JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, THURSDAY MAY 10TH, 1900

2020: DAY 47

SMH

Sussex St, Sydney, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

(p4 )THE COMMONWEALTH BILL.
THE DELEGATES AND THEIR DINNERS.
MORE CONFERENCES WITH MR CHAMBERLAIN.
AN ANXIOUS STATE OF AFFAIRS.
(From Our Special Correspondent.)
LONDON, April 6th

P 6 Public-spirited editorial praising Citizens Vigilance Committees & the 300-400 people forming central committee


(p 8) BUBONIC PLAGUE

RESUMPTION OF INOCULATION


PLAGUE HOSPITAL AT PRINCE ALFRED PARK
DISCUSSION IN THE CITY COUNCIL
- Mayor offers Govt Exhibition Building as a plague hospital to be demolished after it's used for this purpose & Council compensated. But motion to do this objected to on point of order & it wasn't put.

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, WEDNESDAY MAY 9TH, 1900

2020: DAY 46

SMH, p5

Huddart, Parker & Co Wharf, Sydney, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

(p5) BUBONIC PLAGUE
FURTHER CASES REPORTED
 - In Redfern … the Assyrian quarter has been found to be the dirtiest as well s the most overcrowded and the reports of the inspectors would seem to indicate that the extreme of filthiness has almost been reached in their dwellings ….some of the tenements occupied by Europeans are not many removes above the other.’

WORK ON THE WHARFS
 - Huddart Parker & Co’s wharf - one of the oldest in Sydney
MAKING READY TO RESUME TRAFFIC
DEMOLITION OF OLD STRUCTURES- 300 men working at foot of Margaret St. 
-

WHARFS WITHIN RESUMED AREA
REPORT TO PREMIER - report from McCredie & Hickson (Under Sec of Works) outlining areas to be demolished, rebuilt along wharves. Lyne approves action


THE QUARANTINED WHARFS

SERIOUS EFFECT ON SHIPPING

INTERVIEWS WITH LEADING SHIPPING MEN
- ‘A proposition was even mooted as to whether it would not be advisable in the interests of the intercolonial companies to run their steamers between the northern and southern colonies (i.e. Queensland and Victoria) without calling at Sydney.
WORKING UNDER GREAT DISABILITIES
THE RATS HAVE DESERTED THE WHARVES

THE PROPOSED PLAGUE MORGUE

THE PLAGUE AND THE QUARANTINE - letter suggesting Girls Reformatory in Rose Bay be used to relieve crowding at Quarantine Station. ‘The present occupants could be sent to Cooma, and there be cared for in the “white elephant” of that town, the late gaol, upon which a few years ago £20,000 was spent to turn it into a receptacle for the mad and otherwise brain affected people.’

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, TUESDAY MAY 8TH, 1900

2020: DAY 45

SMH, p6

Burning rubbish opposite Union Co. Wharf, Sydney, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

(p4 )Editorial - "the idea of a New Sydney" -> "The modern mind is somewhat impatient of these things (overcrowding, poor sanitation, old methods and old ways) and in no way more so than in connection with sanitary matters..."
- " ..it has to be remembered that we are not administering here an old-world city which has reached the limit of its development... Sydney is a city and a great commercial port with a future lying before it..."
- "There are certain phases of any city improvement scheme which can only be dealt with by the central authority. Private enterprise may change the frontages to streets by the erection of fine buildings, but if the streets are narrow and crooked we must look elsewhere to supply what is wanting. Still more is this the case when the neighbourhoods are not such as to encourage outlay in this fashion. Such sections become crowded with tenements, insanitary and neglected by the municipal authority until they develop into plague spots in the heart of the city."

* the plague  spot is a rhetorical figure used by capital in its expansive phase.

- "The lesson of the last few months"
- "We have been taught to see that neglect means disease, and the plague visitation has warned us of the results which may be apprehended from offering harbourage to the germs of Oriental epidemics in the crowded quarters of the city...We have to utilise our advantages and if a New Sydney is to be created it must arise, not from any merely sentimental impulse, but from an intelligent public spirit calmly and sanely abreast of the sanitary science and the legitimate demands of public convenience proper to the age we live in."


BUBONIC PLAGUE

WORK IN QUARANTINED AREAS- Redfern area - "the quarantine is not so strict as has been observed in the city..." people pass fairly freely. -> Assyrian quarter
 - 707 rats
- McCredie says from now on men employed will be engaged thru' the Labour Bureau, as it takes up too much of his time interviewing.


MOORE PARK TIP –
HOW IT IS MANAGED  - rag & bone pickers prevented from eking out their living - but 10 of them paid a wage by council to level out the loads of rubbish.
- the tip as a site of economic activity; scavengers; outbreak disrupted this. Rubbish at first taken to sea; this soon abandoned and then rubbish taken to "new" Moore Park tip, each successive load to be covered with layer of sand; this didn't happen as SMH noted on May 6)


CITIZENS VIGILANCE COMMITTEES

KING ELECTORATE

MR GH REID PRESIDES- Dr O'Neill; the matter which had called them together might be dealt with in one sentence - cleanliness and the use of plenty of soap and water. The plague would go under their influences. At present the people were still looking for help and they must be taught to help themselves.
- Mrs McNamara - more gutter flushing. Teachers should be instructed to impart principles of hygiene to school children
- Mr Burns - plan for mapping out electorate in sections which those present might inspect and report upon
GIPPS ELECTORATE
- Aldermen, clergymen members of committee

FLINDERS ELECTORATE- on necessity for action -> "The citizens hardly realised the amount of damage being done to Sydney as the commercial capital of Australia. It was absolutely incalculable. (Hear, hear)"

LANG ELECTORATE/ 
BLIGH DIVISION
/ PHILLIP WARD- praise heaped on committees by chair
- nothing was more important than the health of the people
Belmore

DISRUPTION OF RAILWAY EXCURSION TRIPS TO VIC.

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, MONDAY MAY 7TH, 1900

2020: DAY 44

SMH, p9

Note: By the second week in May, reports on Bubonic Plague slip further back in the daily news, as public works programs, (arising from the outbreak) the question of Federation and the Boer War take greater precedence. And of course the regular commercial, sporting entertainment and religious news, gossip and inconsequential events…

Bradley's cottages off Sussex St, Sydney, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

THE DARLING HARBOUR RESUMPTIONS (p5)
CRITICISM BY MR. REID.
REPLY BY THE PREMIER.
THE LEADER OF THE LABOUR PARTY.
ACTION OF THE GOVERNMENT. –  Labour Party in favour of resumptions.. Support for Premier against Reid's attack
. Editorial - in support of resumptions. -> "Ours is a commercial port, the first in this hemispehre, and we have to see to it that it is worthy of its position. The present wharfage accomodation is a reproach, and it is high time it was improved. The scheme will give us in its place a clean, stone fronted deep water foreshore, capable of providing largely increased wharfage accomodation for our ever increasing shipping trade. It will sweep away for good a part of the city which is a standing rebuke to our administration of municipal affairs and an ever-active forcing bed of disease.."
- ref to Birmingham resumptions and falling death rate.

(p7) MISS OLGA NETHERSOLE. LONDON, May 4. Miss Olga Nethersole, the well-known actress, is suing a Presbyterian minister for an alleged libel in his pulpit in connection with the "anti-Sapho crusade."

THEOSOPHY Miss Lilian Edger, M.A. gives a course at the Sydney Theosophical Society on karma and freewill.

THE DECLINE AND VALUE OF OPERETTA

(p9) THE BUBONIC PLAGUE. 
ARRANGEMENTS FOR INOCULATION. 
THE WEEKLY RETURNS. … Several patients are mentioned in Dr Salter's bulletin of yesterday as being in a serious condition The delirium is intense in many of these;, others have high fever.  … Circulars have been issued to merchants and managers of businesses in what is considered by health authorities as the infected areas, informing them that they may send in a list of the employees at their establishments. As soon as the prophylactic is received the persons sending in lists will be informed by post, and a ticket will be sent for each person named in the lists, entitling him to inoculation on a date stamped thereon. If it is thought advisable to divide the list, so as to send one contingent of the employees on one day and another on a succeeding day, arrangements will be made to that effect. This has been done in order that the regular course of business in commercial houses may be interrupted as little as possible. … A portion of the basement of the Town Hall has been set aside for the purpose… 

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, SUNDAY, MAY 6TH, 1900

2020: DAY 43

WEEKLY REPORT
APRIL 29th – MAY 5th 1900

Bradley’s cottages, off Sussex St, Sydney, 1900 - source: State Library of NSW

Register of Letters to the Colonial Secretary:
May 3, From the Public Service Board re Appointment at Coast Hospital; from the Chief Medical Officer re Appointment at Coast Hospital
May 4th, From the Department of Public Health re killing rats and from Mrs Keats, re her appointment as Lady Inspector, Vigilance Committee; From the Chief Medical Officer Re suspected case of plague, Ballina
May 5, from Treasury – notification of number of accidents, Public Wharfs

Extracts from the Minutes of the Board of Health
May 1  Paddington Vigilance Committee - wanted addresses from which plague patients had been taken to be published. Board of Health acknowledged receipt of their resolution.
- Citizens Vigilance Committee forwarded lists of buildings it thought should be inspected. (They were told it was in the hands of Local authorities.)
Offer of warship Nelson as Quarantine hospital. Acknowledged. To be inspected to see if suitable.
- Case of Henry Podesta - patient was being treated at home (Glenfield) Dr Beattie of Liverpool offered to attend patient daily for a month for a fee of 50 gns. Approved by Board of Health 
May 3  NSW declared infected - by Tasmanian Govt.
- concern about men working in Quarantine areas and then leaving for their own homes...
- cablegram from Mauritius offering 20,000 doses of Haffkine’s prophylactic and an expert to administer. Offer accepted but expert not considered to be necessary.
- Board of Health could not approve suggestion that Dr Salter should be authorised to discharge patients into "healthy grounds" because all movements of patients were under authority of Board.
- reports throughout of ships being held in ports because of disease on board (E.g. 3rd May, City of Hankow (Hong Kong) in Newcastle. Local port Health Officer in charge.
- claims for compensation - Actual damage to be paid for but nonsequential damage not acknowledged.
- complaint by contacts of treatment at Quarantine  - letter from W.T. & J.J. Fleming and J. Booth, contacts from Grosvenor Hotel complaining about manner in which they were removed to Quarantine  and their treatment there in the matter of food and accommodation.  - Board resolved that removal of guests from Grosvenor to Quarantine  not necessary in public interest and recommended that it be allowed to exercise its discretionary power in the matter of Quarantine  of contacts. 

 NSW Govt. Gazette, 1900, Vol 2, Govt. Printer, 1900
Further extensions of scheduled areas – and release and rescission of earlier scheduled areas.
Notification of resumption under Lands for Public Purposes Acquisition Act - for public wharves.

Register of Deaths

Between April 29th & May 5th, there are 10 deaths from Bubonic Plague – 2 men, (William Evans, 21, Thomas Stockdale, 35), 3 women, (Alice Lawler, 24, Margaret Whitehead, 40, Mrs Hogan (age unknown)) 3 youths, Peter Rafferty, 16, Stanley Sprott, 19, Donald McLemon, 15, and a girl, Sarah Veronica O’Connell, 13 - the same number of deaths as the previous week.

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, SATURDAY MAY 5TH, 1900

2020: DAY 42

SMH p7

142 Sussex St, Sydney, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

THE DARLING HARBOUR RESUMPTIONS 
(p7) 
MR G.H. REID ON THE LEGAL AND POLITICAL ASPECT

VALIDITY OF THE PROCLAMATION QUESTIONED
- Lyne responded to petition by 89 members. Reid not opposed in principle to resumption. He too had proposed a similar plan. But this one is illegal.

A Former Valuation
Exec Committee of Wharfage Improvement Association (GW Murray, John Young, W. W. McMillan) presented proposal for resumption in 1883 (Aug 15) Cost of scheme £2,478, 260


BUBONIC PLAGUE
 p10
OPENING OF THE WHARFS
CASES YESTERDAY

PROPHYLACTIC FROM MAURITIUS

LECTURE BY PROFESSOR ANDERSON STUART. 
- use your own towel when staying in strange places.
- people inoculated with Haffkine's were 40x safer from death by plague if they caught it.
- the scheme for Greater Sydney ought to be carried out because it would encourage "a proper class of men" to enter municipal life; municipal officers could be paid so that they could act independently

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, FRIDAY MAY 4TH, 1900

2020: DAY 41

SMH, p3

Note: By early May 1900, Bubonic Plague is slipping back in the newspaper as bigger stories come forward - Federation, the Boer War, Resumption of the Wharfs and waterfront - but it has not disappeared and its presence informs the shape of response especially to the Public Works to follow…

Sussex St, Sydney, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

FEDERATION (p3)
THE COMMONWEALTH BILL.
MEETING OF THE BAR ON CLAUSE 74.
RETENTION OF RIGHT OF APPEAL TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL.
A RESOLUTION CARRIED IN FAVOUR.

MESSAGE FROM MR. DEAKIN. PUBLIC MOVEMENT URGED,. MELBOURNE. Thursday.
Mr A Deakin sent a cable message to the Premier suggesting there should be a public movement throughout Australia to impress on the Imperial Government that the people in these colonies desire that the Commonwealth Constitution Bill should be passed without amendment …

WHARF RESUMPTION.
THE DARLING HARBOUR SCHEME.
THE EFFECT OP THE PROCLAMATION.
FUTURE PROCEDURE.
THE QUESTION OF VALUATION.
SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES.
VARIOUS POINTS INVOLVED. - very useful map


BUBONIC PLAGUE
(p6)
LONG LIST OF PATIENTS

FOUR DEATHS - 
910 rats


ERADICATION OF PLAGUE - 900 deaths/week in Calcutta; reported in letter from Colombo

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD. Letter from a doctor who witnessed Queen's ratcatcher at work.
"Dicky " Deane … was a most eccentric man : but in spite of this he was undoubtedly a master of his craft. … he had at his command a well-trained set of rat terriers, about 40 in number, also six trained ferrets, three of which he carried in each side pocket. Placing his dogs at intervals of about six yards, he made a cordon around a large barn Each dog knew his name, as did each ferret, After caressing one of the latter he sent him into the basement of the building, and the remaining ferrets quickly followed. In a very short time rats appeared from all points, and as they emerged they were seized by the dogs, who appeared to kill about 20 per minute. It occurs to me that if the Government would import about 100 trained ferrets and a suitable number of trained rat terriers ...  

AT LADYSMITH
- horseflesh rations (few days earlier garrison was catching locusts to eat)
- "Rontgen rays" in use

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, THURSDAY MAY 3RD, 1900

2020: DAY 40

SMH, p8

Harris Joinery, 365 Kent St, Sydney - source: State Library of NSW

THE FAR EAST – (p4)
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT - HONG KONG, MARCH 10
THE DOWAGER’S VICTIMS
THE COMING REBELLION
RUSSIA AND JAPAN
PLAGUE
- the Dowager as tyrant; the coming Boxer Rebellion; Russia & Japan; the plague - still with us and will remain so until the authorities pull down half the dens in the Chinese quarter.


COMMUNICABILITY OF PLAGUE - Long Letter from J Laker Macmillan 

WHARF RESUMPTIONS cost; some large shipping co's may prefer to remain in their locations and would take Govt. debentures rather than cash for their properties. So, little cash to pay.


THE PROTECTIONIST CONFERENCE, (p5)
SYDNEY APRIL 1900 BY EDWARD PULSFORD, M.L.C.
“AN ILLICIT SCOOP”
THE PROTECTIONISTS UNINTENTIONALLY REVEAL THEIR PROPOSALS
THE DELEGATES AS FINANCIERS
THE FARMERS
“BUT IN EVERY CASE” 

THE COMMONWEALTH BILL.
THE DELEGATES AT WINDSOR
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MEASURE.
THE BRITISH PEOPLE AT LAST WAKING UP.
(FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, March 30.

THE WAR
- hotting up


BUBONIC PLAGUE
 (p8)
EXAMINATIONS FOR SANITARY INSPECTORSCITY GARGBAGE COLLECTION
NUMBER OF CASES YESTERDAY - 48 rats
7 more cases 1 death
Ashburton-Thompson - in contact with Sanitary Institute of Great Britain; Proposal to conduct exams here.


CITIZENS VIGILANCE COMMITTEE
 Announcement of Prof Anderson Stuart's lecture, "The plague, Its Cause, Course and Prevention"
 Letter sent to Water & Sewerage Board requesting that sewers should be filled with sulphur fumes one night.