138
16
Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841–1941
COLONIAL REPORTS.- -ANNUAL.
fast as they occurred, and there being a constantly increasing demand for labourers.
The lesson taught by the sad experience of the plague has been very bitter, but it is being turned to the best account. Every effort is being put forward to remedy the defects in sanitation which have recently been revealed: steady progress is being made with the re-drainage of the city of Victoria, and a general inspection of house drains was instituted in December last. In addition to this, legislative measures have been taken to compel householders to carry out extensive sanitary improvements on their properties in accordance with local requirements and with a special view to preventing a recurrence of the epidemic, and, as has been already stated, the Government has itself undertaken the improvement of a large and hitherto unhealthy district in the centre of the city. The necessity of increasing the existing water supply to meet the requirements of a daily growing population and to tide over the apparently lengthening periods of drought has also been recognised from recent experiences, and the work of adding to the storage capacity of our largest reservoir is now far advanced.
It is to be hoped that with all these precautions the Colony may be spared a repetition of the calamity which befel it in the summer of 1894, and that there may be an improvement generally in the public health; but the habits of the lower classes of Chinese, who form the larger half of the population, and the difficulty, of instilling into them any ideas of cleanliness, must always be a source of great anxiety to the sanitary authorities and render the strictest vigilance at all times imperative.
Public Peace and Good Order.
The Police returns for the year are satisfactory and show a decrease in the number of both serious and minor offences as compared with previous years, there being 2,575 cases of the former (of which over 2,100 were cases of larceny) as against 2,725 in 1893, and 2,983 in 1892, or a criminal class of rather less than one per cent, of the population.
There was, however, a serious breach of the public peace in the month of March which deserves special notice, resulting as it did in one man being shot dead in the street and nine others more or less seriously wounded. It appears that during the celebration of the Chinese Feast of Lanterns, which is usually made the occasion of a grand procession through the streets, some coolies from the Tung Koon and Sz Yap districts of China came into collision, an incident which served to arouse the dormant ill-feelings between the two tribes or clans. The quarrel was at once taken up by certain clubs, the members of which consist for the most part of professional fighting men and bullies, and these latter, constituting themselves the champions of either party, carried on for a period of four days a form of guerilla warfare and committed the most
Page 145
Page 146
138
16
Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841–1941
COLONIAL REPORTS.- -ANNUAL.
fast as they occurred, and there being a constantly increasing demand for labourers.
The lesson taught by the sad experience of the plague has been very bitter, but it is being turned to the best account. Every effort is being put forward to remedy the defects in sanitation which have recently been revealed: steady progress is being made with the re-drainage of the city of Victoria, and a general inspection of house drains was instituted in December last. In addition to this, legislative measures have been taken to compel householders to carry out extensive sanitary improvements on their properties in accordance with local requirements and with a special view to preventing a recurrence of the epidemic, and, as has been already stated, the Government has itself undertaken the improvement of a large and hitherto unhealthy district in the centre of the city. The necessity of increasing the existing water supply to meet the requirements of a daily growing population and to tide over the apparently lengthening periods of drought has also been recognised from recent experiences, and the work of adding to the storage capacity of our largest reservoir is now far advanced.
It is to be hoped that with all these precautions the Colony may be spared a repetition of the calamity which befel it in the summer of 1894, and that there may be an improvement generally in the public health; but the habits of the lower classes of Chinese, who form the larger half of the population, and the difficulty, of instilling into them any ideas of cleanliness, must always be a source of great anxiety to the sanitary authorities and render the strictest vigilance at all times imperative.
Public Peace and Good Order.
The Police returns for the year are satisfactory and show a decrease in the number of both serious and minor offences as com- pared with previous years, there being 2,575 cases of the former (of which over 2,100 were cases of larceny) as against 2,725 in 1893, and 2,983 in 1892, or a criminal class of rather less than one per cent, of the population.
There was, however, a serious breach of the public peace in the month of March which deserves special notice, resulting as it did in one man being shot dead in the street and nine others more or less seriously wounded. It appears that during the celebration of the Chinese Feast of Lanterns, which is usually made the occasion of a grand procession through the streets, some coolies from the Tung Koon and Sz Yap districts of China came into collision, an incident which served to arouse the dormant ill-feelings between the two tribes or clans. The quarrel was at once taken up by certain clubs, the members of which consist for the most part of professional fighting men and bullies, and these latter, constituting themselves the champions of either party, carried on for a period of four days a form of guerilla warfare and committed the most
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