CO129-189 - Governor Hennessy - 1880 [7-9] — Page 387

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As I mentioned, upon that letter Dr. STEWART made a minute that the effect of it would be to defer everything to the spring of 1880. However, Mr. MARSH approved of it and also directed that the paper was to be submitted to the Governor on his return, and it was accordingly filed until the Governor's return. Well, I returned to the Colony on the 6th September, and one of the first inquiries I made was for the Plans and Estimates of the Central School and the Gaol on the separate system. I then learned from Mr. MARSH that he had taken the responsibility, for what he conceived very good and sufficient reasons, to alter my decision, and these works were postponed. Thereupon I sent him the following minute :--

Sept. "9th dime, 1879.

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"Let me see my minutes directing the Surveyor General to prepare the Plans, &c., for the subject. I will also put before you copies of various minutes addressed to the Superintendent of the "Central School, and the Stone Cutters' Island prison."

I then made the following minute :----

"18th September, 1879.

"Let us consider this question raised by Mr. PRICE as to the relative claims of Stone Cutters "Island prison and the Central School upon his Department at the Executive Council to-day, when we can have the advantage of hearing his views explained in detail. Attach all other papers on the "subject to this,

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J. POPE HENNESSY." Accordingly, I summoned the Executive Council on that day, the 18th September. The question that had been raised by Mr. PRICE was whether, if I resolved to insist on my original minutes, should not be satisfied with having only one set of Plans prepared for the School or for the Gaol. We had the advantage of hearing the Surveyor General at the Council meeting, and the following is an extract from the minutes, which I now lay upon the table :-

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"In reply to His Excellency, the Surveyor General states that he hopes in a very short time to be ready with the Plans and Estimates for a Gaol at Stone Cutters' Island and for a new Central

School

"In regard to the latter it is agreed to request the Lead Master of the Central School to reduce "his Estimate of the number of boys for whom the school would be required, as the extent of ground, "in the opinion of the Surveyor General, was too small to accommodate the large number of 700 "pupils for which Dr. STEWART had recently estimated.”

The average daily attendance in September has been be able to know the effect of the increased fee. reduced to 401. The Commissioners will have these papers before them, and will be able to give me some very sound and useful advice as to what we ought to do with that institution and how far the five elementary schools will suffice to take away the lower classes now attending that school. So far for that subject. Now, with regard to the question of the water supply and fire tanks. I will put You will before you certain correspondence which will also show you exactly how that stands. remember that a deputation waited on me, and I speedily sent to Her Majesty's Government the I will lay observations made by the members of that deputation and certain reports I had obtained. before you a copy of the despatch I addressed in September, 1879, to the Secretary of State on this Fire Brigade, the report of the Surveyor General, my own minutes upon that report, and a subsequent despatch addressed by me in October, 1879, to the Secretary of State, with a report by Messrs. PRICE, RYRIE and CREAGH, to whom the matter was referred, and I will also put before you the despatch of de Secretary of the 19th December last upon the subject. These papers will give full information as to the views of the local Government as well as Her Majesty's Government on the subject, and they will show you no time has been lost in collecting the facts necessary for undertaking this important work. need hardly say the remark made by the Surveyor General, when he desired to postpone the orders I had given with regard to the Central School and the Gaol, namely, that his department sustained an extra- ordinarily heavy stress of work owing to the Praya Wall, applies also to the question of the fire tanks, and in fact to every other public work that we would desire to have in the Colony. My honourable friend referred to the medical Estimate, and he said he would have liked to have before him the report of the Colonial Surgeon. That report is in print, and I intend to publish it, with some other reports of the Colonial Surgeon which have not before this been published. They have a bearing upon a question of great importance, namely, how we should manage the sanitary affairs of this Colony. This is not the first time that my honourable friend has drawn attention to the water supply with respect to sanitary matters. I then expressed my opinion very fully, and to that opinion I entirely adhere, namely, that in dealing with sanitary matters in this Colony and with the water supply for the people, we are remember that this is not the town of Liverpool; that we are dealing with a tropical Colony and a Chinese community. But as the question has been mentioned again now for the second time, I must ay that in the reports which I have now seen relating to the sanitary state of this Colony, the main efect I find is this,--that an attempt has been made, an injudicious attempt, to force what is called the mles of Western sanitary science upon the Colony of Hongkong. Now the Estimate amounting to $240,000 for water supply was framed by the Surveyor General. Accompanying that Estimate was

previous report of his in which he pointed out what he conceived to be the necessary quantity of The decision of the Council was that the Plans and Estimates of both projects should be prepared; ster that every individual in this Colony should have for daily use, and stress was laid upon the at least that was my decision after listening to what the Council and the Surveyor General said, that water necessary for flushing house sewage, and an appendix was printed with proposed regulations he ought in a very short time to be ready with the Plans and Estimates for both projects. Well, the flushing the water closets of the Colony. We have amongst our Ordinances, unfortunately it year 1879 passed, and in the month of June of this year the Plans of the Central School were puts not the only instance of it-au Ordinance of the year 1856 which tells us that every house in the before me by the Surveyor General, and in the month of July, the Plans of the Gaol on the separatelony must have a water closet or a privy. Well, on my arrival in the Colony I found that some system. With respect to the Central School, the moment the Plans were put in my hands in this gentlemen here were not so fully alive as I thought we ought to be to the evils of a water closet and room I called upon my honourable friend Dr. STEWART to come with me, and also the Inspector of one privy system. I was very much struck by what I noticed in the Gaol, where on my first visit I Schools and the Surveyor General, and we proceeded instantly to consider the question which had and the stench was very bad. This indeed was only a confirmation of what in 1876 we read in the been engaging my attention for some months before. You will have noticed from the early minute ort of my honourable friend on the right, Mr. Rrate, and Mr. SNOWDEN's Committee, in which they I read that Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH had given me directions to raise the fee of the Central School, poke of the stench in the Gaol as being most objectionable. I made inquiry and found this stench and in fact he said it ought to be raised, the lower fee, from fifty cents to one dollar. That was ined to the fact that the greater part of the night-soil of the Gaol was every morning emptied into a March, 1879. I said I would act in accordance with Dr. STEWART'S wishes, and he asked me not to rain in one of the yards of the Gaol. At that time my honourable friend the Acting Colonial Treasurer. fix the higher fee till 1st January, 1880, and accordingly I acted on his recommendation, but the r. TONNOCHY, was in England. But for several years those who had the management of the Gaol, and delay that had occurred with the Plans enabled me to consider whether the number of 700 which the responsibility of conducting the scavenging of the Colony, and were responsible for the sanitary Dr. STEWART had suggested and which I had approved of would be decreased by this increase of state of the Colony, allowed this shocking state of things to exist. The iron grating was taken up, the fee, and the further question, whether the establishment of five new elementary schools might ad the Government scavenger, who is an officer under the control of the Surveyor General's not draw away the lower classes from the Central School and in that way much reduce the numbers, Department, emptied into it the greater part of the night-soil of the prisoners. The dry earth system and when finally, in the month of June, I had the three officers concerned--the Head master, the was not in use, though Mr. ToNNOCHY, some years before he left for England, advocated it. Inspector of Schools, and the Surveyor-General-we considered a third question, namely, whether there not carried into effect. Nothing could be worse than the sanitary state of that important time had not come to raise the Central School itself into a collegiate establishment, trusting to the fact institution. I mention this to let the Council see how in this Colony the gentlemen who are responsible that the five new elementary schools, especially by giving an English teacher in each school for me for the sanitary state of the Colony appeared to overlook the importance of not allowing the teaching English to the Chinese boys, would take away a considerable number, and I understood that night-soil to be swept or cast into the drains of the town. But that was not all. When I made my the number to be so drawn away from the Central School under these conditions would not be fax

bute on the date of my first visit to the Gaol calling attention to what I found, the papers were short of 400. In a word, it was manifest that the time had come to reconsider the position of the nt to the officers concerned, and I shall lay before you the various minutes. You will see that Colony with regard to the Central School, and after all I don't regret the delays that took place hilst I directed that the dry carth system should be introduced, I was immediately told it was inasmuch as these delays have enabled me to issue a commission which I addressed to every unofficial impossible it could not be introduced; first, because there was no earth in the island; secondly, member of the Council, of course to my honourable friend the Head Master, the Attorney General, the cause the Chinese were opposed to it. I knew, having had four years' experience of the Chinese, Surveyor General, the Inspector of Schools; and the only gentleman not connected at present with the at the latter statement was a mistake, and as to the absence of earth in the island, I also knew that Council or with the Government whom I put on is Mr. BELLLIOS, who recently endowed a scholarship at was an error. I therefore gave directions that the dry earth system should be brought into The Commissioners will soon be at work, I hope; the questions they will have to consider are simple

operation, and in my minute I said I should hold the officers concerned gravely responsible if there ones, and I believe they will speedily come to a conclusion. They will be able to let me know whether as any delay in this essential work, and I pointed out to the Colonial Surgeon in my minute that the time has come for having a collegiate institution or an institution of a somewhat more academic outbreak of cholera or typhoid fever in the Gaol, built, as it was, ou a slope above the town, nature than the Central School for teaching English and science to the Chinese, and then we will also

might decimate the population of this Colony. You will have before yon the Colonial Surgeon's

His views

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