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The Sanitary Board as reconstituted meets fortnightly and at times of alarm, as in the case of the small-pox epidemic and the cholera scare, holds frequent emergency meetings. Voluminous reports have been made, and some of them published, by Sub-Committees, the Superintendent and Secretary of the Board, Mr. MCCALLUM, the Sanitary Surveyor, Mr. Cook, the Veterinary Surgeon, Mr. LADDS, under whom are the Markets, Slaughter-Houses and Cattle Depôts and Lairs, and by the Board Inspectors. The Board's Officers have had some praise sparingly given, but one and all have been severely and at times censured in no measured terms by some members of the Bourd for having in their zeal for the service done things which required immediate attention and common sense sanctioned being done, and on being reported at the next Board meeting received the censure as their reward for doing things without the previous sanction of the Board.
The Official Members of the Board in their several capacities have had metaphorical missiles thrown at them in unstinted supplies.
The want of a Medical Health Officer as Superintendent many times insisted on by me from the beginning as an absolute necessity, but from economical motives ignored till Mr. McCALLUM's health broke down completely from the overwork of doing the double duty which necessitated his being out and about the greater part of the day and doing his office work at night. The necessity of a Medical Officer of Health then begun to dawn upon them generally and was fully recognized when the plague began.
Long wordy, windy, desultory, rambling discussions are held by the Board at their fortnightly 14meetings ending in nothing being done. Sub-Committee's report, called for in many cases as a means of delaying action, end in abortive attempts at action, as in the case of the Sub-Committee's report on Overcrowding when threats of riots and strike, amongst the Chinese, moderated the tone of the majority of the Board, when it appeared that the mercantile community and the general public would be seriously inconvenienced, and things were relegated to the future for further consideration, es in the case of the Sub-Committee appointed to enquire into the Fat-Boiling Nuisance to which I refined in my Annual Report for 1893. whose report although referring to the condition of filth and general insanitation of the houses in which this business was conducted, situated in First, Second, Third and High Streets, some of those being houses the insanitary condition of which I mentioned in my Report of the 15th April, 1874, were situated to the west of the Hospital in High, First, Second and Third Streets. Mr. Ene and Mr. HUMPHREYS, unofficial members of the Board the Sub- Con mittee appointed, inspected these premises and sent in a report in which they said: Nearly the
whole of the hot ses are in a most dilapidated condition. The floors were reeking with filth.
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drainage was very bad, smell abominable. In some of the houses were dark holes in which there were quantities of decon posing and putrid meat, fat and hones, and one of them filled with maggots. The stench from these places was unbearable.” I inspected these houses also and found them in the s: me cordition I had reported twenty years ago; fat-boiling was going on there, but, with the assistance of the Registrar General, I had them cleared out and suppressed that business in the neighbourhood of the Hospi al. It had begun again of late years and I have often reported them before with result 1) at the unisce has abated for a time. When this report was read before the Board I stated that these houses were in as disgusting a condition as many of the worse slums of the Central District of Taipingshan, independently of the fat-boiling, that many other houses in the same streets where no fat-boiling was done were in the same filthy and insanitary condition, and that these Louses were, in my opinion, unfit for human habitation. The Board then recommend- That "the te ants should be called upon to abate the nuisance," which was done. The Board also reconin ended-"That the landlords should be notified to put these houses in proper order." That the notices were saved is proved by the papers attached to the documents which had been before the Board, but there is no record to show that the landlords paid any attention to the notification, and no further steps appear to have been taken in the matter and it ended in nothing being done. The houses in these streets, next to the walled up portion of Taipingshan were the worst centres of the plague-stricken districts; scores of them were closed as unfit for human Imbitation and remain so to this day.
Reports of the Eod's Sanitary Surveyor on houses requiring re-draining are continually being referred back for funther report in the interest of the landlords or the tenants whose rights must not be infringed upon, or only sanctioned conditionally, or refused sanction altogether on account of insuffi- cient water supply radering re-draining incompatible, in the opinion of some members, with the necessities of the case.
The powers given to the Board to act are not used because they are insufficient, because they interfere with the rights of the landlod. the tenant, or the public. Action is deprecated in every possible way. The Board's legal members are great in explaining what the Board cannot do in consequence of the want of sufficient powers and but little light is afforded to the Board by them as to what can be done with the limited powers the Board possesses. Every care was taken to hamper the Board in doing anything, and every opportunity to declaim on the iniquity of the water supply not being in the hards of the Board, the wint of powers to act, the need for reform (especially Muni- cipal Reform) and the voy great need of a Municipal Council to save the Colony from destruction. All sorts of wild theories are promulgated and beautiful plays are acted for the benefit of the gallery acid by the reporters of the public press who furnish the papers with jesting and caustic reports of the discussions to the great amusement of the public, and subject those members desirous of doing the work for which they were appointed to unlimited chaff; the reports of the Board's meetings being looked forward to as a source of amusement in these dull times.
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