PEAK TRAMWAY (Contd.)
levels to come down by tram instead of walking.
The fact that no cars ran after 8 p.m. might be noted good old days!
We might consider briefly the gradual move towards residence on the Peak. There was a time (it seems strange to us nowadays) when living on the heights was considered less healthy than a sojourn near sea level, and it needed doughty pioneers among the British residents to change this outlook. Perhaps the failure of the first military sanatorium on the Peak had something to do with continuing this prejudice for a few years longer.
As far back as the Forties, soon after the founding of the Colony, the idea of obtaining health in the Peak atmosphere was mooted and the Colonial Surgeon in 1848 (Dr. William T. Morrison) suggested the erection of a Government sanatorium on Victoria Peak, on a spot upwards of 1,700 feet above sea level. There was considerable divergence of opinion, however, among the doctors at the time, both civilian and military, and nothing came of the idea for a while. In fact, it was not until 1862 that the military sanatorium came into being. This was built at the recommendation of the principal medical officer of the station, and was opened in spring of that year. It was a substantial building, erected on a small plateau just below the flagstaff on Victoria Peak. It had, unfortunately, a bad reputation from the start; cases were sent up unsuited to the occasion; something of an epidemic of diarrhoea had broken out among the troops (probably what we now know as "Hong Kong Dog") and the sufferers were sent up to the sanatorium, where, probably as an effect of the colder atmosphere, they grew worse instead of improving. On that bare trial the military authorities were prepared to condemn the whole scheme, and the place was subsequently abandoned.
The prejudice so born lived long afterwards and only when the far-seeing Mr. Granville Sharp, long an advocate of Peak residence, leased the deserted sanatorium and managed to interest others in building houses on the upper levels did the idea again "catch on."
Sir Hercules Robinson was the Governor who first supported the development of the Peak for building sites. He ordered the cutting of the pathway up to the top of Victoria Peak, which was carried out in 1859-60 and later established the original Governor's upper-level residence, a bungalow practically on the site of the present Mountain Lodge, and apparently also the location of the first military sanatorium. The old records show that by the Seventies the plan of Peak residence had become quite popular; in 1876 the erection of houses there reached something of a boom; but it seems that the place was still considered more in the light of a summer resort than a locality for all-the-year residence.
We come then to the advocacy of a Peak tramway, eventually provided for in the Tramway Ordinance of 1882, which gave permission for establishing tramways from Shaukiwan to West Point and from St. John's Place to Victoria Gap.
Before closing this article, we might note that the Peak tram was originally operated by the Hong Kong High Level Tramways Company, Ltd., of which Messrs. MacEwen, Frickel and Co., were the General Managers. As readers will know, the Peak Tramways Co., Ltd., as the concern is now called, is managed by Messrs. John D. Humphreys and son. Larger cars, a more frequent schedule, and improved station waiting rooms, have been features introduced within the memory of most of us to-day.
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