PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference:
TTILICO. 882
سلينيا
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC. COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH--NOT TO
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
Details of sys- tem of house- to-house
collection.
Estimate of number of
bouse pots.
4
20
more often than he does. Again, if he made any regular payments to the collectors for bringing it to him he would not fail to bring this expense forward in stating the cost of his work, and would know exactly the numbers so employed. Whereas, in reply to a question as to the probable number of persons employed in this manner, he stated that on "Moon Cake" festival he regaled some 500 people with cakes, and remarked that he thought that more had presented themselves than were really engaged in this trade.
103. The night-soil coolies commence work in the Chinese quarters about 1 a.m., and proceed to the European houses somewhat later. Each carries a pair of buckets, Buspended from either end of a bamboo. The pots are brought out into the street and emptied into one bucket, and they are rinsed with a little water, which is carried in a third small bucket for that purpose; or in the other bucket. The first rinsings are added to the night-soil, the second are put back into the water bucket so as to avoid diluting the sewage. The water used for rinsing undoubtedly finds its way into the drains. Thus at the very outset one of the great advantages claimed for the bucket system, namely, the exclusion of human excreta from the sewers, is partially annulled when both buckets are full, the coolie takes them to the receiving junk where he empties and rinses them. Police regulations provide that the buckets shall be furnished with covers.
104. The following are the results of the examination of 100 houses in Taipingshan :-
Number of houses
100
families
-
**
""
794
**
J
pots used
·
642
"}
""
Aloors
226
"
"
brothels
9
"
39
houses having shops on the ground floor
-
41
Number of houses 1 storey high
""
""
2 3
"
12
29
"
19
·
199
14
46
40
100
Number of houses where removal takes place daily
28
"
"
"
"
11
every second day twice a week
49
23
100
21
109. The contractor gives the following prices delivered in Janton :- Manure from public latrines, 80.17 to 80.20 per picul=10%. 84d. to 128. 7d. per ton. Manure from. house-to-house collection, 80.10 to $0.12 per picul=68. 3d. to 78. 6d.
per ton.
Dr. Kerr, of the London Mission Hospital Canton, made some inquiries, and gives the price at $0.15 per picul=9. 5d. per ton for this manure at Canton. same value was also given in Singapore.
110. The average daily amount removed is stated by the contractor to be—
From public latrines
From house-to-house collection
Total
100 piculs.
·
300
400
Prices as
given.
This the
Amount re-
moved daily.
To check these statements, the number of buckets emptied into the receiving junks were tallied and contents weighed on three successive days. The average quantity removed per diem, as thus determined, was found to be 541 piculs or 72,131 lbs. a day. Again, the sailings of the junks for Canton were noted for a fortnight with the nominal On the whole, the agree- cargo in each. This gave 615 piculs as the daily average. ment of these results is as near as can be expected. Taking 600 piculs as the daily amount removed, or 80,000 lbs., the quantity disposed of per man, woman, and child per day of mixed excrement is 0,000 lb. x 14 one.
Dr. Parkes gives as the average amount of a population, man,
woman, and child
181,000
9.7 ozs.
-
Solid 2 oz. Fluid 40
42.5 oz.
Probable Masuria) valna of night-soil.
Use of night-
105. As the manurial value of the night-soil must enter into any calculations con- cerning as to the cost of its removal or disposal, it will be well to consider the Chinese methods of applying its application. To do so thoroughly, however, would be to write a treatise on Chinese agriculture.
106. The following are the leading facts that have been ascertained. It must be soil as madure. remembered that Hong Kong is somewhat differently situated to cities on the main- land, for there is but little cultivated ground in the immediate neighbourhood. Most of the manure is taken to Canton and far beyond it. Hence the cost of freight enters into the consideration of the value. Human excreta are highly prized by the Chinese farmer as manure. They are used, sometimes mixed with ashes or refuse, as a compost, but more often diluted with water as a liquid manure, according to the nature of the crop to which they are applied.
Urine and fmcal matter are used for aistinet par-
diferent money value.
107. Whatever may be the uses to which they are put, whatever be their relative value, there can be no doubt that the solid and liquid excreta are used for distinct purposes, and the greatest care is taken, both in Canton and the villages, to keep them separate. thbury In Hong Kong the solid is most valuable. Urine does not pay for transport. The contractor will allow a boat to load with urine close to his collecting junk, but if he see any solid matter being shipped, he is not slow in making complaints to the inspectors of nuisances. Again he states, that the matter collected from house to house, being largely mixed with urine, is little more than half the value of that from the public latrines, where more complete separation takes place.*
Movey value of night-soil
fisctuates with
season of year.
It
108. It is scarcely possible to ascertain the actual selling price of this manure. varies considerably at different seasons of the year. The chief demand is from April to September, when it is used to manure the mulberry trees in the silk-producing districts above Cantoo:
• These statements of the relative value of the solide and fluids are at variance with the recorded opinion of English chemists.
Our object, however, is not to reform. Chinese agriculture, but to find the best existing warket for the refuse of Hong Kong.
Now the majority of the population are grown men, whose average solid excrement is given by various authorities as ranging in weight from 3.5 ozs. to 7·0 ozs. and even reaching 14 ozs. In Coldbath-fields prison the average weight was 8.55 ozs. a day. A vegetable diet greatly increases the quantity, that of some Bengalee prisoners was 12 ozs. Since Chinese subsist principally on vegetables, and since much urine is obviously removed together with fæces, it seems certain that a considerable quantity of fæcal matter escapes collection.
PART II.
DEFECTS OF EXISTING STATE OF SANITATION AND SUGGESTIONS OF REMEDIAL MEASURES.———— PRELIMINARY.-EXAMINATION OF EXISTING HEALTH CONDITION.
Chiness.
111. Before discussing the defects of the present system, and the means of remedying Sanitary them, I think it desirable to examine the available evidence as to the sanitary condition condition of of the Chinese, and to see whether they are on the whole more or less healthy than other Preliminary. peoples, and to define in general the requirements of good sanitation which are now recognised as desirable and necessary, and to discuss the relative merits of some of the chief methods employed for obtaining them.
Amonget
112. Many experienced medical men who have practised in China have recorded the Alleged ab opinion that typhoid fever is almost unknown there. It would appear that some have some of typhoid concluded from this, that the filth and stenches with which the Chinese surround them. Chinese. selves 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 Hong Kong as they do in the city of Kowloon, and elsewhere, in their own country.
'evidense aa ito
113. It will therefore be well to examine the evidence on which these conclusions are Examination of based, and to see whether, according to the scanty statistics available, the Chinese are thon slate- so healthy a race that it would be presumptuous for westerns to interfere with their time-t honoured stinks.
examplon
114. With regard to the absence of certain, diseases, with due deference to the beats to experienced men who attest this fact, it must be observed that their evidence is not quite in complete. On the mainland no vital statistics are kept, and by far the greater majority discs. die without consulting an European physician. Even in Hong Kong 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 the Chinese, records three severe epidemics of cholera in China between 1820 and 1863, so this form of filth disease is not unknown.
C 3