domestic dwellings,
while
permit have been issued by the Sanitary Board for the occupation of 544 of these
basements as shops, with one
or more caretakers, according to the degree of ventilation of the premises.
Some of the over-crowding of the poorer classes of dwellings has been abated by enforcing the provisions of sections 1, 8 and 9;
but I regret to say that this Ordinance has signally failed to provide any remedy whatever for the far more injurious crowding together of dwellings which at present exists in the Chinese quarters of the city.
Many of these dwellings are what is known as "back-to-back houses", often fronting narrow private streets, and many of them have originally been provided with shallow "back yard" about 5 feet deep, but these have been long since covered in and converted to various domestic uses, with the result that the kitchens and back premises of these dwellings are in almost total darkness, necessitating the use of artificial light at all hours of the day.
It would appear
to have been the intention
of the "Committee on housing the Chinese", to judge from their report of 28th July 1894,
that this Ordinance should deal with these insanitary conditions, but unfortunately no provision was made therein enabling...