NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE plague, the true plague of Constantinople and Cairo, with its swellings and its speedy death, appears to have broken out in Canton and Hong-Kong. The deaths in Canton are not recorded ; but they are believed to have exceeded two thousand in a few days, because that number of Collins have been given away by a charitable society. According to a rather excited telegram which has reached London, the deaths in Hong-Kong had on Wednesday -reached 1,500, the daily rate was 100, and 100,000 Chinese— half the population—had fled. Trade was almost suspended, and there was fear of a monetary panic. The Government was destroying the crowded native quarter, and adopting the most energetic sanitary measures, perhaps a little late. The disease is supposed to have been introduced from Arabia or India ; but there is no proof whatever that it cannot be self-generated. As usual, it spares the Euro- peans; but by the latest accounts, sickness, not necessarily .the plague, has broken out among the soldiers. The disease is always attributed to over-crowding ; but it has been known to strike thinly populated places, and seems associated with some defect of nutrition. Judging by European examples, the best remedy would be to burn the native town to the ground, and rebuild it on a plan allowing of ventilation. The expense would not be great, and the cure -in London, at any rate, was radical.
