The people of Johannesburg are having a terrible "first lesson
" in the disadvantages which may accompany the importation of cheap Asiatic labour. The Indian coolies have developed the true bubonic plague, and that in a form so virulent that it kills Europeans as well as dark men. According to the latest returns, the cases have been seventy- eight, out of whom no less than fifty coloured persons and five whites have died. Instant sanitary precautions have 'been taken, which will extend to the burning of the coolies' -huts, and it is believed that as the compounds are all accessible to supervision, and the victims cannot scatter themselves, the progress of the pest may be arrested as it was a year ago in Cape Town. One case, however, has been reported from Pretoria and another from one of the mines. Johannesburg
is not unnaturally in a state of anxiety, and the mine-owners dread the effect on their workmen; but the Kaffir as a rule neither understands nor fears the effect of epidemics, and there is small likelihood of his showing symptoms of panic. Chinese labourers who have been cooped for weeks in the foul holds of " tramps " are not, in such circumstances, the most desirable of immigrants.
Previous page
