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Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
COLONIAL REPORTS-ANNUAL.
added from time to time, as funds will allow. The building was erected in 1866-9 by subscription.
Small grants are also given to the Italian Convent, the French Convent (both of which take in and tend abandoned or sick infants), the West Point Orphanage, the Seamen's Hospital, and other charitable institutions.
The Chinese Public Dispensaries are institutions maintained in order to provide the Chinese with the services of doctors, whose certificates will be accepted by the Registrar of Deaths, and with the services of interpreters, who can assist the inmates of houses, where a case of infectious disease has occurred. Coolies are engaged and ambulances and dead vans provided in order to remove cases of infectious disease to the Infectious Diseases Hospital and dead bodies to the Mortuary. The Dispensaries receive sick infants and send them to one or other of the Convents and arrange for the burial of dead infants. Free advice and medicine are given and patients are attended at their houses. There are eight Dispensaries in existence. The total cost of maintenance was $45,363.83 for the year 1919. The Government makes an annual grant of $7,000, and the rest of the cost is defrayed by voluntary subscription. The Dispensaries are conducted by committees under the chairmanship of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs.
VIII-VITAL STATISTICS.
(a)-POPULATION,
The civil population of the Colony, according to the Census taken on May 20th, 1911, was 456,739, of whom 104,287 reside in the New Territories and in New Kowloon; at the Census taken in 1906 it was 301,967 exclusive of the New Territories and of New Kowloon. The estimated total population at the middle of the year under review was 596,100, but this includes the New Territories; and as the birth and death figures given below do not include those from this area (with the exception of New Kowloon), the population for the purposes of calculating these rates is estimated at 499,000, of whom 13,600 were Non-Chinese.
The distribution of population estimated to the middle of 1919 was as follows:--
Non-Chinese Civil Community 13,600 Chinese Population-- City of Victoria (including Peak) 320,080 Villages of Hongkong 16,520 Kowloon (including New Kowloon) 86,550 New Territories 97,100 Population afloat 64,250 Total Chinese Population 584,500 Total Civil Population 598,100(b)-PUBLIC HEALTH AND SANITATION.
The activity in building operations, which has been so noticeable a feature since 1912, has not abated, and the demand for housing
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