559
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The Mee Lun Lane Improvement Scheme was completed. Another section of Robinson Road, Kowloon, extending from Market Street to Waterloo Road was undertaken and the removal of the bill North of Yaumati Theatre was continued, the material being used for privite reclamation work North of the Naval Coaling Depôt. The extensions of Conduit Road in Easterly and Westerly directions and of the road past Kowloon City mentioned last year were completed, and a further section of the latter road extending to its junction with the Chin Lau Chu Road was undertaken. A new path, connecting Barker Road with May Road, as the extension of Conduit Road in an Easterly direction has been designated, was completed.
The extension and reconstruction of the Albany Filter Beds was continued, fair pro- gress being made with the work.
The total amount expended on Public Works Extraordinary, exclusive of Advance Accounts and Deposits not Available, was $784,320 and on Works Annually Recurrent, $538,041. By the transfer of the item "Typhoon and Raiustoria Damage" from the former head to the latter, the first-mentioned sum has been diminished by $106,659 whilst that last-mentioned has been correspondingly increased.
Good progress was made on the British Section of the Hongkong-Canton Railway the cost of which is being defrayed by a Loan.
During the year 1907 the re-alignment consequent on the detailed survey by the Construction Engineers was completed and work cominenced over the whole length." The reclamation for a site for Kowloon Station Yard was started in June. The actual heading driving in Beacon Hill Tunnel ny be said to have started on January 1st, 1907. During the year two thousand one hundred feet of heading was driven from both ends and from the shafts sunk at both the North and South sides and four Indred and sixty-five feet of tunnel fully lined. About two-thirds of the compressor plant was in working order, the headings not being far enough advanced to necessitate special ventilating plant. There was difficulty experienced at first in obtaining sufficient labour for work underground but towards the end of the year on the rates being raised slightly a large number of skilled mining coolies returned from South Africa flocked to the work.
Bridge building progressed steadily all through the year as well as Earthwork and the minor tunnels, there being no very great difficulties to contend with except in one of the latter. A temporary metre gauge line was laid from the sea front at Lokloha to the North face, the shaft (278') was completed and a considerable number of houses for Staff erected. The systematic issue of quinine to all rail employés resulted in a diminution of malarial fever.
The expenditure on the work during the year amounted to $2,314,915.
VI-GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS.
(a.) HOSPITALS.
Government Bospitals consist of the Civil Hospital to which is attached an isolated Maternity Hospital, the Victoria Hospital for Women and Children, the Kennedy Town Infectious Diseases Hospital, and the hulk "Hygeia" used mainly for the treatment of Small-pox.
The Civil Hospital contains 150 beds in 19 wards. 2,711 in-patients and 17,302 out- patients were treated during the year 1907.
243 cases of Malarial Fever were admitted as against 239 in 1906 and 267 in 1995. The Maternity Hospital contains 6 beds for Europeans and 4 for Asiatics. 87 confinements occurred during the year. The Victoria Hospital at the Peak contains 41 beds. During 1907, 211 patients were under treatment. Kennedy Town Hospital contains 26 beds. In 1907, 63 cases were treated, of which 16 were Plague. On the "Hygeia" 167 cases were treated, of which 96 were Small-pox.
(b) LUNATIC ASYLUM,
The Asylum is under the direction of the Superintendent of the Civil Hospital. European and Chinese patients are separate, the European portion containing 8 beds in separate wards and the Chinese portion 16 beds. 222 patients of all races were treated during 1907, and there were 13 deaths.
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(c) THE TUNG WAH HOSPITAL.
This Hospital, opened in 1872, is mainly supported by the voluntary subscriptions of Chinese, but receives an annual grant of $8,000 from the Government. "Only Chinese are treated in this institution which takes the place of a poor-house, and hospital for Chinese sick and destitute. Various other services not appertaining to a Hospital are performed by the Institution such as the free burial of the poor, the repatriation of destitutes, and the organisation of charitable relief in emergencies. Chinese as well as European methods of treatinent are employed in accordance with the wishes expressed by the patients or their friends. About half the pumber are now treated by Western methods and the number is steadily increasing. The Hospital is managed by a Committee of Chinese gentlemen annually elected, their appointment being submitted to the Governor for confirmation; is under the direct charge of a Chinese Resident Surgeon, paid by the Government; and is under the supervision of a Visiting Physician who is a member of the Medical Department.
VIL--INSTITUTIONS NOT SUPPORTED BY GOVERNMENT,
Among institutions recognised and encouraged but not to any considerable extent sup- ported by Government may be mentioned the Pó Leung Kuk, the College of Medicine för Chinese, and the City Hall,
The Pó Leung Kuk is an institution, incorporated in 1893, presided over by the Registrar General and an annually-elected Committee of 12 Chinese gentlemen, for the protection of women and children. The inmates of the Home receive daily instruction in elementary subjects and are allowed to earn pocket-money by needlework. During 1907, a total of 345 persous were admitted. Of these, 85 were released after enquiry, 5 were released under bond, 131 were placed in charge of their husbands, parents or relations, I was placed in charge of the Japanese Consul, 1 in charge of the French Consul, 22 were sent to charitable institutions in China, 16 were sent to School, Convent or Refuge, 12 were adopted and 38 were married. Thirty-four persons remained in charge of the Society at the end of the year.
The Hongkong College of Medicine was founded in 1887. The government of the College is vested in the Court, of which the Rector of the College, who has always been a Government official, is President. 102 students have been enrolled up to the end of 1907, and of these 33 have become qualified licentiates and have obtained various posts under Government and elsewhere. The institution is of great value in spreading a knowledge of Western medical science among the Chinese; and in addition to the employment of certain of the licentiates in the public service, and in the Chinese Dispensaries the senior students have frequently been made use of for various purposes during epidemics. A Government grant-in-aid of $2,500 is made to the College, to be used as honoraria to the lecturers, who are either Government officials or Medical practitioners in local practice. Steps are at present being taken for the provision of adequate buildings for the purposes of the College, which has hitherto carried on its work in various lecture-rooms and labor- atories placed at its disposal by hospitals and other institutions in different parts of the City.
The City Hall receives an annual grant of $1,200 from Government. It contains a Reference and Circulating Library and Museum.
VIIL-CRIMINAL AND POLICE,
The total of all cases reported to the Police was 11,5-10 being an increase of 396 or 3.55 per cent. as compared with 1906. In the division of these cases into serious and minor offences there is a decrease in the former as compared with the previous year of 27 cases or .81 per cent.
The number of serious offences reported was 207 below the average of the quinquennial period commencing with the year 1903.
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