173
Hardly any damage was done to the building by the Typhoon; only a jillmill here broken and a few panes of glass.
there was Table X.A. shows the number of admissions, which have been much less than usual, compared with the last few years. Table B. shows the number of women brought under the provisions of the Contagions Diseases Ordinance, and this number is also less than that of 1873.
Table C. shows the number of men diseased during the year, which is 207, as compared with 421 in 1873, or rather less than half the number.
Table E. shows the character of the diseases. It will be observed that only 3 cases of Primary Syphilis occurred among the Military, and only 4 cases among the Police. Of the Navy, out of 83 cuses of venereal disease, of all classes, 50 were not contracted in Hongkong, and very few of the cases recorded as Primary Syphilis were contracted here. But the Military and Police show the working of the Ordinance best, as they are residents and know the licensed brothels better, not being so apt to be led away by sly prostitutes. With a considerable number nore men in Port and Garrison, the amount of disease is shown to be less than half of what it was in 1873.
The largest number of women in Hospital this year at any one time was 58, and that was in the mouth of June. For the first time this year, the European and American women were brought under the Ordinance in August last, with good results, as several who were engaged in spreading disease quitted the Colony. They are visited at their own homes.
Owing to the number of cases of Fever of a Typhoid type being brought to the Civil Hospital from the Chinese licensed brothels, I received a request from the Government to inspect and report upon them. [This I found had never been done by any of my predecessors.]
This is hardly currect
C. C. Smith, Omit.
J. G. AUSEL.
I went through all the brothels, took note of every house, and reported the number of women it could decently contain, and what repairs or alterations required to be made.
Without exception, these places were filthy, overcrowded deus. The floors, walls, ceilings, black with filth and smoke; with sleeping rooms next to the privies and over them, separated from then only by thin planks, with wide apertures between the boards; buckets of night-soil of several days accumulation standing putrifying in the privies, and no disinfectants used; filthy kitchens, having no chimneys and the smoke pervading the house; drains choked up and stinking. In fact, I found all the conditions favourable for the production of Typhoid Fever.
Omit.
In consequence of my Report, many houses were closed altogether. For the others, I wrote out instructions, some of which applied to all the brothels, others to individual houses only, coucerning whitewashing, painting, cleaning, &c., the removal of privies, sleeping rooms, &c.
This winter, making the inspection, I find a wonderful change has been effected; the houses look clean, light and airy for the most part, and, by the end of this year, I hope to have them all in good condition. I have again gone through every house, and entered in a book what I desire should be done. To fairly inspect these houses, requires about 15 inspections of an afternoon each, but the results have been well worth the trouble, for since the carrying out of my suggestions, no cases of Typhoid have been found in these houses. There are 123 licensed Chinese brothels, containing 1,358 prostitutes
besides the keepers, servants, &c.
now,
I think I may fairly claim that good and efficient work has been done in this department ander my charge.
HEALTH OF THE COLONY.
Table XI. shows the mortality among the Europeans and Americans in the Colony during the last ten years, and by this it would appear that the Colony had been less health than during the pre- vious two years, but this in reality is not the case. Deducting the number of those that were drowned or otherwise killed during the Typhoon, the death rate has not increased appreciably. The rainfall last
year was considerably above the average, nearly 10 inches over that of 1873, and 23 inches over that of 1872, as shown in Table XIII.
SANITATION.
To Govt. Printer. e report should
Table XII. shows the work of the Inspectors of Nuisances in part only. The number of persons fined has been much less than usual, but the fines have been much heavier here have than before.
On the subject of Sanitation I also made a long special Report at the beginning of this year, and, for that Report, I made a series of inspections in company with my Inspectors. I have this winter made another series of inspections in company with Mr. PRICE, the Surveyor General. The result of these inspections goes to prove that however much on the surface the town of Victoria may appear cleaner than most Eastern towns, beneath the surface it would be difficult to find a filthier condition of things.
My first series of inspections discovered that pigs were kept in houses all over the town, by hundreds, and that pigsties were to be found under the beds and in the kitchens.
the honou
C. C. Smith.
Omit.
It seems to me that all may be omitted fron
this. We have the special report, and action will
be taken so you
as means and
irennstanceS
permi
J. Q. Austin.
of first, second and third floors.
I visited many houses in which over a hundred pigs were kept; every bed in these houses had from five to seven large pigs in a sty constructed underneath it, and either from the connivance or ignorance of a late Inspector of Markets, whose duty it was to see that the pigs were kept in proper places, many of the people had Government Licences so to keep their pigs. Imagine houses whose upper floors are con- structed of thin boards, with wide interstices between them, and whose lower floors are mud, and the state they would be in under these circumstances, with pigs' urine, &c. dropping through from floor to floor! It is needless to observe that the minute this state of things was brought to the notice of Government, it was at once put a stop to, and that now all pigs found in bouses are confiscated, and, on repetition of the offence, the owner is fined as well.
TOWN.
The late inspections were still more thoroughly done, and nearly every street, lane and gully in the lower quarter of the town were visited, and notes of the condition of the houses, drains, &c. were taken carefully, with the following results :—
There are three different styles construction of houses in the lower quarters of the First, houses which are constructed in blocks, back to back, with no ventilation except from the frout. Secondly, houses with narrow gullies from 1 foot to 6 feet wide at the back, down which a filthy open drain runs, or a very dilapidated closed one. these drains the downspouts of the different floors of the houses on each side of the gully empty themselves. Thirdly, houses with lanes at the back, for the convenience of the inhabitants of the cellar floors, the back of these floors being formed of the ground of the street above, owing to the hilly nature of the ground on which the house is built.
Each
Into
Otherwise, the construction of these houses is the same throughout the town, floor consists of a large main room and a small kitchen; generally the kitchen is at the back, but in cases where the back of the floor is against the hill-side, the kitchen is in the front, and whatever ventilation there is, the air has to come through the kitchen before it reaches the inhabitants in the main room.
The average size of the main rooms is 26 feet by 14 feet by 10 feet high, containing eight partitions, averaging 7 feet by 6 feet by 7 feet high, over which a sort of loft is often built to increase the accommodation, and in a room of this description, from 16 to 25 people live.
It is extremely rare to find that walls or ceiling (which is composed of the bare rafters and boards of the floor above, or of the roof) have ever been whitewashed; if they have, it was only when the house was first built the walls are generally bare bricks. The ground floor is, in nine cases out of ten, composed of mud; in the other case, it is composed of tiles or stone flags, and is generally very dump. The upper floors are com- posed of rough quarter-inch planks, with wide interstices between them.
In no case, from the time the house had been built, had the floors ever been washed, their construction, as a rule, rendering it impossible. The first-floor tenants cannot wash their floors, because they are mud; the upper floor tenants cannot wash theirs, because they would, if they attempted it, half drown the inhabitants of the floors beneath them.
In each partition of the main room, a family, or several members of a family, sleep. The men go to the public privies; the women and children use covered pots, which are kept in the partitions under the beds; the night-soil is removed, on an average, every third day; it varies in some cases from two to five days.
for
Women of the lowest class rarely wash themselves; men, only the exposed parts of their persons. I have seen many women who have candidly confessed that they have not even wiped themselves down with a damp cloth (which is the Chinese mode of washing) years, and I saw no reason to doubt their words. If any washing is done, either of bodies or clothes, it is generally done in the kitchen. Clothes-washing varies from once or twice a month to once in several months, or not at all, and a cotton suit will last, 1 am told. from five to six years, and more; if they were washed often they would not last so long. Many articles of clothing are never washed at all, on any account; those that are quilted, for instance. Bedding is composed of quilted cotton, or a stuff resembling soft felt, covered by a light not to prevent it from tearing, and in no case is over washed; sheets are never used. I never saw any entirely new bedding; the newest I saw was I have seen three years in possession of the owner, and he had bought, it second-hand. bedding twenty years old, and that was bought second-hand. It is taken out and aired occasionally, and a few of the vermin picked out, if they are found to be too numerous.
The average quantity of water used daily by each individual is about two quarts, and this is considered sufficient, as a rule, for cooking, drinking and washing purposes. Often it has to be brought from a considerable distance, and this is troublesome and expensive, so they do with as little as possible.
Kitchens' average size is 13 feet by 6 feet by 10 feet high, with stone or tile floors, always very wet and dirty. It is rare to find a chimney; there is generally a square opening in each of the floors above, forming a sort of shaft, without walls to it, and the smoke gets up through these if it can, or escapes by a small window; that is to say, part of it; the j
Vide Ordinance
No. 9 of 1887,
3 XIV.