In the interest of sanitation, an Ordinance was passed (on December 26, 1845) enforcing a modicum of order and cleanliness. The deadly Wongnoichong Valley was drained, in April that year, and the cultivation of rice here forbidden. Otherwise sanitation and cleanliness were left to take care of themselves.
It is worth noting that the draining of Wongneichung (Happy Valley) was largely actuated, not so much by an idea of bringing health to the neighbourhood, as by the desire to have a proper area for a race course (see 31-7-33).
In the Fifties illness of various kinds, in which malarial fever of course played a large part, continued to give the Colony a bad name, and the chronicles state:
"Great as the vagaries of disease were during this period, the divergencies of public opinion on the subject were still greater. While English newspapers denounced Hongkong as a pest hole, while the music-halls in London resounded with the popular refrain 'You may go to Hongkong for me', Governor Bonham grew eloquent (in his annual reports) on the salubrity of the climate of Hongkong which he considered to be 'as well adapted to the European constitution as other places similarly situated within the tropics.'
This, incidentally, traces the origin of the phrase one heard some years ago, still lingering on in Britain, of 'Go to Hongkong' as a variation on sending someone to Jericho or Timbuctoo.
It is also noted that divergence of opinion existed locally as to the unhealthiness of the Colony among both military and civilian doctors. The crying need however was, for many years, proper sanitation.
In his report for the year 1854, the Colonial Surgeon of that period, Dr. J. Carroll Dempster, urged upon the authorities the necessity for securing drainage and ventilation of Chinese houses, this probably being the first advocacy of measures which are now embodied in the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance, and its more recent amendments. Following another outbreak of fever in 1855, which, we read, ravaged the Chinese population, the Government introduced sterner measures than hitherto, and it is recorded that the increased activity on the part of the sanitary department (such as it was then) in 1856 caused much excitement among the Chinese 'owing to the heavy fines imposed by the Magistrates under the new Nuisance Ordinance (No.8 of 1856),' and the chronicle notes that 'mobs of turbulent Chinese paraded the streets.' So even then, prejudice and long-standing defiance of the laws of hygiene had to be tackled.
Apparently nothing much would be done against such continued opposition, and in 1858 the first epidemic of Asiatic cholera on record for Hongkong broke out, commencing among the poorer-class Chinese, and spreading until even some of the well-to-do Europeans were affected. Following this, the question of proper waterworks, in the place of the old-fashioned system of wells, arose, and ultimately (see 11-9-33) led to our extensive water-supply service.