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to resist the conclusion that the officers
of the Public Works Department cannot be entirely acquitted of negligence in the discharge of their duties in this case, since
they appear to have approved the plans of the proposed alterations to the houses without sufficient examination, and to have failed to
exercise the powers of entry and inspection vested in the Department by section 75 of the Buildings Ordinance.
4.
I would remind you that the Building Overseer whose appointment was asked for in Sir H. Blake's despatch No. 85, of 9th March 1900,
in order to enable the Public Works Department to carry out the provisions of the Building Ordinances, appears to have arrived
in the colony before the alterations in these houses were carried out, so that there was all the more reason why such negligence should
not have occurred. I shall be glad to be informed