THE SANITARY ASPECTS OF EMIGRATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 1191, 26 September 1874, Page 7

THE S ANITA RY ASPECTS OF EMIGRATION.

The reports issued by the City Corporation on the sanitary condition of the port of London, show, says a Home paper, that vessels frequently arrive in tho Thames and haul into dock with emigrants from various ports of Europe, who aro embarked at Hamburg, llwtterdain, Stettin, and other Kiltie puns, and sent to London fur transhipment to Australia, New Zealand, and other British Colonies. These emigrants are sometimes kept or. board ship in the river, or the docks, for several days, or are sent to lodging-houses in the east cud of London, where they frequently remain for a week or ten days before (he journey is resumed. Having regard «o the fact that these vessels often come from ports infected with or suspected of cholera, the Sanitary Committee of the Corporation have directed their medical officers to examine all such cum plaints before the vessel hauls into dock, and to use sill possible means to prevent the importation of epidemic diseases by way of the Thames. It appears that the Emigration Board, now represented by the Board of Trade, liavo no power over, or at all events do not recognises, emigrants who arrive in the United Kingdom for purposes of transhipment, so that, as incomers, the port sanitary anthciity ia responsible for their sanitary condition. As, however, when cholera is epidemic on the Continent, tho difficulty of detecting its presence in tho incipient stage among a crowd of immigrants is very great, it would be very advantageous to have a large depot somewhere between Gravesend and Greenwich, in which all such arriving in tho Thames for transhipment might be housed during their shoit stay in England. The charge of establishing and maintaining such a depot would, naturally fall upon the emigration agencies rather than upon tho Board of Trade or the port sanitary authority. A floating establishment might be provided or a largo building utilised, as tho old Brunswick at Blackwall. Some arrangement of this kind appears the more important because this system of sending over batches of emigrants from Baltic ports ia likely to continue, and because, to qiMto from the report of the port medical officer, "cholera is fast becoming endemic on tho Continent of Europe. ''

The Emperor of China haa ordered a Collection to bo made of Chinese poetry fmm from the earliest times downwards. Tho collection will be published in 200 vcluiuts. It is also stated that the .Emperor has in his possession a library numbering above 490,000 volumes.