preference or cannot afford to call in general practitioners. That the system calls for immediate alteration at the hands of the Government must be evident to everyone who has the welfare of the Settlement at heart. Deputy registrars should be no longer ignorant policeconstables. The posts should either be given to trained apothecaries or something akin to the parochial system should be instituted, so that, failing a certificate from the deceased’s medical attendant, a proper medical certificate may in. all cases be obtained. All such certificates, too, should be made out in duplicate, one copy going to the medical officer of health within twenty-four hours of the death and. the other being sent, as heretofore, to the Registrar-
uropean
General.
SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR AND
543
PEMBA.
ZANZIBAR has for many years been known to the public the starting point of exploring expeditions about to enter Equatorial Africa from the eastern side, and the recent extension of a British Protectorate over the territories of its ruler causes us to regard it with an increased feeling of interest and responsibility. The upper classes are Mohammedan Arabs; they have been slave-traders and slaveowners from time immemorial, and a special investigation of the condition of the negroes has just been made at the instance of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. The society’s commissioner, Mr. Donald Mackenzie, is acquainted with the Arabic language and has had long experience of Mohammedan customs and slavery among the Arabs in North-West Africa. He arrived in Zanzibar on March 2nd, 1895, and devoted about six weeks to his inquiry. The territories of Zanzibar consist of the coral islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, lying about twenty-two miles apart, between 5° and 7° S. latitude ; the former island is less than twenty-five and the latter less than thirty-five miles from the African mainland. There are no precise data as to the population, but the late Sultan, who died in 1888, estimated the inhabitants of the two islands at 400,000, of whom 200 were Europeans (merchants) and Goanese (shopkeepers and servants), 8500 were natives of British India (moneylenders and merchants), 10,000 or 15,000 were Arabs (the ruling class), 266,000 were slaves, and the balance were aborigines and slaves who had been set free. The slaves may be classified as domestics (including concubines and eunuchs), plantation workers, chiefly occupied in the cultivation of cloves, and town labourers. These last work under entirely different conditions from the domestic and plantation slaves. They are employed : (1) in the loading and discharging of vessels and in general warehouse and town labour, women being largely engaged in this work and especially in the coaling of including British men-of-war ; (2) as porters who carry goods or stores into the interior of Africa ; and (3) as domestic servants to Europeans, natives of British India, and Goanese, who not being themselves allowed to possess slaves have to hire them from their owners. All British subjects deal with the slaves directly and not with the master, or they may hire them from a contractor, who need not necessarily be a slaveholder, but who knows where to get them. Employers pay wages to the slaves, who, in turn, hand to their masters half of their earnings, and with the remainder have to buy their own food and clothes ; in the case of porters the hirer has to provide them with food. The pay of porters and harbour labourers is usually ten rupees per month ; women labourers receive less. The regulation load of porters is 70 lb. each, but beyond that they have to carry food, water, and cooking utensils, which may bring the load up to 100 lb. or more. They have to march about twelve miles a day. These slave porters are the only means of transport for our Government and for missionaries and merchants between the interior of Africa and the coast. If any of them are taken ill they are left by the path-side to die. their loads are distributed among the others, and the caravan proceeds on its march without any further notice being The mortality taken of those who drop by the way. on the very to Mackenzie them was Mr. amongst given highest authority at 30 per cent. Domestic servants are generally men, and they receive about seven rupees per month; the women are water-carriers and are paid five rupees per month. They all receive their wages directly from their employers, but each hands to the master one-half. A slave is told by his master to seek employment, and ifhe cannot The masters have hardly any find it he is punished. responsibility as regards the slaves and only provide them with food when they are out of employment. None of the slaves possess any civil rights except that they can complain against their masters to the British Consul-General, but at present very few know of the Consul-General, and under existing circumstances freedom would be no benefit to them, for they would be outcasts, and their masters would have many ways of getting rid of them by poison and otherwise. Many of the slaves who have been set free by the Consul-General have afterwards been kidnapped and all’ trace of them has been lost. Mr. Mackenzie was much impressed by the fact that very few children are born to slaves, owing, it is said, to the manner in which very young girls are treated as
steamers,
NOTES FROM SINGAPORE.
Jlyiiig visits every year or two, are amongst the chief reasons accountable for the slow progress of civilisation in the provinces of Spain. A notable exception, however, may be found in some of the northern provinces, such as Galicia, where the more equable distribution of land tends to produce not only greater personal freedom, coupled with more satisfactory social intercourse, but also a much higher intellectual average. It therefore follows that in most of the provinces the medical man has to fall back upon one or two equals in education in the villages and perhaps half a dozen to ten in the more important townships, and of these probably half are, through no desire of his own, political adversaries and therefore just barely civil. It is hardly to be wondered at, then, if in the course of years he drifts down to the intellectual level of his patients, loses the enthusiasm of early days, gradually forgets what he knew, and gets completely behind the age. In my introductory remarks I have referred to bleeding as being still practised in Spain. It is only fair, however, to gay that the present generation of medical men there are in every way equal to the average practitioners of other countries and have set their faces against this practice, which, by some of the older men, is still considered the panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to. I have known a patient insist on being bled by his medical attendant, who, however, only complied under protest and in the conviction that a little judicious blood-letting by himself would be preferable to handing his patient over to the village barber, whose discretion in the matter might not be so great. This worthy is a recognised though uncertified minor surgeon. Besides his razors, brushes, and scissors he provides himself with lancet, leeches, corn knife, and a variety of surgical and dental instruments. Occasionally, also, he does a little bone-setting, though this is, strictly speaking, within the province of the curandero, or bone-setter, to whom I shall shortly refer. On the barber’s shelves may sometimes be found a work on anatomy and occasionally a treatise on the virtues of herbs in the cure of ailments. His lack, however, of a good elementary education, to say nothing of the rudiments of medical science, renders these works worse than useless to him, except inasmuch as they enable him to secure a good vocabulary of technical phrases, which, however misapplied to the case in point, have the desired effect of confusing and impressing his already too credulous
NOTES FROM SINGAPORE. (FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
Tile Influenza Epidemic. THE influenza epidemic of 1895 has not been limited to the "home"countries. During the past three months the Straits Settlements and the adjoining native states have suffered severely from this well-known scourge. The general characteristics of the disease have in no way differed from those which have been noted in Europe. The native Malay, the Eurasian, the immigrant European, Chinaman, Indian, and Arab have all fallen victims to the disease. Amongst Europeans severe or fatal cases have been rare, but the deathrate in the case of Asiatics has been exceptionally high. We have seen the gastro-intestinal, the cerebro-spinal, and the pulmonary forms in great frequency, the last being by far the most common. Pneumonia, broncho-pneumonia, and other forms of pulmonary affections have carried off many of the natives. In a large proportion of these cases the duration of sickness was extremely short. Heart complications have been far from uncommon, and the writer of these notes has met with at least a dozen well-marked examples. The majority have shown acute dilatation of the left ventricle, slow pulse or else a very rapid and feeble one, with frequent irregularity in rhythm, and death from cardiac asthenia in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. When life in these cases is prolonged various murmurs are to be noted, chief among which are those showing mitral and aortic insufficiency. Irregularity of pulse has persisted in some cases for months after the initial attack, and attacks of angina are frequently met with. As at home, patients who already suffer from heart disease stand a bad chance when struck down by "the grip," and die from cardiac syncope or from a low form of pneumonia. More especially is this the case in beri-beri, for in patients suffering from this disease influenza is exceedingly fatal. When "the grip" occurs in an acute attack little else than cardiac collapse, without appreciable fever or the characteristic pains, the resemblance to an acute attack of beri.beri is most marked. This resemblance is rendered greater in cases, two of which came under my notice, where peripheral neuritis follows close upon influenza as a complication. Both patrons. Whilst being shaved in a small town I have had some of my cases made perfect recoveries, although one was accomby dilatation of the ventricles. Malaria as a sequela startlingly new ideas propounded on the theory and practice panied of medicine. I am afraid, however, that they produced has been frequently noted, and in a few cases has been fatal. Amongst Europeans especially I have seen a number of cases more amusement than instruction, and though careful not to contradict one who, with a razor to my throat, might justly of acute phthisis arising as a rule out of unresolved pneube considered the arbiter of my destiny, I can hardly refrain monia, and in these a fatal termination usually ensues in one from hoping that the practice thereof may be strictly confined or two months. Some cases linger on, however, for a longer Finally, although I have not the exact figures to the confiding patrons of’ each village Figaro. The art and period. before me, during the last two months or mysteries of a curandero are handed down from father to soil. more has the death-rate greatly exceeded that for the corresponding months He devotes himself to setting bones and repairing injuries generally, and his attentions are not confined to man, his field of last year. Epidemic Asiatic Oholera. of operations extending to all such members of the animal world as have a master willing to pay the recognised fee, Unfortunately, influenza has not been the sole cause of our and on the whole his work seems to be fairly well done. present high rate of mortality. Asiatic cholera in an Attempts have at various times been made to suppress epidemic form is a rarity in Singapore, and we have hitherto. citranderos, but the ’Cox populi is with them, and thus far congratulated ourselves on our immunity from its ravages. they have been able to maintain their own even in some of Jur excellent municipal water-supply has been long held up the larger towns. I have heard of a noble family sending M the main agent in preventing epidemics of cholera, but miles for a celebrated curandero when they had the services ;hat a good water-supply is not a sine q1lâ non in this respect ef two really good surgeons within easy reach. The reasons lias now been demonstrated to us in a very emphatic manner. for their continued prestige are complex and somewhatI Dther factors have been at play, such as back-to-back houses, want of proper drainage, and the filthy habits curious. In the first place, the bone-setter has generally aI >vercrowding, town and some four to six villages as his field of operations, vhich are a characteristic of most Asiatics. These have and in each he, with characteristic modesty, details the mar- ] inally led to consequences which were sooner or later vellous cures he has achieved in the others ; secondly, the i nevitable. At a meeting of the Municipal Commission on medical man is an accepted fact, his remedies are supposed rune 19th the medical officer of health, Dr. Middleton, to be known quantities, and a knowledge of them open to alli :tated that "the death-rate began to rise about the beginning who may have the inclination or the means to study them. ( )f April, but no cases of cholera were reported. Still it was With the enrandero, on the other hand, things are differentlyf uspected that there was some epidemic going about the viewed. His art is a secret one possessed by few, and is 1 own, though they were unable to get hold of it. Since then, looked upon as something like a special gift from Heaven, on ( luring the last week, the death-rate had risen to 75 per 1000. the principle of Omne ignotu’ln pro mirabile. If we add to r [’he first indication of cholera they had was on Monday, the this the fact that he has, as a, rule, the simpler cases to deal 7 .Oth of this month [’June], and since then forty cases had with, and can therefore often show a greater percentage of 1 )een reported, of which thirty-six’ had proved fatal....... cures than the certified surgeon, who would be invariablyr _’here was considerable difficulty in dealing with these cases, called in to attend a badly fractured limb, it becomes 1 )ecause the Chinese and natives concealed them in order easier to understand how it is that bone-setters still t o prevent patients being sent to hospital, nor were they Hour ish in a country too long deprived of just educationali lsually called in until after death had taken place." The facilities. 1 oeans adopted to check the spread of’ the disease are, in
.
SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR AND PEMBA.
Dr. Middleton’s own words, these : "’Whenever a case was dis,covered the man was sent to hospital at once, his mats and bedding burnt, and his drinking vessels broken, compensation
being given where
such articles
were
destroyed."
In all
too, the infected house is thoroughly cleansed and ,disinfected by the municipal authorities. cases,
The Governrnent and the
Mnnicipality.
received by the President of the 1’lunicipal Commission from the Colonial Secretary, was read at a meeting of the Commission on June 19th :"Colonial Secretary’s Office, Singapore, June 14th, 1895. " SlR,—I am directed by the Governor to direct the attention of the
The
following letter,
’Commissioners to the exceptionally high death-rate in Singapore for the month of April last, as shown in the Registrar-General’s return, a
copy of which was sent to you on the lst inst. (2) It will be seen that the number of deaths in that month recorded was no less than 770, as compared with 477 in the corresponding month of last year, and .exceeded by 172 the highest number previously recorded for the month .of April during the last ten years. (3) His Excellency is of opinion that the abnormal figures appear to indicate the prevalence in Singapore 4uring the month referred to of some cause of death intentionally or .carelessly kept back by the natives from fear of consequences which might result if it were reported, and I am to request that the Com’missioners will give their consideration to a matter which would appear at first sight to indicate that much closer attention and supervision on the part of their medical officer may be desirable. " I have, &c.,
--’ &I Jf.’ A.SWETTENH9Ii, Colonial Secretary.’
The irony of this letter is evident when one notes that the death return for April was delivered by the Government to the municipal authorities so late as June lst, that this was the first official indication to the medical officer of health that the death-rate in April was so unusually high, and that the entire onus of such a lax state of affairs rests with the Government by reason of the present erroneous and inefficient system of death registration. Such a wanton censure of an able and energetic medical officer, such an attempt on the part of the Government to make the Municipal Commission a scapegoat for its failings, have led to universal expressions of indignation from the public of Singapore, who now call emphatically for an immediate and radical change in the methods by which vital statistics are at present obtained.
The Preseott
System of Registration of Deaths in the Colony. The present law makes it the duty of the occupier of a ouse, in which a death happens to take place, to notify the death within twenty-four hours to the deputy registrar of the district, who is in all cases a police-constable. These are usually Malays or Tamils. Failing a medical certificate, the oonstable fills up a form and states the cause of death, either following the notifier’s statements or giving his own diagnosis from inspection of the corpse or otherwise. In many cases, as was described by Dr. Dumbleton, a retired municipal medical officer, in a paper read before the Straits Medical Association, a medical certificate is by no means a guarantee of correct registration, but is often altered according to the fancy of the deputy registrar. These registers, usually made out in Tamil or Malay, are translated into English at the end ofthe month and are then forwarded to the Registrargeneral. The latter tabulates them, and finally, well on in the following month-in the specific case referred to in the Colonial Secretary’s letter fully a month later-they are In this transmitted to the municipal medical officer. way this official is kept in total ignorance of the - death-rate in the district which. is his special care, and he can have no guide or indication which might lead him to suspect the presence of any unusual fatal element until some weeks later. It might be argued that the Infectious Diseases Notification Act is a help to him in this direction, but the present epidemic shows the fallacy of this. Almost all the cases have occurred amongst the poorest class of natives, who either do not by preference or cannot afford to call in general practitioners. That the system calls for immediate alteration at the hands of the Government must be evident to everyone who has the welfare of the Settlement at heart. Deputy registrars should be no longer ignorant policeconstables. The posts should either be given to trained apothecaries or something akin to the parochial system should be instituted, so that, failing a certificate from the deceased’s medical attendant, a proper medical certificate may in. all cases be obtained. All such certificates, too, should be made out in duplicate, one copy going to the medical officer of health within twenty-four hours of the death and. the other being sent, as heretofore, to the Registrar-
uropean
General.
SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR AND
543
PEMBA.
ZANZIBAR has for many years been known to the public the starting point of exploring expeditions about to enter Equatorial Africa from the eastern side, and the recent extension of a British Protectorate over the territories of its ruler causes us to regard it with an increased feeling of interest and responsibility. The upper classes are Mohammedan Arabs; they have been slave-traders and slaveowners from time immemorial, and a special investigation of the condition of the negroes has just been made at the instance of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. The society’s commissioner, Mr. Donald Mackenzie, is acquainted with the Arabic language and has had long experience of Mohammedan customs and slavery among the Arabs in North-West Africa. He arrived in Zanzibar on March 2nd, 1895, and devoted about six weeks to his inquiry. The territories of Zanzibar consist of the coral islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, lying about twenty-two miles apart, between 5° and 7° S. latitude ; the former island is less than twenty-five and the latter less than thirty-five miles from the African mainland. There are no precise data as to the population, but the late Sultan, who died in 1888, estimated the inhabitants of the two islands at 400,000, of whom 200 were Europeans (merchants) and Goanese (shopkeepers and servants), 8500 were natives of British India (moneylenders and merchants), 10,000 or 15,000 were Arabs (the ruling class), 266,000 were slaves, and the balance were aborigines and slaves who had been set free. The slaves may be classified as domestics (including concubines and eunuchs), plantation workers, chiefly occupied in the cultivation of cloves, and town labourers. These last work under entirely different conditions from the domestic and plantation slaves. They are employed : (1) in the loading and discharging of vessels and in general warehouse and town labour, women being largely engaged in this work and especially in the coaling of including British men-of-war ; (2) as porters who carry goods or stores into the interior of Africa ; and (3) as domestic servants to Europeans, natives of British India, and Goanese, who not being themselves allowed to possess slaves have to hire them from their owners. All British subjects deal with the slaves directly and not with the master, or they may hire them from a contractor, who need not necessarily be a slaveholder, but who knows where to get them. Employers pay wages to the slaves, who, in turn, hand to their masters half of their earnings, and with the remainder have to buy their own food and clothes ; in the case of porters the hirer has to provide them with food. The pay of porters and harbour labourers is usually ten rupees per month ; women labourers receive less. The regulation load of porters is 70 lb. each, but beyond that they have to carry food, water, and cooking utensils, which may bring the load up to 100 lb. or more. They have to march about twelve miles a day. These slave porters are the only means of transport for our Government and for missionaries and merchants between the interior of Africa and the coast. If any of them are taken ill they are left by the path-side to die. their loads are distributed among the others, and the caravan proceeds on its march without any further notice being The mortality taken of those who drop by the way. on the very to Mackenzie them was Mr. amongst given highest authority at 30 per cent. Domestic servants are generally men, and they receive about seven rupees per month; the women are water-carriers and are paid five rupees per month. They all receive their wages directly from their employers, but each hands to the master one-half. A slave is told by his master to seek employment, and ifhe cannot The masters have hardly any find it he is punished. responsibility as regards the slaves and only provide them with food when they are out of employment. None of the slaves possess any civil rights except that they can complain against their masters to the British Consul-General, but at present very few know of the Consul-General, and under existing circumstances freedom would be no benefit to them, for they would be outcasts, and their masters would have many ways of getting rid of them by poison and otherwise. Many of the slaves who have been set free by the Consul-General have afterwards been kidnapped and all’ trace of them has been lost. Mr. Mackenzie was much impressed by the fact that very few children are born to slaves, owing, it is said, to the manner in which very young girls are treated as
steamers,