C. O.
1003
567
Hongkong
N
49.
29th April, 1881.
Governor
Sir John Pope Stennessy, K.C.M.G.
to
The Right Honourable
The Earl
of
Kimberley
Requests decision by telegraph
as to Water works, so as to prevent further delay.
(one Enclosure)
Extract
from speech of
His Excellency Governor Sir John Pope Stennessy, K.C.M.G.
in the Legislative Council. 10th September, 1880.
I will put
Now, with regard to the question of the water supply and fire tanks. before you certain correspondence which will also show you exactly how that stands. You will remember that a deputation waited on me, and I speedily sent to Her Majesty's Government the observations made by the members of that deputation and certain reports I had obtained. I will lay before you a copy of the despatch I addressed in September, 1879, to the Secretary of State on this subject. I will also put before you copies of various minutes addressed to the Superintendent of the 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, RYDE and CREAGH, to whom the matter was referred, and I will also put before you the despatch of the 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. I 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 to 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 say that in the reports which I have now seen relating to the sanitary state of this Colony, the main defect I find is this, that an attempt has been made, an injudicious attempt, to force what is called the rules 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 a previous report of his in which he pointed out what he conceived to be the necessary quantity of water that every individual in this Colony should have for daily use, and stress was laid upon the water necessary for flushing house sewage, and an appendix was printed with proposed regulations for flushing the water closets of the Colony.
We have amongst our Ordinances, unfortunately it is not the only instance of it--an Ordinance of the year 1856 which tells us that every house in the Colony must have a water closet or a privy. Well, on my arrival in the Colony I found that some gentlemen here were not so fully alive as I thought we ought to be to the evils of a water closet and house privy system. I was very much struck by what I noticed in the Gaol, where on my first visit I found the stench was very bad. This indeed was only a confirmation of what in 1876 we read in the report of my honourable friend on the right, Mr. RYDE, and Mr. SNOWDEN'S Committee, in which they spoke of the stench in the Gaol as being most objectionable.
I made inquiry and found this stench traced to the fact that the greater part of the night-soil of the Gaol was every morning emptied into a drain in one of the yards of the Gaol. At that time my honourable friend the Acting Colonial Treasurer, Mr. TONNOCHY, was in England. But for several years those who had the management of the Gaol, and the responsibility of conducting the scavenging of the Colony, and were responsible for the sanitary State of the Colony, allowed this shocking state of things to exist. The iron grating was taken up, and the Government scavenger, who is an officer under the control of the Surveyor General's Department, emptied into it the greater part of the night-soil of the prisoners. The dry earth system was not in use, though Mr. TONNOCHY, some years before he left for England, advocated it. His views were not carried into effect. Nothing could be worse than the sanitary state of that important institution.
I mention this to let the Council see how in this Colony the gentlemen who are responsible to me for the sanitary state of the Colony appeared to overlook the importance of not allowing the night-soil to be swept or cast into the drains of the town. But that was not all. When I made my minute on the date of my first visit to the Gaol calling attention to what I found, the papers were sent to the officers concerned, and I shall lay before you the various minutes. You will see that whilst I directed that the dry earth system should be introduced, I was immediately told it was impossible--it could not be introduced;--first, because there was no earth in the island; secondly, because the Chinese were opposed to it. I knew, having had four years' experience of the Chinese, that the latter statement was a mistake, and as to the absence of earth in the island, I also knew that that was an error.
I therefore gave directions that the dry earth system should be brought into operation, and in my minute I said I should hold the officers concerned gravely responsible if there was any delay in this essential work, and I pointed out to the Colonial Surgeon in my minute that an outbreak of cholera or typhoid fever in the Gaol, built, as it was, on a slope above the town, might decimate the population of this Colony. You will have before you the Colonial Surgeon's
C. O.
1003
567
Hongkong
N
بہار
49.
29th April, 1881.
Governor
Sir John Pope Stennessy, K.C.M.G.
to
The Right Honourable
The Earl
of
Kimberley
Requests decision by telegraph
as to Water works, so as to prevent further delay.
(one Enclosure)
Extract
from speech of
His Excellency Governo bir John Pope Stennerty, the. M. 4. in the Legislative Council. 10th September, 3888.
I will put
Now, with regard to the question of the water supply and fire tanks. before you certain correspondence which will also show you exactly how that stands. You will remember that a deputation waited on me, and I speedily sent to Her Majesty's Government the observations made by the members of that deputation and certain reports I had obtained. I will lay ore you a copy of the despatch I addressed in September, 1879, to the Secretary of State on this subject. I will also put before you copies of various minutes addressed to the Superintendent of the 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, RYBIE and CREAGH, to whom the matter was referred, and I will also put before you the despatch of the 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. I 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 bave 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 to 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 say that in the reports which I have now seen relating to the sanitary state of this Colony, the main defect I find is this, that an attempt has been made, an injudicious attempt, to force what is called the rules 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 a previous report of his in which he pointed out what he conceived to be the necessary quantity of water that every individual in this Colony should have for daily use, and stress was laid upon the water necessary for flushing house sewage, and an appendix was printed with proposed regulations for flushing the water closets of the Colony. We have amongst our Ordinances, unfortunately it is not the only instance of it--an Ordinance of the year 1856 which tells us that every house in the Colony must have a water closet or a privy. Well, on my arrival in the Colony I found that some gentlemen here were not so fully alive as I thought we ought to be to the evils of a water closet and house privy system. I was very much struck by what I noticed in the Gaol, where on my first visit I found the stench was very bad. This indeed was only a confirmation of what in 1876 we read in the report of my honourable friend on the right, Mr. RYNIE, and Mr. SNOWDEN'S Committee, in which they spoke of the stench in the Gaol as being most objectionable. I made inquiry and found this stench traced to the fact that the greater part of the night-soil of the Gaol was every morning emptied into a drain in one of the yards of the Gaol. At that time my honourable friend the Acting Colonial Treasurer. Mr. TONNOCHY, was in England. But for several years those who had the management of the Gaol, and the responsibility of conducting the scavenging of the Colony, and were responsible for the sanitary State of the Colony, allowed this shocking state of things to exist. The iron grating was taken up, and the Government scavenger, who is an officer under the control of the Surveyor General's Department, emptied into it the greater part of the night-soil of the prisoners. The dry earth system was not in use, though Mr. TONNOCHY, some years before he left for England, advocated it. His views were not carried into effect. Nothing could be worse than the sanitary state of that important institution. I mention this to let the Council see how in this Colony the gentlemen who are responsible to me for the sanitary state of the Colony appeared to overlook the importance of not allowing the night-soil to be swept or cast into the drains of the town. But that was not all. When I made my minute on the date of my first visit to the Gaol calling attention to what I found, the papers were sent to the officers concerned, and I shall lay before you the various minutes. You will see that whilst I directed that the dry earth system should be introduced, I was immediately told it was impossible--it could not be introduced;--first, because there was no earth in the island; secondly, because the Chinese were opposed to it. I knew, having had four years' experience of the Chinese, that the latter statement was a mistake, and as to the absence of earth in the island, I also knew that that was an error. I therefore gave directions that the dry earth system should be brought into operation, and in my minute I said I should hold the officers concerned gravely responsible if there was any delay in this essential work, and I pointed out to the Colonial Surgeon in my minute that an outbreak of cholera or typhoid fever in the Gaol, built, as it was, on a slope above the town, might decimate the population of this Colony. You will have before you the Colonial Surgeon's
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