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Mr. Shelton Hooper.-Who was your architect?
A.—I had no architect. I bought the old shops.
Q.—But you say you wanted to build shops, facing that way, and therefore it was land?
Mr. Lau Chu Pak.-You said it was vacant ground when you bought this.
A.-There had been shops on it, but the shops originally should have been facing the hill side.
Mr. Shelton Hooper.-But where was the grievance to you? Did you buy the land, or did you buy it after it was built on with the shops ?
A.-No, I did not build the shops.
Mr. Fung Wa Chun.-What you mean to say is that when the landowner built on that plot, he should have had a 50 feet road along the hill?
A. Yes, and the shops should have faced that way.
Q-There was a plan for that road?
A. Yes.
Q. And the Government have not made that rond?
A.-No.
Q. And called upon you to have open spaces in the houses?
A. Yes.
Q.-Because you wrote to the Sanitary Board that you are not required to do so?
A. That I should not be required to do so.
Q-And the other people did not know to write to the Sanitary Board, and they had to do it ?
A. Yes.
Mr. Shelton Hooper.--How do you know that the Government sold it, undertaking to cut that 50 feet road at the back?
A.--I know about it, because the Government lost in a case which a landlord of one of those houses had against the Government. The case was that a boulder had come down, and broken up one of the shops.
Q.-Then if you know that as a fact, why did you not call upon the Government, and not the Sanitary Board, to make that road?
A. I did know, and said if the road was made, I would not need to make those open spaces.
Q. And you wrote that to the Sanitary Board, and you never had any reply to that, do you say?
A. Yes.