July 20, 1901.]
neighbourhood generally, by reducing surfaco- crowding, and in course of time these open. spaces will unite to form the necessary lanes. It must be definitely laid down that these open spaces resumed by the Crown are not to take the place of the open spaces which the law requires the owner to provide in connection with his house, but will be in addition to such private open spaces or yards.
(4) The person from whom the land is resumed should be required, when building his new house, to concrete, channel and drain this particular open space, as long as it remains an isolated area and is not a thoroughfare, and in return for this he may be allowed to use it as an additional yard, and must provide a doorway into it, but must not erect any obstruction therein. All houses, whether old or new, abutting on such open space, should be required to open windows of an area of at least 10 square feet into it, so as to get the full benefit of this additional lung.
annum.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
LIMEWASHING.
25,000 floors at $1.20 per floor $30,000
***
$43,100 The cost would therefore be less than $45,000 a year, and this would have to be recovered from the owners of property whose duty it now is, by law, to do this work.
The Hon. F. H. May, the third member of the committee, failed to sign the above letter for reasons given as follows: "I cannot sign this report because I do think the proposals
contained in 'A'ars the best that can be evolved
for dealing with the object in view. A scheme of resumption of insanitary areas and of improvements of areas by widening existing tracts or opening up now ones requires, I think, to be undertaken on a comprehensive plan, and not piecemeal as is suggested. I think B is a good suggestion which should be recommended.”
The report was adopted.
REPORT RELATIVE TO THE LIGHTING OF THE
CENTRAL MARKET.
87
Reinecker Street, No. 18-Clean. This stroot is a private one, and is very much obstructed by the storage therein of all sorts of merchandise and miscellaneous goods.
"Queen's Road West, No. 244-These pre- mises are a Chinese bakery for foreign bread, cakes, and biscuits. Biscuits in tins are stored on the first floor, which is used as a dormitorý for the employees, in contravention of the Bakehouse Bye-laws. The bakery itself on the ground floor was clean, but is not as well lighted as a bakery ought to be.
IN
Queen's Road West, No. 246-The fue from the kitchen on the ground floor is out of use, and the occupants have made a hole in the wall and create a nuisance by letting the smoke from the fireplace discharge into the lane at the back, at a height of some six feet from the ground.
S
'Queen's Road West, Nos. 248, 252, and 253 Clean. No remarks.
· Algar Court-No remarks.
First Street, No. 8- Clean. No remarks except that the rent of the 2nd floor, a coolie- house, has been raised from $10 to $14 a month within the last few days.
15
Hung San Lane No remarks. Sheung Fung Lane-There are too many inhabitants in this narrow lane. It is like an partitions of wood in the ground floors of overcrowded rabbit-warren. We found illegal Nos. 5, 7 and 20. Generally the district was in a cleanly condition."
46
Mr. Brewin minuted: When was Sheung Fung Lane last visited by the District Inspector ?*
On the motion of the PRESIDENT, it was
agreed to forward the repert to Government.
HEIGHT OF BUILDINGS AND PLAGUE. A letter was read from the Colonial Secretary stating that H.E. the Governor is by no means satisfied that the height of buildings is proved to be the cause of plague or of any other zymotic disease.
(5) It must be distinctly provided that, when these Crown lanes are formed, no domestic
The following is the report of the buildings may under any circumstances be
committee appointed to consider the erected fronting thereon. It will be seen.
question of the better lighting of the that this scheme will spread the expense Central Market: We iuspected the mar of providing scavenging lanes over a con-
ket, on the night of the 19th June, in siderable number of years and yet will
company with Mr. Wickham, manager of the immediately benefit the community by
Electric Co. and made a number of suggestions providing additional open spaces and
with a view to the improvement of the lighting. reducing the present excessive surface-
The necessary alterations and additions having crowding. Taking $15 a foot as the average cost of most of the land which will be been made, we again inspected the market on the night of the 8th July. We consider that the thus resumed, and assuming that not
artificial lighting is now sufficient for all more than 200 of the new houses erected yearly in the city will necessitate this immediate Lamps are still in general use in the shops and purposes as far as the public are concerned.
scheme will amount to about $700,000 per the forenoon, these lamps may be at present resumption, we find that the annual cost of the stalls. It is possible that, in the earlier part of Such an expenditure could only be required, especially on the ground floor of the met by a loan for the purpose, and we see no
market. The natural lighting still remains to reason whatever why this colony should not
be improved by increasing the height of the raise a loan of five or ten million dollars for
windows. It appears, however, from our in- sanitary purposes, repayable in twenty-five or thirty years.
No second-rate city in Great spection that the shopholders will continue to Britain would hesitate for a moment to do so, if supplement the lighting for purposes of book-
Dr. Clark: I have the honour to report that the zymotic death-rate was made пр last year it had had one-tenth of the experience of plague keeping. In the case of the fruit shops on the that we have had. The Census Returns of 1897 upper floor and several others, the lighting was
much obstructed by the hanging of finit and almost entirely by bubonic plague and diarrhoea, showed that in the central districts of the City of storing of baskets, etc., on top of the shops. In and that 39 I per cent. of the deaths from this Victoria (Districts 4 to 9 inclusive) comprising these cases no general scheme of lighting can
latter disease occurred in infants under one year two hundred and forty acres, there were 504.47
be of benefit-the shops must be lighted intern-of age, so that it can hardly be said that symotio persons to the acre; the Census taken this year ally by the shopholders. We are not aware of death rate gets rid of the difficulty of the infant shows there are now 514.02 persons to the acre. The most densely populated metropolitan any accident having ever occured through the mortality. There can be no doubt, special districts of London, namely, Whitechapel, St.
use of oil lamps in the market, but it might be reasons-entirely unconnected with surface- crowding-why bubonic plague should be more George's in the East, St. Saviour's, Southwark, of electric light should not be insisted upon in and 9 than in the rest of the city, and one of prevalent year after year in health districtą 2 and St. Olave's, Southwark do not contain more
all cases. There are possible difficulties in the than 200 persons to the acre, and no time should
nature of the Chinese population which resides be lost therefore in reducing this excessive way of such an arrangement as to the amount these reasons may possibly be found in the which should be charged for lamps, as some of therein, the bulk of which is said to be of a surface-crowding by (1) prohibiting the
the shop-holders might burn them during the lower social grade and less cleanly in its habits further erection of lofty buildings in narrow
greater part of the day. The use of oil lamps streets and (2) by resuming open spaces.
overcomes any difficulty of this nature.
In any case the flare lamps (without chimneys) should be abolished at once."
B (1) The other matter which we wish to bring to the notice of the Board is the unsatisfactory manner in which the cleans- ing and limewashing of tenement houses and of the coolie quarters attached to offices and dwellings within the city limits is now carried out, and we suggest that this work should be done by a properly trained staff of cleansers and limewash rs, acting undor direc tion of officers of the Sanitary Board, and that its cost should be recovered by a special tax levied upon the owner of the house, and collected by the Treasury in the usual manner. There would be no difficulty in carrying out this scheme, as with an adequate staff the whole city and also the villages could be cleansed and limewashed from one end to the other, half yearly, as is now required by law, and we are convinced that it would be done in a far more effectual manner than at present, and would result in a much greater degree of cleanliness than at present exists in such houses.
(2) With regard to the details of this scheme, we consider that the following staff will be required:-
CLEANSING.
2 European Inspectors, 2nd class
2 Portuguese foremen
2 Chinese foremen
36 coolies
***
1 dust-boat
2 dust-carts (20) coolies)
Brooms, baskets, buckets, etc.
Uniforms
**
$3,120
720
360
...
***
4,320
1,500
2,400
480 200
$13,100
well for the Board to consider whether the use
The following minutes were appended: Mr. E. Osborne: "The Electric Co., I under. stand, are willing to supply lights to stall- holders at a fixed monthly rate, and I think the oil lamps should be abolished and electricity
made compulsory."
Dr. Clark: "I am personally in favour of requiring electric lamps inside the stalls; they are the safest, and would meet the V.P.'s suggestion as to uniformity.'
**
|
{
The following minutes were appended :-
than
the population of the more central
districts.
"It will be seen from the tabular statements that the two most densely crowded Health Districts (5 and 6), each of which has a population of over 800 persons to the acre, show the lowest symotic death-rate, and I may add same result. No greater argument could, I that the total death-rate per district gives the think, be adduced to prove how absolutely un- reliable are the district death-rates for purpose: of deduction (as already stated in my minutes of March 12th and May 17th herein). They show, in my opinon, that we must
Hon. F. H. May "I think it might be arranged with the stall-holders for them all go to use a uniform pattern, of good, safe type, of oil lamp. If this were done, perhaps the difficulty would be overcome. Cheap, ill- constructed lamps are dangerous and flare lights insanitary.
by Mr. BREWIN, the report was adopted.
On the motion of the PRESIDENT, seconded
REPORT OF THE QUARTERLY INSPECTION COMMITTEE,
The quarterly report of Messrs. May, Osborne and Fung Wa Chuen, the members of the Inspection Committee, was submitted. The report, which is dated 11th July, reads:-
**
reasons
The sub-committee for quarterly inspec- tion were unable for various
to make the inspection for the second quarter of the year before the close of the quarter. They made it on the 6th inst., and visited the following houses and streets in No. 9 Health District:-
"Eastern Street, No. 7-Clean.
to other sources for information 08 to the evil effects of surface-crowd- ing. and the information is furnished by every civilized city that has a resident and not a shifting population such as ours. It can hardly be seriously argued that, in Hongkong, surface-crowding is beneficial to the community, and yet this is the only deduction that can be drawn from such figures as are at our disposal.
"It is estimated that nearly two thousand Chinese leave this Colony daily for the main. land of China, and that rather more than that number return each day, so that there is simple opportunity for the vitiation of our statistics of sickness and deaths, while at the same time the districts in which the inhabitants are poorest will probably be the least affected. by this daily exodus.
"Every professional man who has made a study of the symotic diseases (and especially of bubonic plague) agrees that their diffusion is greatly encouraged by the absence of light