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find the funds which would be required for the installation of a modern sanitation system.
Finance was not the only problem. Chinese opinion was rarely more resolute than in matters concerning personal hygiene. Chinese people and Europeans simply did not see sanitary matters in the same light and both groups thought that their views were correct. In her examination of colonial Singapore, Brenda Yeoh showed how the Chinese regarded matters of sanitation and disease very differently from Europeans and that these alternative views were not restricted to the uneducated and 'plebeian classes.' Thus, 'Whilst Western sanitary science advocated the removal of filth, the disinfection and ventilation of houses, and the isolation of the sick as essential preventive measures in stemming the tide of a disease, Chinese medical theory did not necessarily imbue these measures with similar significance.' According to traditional Chinese thinking, good health was the product of balance within the body whereas ill health occurred where disharmony existed. If, as Yeoh contends, these Chinese attitudes had survived for centuries, there is little reason to doubt that the average Chinese person living in Hong Kong in the 1880s thought any differently from his or her counterpart in Singapore.
Frena Bloomfield deals with the background to this very basic Hong Kong plumbing problem in her book The Urban Council 1883-1983, which describes the development of the Urban Services Department which grew out of the Sanitary Department. The birth of the Sanitary Department arose from the recommendations of Osbert Chadwick, a renowned British engineer with experience in sanitary matters, who was brought to Hong Kong at considerable expense to assess the sanitary conditions of the colony and propose improvements. Chadwick was not the first professional to comment on the adverse state of the colony's drains. In 1870 the Colonial Surgeon, Dr J. Murray, had noted 'It is not creditable to this colony that after their unhealthy condition has been pointed out, both by myself and by the Sanitary Commission, they [the drains] should remain as they are, a source of disease and death.'
Chadwick visited Chinese dwellings and talked to members of the Chinese community during his examinations. The result of his study was a comprehensive document completed in November 1882 which