Sir,
Enclosure.
13381
The 16 JEP (6)
Medical Officer of Health to Secretary Sanitary Board.
Hong Kong 5th. May 1896.
434
I have the honour to report for the information of the Board that the recent house-to-house inspection and cleansing of the Chinese dwellings in the city of Victoria, has revealed the fact that almost the whole of these houses were in a most insanitary condition, by reason mainly of the filthy habits of their occupants and that if they are to be maintained in a reasonably cleanly state it will be necessary to increase the staff of Inspectors in the central division of the City.
I append a list of the number of Chinese houses and floors in each of the city districts, from which it will be seen that districts 4, 5, and 6 contain by far the largest number of houses; the Inspector in charge of No. 3 district is also in charge of the steam Disinfecting Apparatus, to which a considerable proportion of his time is necessarily devoted.
I am fully convinced from personal knowledge of the districts, that a district containing 2,000 to 2,500 floors is quite as large as one Inspector can possibly look after efficiently, having regard to the numerous other duties performed by the Inspectors of Nuisances, which comprise the supervision of all work carried out under the Scavenging and Conservancy Contracts, the inspection of public latrines, urinals, pigsties, cowsheds, etc., the supervision of offensive trades, of laundries, bakehouses, and cemeteries, the night inspection of common lodging houses, basements, and tenement houses with a view to the prevention of overcrowding, and the service of notices for breaches of the Public Health Ordinances.