268
GENERAL SANITARY CONDITION.
Some little progress has been made during the past year towards the structural improvement of the sanitary condition of the Chinese dwellings in the Colony, although, as will be seen from Appendix A, a copy of which was submitted by me to the Insanitary Properties Commission, much yet remains to be done to render the houses of the Chinese reasonably habitable, and legislation is urgently needed to remedy some of the most glaring sanitary defects which are still permitted in the con- struction of house property in this Colony. The opposition, however, which the Board met with dur- ing the past year in its endeavour to prevent the obstruction of private streets and lanes would seem to indicate that the bitter lessons of 1894 and 1896 have already almost passed into oblivion, and that great difficulty will be experienced by the Government in securing such emendations of the laws of this Colony as are unquestionably necessary if any real attempt is to be made to render the Colony immune from devastating epidemics of such filth diseases as Bubonic Fever or Typhus.
The erection of back to back houses is still, I regret to say, perinitted, notwithstanding the fact that this type of building was so strongly condemned by Mr. OSBERT CHADWICK in his report upon the sanitary condition of Hongkong of 1882, and in various subsequent Reports of Committees upon the housing of the working classes. It must be borne in mind that such back to back houses as are erected in this Colony cannot be in any way compared with back to back houses as erected in England, for in these latter the depth of the building rarely much exceeds the frontage, while in Hongkong almost all Chinese dwellings are about 13' wide (exclsive of the thickness of the party. walls) while they may extend in depth for some 30' to 50′, and consist of one long narrow room, on each story, lit only by one or two small windows, except upon the ground floors where the whole front is more or less open during the daytime; at the back of this room is a cook-house with smoke-hole in the ceiling while the room itself is subdivided, by partitions of match-boarding 8' high, into a number of cup- boards or cubicles, varying in size from 6' by 7' to 8' by 10', each of which constitutes the home of a family of two, three, four, or more persons. It can readily be imagined that the amount of light which penetrates the interior of these cubicles is indeed infinitesimal, and it is almost impossible for anyone who has not ventured into these dwellings to realize the amount of filth and rubbish that will accumulate in them even in a few weeks.
As stated in my Report for 1896 I am strongly of the opinion that the partition walls of these cubicles should not be permitted to exceed 6' in height, except in the case of very lofty rooms or on the top floors of dwellings, when roof lights are provided, for under ordinary circumstances it seems almost impossible to adequately light these cubicles.
In consequence of the insanitary condition of the large number of matsheds which are used by contractors for the housing of coolies employed in building operations, and upon the advice of the Acting Attorney General that they could not be legally dealt with as "domestic buildings" the late President of the Board and I drafted a number of Regulations providing for the preparation of the sites, the provision of adequate cooking accommodation, drainage and latrine accommodation, the prevention of overcrowding, and the proper scavenging of such of these temporary sheds as are intended to be used for a longer period than three months, and for the accommodation of a greater total number of persons than twenty; and these Regulations were duly approved by the Board and subsequently adopted by the Governor in Council, in accordance with section 58 of Ordinance 15 of 1889, with the result that a marked improvement is apparent in their sanitary condition, which will, I am sure, prove of great benefit to the health of the occupants.
The provisions of section 4 of Ordinance 15 of 1894, which require that the ground surfaces of all domestic buildings and of the cook-houses, latrines and yards attached thereto, should be properly concreted, have, during the year, been extended to the villages of Hunghom, Yaumati and Tai Kok Tsui on the Kowloon Peninsula, by the Governor in Council, as provided for in section 14 of the said Ordinance, and in consequence the condition of the Chinese dwellings in these villages has been vastly improved, and I hope shortly to see the same law applied to the important villages of Shaukiwan and Quarry Bay.
Another matter which has received attention during the past year is the insanitary condition of many of the opium divans in the Colony; these were found to be dark, exceedingly dirty and greatly overcrowded both by day and night, being in fact used at night as unlicensed lodging-houses, although unfortunately the Acting Attorney General advised that they could not be dealt with under the Regulations which govern common lodging-houses in the Colony. A Bill was accordingly drafted, and was subsequently passed by the Legislative Council under the title of "An Ordinance to further amend the Prepared Opium Ordinance, 1891," which transferred the right of granting Opium Divan licences from the Opium Farmer to the Colonial Secretary, and made certain other provisions for the due regulation of these places, while the Sanitary Board at the same time made Bye-laws under the Public Health Ordinance for their sanitary maintenance and for the prevention of overcrowding therein. This Ordinance comes into force upon the expiration of the present farm in March, 1898, and I anticipate a marked improvement in the sanitary condition of these places to result from this legislation upon the subject.