By this time the Bank had opened offices in Hongkong, Shanghai, Singapore, Yokohama, Bombay and Cal-cutty and gradually in the small ports, the first Chief Manager being M. Victor Kresser, who was succeeded by James Greig and Thomas Jackson. In Shanghai Mr. MacLean was succeeded by Mr. Ewen Cameron from Calcutta and it is interesting to note that the Bank was then housed in the new building on the Bund. Business was in a bad way, however, and at the annual meeting there were cries of "Shame" when it became known that the furnishings for the new premises would cost £12,000 Owing to this Mr. Cameron decided to live with a Apart from a slight increase in the cases of measles notified, communica able diseases in the International Settlement were quiescent to an unusual degree in March and smallpox ceased to be epidemic on the 13th. The figure of 2806 Chinese deaths recorded represents a substantial decrease compared with the returns for both February and January, according to the monthly report of the Commissioner of Public Health.
Since the maximal incidence of cerebrospinal fever is normally in April, and the notifications for March show an increase over the previous month, it is possible that this disease may reach epidemic proportions, but apart from this possibility it does not appear likely that the health of the town will suffer unduly until the intestinal infections associated with summer temperatures reappear. Since overcrowding, as regards both Chinese and foreign populations, has increased recently, it may be said that for the present the health situation is satisfactory.
Typhus still remained comparative: ly absent. Whilst our bathing mea: sures etc. may have affected this disease in camps, ft is highly improbable that they had any effect on the general population, hence the absence of typhus may be ascribed to the generally better state of nutrition amongst the population possibly due to the increasing amount of work available in the factories which are springing up. In the delousing campaign during the month 5,000 persons were bathed and 31,000 articles were disinfected and 224 rooms cleansed and disinfected.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.