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Housing Conditions.-The site on which Victoria stands is a narrow strip of land 4 miles long by 1/5th to 2/5ths of a mile broad lying at the northern foot of the mountain and separating it from the sea. The total area of available space is about one square mile or 1/32nd of that of the whole island. Limited in front by the sea and behind by the steep slopes of the mountain there remains hardly an inch of space which has not been occupied for one purpose or another. The residential portion of the town where the masses live does not exceed 400 acres. In this space 500,000 individuals find accommodation giving a density of 1,250 per acre.
The conformation of the site with its rapid rise of land near the sea-shore led in the early days to the erection of houses on the narrow strip of land near the harbour and extending a little way up the lower slopes of the mountain, the houses being separated by narrow lanes and alleyways. When the population was small and the houses only one and two stories in height, the situation was not unsatisfactory. As the population increased the houses were heightened to four and five stories without any corresponding widening of the spaces separating them.
Writing in 1882 when the population was 160,000, the area much the same as it is now and the density 400 per acre, Chadwick stated:- "Overcrowding of houses on the ground occurs to a serious extent and so does overcrowding of houses with humans." By 1901, when Chadwick again visited, the density had risen to 700 per acre. In his report he said that the housing conditions were rather worse than better than they were in 1882. As regards area per person they were the same but as regards ground area they were worse owing to the large number of lofty houses which had been built during the interval.
Year by year the population continued to increase, immigration being accelerated by unrest in China. Victoria was the centre of trade and therefore the centre of attraction. There was no room to build further accommodation and the newcomers had to squeeze into the already overcrowded premises. Rooms were divided into cubicles which to a certain extent provided privacy but which interfered both with lighting and ventilation.
Year by year the Sanitary Department and the Building Authority made efforts to deal with the situation and with a certain amount of success both as regards palliative and radical treatment. The task, almost sisyphean in itself, was rendered more difficult by paucity of water and by opposition put forward both by property owners and the occupiers.
The position to-day is that 500,000 people are being accommodated in an area not exceeding 400 acres in extent where the streets are narrow and the houses four and five stories high. The density is 1,250 to the acre. The people are packed together in the houses like steerage passengers on emigrant ships. In