[ XIX ]
(Minute by the Acting Colonial Secretary.)
The coffins must not be allowed to remain in the house.
The Captain Superintendent of Police had better at once enquire into the matter.
W. H. RENNIE, Acting Colonial Secretary.
8th June, 1866.
(Minute by the Captain Superintendent of Police.).
This is a well built open shed at the back of the Joss-house at the west end of Taipingshan Street wherein 20 solid Chinese coffins containing bodies are placed with the view of shipping them to their native places in China when applied for by their friends. They are all hermetically sealed. The bodies have been there in the same place some for 5 years and others for shorter periods. This place has been so occupied for the past 10 years and as the Chinaman in charge states with the sanction of the Government.
I would respectfully submit for the sake of appearances---as I am unable to discover any other offence--that the Chinese be required to build a neat cemetery for this pur- pose on the old Chinese burial-ground immediately opposite the present depositary. As however, the existence of this place is not unknown to the Colonial Surgeon he would be better qualified to report on the subject. Ordinance 12 of 1856, section 4, would not, in my opinion, meet this case.
9th June, 1866.
(Minute by The Governor.)
M. QUIN, Captain Superintendent.
Colonial Surgeon to visit the place, inspect the coffins and report.
9th June, 1866.
R. G. McD.
(Minute by the Colonial Surgeon.)
The house is question has been known to me for years and was inspected by me only a few days since. Some such place is a necessity in all Chinese towns, as the bodies of the better class are conveyed to their native places at such times and seasons as the priests consider lucky. In Canton, in the place called the "City of the Dead," there are said to be some 10,000 bodies waiting removal. But there is nothing offen- sive from these coffins which, as Captain QUIN states, are very solid, well closed, and filled with quicklime, which absorbs all the gases evolved. A much greater nuisance is the habit the keeper has of letting out a few small rooms attached to the building to the friends of poor people who are sent there to die, to avoid the expense and trouble of purifying their dwellings from the "uncleaness" brought by death. I cannot understand how Mr. WILSON's inspector has never discovered this place before, which is within a stone's throw of one of the greatest nuisances in the town, viz., the great night-soil deposit.
9th June, 1866.
I. MURRAY, M.D.,
Colonial Surgeon.