JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, MONDAY APRIL 16TH, 1900

2020: DAY 23

SMH, p5

BUBONIC PLAGUE

FALLING-OFF IN CASES

RELEASE OF PATIENTS - only 3 cases since Fri. - (but what doctor would attend a patient over Easter?)
- since outbreak, 113 cases, 38 deaths, 576 contacts, 172 still at Quarantine Station
- suggestion from Archdeacon Gunther that baths and washhouses for poor should be supplied, as exist in London where powers exist to bathe and cleanse people who will not keep themselves clean. Greeks, Jews clean themselves – religious duty. "surely at this period of history cleanliness ought to be regarded as helpful in developing moral character."

THE EXPERT FROM INDIA Mr Lyne has now received a telegram stating that there is no such officer available, but it is added that a full supply of prophylactic can be forwarded from India. The services of an officer with experience of the plague are tendered but the Premier says that we how have similar officers in Sydney, and he does not think it will be necessary to send for one from India.

VICTUALLING THE QUARANTINED PEOPLE 

THE SYSTEM EMPLOYED - 97 cooks, clerks, stewards, employed. Daily ration: 21/2 meat, 3-4 lb potatoes, 11/2 lb other beg. 11/2 lbe bread, tin of jam for every 4 men, bottle of pickles/8 men. (+ plate, knife, fork, spoon, pannikin)
- 750 men lodged on North Coast wharf, 600 on Union Co. wharf, 1000 men & families in Sussex st area; 950 in Belmore Park area.


REMOVAL OF PATIENTS TO QUARANTINE STATION

EVERY PRECAUTION TO BE USED
 Lyne responds to complaints which he says are exaggerated. Every care is taken (Complaints that trip to Quarantine Station a rough one and bad for the health)


AUSTRALIAN PLAGUE CONFERENCE 
(p6)
MEETING IN SYDNEY

CONCLUSIONS ARRIVED AT

SUGGESTIONS FOR PREVENTING SPREAD OF PLAGUE
- adoption of Venice Plague conventions

281-5 Kent St, Sydney, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 15TH, 1900

2020: DAY 22

WEEKLY REPORT
APR 8TH - 14TH

Register of Letters to the Colonial Secretary:
Letter from the Chief Medical Officer advising that Mrs H Whitehall, chief cook at the Coast Hospital, has died – though not from Bubonic Plague. The Justice Department advises that approval has been given to hear Lunacy cases at Darlinghurst instead of the City Police courts.

Extracts from the Minutes of the Board of Health
April 10: Suggestion from Mr F.T. Muston, MRCVS that description of the more usual plague symptoms should be made public. Response: "As medical practitioners are acquainted with symptoms, it was thought that nothing further was necessary”.
– Fumigation of Second Hand bags (which were sent to farmers)
– Sale of street sweepings by City Council.
– Removal of contacts to Quarantine Station
– Cable from British Consul at Alexandria, advising that Venice plague rules have been invoked in Egypt against ships from Sydney.
– Capitation fee for capture of rats. (suggestion that Govt should set fee of 2d) - to be administered by Mayors of Local Govt.
–Quarantined Area, Wexford St - rejection of Govt proposal that those made homeless by destruction of houses unfit for habitation should be sent to Quarantine Station for shelter. Buck passed to another dept.

April 12: Yersin's plague serum – sent from Paris - on its way
– Shark Island as Plague Hospital suggestion
– Sugar from Mauritius for Cootamundra.
– Temporary public washhouse, Quarantined Area. - need to provide such in areas like Wexford St was raised. Directed to Public Works.
– Rats on Cockatoo Island.

Register of Deaths
Between April 8th and April 14th, there are 13 deaths from Bubonic Plague: 10 men, 1 woman and 2 children, a 3 and half year old boy and an 11 year old boy – 5 more than the previous week.

Shed at corner of Napoleon St, interior, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, EASTER SATURDAY, APRIL 14TH, 1900

2020: DAY 21

SMH, p10

WOOLLAHRA COUNCIL AND THE SANITARY COMMITTEE (p6)

.Letter from Edward Pulsford MLC in response to Mayor's letter saying that Council hasn’t done as much as the Woollahra Sanitary Committee would like.


WOMAN’S COLUMN
 (p7)

WAR ON THE CORSET - … Much to our surprise, therefore, we now leam that a war against the corset has been declared in Paris, and that several leading fashionable dames of society in that city are advocating the abandonment of the corset. … Among the well known women in Paris who have bravely forsworn the corset is La Duchesse d'Uzes This lady is a prominent leader and originator of fashions, and her influence is far reaching.  She is the originator of the automobile, was famous in the Boulanger affair, and now boldly declaims against the corset. When such women as she – a representative woman combining so many attractions at home, in the ball-room, in the spotting field, and in the more serious relations of life-when such women, and French women, too, living in the heart of Paris, send abroad the story that there is a corset war, it is quite necessary for us to consider it too…
… Miss Ada Coffey (the "Australian songbird,"as she is called in England and America) wrote recently on this subject to a friend -" I don't wear the regulation corset at all I wear a simple, ribbon corset band, as a sort of a support, and I wear even this very loose.  If I were stout I should certainly be obliged to wear a corset, but I should wear it very loose. Tight lacing is vulgar … 
… Sarah Bernhardt and Mrs Leslie Carter wear no corsets, but neither of them needs any.  English women and Australian women exercise so much more than French and American women so that their flesh is very hard and firm, and a corset not always necessary. Plenty of outdoor sport, either upon horseback or upon a bicycle, is the best antidote to the need of a stiff corset, and in these advanced days the young, supple, muscular shape is greatly admired in our women.

BUBONIC PLAGUE
 (p10)

PATIENTS TO BE RELEASED


NEW CASES REPORTED YESTERDAY
- rat extermination brigade formed. - incinerator at bottom of Bathurst St - trap was set on wharf. Capable of catching 100 rats, it managed only to trap two cats.


DESTRUCTION OF RATS AT THE GLEBE

INTERCOLONIAL CONFERENCE. MELBOURNE, Friday. – The intercolonial conference of medical officers on the suppression of the bubonic plague continued its work to-day The conference took the report of the Venice Plague Convention as the basis ot its deliberations, and discussed its findings generally, with a view of applying them locally… 

SOME ACCOUNTS OF THE NUMEROUS OUTBREAKS IN LONDON – (by " A.D.") - suggestion that plague was endemic in London before 1665, when 100,000 died out of population of 465,000, half of whom fled.

5 Batson’s Lane, rear, 1900 - Source_State Library of NSW

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, GOOD FRIDAY, APRIL 13TH, 1900

2020: DAY 20

SMH, p5

THE PLAGUE


WORK IN THE INFECTED AND QUARANTINED AREAS


MORE UNCLEAN PLACES DISCOVERED


SEVERAL QUARANTINED AREAS RELEASED


FIVE FRESH CASES AND TWO DEATHS


WORK IN WEXFORD ST - deputation of ‘Chinamen’ to George McCredie (consultant engineer in charge of cleansing operations) asking for work. .. Many of those employed "no doubt found the work easier and the pay better than that to which they were accustomed."


”The district shows unmistakeable signs of the vigorous cleansing which has gone on, and an unwonted whiteness from the lime-washing improves the general aspect.”

[NOTE: Wexford St in 1900 was one of Sydney’s several Chinatowns. A number of streets were cleared at the time of the plague outbreak, enabling a grand boulevard - Wentworth Avenue - leading from the Eastern Suburbs to the new Central Station, built in 1906. See Map of Spirits (2015) for more info]

A CITIZEN'S VIGILANCE COMMITTEE FORMED


MEETING AT THE TOWN HALL


THE MAYOR APPROVES OF THE MOVEMENT


SPEECH BY THE RT HON GEORGE REID MLA


INTERCOLONIAL CONFERENCE - report on plague conf. in Melb.


DAY OF HUMILIATION - went ahead; reports from all the churches - but Catholics didn't participate. In same column as report on church services, item about the Pope's giving Dowager Empress of China a porcelain vase for having recognized Catholic church in China.

Batson’s Lane, 1900, following cleansing - Source: State Library of NSW

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, THURSDAY, APRIL 12TH, 1900

2020: DAY 19

SMH (p5)

REBUILDING A PORTION OF SYDNEY (p3)
TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.
Sir,- Should the Premier carry forward his reported proposal for rebuilding a portion of Darling Harbour section of the city, that act would no doubt be recorded in the history of the city as a grand achievement. Why not go one better by following my lead and making a ' bull's eye shot " at being recorded in history as ' W .John Lyne the Hausmann of Sydney N.S.W.?" The way to make certain of such distinction is clearly set out on a map of the city which I have especially prepared for the purpose. 
I am, &c, 
J. HORBURY HUNT. Studio, Cranbrook Cottage, Double Bay, April 6.

THE GREATER SYDNEY MOVEMENT (p4)

PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE


CITY RAILWAY EXTENSION 
(not proposed to take it to Darling Harbour)
- 

Letter from Mayor of Woollahra pointing out that he's boss and that the sanitary committee is not empowered to do anything.
- only abt 40 residences with sanitary defects, 10 of them Chinese gardeners.


BUBONIC PLAGUE 
(p5)

FALLING OFF IN CASES REPORTED


DEATHS YESTERDAY


PROGRESS OF CLEANSING WORK
- employment of residents in Belmore Park area. At first, men bought from outside and residents locked out. Then given work, following their protests.


- Letter to ed claiming that in the country a storekeeper has a sign saying "No Sydney goods received here"


Batson’s Lane, Sydney, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, WEDNESDAY APRIL 11TH, 1900

2020: DAY 18

SMH, p5

BUBONIC PLAGUE


WORK IN THE QUARANTINED  AREAS


YESTERDAYS CASES
- "rat-destroying crusade" to be undertaken. Ashburton-Thompson in charge of administering it.


COST OF GOVT ARRANGEMENTS - £20-30,000/month.


COMPELLING SANITARY REFORMS


UNITED ACTION BY ALL AUTHORITIES


DRASTIC WORK TO BE UNDERTAKEN 
- ( 2 sewerage systems were in operation, the Council's and the Water Board's) -> WB has not authority to compel owners to connect to sewers already built by city, although it has powers in relation to its own sewers.
- under Sect. 38 of Public Health Act, Council is empowered to serve notice on owners of insanitary buildings
- Attorney-Gen. (Wise) had received list of owners of most insanitary premises. He was sure they could not have been aware of the state of premises.


THE QUARANTINE  GANGS AT WORK


STATE OF BELMORE PARK AREA


UNSUSPECTED ABOMINATIONS
- in tenements - "state of things that transcends Darling Harbour revelations, and makes them appear small by comparison. - "filth oozed out from beneath floors"; stables - "the damp from which percolated through the walls and travelled up them by capillary action."
"The details are sickening and almost unprintable"


QUARANTINING OF ERSKINE ST - meeting of merchants and shopkeepers agree to send deputation to seek compensation for loss of trade.


MEETING AT WOOLLAHRA


ADDRESS BY THE ATTORNEY GENERAL.


THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PROPERTY-OWNERS


PROMPT ACTION TO BE TAKEN 
- (Attorney-General spoke as resident of borough, keen to assist local council)
-> "There was an old proverb that if every householder would sweep in front of his own door the street would soon be clean"
- more local govt precautions - Redfern, Canterbury, 


GARBAGE DESTRUCTORS


EXPERIENCES IN HONG KONG


SUGGESTIONS FOR RESIDENTS OF SYDNEY (always it seems, the natives are particularly susceptible but Europeans are not)
- suggested that men involved in cleaning should smoke and take spirituous liquors to protect them. Also, be careful of skin lacerations


A CLEAN MAN (on same page) - Advertisement for Dr Morse's Indian Root Pills - Outside cleanliness is less than half the battle. Good health means "clean stomach, clean bowels, clean blood, clean liver, and new, clean healthy tissues and fibres in every organ of the body."


Ads - The Plague - can be spread by milk delivered from dirty dairies - so, buy our clean milk - NSW Fresh Food & Ice Co.

Cleansing the streets - Source: State Library of NSW

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, TUESDAY APRIL 10TH, 1900

2020: DAY 17

SMH, p3

BUBONIC PLAGUE


EXTENSION OF QUARANTINED AREA


QUARANTINE DECLARED NEAR BELMORE PARK

YESTERDAY'S CASES AND DEATHS 
- Belmore Park, Wexford St area. Heavily populated with Chinese.


A CASE AT PARRAMATTA
 - man who went every day to fruit-markets in Sydney


INTERVIEW WITH DR CHERRY


HOW MELBOURNE IS ACTING


IMPRESSIONS OF SYDNEY METHODS 
- capitation fee in force; some infected rats found, but no cases in humans.
- 

PADDINGTON SANITARY COMMITTEE


CITY COUNCIL 


PLAGUE PRECAUTIONS


THE MOORE PARK TIP - 
should a bonus be paid for rats?


PLAGUE IN WEXFORD ST
- Alderman Dr Graham drew attention to an outbreak of plague amongst the Asiatics of the city...the case a very bad one... neighbourhoods swarming with rats.
- 

PLAGUE PREVENTION PRECAUTIONS Mayor submitted return of work: 4814 houses inspected; 532 notices to clean; 464 re-inspections; 38,000 (!) rats caught; 1850 rats captured


PRECAUTIONS AGAINST RATS
 - debate re capitation fee.
- if you pay it, then kids will catch rats and get plague. But they're catching them now!


PRIVATE LANES 
- move to close them defeated in Council


OPEN SEWER, GEORGE ST WEST - resolved to cover it in; ran to Blackwattle Bay
Letters to ed - suggestions for killing rats (poison meat; steam)
- Woollahra Tip
- who will pay the piper? (cost of plague, war)

Cleansing the streets - Source: State Library of NSW

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, MONDAY APRIL 9TH, 1900

2020: DAY 16

SMH, p5

BUBONIC PLAGUE


TWO DAYS CASES
 AND DEATHS
For the two days ended with last night there were nine fresh cases of bubonic plague, and six deaths. 

ANOTHER QUARANTINED AREA RELEASED
- Union Co's shed used as barracks. Arrangements made for steam launch to take men to work so that they don't have to pass through cleansed areas.
- Town Hall disinfected by W.H. Bean & Co, using formalin.
- Thurs. to be set aside as day of humiliation by Archbishop. Also opening of Royal Easter Show so suggestion to have another day for prayer. Nothing decided.
- 

CONNECTING PROPERTIES TO SEWERS
- Water Board to implement Attorney General's decision to force property owners to connect to sewers, at owners' expense.
- 

EXTRA QUARANTINE ACCOMMODATION
AT SYDNEY & NEWCASTLE
- instruction from Premier to build substantial new buildings. Abt 300 men to be employed in building.


SERUM DESPATCHED FOR SYDNEY
- cable announcing that 2 litres posted from Pasteur Institute * 4 litres to follow shortly


REMARKS BY DR THOMPSON


THE MOST PRESSING NECESSITY


NO TIME FOR SUPINENESS
- mentions connection with fleas but he doesn’t think communication by fleas is usual.
- "kill rats" he repeats, several times.
-> capitation fee of 2d suggested.
"I regret to have to point out that at this time we are absolutely in the hands of the outbreak."
- 

WOOLLAHRA SANITARY COMMITTEE


INSPECTION OF BOATSHEDS AND JETTIES
- committee of diligence, pushing local council. Push for monthly inspection and disinfection of "all sinks and sanitary affairs"


WOOLLAHRA LADIES COMMITTEE
- Rose Scott undertakes to form Ladies committee to work in conjunction with (men's) committee. "Objects of the ladies are to call upon the lady residents of the electorate and urge them to assist in eradicating plague" by attention to Board of Health requests and to facilitate council inspections.


RATS AT BONDI - around rocks


WAVERLEY "TIP"


PRECAUTIONS AT VAUCLUSE


STABLE REFUSE AT GLEBE


PRECAUTIONS IN OTHER COLONIES


Street Cleaning - Source: State Library of NSW