murdered the captain and two of the crew. Piracy continued to worry the junk trade until March 1858, and the capture of a Hongkong passage-boat (Wing-sun) made some stir (January 17, 1858), but after that time the number of piracies sensibly decreased and no further attack on European vessels occurred until the day preceding the Governor's departure, when the S.S. Cumfa was plundered by pirates (May 4, 1859).
Owing to the long-continued disturbances in the Canton Province, the population of Hongkong increased, with some strange fluctuations (in 1856 and 1858), from 56,011 people in the year 1854 to 75,503 people in 1858, the average annual increase, during the five years of Sir J. Bowring's administration, being only 6,915, though in the years 1854 and 1855 the annual increment amounted to 16,954 people. Sir John explained these fluctuations by saying that the returns of 1857 and 1858 were under-estimated by error and that the ambulatory habits of the Chinese residents might account for the inaccuracies of the census of 1856 which reported 71,730 persons residing in the Colony (exclusive of troops). Referring to the year 1850, Sir John reported an increase in the respectability of the Chinese population and stated that a better class of people had commenced settling in Hongkong. It was also noticed in 1857 that the average proportion of Chinese females residing in the Colony was far higher than it had ever been before.
In his report for the year 1854, the Colonial Surgeon (J. Carroll Dempster) urged upon the Government the necessity of securing drainage and ventilation for Chinese dwellings. He stated that smallpox was the principal scourge of the Colony in 1854. In spring 1855, fever raged among the Chinese population, some 800 deaths being reported between 6th February and 28th April. Increased activity of the sanitary department caused, in October 1856, just after the commencement of the Arrow War, much excitement among the Chinese residents owing to the heavy fines imposed by the Magistrates under the new Nuisance Ordinance (8 of 1850) and mobs of turbulent Chinese paraded the streets. The year 1857 was reported upon by the
