PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference:
TILICO. 882
لبيلسان
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIE,
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO:
Upper Boor.
Description of house in Peel Street inhabited on ground floor.
Latrines and
salpite do not
exist, though
Building
Ordinance
directs this
construction.
Underground
house drains,
their arrange
12
38. The wooden floor of the upper storey is usually encrusted with mud, for the boards are so loosely jointed that it could not be washed without deluging the people below, even were water available for the purpose, which is seldom the case.
39. In some parts of the town the ground floor also is used as a dwelling. In a house in Peel Street having a frontage of 15 feet and a depth of about 50 feet, the ground floor was divided into four cabins about 10 feet by 10 feet each, inhabited by a family. The head inan of this floor was a fireman aboard a local steamer; he paid the rent to the landlord for the whole floor ($8.50 a month). Inhabiting one cabin himself, he sublet the remaining three. The first floor also was divided into four cabins and occupied by 13 persons; the second floor was occupied by 11 persons, small traders from Shanghai. This house, situated in one of the better streets, is certainly above the average in point of accommodation.
"
49. Notwithstanding that Ordinance 8 of 1856 directs that, "every house shall be to the satisfaction of the provided with a latrine or privy and ashpit "Surveyor General," anything satisfying the most modest requirement as to such appliances, is very rarely to be found. In the houses of the poorer classes they do not exist, unless indeed a pot placed in the corner of the cook house, sometimes enclosed by a few boards, may be considered to be a latrine within the meaning of the Act. This subject will be treated more fully under the head of scavenging.
41. To carry off slopwater, a drain leads from a sink in the cookhouse to the public sewer. The arrangement of these house drains varies so considerably, that it is ment, material, impossible to determine any general rule of construction, for very often their course and
position cannot be ascertained.
and construc-
tion.
Materials and
construction of house drains.
main sewers
made by
Government,
but no control
remainder of work.
Sometimes each house has an independent drain running out under the floor to the street in front. More often the drain runs from cookhouse to cookhouse, under the party walls of adjacent tenements, till it reaches the end of the row, or is brought out under some one house to the front. Sometimes, but very rarely, the drain runs along a back alley. Not unfrequently private house drains traverse several distinct lots, or It does not appear to be the practice to properties, on their way to the public sewer. make provision for this state of things by easement or otherwise in deeds of transfer. Consequently, if one or more houses out of a row having a common drain are sold and reconstructed, the remaining houses may be deprived of their outlet to the sewer. (Example lot 83 and Heung Lane, among others.)
42. For house drains, brick (often the inferior blue brick), is the usual material. It is set in common mortar, and sometimes bedded in concrete, but not often. The best form of house drain in use is a 9-inch half-barrel drain covered with a flat tile (see Fig. 54, Sheet XII.). Square brick drains are more common, with flat tile soles and covered with flat tiles. Down some alley-ways a private drain about 2 feet 6 inches by 1 foot 6 inches runs, the granite covering slabs forming the pavement of the alley, the open joints of which freely permit the escape of the emanations from the filthy black deposit with which they are filled. (Example Heung Lane, Wai-Wa Lane.)
Connexions to 43. Of late years the Government have made the connexion 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 builder. No care exercised over whatsoever is taken as to line, gradient, or workmanship.
The In February last a new drain was being constructed in the following manner. drain was square
foot 2 inches wide by 1 foot 3 inches high. The 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.
44. 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 In one case the space between two houses was but 8 inches betweenhouses, serves as an open drain.
wide, and it received the filth from windows of cookhouses looking into it (Cleverly Street).
Narrow galleys and insetos- ible spaces
Drainage of upper floors. Absence of
Something similar was found in Josi Lane opening from Ladder Street. As the arrangement of the houses is characteristic, it is shown in Fig. 44, Sheet X. Here a dralu certainly went down into the gulley, but what became of it afterwards could not be discovered.
45. The slops from the upper cookhouses are conducted down by a pipe of rough earthenware, coated with plaster. Frequently this is inside the house, in which case it
13
simply delivers its flow on to the floor of the cookhouse below, as in the case of the facilities for house shown in Figs. 1-8, Sheet I.
At other times it is put outside the house. As the upstairs lodgers have no con- venience for getting rid of rubbish, much is stuffed into the down pipe, choking it, causing it to leak, and saturate the walls with the filthy fluid, oozing from its imperfect joints. For the same reason, the house drain also is frequently obstructed.
disposing of rabbiab.
disconnexion,
46. Trapping, disconnexion and ventilation of house drains, may be said to be Want of trape, unknown. The sewer gas has a free channel to the interior of the house, except when dilation the drain is blocked up with filth. Even houses of Europeans may be found, where in drain. waterclosets and baths, within the house or in a veranda, are connected to the drains, without ventilation or disconnexion of the soil-pipe, and without any proper trap.
house cod- straction.
Taipingsham
47. The following examples will give an idea of the principal varieties of house con- Examples of
and struction. They are by no means extreme cases, some of the houses are quite new, not yet fully occupied. These will illustrate the working of the Building Ordinance at the present time.
48. Figures 4 to 12, Sheet II., show the arrangement of a block of four houses in Hom in Taipingshan Street. They are of a somewhat different type to that just described, est having a lane at the back of them, which is much lower than the street above, so that the basement is entered at the ground level from it, Figs. 9-10. The cross section, Fig. 9, shows the intermediate floors or "cocklofts," A and B, that have been constructed between the original floors, and the ground plans, Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, show the way in which they have been subdivided into cabins.
49. The following is the number of inhabitants and the cubic space per head :—
No. 95.
No. 28.
No. 31.
No. 19.
No. of occupants
11
Basement
Ground floor
Cubic space per head
604
11 604
10
666
Do. do. do.
Rhop
7
18
30
822
888
192
Do.
do. do.
Do.
do.
do.
20
17
14
2nd floor
*{Do.
do.
do.
308
389
441
room.
Number of inhabitants and cubic space per head.
Intrines, and drakenge.
50. Here each floor is lighted by two windows in front, and the cookhouse has also a Lighting, window, by which the smoke principally escapes, but which is of little use to the main ventilation,
Bed places were found in the cookhouses. In one of these houses a space of not more than about 2 feet 6 inches square was boarded off beneath the narrow stair to serve as a latrine, that is to say, a pot was kept there. In other houses even this scanty accommodation was absent. The down pipes from the upper storey lead into the basement, one was burst and had flooded the place. The house drains lead out into the gulley at back, and thence their course could not be positively ascertained.
houses in
apparently
51. The pair of new houses shown in Figs. 13-20, Sheet III., are not yet fully occupied. Description of They give a good illustration of the manner in which additional accommodation is gained Street. by introducing floors after the building has been constructed. Au ample space between Interme floors is shown on the plans sent in for the approval of the Inspector of Buildings, which die oors is after construction, halved by the introduction of the cockloft. In this case it will be completed observed that in the rear elevation there are two rows of windows on the ground floor. in design. It seems more than probable, therefore, that the introduction of a "cockloft". contemplated from the first aud provision made for it in the design.
The number of inhabitants, &c. Wan-
Number of rooms
Number of people
Cubic feet per head
Was
Number of inhabitant and ouble space
Ground
Ground
Basement
1st Floor. and Floer." Basement.
Flose.
Flear.
lat ieor. 2nd Floor, pir head.
6
8
14
10
16
41
16
8
769
870
208
658
1,058
12
10
32
592
888
Unoccupie
سم
On revisiting, after the drawing was made, it was found that several new partitions had been put up.
All the smoke escapes by the Aboman of
Inadequate
52. There are no chimneys at all to the house. windows into the narrow lane at the back. The only light which penetrates into the chimneys. basement is that which finds its way through at the cookhouse, and that which enters by lightapma the small area grating about 4 feet by 2 feet, in the street in front. Not only these vandilation.
B 3