JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, SUNDAY MAY 13TH, 1900

2020: DAY 50

WEEKLY REPORT OF BUREAUCRATIC ENDEAVOURS
MAY 6th – MAY 12th

Batson's Lane off Sussex St, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

Register of Letters to the Colonial Secretary:
May 7, From the Public Service Board re Appointment at Coast Hospital; from the Chief Medical Officer re Appointment at Coast Hospital, inoculations of civil servants 
May 8th, From the Chief Medical Officer Re Temporary promotion of nurses;
May 11, From C. Nom re compensation (letter written on April 19th – tardy response) ; From the Director of the Asylum, re the transfer of a nurse to the Quarantine Station. May 11: From the Commandant re typhoid cases from South Africa; from the CMO re Estimates.

Extracts from the Minutes of the Board of Health
May 8th, a case of Plague in Brisbane.
- Rats on Cockatoo Island - Public Works Dept. taking eradication measures.
- Dr Bennett from Melbourne offers his experience from Bombay. Resolved: not required.
- release of patients continues.
- inspection of railway passengers on Queensland border. Application from Dr Freyer seeking appointment as Inspecting M.O. Decided no action necessary.
- Alleged needless damage to property, 101 Quay St and neighbouring houses. President to make personal enquiry.
- alleged neglect of duty by Inspectors - houses which had never been entered declared clean by displayed notices.
- possible importation of plague from infected ports. Concern about imports from Manilla.
- Men confined within Quarantine Depot to be allowed leave of absence as found convenient, men to wash and change clothes before leaving enclosure.
- Sanitary Inspector directed to instruct his men not to wear their yellow badges when off duty in public streets.
May 10, Vic Govt to exercise greater stringency in examination of passengers arriving by train from NSW.
- Chinese patients to be accommodated in tents at Quarantine Station, it was decided.

NSW Govt. Gazette, 1900, Vol 2, Govt. Printer, 1900
Further extensions of scheduled areas – and release and rescission of earlier scheduled areas.

Register of Deaths
Between May 6th & May 12th, there are 10 deaths from Bubonic Plague – 5 men (Etienne Angele, 65, John Hardwick, 53, Ah Hon, 26, Arthur Reid, 25, Michael Molony, 25) 2 women, (Margaret Lawrence, 64, Catherine Henderson, 49), a 5 year old girl (Gladys Caroline McAlloon) and 2 youths (Edmund Edwards, 15 and Harrie Sarina, 17) - the same number of deaths as the previous week.

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, SATURDAY MAY 12TH, 1900

2020: DAY 49

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

P4 CITY WORKMEN’S MODEL DWELLINGS
TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD - Sir: – … (Effect of cleansing has been to ‘unhouse’ numerous people who work on the wharfs)… “But in London (where there are not labour members of Parliament) ample provision is made by legislation that when a public company (companies do these things there) in order to obtain space for its operation has to demolish workmen’s buildings, it shall erect equal dwelling accommodation for them elsewhere; and besides the munificence of public-spirited citizens has for many years been well to the fore in providing model dwellings for the overcrowding population. The Peabody benefactions are case in point. These are managed on commercial lines and have been so successful that their example has been followed even for investment purposes by public associations. The Government by their act in resuming these harbour frontages will liberate a large 

p10 BUBONIC PLAGUE
YESTERDAY’S CASES
WORK AT THE WHARFS - 4 deaths
- 2 new cases
- 712 rats
 (Weekend reports getting shorter - half a column. Meanwhile, pages of news on The War, 2000 words on the Hawkesbury Agricultural Show, another 1750 words on the Wollongong Agricultural Bazaar, lots of entertainment, commercial & shipping news, court reports, theatre and entertainment etc)

P14 THE CYCLORAMA. - “ The usual representations are given daily at the Cyclorama depicting ancient Jerusalem, and after the historical lectures visitors never fail to remember with pleasure a visit to the hall of illusions. “ [The Cyclorama was a rotunda that existed on Harris St, near Central (where UTS now is). It housed panoramas of various scenes including a famous panorama painting of Jerusalem on the Day of the Crucifiction]

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, FRIDAY MAY 11TH, 1900

2020: DAY 48

SMH, p6

Union Co’s store, south-side, Sydney, 1900 - Source: State Library of NSW

(p4)- Another editorial about rubbish: Why doesn’t City Council do something about installing a destructor? Other councils have done it; “ … While the city is doing nothing toward improvement, but leaving garbage half the night in the streets for ragpickers to scatter abroad, until the scavengers collect it in open carts and take it across the length and breadth of the city and dump it down on the surface of a public park …”

(p5) THE WAR

ADVANCE OF LORD ROBERTS
BOER TRENCHES ABANDONED
ENEMY RETREATING
BRITISH PURSUING CAUTIOUSLY
COLONIAL TROOPS IN ACTION 

AT THE FRONT
AT BLOEMFONTEIN BOERS SEIZE THE WATERWORKS.
SOMEONE BUNGLED.
AUSTRALIANS EXONERATED (syndicated report)


(p6) BUBONIC PLAGUE

INOCULATION RESUMED TODAY

DREDGING ONTHE FORESHORES
 575 rats destroyed


CITIZENS VIGILANCE COMMITTEE
A GRATIFYING PROGRESS REPORT
 - 30 complaints to Board of Health and City Council 
Branches formed "to carry on the crusade" against insanitary conditions. “…Later, on receipt of epresentations that rats were being brought into the city by tram, the chairman and the honorary secretaries waited on the president of the Board of Health and urged the advisability of establishing local depots for the receipt and destruction of rats…”
Dr Graham: what was needed was very little talk and a great deal of work.


WEXFORD-STREET QUARANTINE AREA / DAMAGE TO PROPERTY 

EXHIBITION BUILDING AS PLAGUE HOSPITAL / STRONG PROTEST FROM REDFERN


SHIPPING NEWS
THE CHINGTU G.S. Yuill & Co - agents - announce that the Chingtu has left Hong Kong, on the way to Sydney, picking up a cargo of opium in Macao.

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.