482
Analyst are not finished, and some of the tables also. But I have had to write without them as I am, in a few days, leaving the Colony on long leave, the first long leave I have had during nearly 30 years' service under Government. I have, therefore, had to ask the Acting Colonial Surgeon to see that the above are forwarded, and the proofs of this report properly corrected.
I leave the Colony for a time with regret, having made very many kind friends-both Official and Unofficial-and having spent many happy years in it. The only thing I do not regret leaving is the Sanitary Board as a body, and I hope before I return there will be some improvement as to the indi- vidual members. When away from the Sanitary Board or one meets them at more festive boards I have always found them kind and pleasant companious.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
The Honourable
No. 10.
J. H. STEWART LOCKHART,
Colonial Secretary.
Appendix to Colonial Surgeon's Annual Report for 1894.
PH. B. C. AYRES,
Colonial Surgeon.
GOVERNMENT CIVIL HOSPITAL,
HONGKONG, 19th January, 1874.
SIR,-I have the honour to forward the following report on the sanitary condition of the brothels of Hongkong. I have made over twelve inspections varying from three to five hours each, and have not yet succeeded in completing the round, but have quite sufficient data to express an opinion on.
With regard to the form, headed Contagious Diseases Ordinance, enclosed in the Registrar General's letter No. 39, dated 5th August, 1873, I am of opinion it is useless. A certain number of feet might be laid down as a rule for the accommodation of each individual, other things being equal; but other things are in no case equal, situation is different, and so are the heights of the rooms, so that a room in one house sixteen feet square may sufficiently accommodate four persons, but a room in another of exactly the same dimensions be totally unfit for one.
The inspectors of brothels cannot be expected to be judges of the sanitation of houses entirely uninstructed as they are, and in my opinion no brothel should be sanctioned without a certificate from a medical officer that it is a fit place for sanction and the accommodation of so many women.
The inspections of brothels appear to have been left entirely to the inspectors of brothels, men of limited education and certainly unable to perform the duties required of thein without efficient super- intendence and instruction which has not apparently been the duty of my predecessors in the Colonial Surgeoncy of Hongkong, and that this is evidently required, the report will show.
The inspectors have simply confined themselves to seeing that the laws laid down by "The Con- tagious Diseases Act" have been carried out and nothing in the way of sanitation has been done at all. I have found invariably in every house the kitchen in a filthy condition, many without chimneys, the smoke of wood and charcoal fires distributing itself all over the house and rendering the air difficult to breath, the drainage more or less deficient, and, where existing, in a most deplorable condition. Greasy soot lying thick on the walls and ceilings; floors saturated with decaying animal matter, washed off the dressers and thrown out of pots and left to drain how it can, these floors being broken bricks or decaying boards; there were no proper receptacles for rubbish, which accumulated in corners or was heaped in broken baskets and only removed when it became of sufficient importance by taking up too much room and becoming inconvenient.
In the kitchens were generally one or inore hutches used as privies, consisting of a few boards knocked together to form a rickety screen, and from age and neglect were saturated with filth. No proper receptacle for night-soil was found in the hutches, sometimes a broken pot, sometimes a leaky old tub, sometimes nothing at all, the night-soil being deposited on the floors and the urine draining away as best it might into the surrounding floors. I have a pretty good stomach, which doesn't revolt at trifles, but I found the inspection of these places acted on it in a very unpleasant manner.
The girl's rooms-next to kitchens,-nearly all had a ventilating opening into the kitchens; of what benefit to the inhabitants of the rooms may be gathered from the foregoing paragraphs.
In at least a dozen instances I found a girl's room separated from the privies by a boarded partition through the interstices of which the inhabitants of the room could see into the privies and vice versâ. As often as not rooms were over the privies with floors in a similar condition.
In all cases, without exception, the floors of the rooms and passages, the walls and ceilings or roof were in filthy condition, so thick was the greasy dirt on the floors that it could be scraped off with the foot.