149
as it does more than 100,000 Chinese. The
object does not
intention to effect, such an object
however appear on the face of that which I now
believe
[unreadable text, possibly due to OCR error or non-English script]
He first attempt made in that
direction viz. the Chinese petition of January 1851 now before me and in which permission is asked merely to build a Temple wherein the "Ancestral
tablets of their Countrymen dying in the Colony
#
I might be placed till their fellow villagers
[unreadable text, possibly due to OCR error or non-English script]
connections visiting Hong Kong could carry them home."
18.
A plot of ground was then granted
them to hold rent free for that purpose
!!
#
so long as it was
• used solely as a temple".
not long
I
came here in June 1866.
was
that condition however, was
observed, for soon after Surveyor General reported that Coffins
containing bodies
were
stowed
away near
the Temple. The Colonial Surgeon however
in a minute now
before me reported that the
coffins
were
solid well closed and in no way
a nuisance and that he had known the:
He also mentioned as a
place for years.
much greater
nuisance the practice of the
Keeper to let out a few small contiguous
rooms
to the friends of poor people sent there to die
so as
to
escape the expense and trouble of purifying their dwellings from the uncleanness brought by death.
9. Your Lordship thus perceives that
Chinese
way
into
no longer the pure
usages were gradually forcing their
and I specially
our
[unreadable text, possibly due to OCR error or non-English script]
drew
the Surveyor General (Mr. Wilson's) attention to that part of D. Maunay's Memo as he had an Inspector of Buildings
under