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210. Boarding Houses which include every place where any person is harboured or lodged for any kind whatsoever of hire or reward and where any domestic service whatsoever is rendered by the owner, lessee, principal tenant, occupier, or master to the person so harboured or lodged, but which does not include any boarding-house for non-Chinese seamen within the meaning of the Merchant Shipping Ordinance are licensed and controlled by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs.
211. They include hotels, common lodging houses, places where employers lodge their employees and the premises of societies within the meaning of the Societies Ordinance, where persons pass the night.
212. There are a great number of these boarding houses ranging from high-class hotels to lodging houses for rickshaw coolies.
# FOOD IN RELATION TO HEALTH & DISEASES
## Inspection and Control of Food Supplies
213. The laws dealing with this subject are the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance and the Sale of Food and Drugs Ordinance, both of which are administered by the Sanitary Department. Stall-holders and hawkers who come under the Licensing Ordinance 1887 are licensed by the Police.
214. During the year, the following samples were taken under the Sale of Food and Drugs Ordinance and subjected to analysis: - Milk 72, Condensed Milk 2, Cheese 14, Butter 2, Sugar 9, Tea 17, Chocolate 2, Bread 21, Biscuits 1, Flour 9, Tinned fish 11, Tinned Chicken 1. Thirty-two samples were found to be adulterated.
215. The following foodstuffs were seized under Section 82 of the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance:
| Foodstuffs | Quantity | |------------------|-------------------| | Tinned vegetables| 126 tins | | Tinned sardines | 4 cases | | Tinned fruit | 1 case | | Tinned food | 2 cases | | Various meats and fruits | 77 tins | | Cheese | 3 cases | | Milk | 7 tins | | Pork fat | 8 baskets | | Sausages | 1 basket | | Flour | 3 sacks | | Biscuits | 2 small baskets |
## DEFICIENCY DISEASES
216. The only information available regarding deficiency diseases is furnished by the returns of the Government Hospitals and Chinese Hospitals and the death returns. The Hospitals deal with only a small proportion of the sick, and the whole truth as regards the incidence of disease among the masses cannot be deduced from their returns. The death returns are also misleading in that the majority of cases were not treated by competent physicians prior to death, and the Medical Officer examining the body and forming a diagnosis had no history to assist him in coming to a conclusion as to the cause of death.