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ridges and valleys, there seemed to have been an attempt to impose a grid-iron plan for the streets. Though there were some divergencies from this. Pokfulam Road was an old footpath of the Island and Water Street which recalled the old water tank and 'watering place' for ships was influenced by the presence of a nullah.
In my opinion, it is not difficult to explain why the road pattern was planned in that way. Firstly, in those days with those crude surveying instruments and limited manpower, it was the earliest plan to demarcate the streets in that ridge and valley terrain. Even in 1903, the surveying team consisted only of one inspector, 24 surveyors, 32 Indian chairmen and about 45 Chinese coolies.
Secondly, the British laid out the district in an orderly pattern because they hoped to improve the congested living conditions of the Chinese quarters in this way. The early Chinese quarters like those in Tal Ping Shan district had rapidly become a squatter area. In 1855, a Land Commission was even appointed to investigate the overcrowding in Victoria.
Thirdly, the British may also have wanted to have some form of centralized control, political and military, in the Chinese quarter. As H. D. Talbot pointed out in his essay 'An Outline of the Urban Development of Hong Kong Island During the Nineteenth Century', those streets could have been planned as approach roads for the military. (Talbot, 1971, P.57)
Owing to the Tai Ping Rebellion, which began in 1850 and created unsettled conditions in China for almost fifteen years, thousands of refugees rushed to Hong Kong. In 1861, 116,335 Chinese were registered in Hong Kong, a six-fold increase over the 1848 figure of 21,514. The entry of Chinese into Hong Kong in such a large number was unforeseen and naturally little housing provision was made for it. Demand for houses and rooms in Hong Kong vastly exceeded the supply. Every available space was at once filled and the overwhelming population overflowed the buildings.
By 1880, Sai Ying Pun had become seriously overcrowded. Unoccupied houses (including newly built houses) were being taken up rapidly by the inhabitants (Table 1). Tenement floors were usually