§ MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether his attention has been drawn to the great mortality that has recently occurred among the Coolies in their transport to Demerara, and especially on board the ships Clarence and Earl Russell, and whether anything can be done to render 1104 the passage less destructive to life, or so to regulate the Emigration as to hinder persons being embarked who are not in sound health?
§ MR. CARDWELLsaid, in reply, that his attention had been directed to the case of three ships, on board which, while on their passage from Calcutta to British Guiana, between the months of November and January, there had been an unusual mortality among Coolies. Two of those ships were the Clarence and the Earl Russell. An inquiry had been instituted at British Guiana by the authorities there, who reported that they found nothing in the ships themselves or in their diet or management to account for that mortality. The disease originated in Calcutta. The Governor attributed it to a deposit of matter left by the inundations caused by the cyclone which had done such serious damage at Calcutta. An inquiry was going on at Calcutta respecting this matter. He was glad to say that, probably owing to the sanitary precautions taken at Calcutta, and on board the ships, the general mortality had been decreasing of late years.