732
(e) Mezzanine floors, where they exist, must be strictly confined within the limits now laid down by Ordinance and steps should be taken for the summary removal of every mezzanine floor erected otherwise than in strict accordance with the law.
(f) No cubicle shall have walls exceeding 8 feet in height, and the space from the top of such wall to the roof or ceiling shall be open, or, if closed, closed only with bars or lattice work having the openings therein equal to at least two-thirds of the whole area barred or latticed.
No partition shall be allowed in any room more than 8 feet high unless each of the portions into which the room is divided by such partition has separate provision for light and air.
(9) No mezzanine floor shall be permitted in any room in which there are cubicles.
The Permanent Committee unanimously recommend and urge that all of the above requirements shall be embodied in an Ordinance and made applicable forthwith to every existing house in the Colony, and that the Sanitary Board be provided, to commence with, with a sufficient staff of Sanitary Inspectors (sixteen at the least or one for every 500 houses) to enforce obedience to these regulations, with adequate powers to enter and inspect.
The Permanent Committee would like to see a provision in any Ordinance to be passed, requiring every Chinese house in the Colony, and the out-offices and servants' quarters of every other house to be cleaned out and lime-washed once at least in every quarter.
These recommendations of the Permanent Committee are based on the very intimate knowledge they have obtained during the last seven weeks from observation and report as to the sanitary condition and defects of Chinese houses of all classes, and they beg to submit for the very serious consideration of the Government the following statement of these defects, and of the remedies that seem to them at the same time effective and thoroughly practical.
The first and by far the gravest of the existing defects is the saturation of the soil in and around Chinese dwellings with sewage of every description. This is a defect that must be remedied without a moment's delay and at any cost to individuals or to the Colony. Until it is remedied there is no possible preventative against Plague, Typhus, Cholera and other diseases of the same character, nothing to prevent the plague becoming endemic in Hongkong. This saturation of the soil exists to a most dangerous extent in Tai-ping-shan and is the main reason why that quarter has been wholly condemned and there are, unfortunately, other portions of the City nearly equally bad, which may have to be dealt with in the same way.
Saturation of the soil from sewage has arisen from two causes, mainly :
(1) That the ground floors of all Chinese houses are either of natural earth, or of porous tiles.
(2) That the drainage of all houses, up to a recent date, was of a very defective character permitting the percolation of sewage into the soil, and that the Chinese are so ignorant and careless in all matters of drainage that the new methods of drainage, sound and good in themselves, are so abused that the effect is very little less injurious than that of the old method. Traps and pipes are so constantly broken and choked that the sewage equally reaches the sub-soil.
There is only one effective remedy for this: the absolute prohibition of any Chinese drain and drain opening leading under the floor inside the walls of a house, and the requirement of an impervious ground floor in and around every Chinese house.
This remedy can only be applied, to its full extent, to houses to be hereafter built, but the impervious floor can and ought to be enforced in every house of every description in the Colony and at once.
The proposed exclusion of all drains and openings in or under the floor of any Chinese house necessarily involves the prohibition of the present style of building Chinese houses back to back in blocks and the enforcement of the law that all Chinese houses shall have at the back an open public scavenging lane at least 12 feet in width into which all down pipes of every description shall run and along which, either in open or covered drains, all sullage waters from the houses shall pass to the public sewers in the streets. The existence of such a law will also contribute very largely to the better lighting and ventilation of houses; want of adequate light and air being amongst the most serious defects of the present methods of building.
The recommendations of the Committee with reference to the first point are :
(1) That in any Ordinance to be passed the erection of blocks of houses back to back shall be absolutely prohibited and that every house to be hereafter built shall be required to have at the back or one end of it an open public scavenging lane.
(2) That there shall be no drains or drain openings inside the walls of any Chinese house to be hereafter built and that the ground floor shall be formed of impervious material at least a foot in depth. As to the houses now in existence that the existing ground floors shall be thoroughly cleaned out and re-made with impervious material to at least a foot in depth.
(3) That no basement shall, under any circumstances, be used as a dwelling-house.
(4) That no ground floor shall be used as a dwelling-house until the floor has been so cleaned and re-made to the satisfaction of the Sanitary Board.
The second point to which the attention of the Board has been called is overcrowding. The report of Mr. EDE's Committee dated 15th October, 1890, shows that overcrowding does not exist to so great an extent as some suppose and that it is confined to certain portions of the town and to certain classes of houses. The most serious practical evil arising out of it is the occupation of basements and ground floors as dwelling places and the multiplication in every room of every house of mezzanine floors, and on each floor of cubicles the partitions of which reach to the ceiling or to the mezzanine floors, and so interfere with light and ventilation. These evils are very serious and must be remedied. Light and air are the best preservatives against plague. Among the 4,000 people moved out of the infected district direct into new houses without any intermediate period of segregation and observation, there have been only 9 cases of sickness. The houses into which they went were clean, airy and lightsome, mezzanines and cubicles have been forbidden, and overcrowding stopped.
To remedy the evil of overcrowding, the Committee recommend that a law be forthwith passed fixing the limit of space for each adult in all houses now built or hereafter to be constructed at 21 square feet of floor, and 300 cubic feet of air space; requiring every house to be measured and surveyed and every room certified for the number of inhabitants it is fitted to contain; forbidding, in all houses, new or old, the occupation of basements for dwelling-houses; the occupation of shops and stores on the ground floor as dwelling rooms except for a very limited number; the co-existence on the same floor of mezzanines and cubicles; the construction of mezzanines where permitted otherwise than in strict accordance with law; the raising of the walls of cubicles above 8 feet; the occupation as dwellings of cook houses, enclosed yards, &c.; forbidding in houses to be hereafter built any rooms of a greater length than 50 feet not lighted from two sides at the least, and of all mezzanine floors.
The law must empower the Sanitary Board by their officers to visit at least once in each quarter every Chinese house and the out-offices and servants' quarters of all other houses under such limitations and regulations as the Board think requisite to prevent needless annoyance to families and persons in whose houses there can be no reasonable cause to suspect that overcrowding exists.