Since the creation of a municipality in Kimberley in 1878, and the consequent introduction of sanitary regulations, duly enforced by law when necessary, the death-rate has very considerably diminished. The late Dr. Shillito and the writer, in March, 1879, prepared an exhaustive report for the mayor and town council on the sanitary condition of Kimberley. The death-rate at that time was enormous, as can be seen from the following table, which is a copy of that which we then furnished: Total population 14,169 Deaths 867 Rate per 1,000 61.014 Europeans 6,574 „ 236 „ „ „ 40.005 Other than Europeans 7,595 „ 604 „ „ „ 79.052 At that time Kimberley was perfectly honeycombed with cesspools. We drew attention in our report to the evil effects of the existing system, and to the manner in which these had revealed themselves two years before, when an epidemic of puerperal fever and erysipelas robbed the community of many valuable lives, and we further showed that there was always existing a remitten fever of a dysenteric and typhoid tendency, which could in some measure be attributed to this defective sanitary condition. Our report led to the adoption of the “Pail system,” and the night-soil is now taken away regularly and buried some distance from the town, the consequence of which is that the death-rate from disease has diminished more than one-third, and the sanitary condition of Kimberley is to my own knowledge as good as that of any town in South Africa. Kimberley, notwithstanding its improved sanitary condition, was in 1883 and 1884 visited by a disastrous outbreak of disease, which cost the community much, both in life and money. In May, 1882, small-pox was brought to South Africa by the steamship _Drummond Castle_, and spreading, proved very fatal in the Capetown Peninsula (Capetown to Simon’s Town), 4,000, less or more, succumbing to its ravages. Great apprehension was felt in Kimberley lest the disease might be communicated by the passenger wagons coming up from Capetown. Terror seized upon the digging community, and a quarantine station was immediately established at the Modder River, some thirty miles from the mines. Every care was taken, and all passengers were fumigated with sulphur before they were permitted to enter Kimberley. As the result, seven cases of small-pox were detected and detained for treatment, and all those traveling by the same wagons were kept in quarantine twenty-one days.