(2)
sewage of Wantsai and Bowrington at some additional outlay by conveying it as far east as North Point where the tidal scour is at its greatest and there esta- blishing a steam-pumping station, an expedient commonly resorted to in English towns similarly circumstanced. These extra works are estimated at $113,000
making the total cost $343,000.
5. The establishment of the Separate System of drainage will in no way nul- lify or minimize the importance of the main drainage improvements which have been effected by the Government from year to year during the last ten years, for even if house-sewage is now diverted to special channels of its own, properly built rain water drains of adequate sectional area and laid to proper falls are none the less a necessity to the city for the removal of sub-soil drainage and storm-waters.
6. The Separate System can be carried out without adding to the expense of house-owners, for it will impose no greater burthern on the landlord to connect his house-drain with a Government main sewer under the Separate System than with one under the Combined System. Two house-drains--one for dirty water and one for rain water-will not be required of him. 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 side-channels, and thence into the nearest of the numerous street gratings which everywhere communicate with the storm-water drains.
7. The Separate System of drainage is no new experiment in European cities. As its advantages are brought to light by practical experience it is becoming every year more generally adopted by Municipal and other public Bodies.
To Hong- kong, if not adaptable before owing to the inadequacy of the public water supply, it will be specially adaptable now for the first time that we have a new reservoir admitting of a daily consumption of water in every house in the town sufficient to afford the drains in the shape of waste waters that volume of dry weather flow throughout the winter which is essential to the effective working of a system that seeks to act in a measure independently of rain.
8. Though Mr. COOPER's Report relates principally to main drainage I wish to invite His Excellency's special attention to that portion of it wherein he refers incidentally to house-drains for it is impossible to overestimate the importance of remedying as early as possible the evils to which he alludes.
9. Up to the passing of the new Public Health Ordinance (Ordinance No. 24 of 1887) the law on this branch of practical sanitation was inadequate for securing efficient house-drains. The Statute Book contained no provisions for the class of materials to be used in their construction, nor yet did it prescribe the method of that construction, nor were there any provisions for trapping, ventilation, or disconnexion. The result of this inadequacy of the Law was that the Public Works Department was ever in conflict on the subject of house-drains with landlords who deeply resented what were considered the expensive whims of the Surveyor General, whims which they alleged they did not find supported by any special definition of the law.
10. In 1884 a Public Health Bill designed to meet this evil-together with many others-was drafted and submitted for the consideration of the Colonial Government, but for reasons into which it is unnecessary to enter here, that Bill unfortunately was never presented to the Legislature until the assumption of the Government by His Excellency General GORDON CAMERON in 1887 when it was passed by him in spite of the opposition of the landlord interest.
11. Again a further delay arose from a request of the opponents of the Ordinance--that it might not be confirmed until a Petition which they were to frame against it--had been previously cousidered by the Secretary of State, but after