PUBLIC HEALTH
161
The number of hawkers is still rising and is conservatively estimated at 40,000, including both licensed and unlicensed. Some sell commodities of all kinds while others operate cooked food stalls or ply such trades as cobbling and furniture repairing.
At the end of 1957 a report on the hawker problem was tabled in the Urban Council, the product of lengthy and detailed investi- gation by representatives of the Police and Urban Services Depart- ment. The major recommendation was that a disciplined body should be established within the Urban Services Department to exercise effective control over hawkers. The report was accepted by the Government and towards the end of the year recruitment was put in hand. Some delay was experienced owing to the difficulty in securing a suitable training camp.
I
Various methods of controlling hawkers have been tried out, the object being to bring hawkers of all kinds and classes into line with the law without depriving any of them of the means of earning an honest living. These measures, coupled with special arrangements for night scavenging in the worst hawker sites, achieved a great improvement in the areas where they were instituted.
The end of October saw the establishment of yet another hawker bazaar, this time in the Wong Tai Sin Resettlement Estate. First introduced at the Tai Hang Tung and Shek Kip Mei Resettlement Estates in 1958, this method of control confines hawkers to prop- erly constructed stalls allocated to them by ballot. An extensive programme is in hand to provide similar bazaars in all districts of the urban area where such arrangements are practicable.
In the growing industrial town of Kwun Tong, cooked food stalls serve the needs of workers in an area where there are insufficient restaurants and eating houses. These stalls were con- centrated on a site specially built for them and capable of taking ninety six stalls.
Obstruction caused by cooked food stalls in the urban area received attention, but no intensive campaign was started pending the formation of the Hawker Control Section.
Public Latrines and Bathhouses. Additional public bathhouses and latrines are built in accordance with a long-term programme,