290
The Mee Lun Lane Improvement Scheme was completed. Another section of Robinson Road, Kowloon, extending from Market Street to Waterloo Road was undertaken and the removal of the hill North of Yaumati Theatre was continued, the material being used for private reclamation work North of the Naval Coaling Depôt. The extensions of Conduit Road in Easterly and Westerly directions and of the road past Kowloon City mentioned last year were completed, and a further section of the latter road extending to its junction with the Chiu Lan Chu Road was undertaken. A new path, connecting Barker Road with May Road, as the extension of Conduit Road in an Easterly direction has been designated, was completed.
The extension and reconstruction of the Albany Filter Beds was continued,
fair pro- gress being made with the work.
The total amount expended on Public Works Extraordinary, exclusive of Advance Accounts and Deposits not Available, was $784,320 and on Works Annually Recurrent, $538,041. By the transfer of the item "Typhoon and Rainstorm Damage" from the former head to the latter, the first-mentioned sum has been diminished by $106,659 whilst that last-mentioned has been correspondingly increased.
Good progress was made on the British Section of the Hongkong-Canton Railway the cost of which is being defrayed by a Loan.
During the year 1907 the re-alignment consequent on the detailed survey by the Construction Engineers was completed and work commenced over the whole length. The reclamation for a site for Kowloon Station Yard was started in June. The actual heading driving in Beacon Hill Tunnel may be said to have started on January 1st, 1907. During the year two thousand one hundred feet of heading was driven from both ends and from the shafts sunk at both the North and South sides and four hundred and sixty-five feet of tunnel fully lined. About two-thirds of the compressor plant was in working order, the headings not being far enough advanced to necessitate special ventilating plant. There was difficulty experienced at first in obtaining sufficient labour for work underground but towards the end of the year on the rates being raised slightly a large number of skilled mining coolies returned from South Africa flocked to the work.
Bridge building progressed steadily all through the year as well as Earthwork and the minor tunnels, there being no very great difficulties to contend with except in one of the latter. A temporary metre gauge line was laid from the sea front at Lokloha to the North face, the shaft (278') was completed and a considerable number of houses for Staff erected. The systematic issue of quinine to all rail employés resulted in a diminution of malarial fever.
The expenditure on the work during the year amounted to $2,314,915.
VI.--GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS.
(a.) HOSPITALS.
Government Hospitals consist of the Civil Hospital to which is attached an isolated Maternity Hospital, the Victoria Hospital for Women and Children, the Kennedy Town Infectious Diseases Hospital, and the hulk "Hygeia" used mainly for the treatment of Small-pox.
The Civil Hospital contains 150 beds in 19 wards. 2,711 in-patients and 17,302 out- patients were treated during the year 1907. 243 cases of Malarial Fever were admitted as against 239 in 1906 and 267 in 1905. The Maternity Hospital contains 6 beds for Europeans and 4 for Asiatics. 87 confinements occurred during the year. The Victoria Hospital at the Peak contains 41 beds. During 1907, 211 patients were under treatment. Kennedy Town Hospital contains 26 beds. In 1907, 63 cases were treated, of which 16 were Plague. On the "Hygeia" 167 cases were treated, of which 96 were Small-pox.
(b) LUNATIC ASYLUM.
The Asylum is under the direction of the Superintendent of the Civil Hospital. European and Chinese patients are separate, the European portion containing 8 beds in separate wards and the Chinese portion 16 beds. 222 patients of all races were treated during 1907, and there were 13 deaths.