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cock lofts. For whose sake? Not for the sakes of the Chinese population, but for the sake of the prosperity of the Colony, when it is a well-known fact that crowds were procured by the speculators to fill these houses free of rent, in order that they might represent them to purchasers as being tenanted, and to this as much as anything we owe such an increase of the population living from hand to mouth as has appeared in the last few years, and the consequent overcrowding. In 1874, the houses that were more than two stories high could be easily counted. Now it would be much easier to reckon up those that are not more than two stories high.
82. These, among the numerous other defects in these buildings are what for years the Surveyor General and myself have been protesting against, and which in defiance of our protests Chinese petitioners have received sanction from Government to perpetuate.
85. That this class of causes which may arise from filth poison should be steadily increasing year after year is proof enough that there is something radically wrong somewhere, and Mr. Chadwick's and my own reports of the state of the Chinese houses in this city give sufficient evidence that there is every reason to believe much of it is caused by the foul and unwholesome state of these dwellings.
8. Table XVII shows the work done by the Inspectors of Nuisances. Now that a cleanliness amendment Ordinance has been passed, and a board appointed with a fair staff of officers to look after the sanitation of the Colony, it is to be hoped that in future years we may have to record an improved state of things. It has been a hard fight for the Surveyor General and myself for many years to prove that the state of things so well described in Mr. Chadwick's report existed at all except in our imaginations, and it was not until he was sent out as Sanitary Commissioner and sent in his report that we were thought anything but alarmists, exaggerating greatly what we have described to exist in the way of overcrowding, filth, and general uncleanliness in quarters of the town seldom visited by Europeans.
17.--The late Colonial Surgeon, in his Annual Report for 1883, said:
60. Those that think sanitary work in Hongkong is being overdone are evidently ignorant of the want of it, and are unaware of the mine that has been forming of late years, that some day may be sprung with most disastrous results. The Report made by Mr. Chadwick seems hardly to be appreciated by the general public.
During the Cholera scare, an order for a general clear-out of rubbish and filth in houses was made, and in eight days 54,800 piculs of filth were removed, most of which was of the most disgusting description, and raised quite an outcry of indignation in the Public Papers, when it appeared in the street, verifying the old proverb "What the eye does not see the heart does not grieve for." To show how quickly this removal was made, in one day 11,000 piculs of this filth were cleared out of the Colony, and an average removal of 6,450 piculs made on each of the eight days.
61. During 1883 Cholera appeared to a great extent in the neighbouring ports of Swatow and Foochow, and many ships were in quarantine in this harbour that had deaths on board from this disease. A slight revival of the previous years' epidemic appeared in the Philippines. It may again appear this year, and as this Port remains in many respects in the same unsanitary state as reported by Mr. Chadwick and myself in previous years, it behoves the Government to take every precaution possible to prevent its appearance here.
63. As we have now a Sanitary Board composed of the Heads of the Public Works, Registrar General's, Police and Medical Departments, the responsibility of settling most questions of sanitation in the Colony does not rest chiefly with me, I am thankful to say, as it did in former years, for as I got very little credit for exposing the filthy state of things existing in this City, and was pretty much looked upon as a causeless alarmist, until my reports were verified by a Commission sent from home, so most of the blame would have fallen on my shoulders if an epidemic had appeared in these years, and then only these discoveries I reported had been made.
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18. Since 1883, as the late Dr. Ayres repeatedly pointed out, the recommendations of Mr. Chadwick were for the most part left in abeyance, or ignored, and so far as anything practically resulting the Sanitary Commission of 1881 might never have been appointed. In 1897 a Commission was appointed to inquire into the existence of Insanitary Properties in the Colony. Paragraph 4 of that Report is as follows:--
We regret to have to report that there are many insanitary properties in the Colony, and dwellings, which, in their present condition, are unfit for human habitation. The back portions of a number of the houses visited by us are dark, ill-ventilated, extremely dirty, and in some cases more dens of filth. The interior of the cubicles or sub-divisions of the living rooms was such that in the great majority of cases their contents could be seen only by the aid of an artificial light.
19.--Crown Lands have been repeatedly sold in the City of Victoria without any regard whatever to sanitary needs, such as Markets, Bath-houses, Urinals, Latrines, Depôts for Cattle and Poultry, etc. The Sanitary Board has repeatedly urged the adoption of these reforms which have not been carried out. Dr. Francis Clark, the Medical Officer of Health, speaking at a meeting of the Sanitary Board on May 30th, 1901, said:-
The Board would admit that it was a most unfortunate thing for the colony that Crown land had been sold, which, had the Sanitary Board been consulted, would never have been placed under a hammer. The object of this resolution was to prevent in future the sale of Crown Lands which were required for municipal purposes. As an illustration he recalled to the minds of the members that, in March of last year, a site of Crown Land in the centre of the City, namely at the corner of Wing Lok Street and Old Praya was sold, and less than two months later the Acting Colonial Secretary wrote in reference to a recommendation from the Board for additional latrines and urinals—“It is easy to recommend the erection of urinals and latrines, but not easy to find sites for them." Dr. Clark admitted that a latrine was erected upon this particular site, but submitted that if the remainder of the site had been retained, it would have been of great value for the erection of a market, bath-houses, or some other municipal building. Again, he called their attention to the road leading from Hunghom to Kowloon City. This had been laid out as a 50-foot road and verandahs were being made on both sides of this road, which would reduce its effective width to about 30 feet. He was of the opinion that this would become a very important highway, and that a 30-foot road would be quite insufficient to serve the purposes of the traffic in the neighbourhood.
20.--On the authority of the minutes of the Sanitary Board, as published in the Government Gazette, we are able to point out that a Latrine in Shektongtsui, situate in the west end of the city, recommended by the Board at the end of 1896 is only now being completed. The Board also recommended a Public Latrine for Kowloon Point in 1890, but so far without result. Further Latrine accommodation was urged upon the Government in April 1897, May 1898, and April 1899, but nothing was done in the matter until 1900.