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Board. I am free to confess that personally I did not share the views of my colleagues in the Executive Council, as I conceive that it is always open to the Governor to run his pen through any byelaws of the Sanitary Board which he may deem objectionable. The foregoing brief statement will explain the difference between the Draft as transmitted home in Mr. March's despatch and the Bill as read a first time.
6. The Bill does not propose to interfere with any Chinese house as built, but limits its action to any new dwelling-houses that may be erected or old houses that may actually be rebuilt for the accommodation of tenants at the sacrifice of light and air. They say that the compulsory provision of ten-foot back-yards in the rear of human habitations will rob the dwelling proper of five feet of depth. Most Hong Kong Chinese tenements are three-storied, and most of them, as actually built, have back-yards only five feet in width. The Bill seeks to make this dimension ten feet. Diagram A shows a normal type of Hong Kong native house and Diagram B shows the wider back-yard which the Bill seeks to provide for the benefit of the tenants.
Diagram A Diagram B pulled down and re-erected after the Bill has become law.
7. As far as I can ascertain, the main objection of the landlords is to such portions of the Bill as will curtail the space hitherto used by them.
STREET
Kitchen Kitchen Yard Back Yard Back Yard House Dwelling House Dwelling House 15.00 15.00 STREET FRONTA
A