81. Now what has been argued of late years is that the unwholesome style of building in Hongkong is peculiar to the Chinese, and therefore, though bad enough as one-storied buildings, they have been permitted to make them three and four storied, and even then to subdivide each storey by cock lofts. For whose sake? Not for the sakes of the Chinese population, but for the sake of a set of gamblers in House property. The overcrowding has been represented as showing the prosperity of the Colony, when it is a well-known fact that crowds were procured by the speculators to fill these houses free of rent, in order that they might represent them to purchasers as being tenanted, and to this as much as anything we owe such an increase of the population living from hand to mouth as has appeared in the last few years, and the consequent overcrowding. In 1874, the houses that were more than two stories high could be easily counted. Now it would be much easier to reckon up those that are not more than two stories high.
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"With all this overcrowding, and consequent dirt and discomfort, it is strange to find that, on the east of the town particularly, there are several large lots unbuilt on, and it is surprising to learn that time has elapsed during which the lessees were bound to build on them according to their leases, and yet the penalty of forfeiture provided by law has not been enforced. Thus writes Mr. CHADWICK, but then the Chinese do not care for the east part of the town, and small European houses are not such profitable properties as the unwholesome buildings in which Chinese are compelled to live, and now hundreds of Europeans also. These, once run up as described by Mr. CHADWICK, never get any repairs worth mentioning, however much they may be required. For a description of their drainage and general sanitation, the following, copied from the above-mentioned report, is sufficiently graphic. 'Of late years the Government have made the connection to the main sewer and constructed the house drain up to the front wall of the house. The remainder of the drain has been left to the uncontrolled intelligence of the Chinese builders. No care whatsoever is taken as to line, gradient, or workmanship.'
"In February last (1882) a new drain was being constructed in the following manner: sides were of brick on edge, and did not rest on the tile which formed the sole. See Fig. 39, Sheet IX. Under these circumstances, it need hardly be said that a great proportion of house drains are but elongated cesspools, the greater part of their fluid contents filtering into the subsoil. In one case, a drain was found having no bottom but the natural soil."
"Instances are to be found where the outer wall of one property is built so close to that of the adjacent house as to leave an inaccessible space between them which serves as an open drain. In one case, the space between two houses was but 8 inches wide, and it received the filth from windows of cook houses looking into it (Cleverly Street).
Something similar was found in José Lane, opening from Ladder Street. As the arrangement of the houses is characteristic, it is shown in Fig. 44, Sheet X. Here a drain certainly went down into the gully, but what became of it afterwards could not be discovered.
"The slops from the upper cook houses are conducted down by a pipe of rough earthenware coated with plaster. Frequently this is inside the house, in which case it delivers its flow into the floor of the cook house below, as in the case of the house shown in Figs. 1, 3, Sheet I."
"At other times it is put outside the house. As the upstairs lodgers have no convenience for getting rid of rubbish, much is stuffed into the down pipe, choking it, causing it to leak and saturate the walls with filthy fluid, oozing from its imperfect joints. For the same reason, the house drain also is frequently obstructed."
82. These, among the numerous other defects in these buildings, are what for years the Surveyor General and myself have been protesting against, and which, in defiance of our protests, Chinese petitioners have received sanction from Government to perpetuate.
83. Mr. CHADWICK further says, 'regarding the health of the Chinese, "Many experienced medical men who have practised in China have recorded the opinion that typhoid fever is almost unknown there.
"It would appear that some have concluded from this that the filth and stinks with which the Chinese surround themselves are not only harmless, but even beneficial, that they have discovered the true art of living, and that they should be allowed to do in Hongkong as they do in the City of Kowloon and elsewhere in their own country."
"It will therefore be well to examine the evidence on which these conclusions are based, and to see whether, according to the scanty statistics available, the Chinese are so healthy a race that it would be presumptuous for Westerns to interfere with their time-honoured stinks."
"With regard to the absence of certain diseases, with due deference to the experienced men who attest this fact, it must be observed that their evidence is not quite complete. On the mainland, no vital statistics are kept, and by far the greater majority die without consulting an European Physician. Even in Hongkong, the greater number of deaths are registered by Chinese Doctors, who, with very few exceptions (those trained in England), do not distinguish these diseases from others similar in their general characteristics. Other medical men, while admitting the rarity of true typhoid fever, assert that malignant fevers, apparently filth fevers, are but too common (Dr. DUDGEON of Pekin, in his paper on the habits of Chinese in China, between 1880 and 1883), so this form of filth disease is not unknown."