ONcE again we have the pleasure of welcoming one of Dr. Wu Lien-teh's reports on the valuable work of the North Manchurian Plague Service; and once more we congratulate him and his colleagues on the success of their endeavours even in discouraging circumstances, When so much is amiss in China there is the greater pleasure in being able to point to such sterling work; and it will be seen with satisfaction that these efforts have received notable recognition in the commission given to Dr. Wu Lien-teh by the League of Nations to write a treatise on pneumonic plague, on which, of course, he is an expert. "This year, Dr. Wu's report is of more than usual interest to Shanghai readers, on account of what it" has to say about last summer's cholera epidemic, with special reference to the share of the Chapei Waterworks in promoting it, Altogether, says Dr, Wu, there were 20,000 cases of Cholera in the Shanghai district alone. There follows a_significant note on the Chapel Waterworks. In the year 1925 Dr. Wu caused samples of the water from this source to be analysed. There were at that time cholei vibrios (or bacilli) in the Soochow Creek, but none in the water actually supplied to consumers, This year the vibrios were found in all samples of water taken from the intake, in the filter beds, in water drawn from ordinary taps. Dr. Wu oes 01
Tt.seems to me that the final goal an only be attained if a Cholera Prevention Conference on broad humanitarian lines is convoked, With all respect to the writer that may do well enough for "the final goal," but there is an intermediate step which ought to: have been taken weeks ago, namely, the condign punishment of the authorities of the Chapei Waterworks, who are directly' guilty of the death and agony of thousands of their fellow-countrymen. And we want to know why that. step has never been taken. that the Taoyin had instructed the Paoshan magistrate to open. an inquiry into the state of the waterworks. On September 1, having -heard nothing more, we! inquired how the investigation was going on and were told that the Magistrate had not yet completed his task. Apparently it is still unfinished: at least not one word has been published of his findings, so far as we.are aware, and certainly no one has been punished. Some time during September an advertisement appeared asking for tenders for a quantity of new machinery for the Waterworks. Undoubtedly it is needed. But what is to be done to the men who permitted the excellent plant they already had to go to rack and ruin, and were thereby directly responsible for one of the worst outbreaks, of cholera recorded in this neighbourhood?
In our article of August 19 and again on September 1, two warnings were specially' em-_ phasized. First, that the enormity of the offence demanded that the biggest men connected with the Waterworks must be made to suffer. Public opinion, such miscarriage of justice would allow the big men to slip through the net, while making, scapegoats of one or two obscure workmen, And in the second place we pointed out that the case of the Chapei Waterworks was being watched by leading! Chinese with the keenest interest.
They look upon it (we wrote) as 4 test case of the efficiency of the Gveater Shanghai Municipality. If the men, who are directly responsible for a state of aff the Chapei Waterworks that was the cause of the death by cholera of hundreds of their fellow-countrymen, are made to suffer for their criminal neglect, well and good; but if the prestige of the Greater blow.
Nearly eleven weeks have elapsed since the Paoshan Ins gistrate was instructed to make: his inquiry. We said at the time' that there was ino reason for the facts being known and authentic. Must we now conclude that there was after all a very cogent reason?—and that nothing less than the supreme need of gaining time, of averting further criticism, of pretending to do something while really doing nothing, of shielding the guilty because they were fat and rich and imposing, no matter how justice might suffer and the public be imperilled by the indifference and dishonesty those in high places.
It was on August 13 last that we published a full account of the disgraceful state of the Chapei Waterworks—of how the cholera then raging was traced to Chapei as its main source; of the Waterworks plant, excellent at the commencement, but through rank neglect reduced to uselessness and worse; of an intake from the Soochow Creek; set in the midst of a beggar village; of wells that sent forth an unendurable stench; of filter beds that had been allowed to get so filthy that they could not be used; of settling tanks with 'a sediment several inches deep of slime and living creatures; of water drawn from domestic taps alive with cholera germs. And we pointed out that in any other country the directors of a public supply company of which such gross and criminal neglect had been proved would have been clapped into the dock forthwith to answer a charge of manslaughter.
In response to the sensation caused by. these disclosures an. announcement appeared a few, dayg later in the native.-press,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.