[vi]
occupy part of the Tung Wa Hospital, where there were no arrangements for the separation of the older from the younger girls, and no attempt at education, and where the girls were, not unnaturally, cause of annoyance to the Tung Wa Hospital patients. Complaints were received from the Tung Wa Hospital on this subject, and a request made to have the girls moved to some more suitable place. This led to a suggestion being made by the Committee of the Pó Leung Kuk and other influential Chinese that a Home should be erected by the Government and maintained by private charity.
Five Chinese houses were accordingly erected near St. Stephen's Church in accordance with plans which the Pó Léung Kuk Committee had seen, and which, it was understood, they approved. The houses consisted of 3 stories, the upper story being intended for a Home, and the two lower stories for shops and tenements. The top story was so constructed as to provide accommodation for 20 women and 30 girls in 2 day rooms and 3 bed rooms.
The cost of building these houses was $8,000; the land on which they stand was valued at about $12,000.
There seems to have been some misunderstanding with regard to the rents to be derived from the lower floors, the Pó Léung Kuk Committee thinking that they were to go towards the maintenance of the Home, while the Government decided that they were to be paid into the Treasury.
When the buildings had been completed the Pó Léung Kuk objected to move into them, because they considered them unsuitable and because, having no funds available for their maintenance, they did not wish to sever their connection with the Tung Wa Hospital, which had hitherto supplied the society with a Home and funds.
Appendix 12.
REGISTRAR GENERAL'S OFFICE,
HONGKONG, 17th June, 1892.
SIR,
On behalf of the Special Committee appointed to enquire into certain points connected with the Pó Léung Kuk, I have the honour to acknowledge with thanks the receipt of your letter of the 14th instant, containing a report on the suitability, from a sanitary point of view, of the rooms in the Tung Wa Hospital in which women and girls under the protection of the Pó Léung Kuk Society are housed, and I am to ask if you will kindly furnish the Committee with a similar report on the houses near the Tung Wa Hospital, built by Government, the top-floors of which were intended for a Home for Girls.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
J. H. STEWART LOCKHART,
Chairman.
H. MCCALLUM, Esq.,
Sanitary Superintendent,