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operations and rails and partly from the unstable character of the rickshas, accidents are not infrequent. His Excellency Major-General Gascoigne, when Officer Administering the Government, was thrown out of a ricksha and narrowly escaped serious injury.
With the Godown Company's tramways occupying the roadway, it is obviously impossible to arrange for a tramway for public traffic to be laid to the Ferry Pier and, as the Company's tramways extend along the cross thoroughfares, Elgin and Chater Roads, it would be necessary for the public to traverse a considerable distance in order to reach the tramway from the Ferry, or vice versa, in the event of such means of locomotion being provided. Incidentally, it appears probable that a public tramway will be laid in the near future.
The Company were approached on the subject of making a radical change in the arrangements in order to enable the public traffic to be carried on with comfort and safety and, after prolonged negotiations, extending over some 18 months or more, the scheme now submitted has been evolved.
It provides for the construction of a new road, 100 feet in width, through the Company's premises, at a point where a pier for the Ferry launches can be erected clear of the piers at which ocean-going steamers discharge and load their cargoes, and in order to avoid interference with the public traffic by the Company's operations, it is proposed partly to depress the Praya roadway and partly to raise the new roadway so that the former will pass underneath the latter. The new roadway has been suitably arranged to form part of the scheme of main thoroughfares for Kowloon.
To admit of the completion of the scheme, arrangements have also been made with the Hongkong Land Reclamation Company, who in December, 1902, purchased Marine Lots 74 and