1920-1930
HONGKONG, 1921.
25
49
The actual management is entrusted to a committee elected annually by the members of the society. The society's buildings have been declared a Refuge under the Women and Girls Protection Ordinance, and almost all women and girls detained by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs under that Ordinance are sent to the Po Leung Kuk. During 1921 the number of persons admitted was 355 and at the close of year 42 remained under the care of the society. The inmates are under the immediate charge of a Chinese matron, and instruction is given them by the matron and a Chinese teacher in elementary subjects and in needlework.
The Eyre Diocesan Refuge is an institution under mission auspices, founded for rescue work among the Chinese. It was housed in the Belilios Reformatory up to the outbreak of war, but the work is at present carried on at Kowloon City. A small grant is made by the Government.
The City Hall receives an annual grant of $1,200 from Government. It contains a theatre, some large rooms which are used for balls, meetings, concerts, etc., a museum in which are some very fair specimens and a large reference and lending library, to which new volumes are 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 $39,505 for the year 1920. 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 April 24th, 1921, was 625,166, of whom 83,163 reside in the New Territories and in New Kowloon; at the census taken in 1911 it was 456,739 with 104,287 as the figure for the New Territories and New Kowloon. The estimated total population at the middle of the year under review was 686,680, but this includes the New Territories; and as the birth and death figures given below do not include those from