Chefoo, June 18.
The Ralph Meller has been granted pratique, and came across! this morning. The minesweepers and two submarines left for Weihaiwei.
Yesterday all who were on the island were ordered to take a bath and to have clean clothes ready to put on for the final count and inspection. No cases of plague have occurred and so the ship was able this morning to leave her quarantine station and to enter the harbour.
Thanks the prompt response made by the British Admiral to the request telegraphed by H.B.M. Consul last Wednesday week, Chefoo has come safely through what threatened io be another serious crisis in its history. Had British assistance not been available, or had the Ralph Moller been a Chinese-owned ship not flying the Union Jack, there i-\ittle question but that the contacts would have made their escape. The situation was threatening, when the passengers intimated to the captain of the vessel that they were not prepared to undergo the restrictions which' the Port Doctor considered it was advisable to impose; and, although the Chinese were willing to undertake responsibility for safeguarding the port, ere is no doubt at all that they could not have done it properly.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.