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There have been many complaints of the stenches from the drains in the public press this year and much abuse of the new drainage system. It was announced in Council that the new system was complete as far as regards the western portion of the City; that was correct as far as it related to the public drains but not ten per cent. of the house drains have been connected with the new system, the majority still draining into the sub-soil and a great number into the old water-courses, and these latter are the cause of the abominable and sickening stenches that arise in the dry seasɔn. The laws as regards the new drainage system are not retrospective and only owners of new buildings can be compelled to connect their drains with the new system, the owners of old buildings cannot be compelled unless they cause a nuisance or are proved to be dangerous to their neighbours. It will thus be a very long time before the new system can in any way be called complete or can be fairly judged on its merits. But even the new system has already been a cause of trouble in Chinese houses; the traps have been broken and the drains choked, and, owing to the construction of the houses, the drains from the back premises run right under the house to be connected with the new drain in the street, which is bad in itself, and this occurs also in very many European bouses. Then the water supply is still insufficient for the flushing of the drains even if all the houses were connected with the new system and even if the water supply was amply sufficient, it is impossible to keep the old houses clean, the upper floors of these houses in the majority of cases not admitting of washing without the water dropping through on the people below; in very many cases the basements are still mud floors, as I reported twenty years ago. In the month of September I laid a complaint before the Sanitary Board of the offensive stenches caused by fat boiling being carried on in the neighbourhood of the Government Civil Hospital causing great discomfort and annoyance to the patients. There were many houses to the west of the Hospital in High, First, Second and Third Streets. Mr. EDE and Mr. HUMPHREYS, unofficial members of the Board, inspected these premises and sent in a report in which they said:"Nearly the whole of the houses are "in a most dilapidated condition. The floors were reeking with filth. The drainage was very bad, "smell abominable. In some of the houses were dark holes in which there were quantities of decom- "posing and putrid meat, fat and bones, and one of them filled with maggots. The stench from these "places was unbearable. I inspected these houses also and found them in the same condition I had reported twenty years ago; fat boiling was going on there, but, with the assistance of the Registrar General, I had them cleared out and suppressed that business in the neighbourhood of the Hospital. It had begun again of late years and I have often reported them before with result that the nuisance has abated for a time. When this report was read before the Board I stated that these houses were in as disgusting a condition as many of the houses in the worse slums of the Central District of Tai-ping- shan, independently of the fat boiling, that many other houses in the same streets where no fat boiling was done were in the same filthy and insanitary condition, and that these houses were, in my opinion, unfit for human habitation. The Board then recommended : "That the tenants should be called upon "to abate the nuisance,' -which was done. The Board also recommended:-"That the landlords "should be notified to put these houses in proper order." That the notices were served is proved by the papers attached to the documents which had been before the Board, but there is no record to show that the landlords paid any attention to the notification and no further steps appear to have been taken in the matter. But though hundreds of houses in the same condition exist all over the City and in spite of the state of things I have so often called attention to, there is no question that of late years the health of the Colony has very much improved and so iny remarks on the insanitary state of existing things are now received as a standing "chestnut" and only afford amusement for the public press. for, like the shepherd in the old story, I am regarded as crying wolf where no wolf exists, still the trail of the wolf is seen in this report. There were 13 cases of typhoid fever treated in the Civil Hospital 6 of which were contracted in the Colony, there are 5 deaths recorded from Typhoid Fever in tables at the head of this section and 1 from Continued Fever among the European community, there were 442 deaths from Continued Fever among the Chinese population, all these deaths are to be attributed to insanitary conditions. But this is like the Tytam tiger which many were reported to have seen and a good many went out to hunt for and never found, still the brute left his traces for a child of seven years old had both his hands bitten off above the wrist one night in one of the villages which was sufficient evidence of some savage beast being in the neighbourhood; even a big dog could not make such an injury as that. In the appendix I have attached to this report reviewing many of the things I have brought to notice in the past twenty years it will be seen that very many of my recommendations for the well being of the Colony have been acted upon to the great benefit of all concerned. The report from the Govern- ment Analyst shows the work done in his Department and shows that the water supply, though for the last two years found insufficient for the needs of the City, is excellent in character. There is no stint in the milk supply in the Colony, three very large and excellent dairies are supported besides other smaller ones. And that supplied to the Hospital is very satisfactory. The petroleum brought in to the Colony for the first time in tank steamers is satisfactory. The Government Analyst also supplied a very excellent report on the use of hypodermic injections of Morphia that had begun among the Chinese community this year. Two or three Chinamen came into Hospital covered with hundreds of marks from the use of the hypoderinic syringe, at the same time a report was forwarded to me from the Police that many small shopkeepers were administering hypodermic injections of Morphia ostensibly for the cure of opium smoking and that they bad learnt the method from a pupil of Dr. KERR's in Canton. Specimens of the solutions and of the drug used were obtained from one of the shops by the Hospital Compradore, and Mr. Crow visited these places and procured other
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