954 THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 27TH SEPTEMBER, 1890.
Attempt to
separate drainage of
back yards by open gutters
To attempt to separate the rain water from this sewage, in the manner Mr. COOPER proposes (and has already obliged my firm to construct) by a continuous open channel, running from house to house and dis-
impracticable. charging into the street channels, will be impossible to work in practice.
Description of Chinese houses.
Refuse from upper floors
of Chinese houses.
Roofs of Chinese houses.
Mr. Chadwick gives descrip-
46
The Surveyor General describes this proposal in the following words:-"His roof drainage and the rain which falls upon his back yard may in most cases be allowed to escape over the surface through gutters into the side channels and thence into the nearest of the numerous street gratings which everywhere communicate
"with the storm-water drains.”
++
Chinese houses are usually built in blocks, and to drain, by an open channel through the division walls, would cause endless trouble. Should a stoppage of only a few minutes take place, in a division wall towards the end of a long line of houses, the ground floors of these houses would be flooded, and this, with the tropical showers we sometimes get here, such as 9 inches in five hours, and 5 inches in three hours, would not take many minutes, a few leaves on sticks might be sufficient.
The damage to merchandize, which is always stored on the ground floor of every Chinese house, would be very large, and the Chinese would naturally resent any such system, and block up the openings in the division walls on the higher side of their yards; surreptitiously making some rough drain connecting with the pipe
This when once effected would be very hard to discover.
sewer.
The use of the back yards by an open drain would be strongly opposed by the tenants.
Each house may be
a separate property and it has never been the custom to insert any casement clauses in conditions of sale.
I may mention that I have consulted several Chinese, who are large owners of property and their opinion
is very strong against anything in the nature of a continuous open channel in back yards.
With the exception of the back yards, the whole of Chinese property is covered by the houses and the kitchens (which are usually 6 feet deep). The number of stories vary from two to four. The more valuable neigh- bourhood has houses with the greater number of stories. Each story is usually subdivided by an intermediate floor, the subdivision is caused by the old and also the New Building Ordinance, which fix the thickness of walls for each story, instead of for the height of the building. Plans are therefore first made for a three storied house; each story being made high enough, to allow of subdivision after they are completed.
Access is gained to the kitchens in the upper floors (in those houses which possess back yards) by bridges, each of which takes 5 feet off the area of the back yard open to the sky. From this bridge, the dirty water and refuse are thrown into the back yard, the down pipes from the kitchens generally being choked or removed. It must be borne in mind that cach floor is usually let separately, there being no stairs down the back of the
houses.
Even the roofs are very generally used for various purposes, such as drying and curing of fish manufactur- ing various articles of food, dyeing and bleaching of goods, and the immense amount of manufactures which require light and air. Latrines on the roof are common, and the usual connection for the urinal of each floor is the down pipe from the roof.
The minute description and careful plans given by Mr. CHADWICK of Chinese houses, show, very forcibly, tion and plans of the difficulty of attempting any such refinements of sanitary science as the Separate System involves.
Chinese houses.
Drainage from
lanes and
streets.
Streets
necessarily in a
The lanes and streets, dividing the houses, are also very narrow and a large amount of dirty water and refuse is thrown into the streets, and consequently finds its way into the drains. Mr. CHADWICK remarks :-
"Washing and other domestic operations are conducted on the side walks."
The multifarious occupations all necessitating the production of refuse and garbage, which are carried on dirty condition. in a Chinese Street would astonish the stranger, unaccustomed to the modes and habits of Chinese life; the consequence being, that the streets are necessarily in a dirty condition, and to allow the washings from these streets and lanes into drains, suitable for min water only and unprovided with ventilators, would of itself very
Sir Robert Rawlinson on!
tuplicate system of
sewers,
Opinion that water from roof
soon cause a nuisance.
Sir ROBERT RAWLINSON says:--
The duplicate systems of sewers are seldom required. The sewer proper would then be without the «flushing and cleansing given by the roof water during falls of rain and the washing off land, ditches, roads, and "gutters during the first falls of heavy rains would in many cases be as polluted and polluting as the sewage in
"the true sewers."
In a paper printed in the Minutes of the Institution of Civil Engineers on the sewering of Towns on the and back yards Separate System by Mr. A. E. WHITE, the following remark occurs :~~~-
should not be
separated from
sewage.
“It probably is necessary in almost all cases (in order to avoid an unreasonably complicated arrangement of
· branch drains) to admit the water from back roofs and back yards to the sewers, even where there are separate * drains for surface water.”