CO129-234 - Acting Governor Cameron Governor Des Voeus - 1887 [9-12] — Page 36

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peoples, and to discuss 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.

112. Many experienced medical men who have practised in China have recorded the opinion that typhoid fever is almost unknown there. It would appear that some have concluded from this, that the filth and stenches with which the Chinese surround themselves 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 Hongkong as they do in the City of Kowloon, and elsewhere, in their own country.

113. It will therefore be well to examine the evidence on which these conclusions are based, and to see whether, according to the scanty statistics available, the Chinese are so healthy a race that it would be presumptuous for westerns to interfere with their time-honoured habits.

114. With regard to the absence of certain diseases, with due deference to the experienced men who state this fact, it must be observed that their evidence is not quite complete. On the mainland, no vital statistics are kept, and by far the greater majority die without consulting a European physician. Even in Hongkong, 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 typhoid fever, assert that malignant fevers, apparently filth fevers, are but too common. Dr. Dudgeon, of Peking, in his paper on the habits of the Chinese, records three severe epidemics of cholera in China between 1820 and 1868, so this form of filth disease is not unknown.

115. Even assuming the absence of certain forms of disease, and a comparative immunity from epidemics, there is no ground for the assertion that the violation of the laws of health is not punished, in China as elsewhere, with a general lowering of vital condition, and not only by intermittent scourges of epidemic disease.

116. It is stated that hitherto Hongkong has escaped the epidemics which have afflicted other places in the neighbourhood. The settlement is but 4 years old, and the subsoil beneath the city may not yet be sufficiently saturated with filth to make it a hotbed for disease and breeding ground of filth poison. It is somewhat premature to assume that this happy immunity will always continue, for the process of saturation is slowly but surely going on, and if unchecked cannot fail to bring forth abundant fruit, in the form of misery and disease.

121. I think that the foregoing facts clearly show that the health of the population is not so good as to make it presumptuous to attempt to reform time-honoured abuses; on the contrary, to my mind they prove that reform is urgently required.

I deem it unnecessary to refer to those parts of Mr. Chadwick's report which refer to the deficient supply of water as I hope all deficiencies in that respect will soon be remedied by the completion of the magnificent Tytam scheme. To illustrate his statements respecting the existing defects of house drains, Mr. Chadwick writes as follows:-

29. The usual type of Chinese house in Hong-kong is essentially different to that in use on the neighbouring mainland. This is due to some extent, no doubt, to European influence and example, but principally to the necessity for economy of space on account of the high price of land and the great cost of preparing level sites for building. This shows that the Chinese are not averse, as commonly supposed, to changing their habits to suit altered conditions.

30. According to immemorial custom, in one respect at least, the street frontage of the house is narrow, being 13 to 16 feet only. The depth back from the street is large, varying from 30 to 60 feet. Even the houses of the wealthy are formed by uniting several of those narrow units by doors or archways in the party walls.

31. If the site be level, the houses are often half back-to-back, no lane or passage being left between them. If the ground be sloping, there will be a lane or gallery at the back, often not more than 5 feet wide, sometimes less, and frequently this lane will be at or near the level of what is the first floor in the street in front.

Then he gives certain instances and he says:-

36. In the house in Kai-ming Lane, like the great majority of dwelling houses, the upper floor is divided off by board partitions into cabins about 9 feet long and 10 feet wide. Each of these forms the dwelling of an individual or family. These cabins do not extend to the full height of the storey. On the contrary, they are but about 7 feet 8 inches high; for in order further to economise space, a platform or floor, locally known as a "cockloft," is constructed above them. The cockloft is almost universal in dwellings of the middle and poorer classes.

37. In this house, in the upper floor only, there were five families including 16 souls. There were here three cabins and a platform extending over them, and over the passage. Hence the total cubic space per head was ... cubic feet, and this includes the whole domestic accommodation, with the exception of the cookhouse, and not sleeping room only, which in the case of the cabins does not exceed 130 cubic feet per head. It must be remembered that the lower floor rarely belongs to the inhabitants of the upper floors. Very frequently each floor is leased separately from the owner, or from his tenant, and sublet again to individual lodgers.

He then describes a house in Taipingshan Street, giving the number of inhabitants and the cubic space per head, and then he describes some other houses, he says:---

53. Fig. 21, Sheet IV, shows No. 22, Station Street. The number of inhabitants is given in the drawing and the cubic space per head, exclusive of the cookhouse, which is separated from the main building by an alley, spanned by a narrow gangway. It seems almost impossible to conceive how so many inhabitants could be stowed away in so small a space. Indeed, some had come out into the street to do their work, namely picking oakum.

54. Fig. 2, Sheet IV, gives the section of a somewhat less crowded building. In the upper storey, 25 chair coolies lodged, having erected bunks to sleep on. Here the cubic space per head amounts to 400 on the upper floors. The lower storey was occupied by seven artificers, who used it as a workshop and dwelling. It should be noted that the only ventilation for the ground floor cookhouse is a hole 3 feet square in the floor above, so that the whole of the space, nearly 50 feet long, is lighted from one opening only.

In none of these buildings is there any such thing as a latrine.

55. Fig. 23, 27, Sheet V show the details of a block of buildings in the district of Taipingshan. It will be observed that there are two floors below the level of the ground on the one side. Also that the middle of the block derives its sole light and ventilation from a narrow central alley arched over at both ends.

The ground or basement floors which open off this alley are chiefly tenanted by sellers of vegetables. They wash their wares in the alley, and, as the central channel is carelessly laid, the whole place is continually damp and offensive.

The dwellings of these unfortunates are quite dark. The drainage intended by the architect is shown in the section, a square channel running from cookhouse to cookhouse. Some of these dens were untenanted, so it may be supposed that even poor Chinese shrink from inhabiting such holes as these.

57. This block is new and of decidedly superior construction, and on the whole well kept. The drainage, however, was remarkably defective; the drain from the central portion of the block passed down behind the retaining wall forming the back of one of the houses facing Queen's Road, and out under its floor to the main sewer. Being badly made, leaky, and untrapped, a most abominable nuisance ensued. This house was intended as an hotel for Europeans.

Now in the ordinance, the whole of one part and a great many sections relate to drains. The necessity of putting these enactments in, the importance of the matter may be judged from what Mr. Chadwick says about drains. You will find he attaches great importance to them. In paragraph 42, he describes the materials used in the construction of house drains, and then he says:--

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 whatsoever is taken as to line, gradient, or workmanship. In February last, a new drain was being constructed in the following manner. The drain was square, 1 foot 3 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. 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 serves as an open drain. In one case, the space between two houses was but 8 inches wide, and it received the filth from windows of cookhouses looking into it (Cleverly Street). Something similar was found in Jose Jane opening from Ladder Street. As the arrangement of the houses is characteristic, it is shown in Fig. 44, Sheet X. Here a drain certainly went down into the gulley, but what became of it could not be discovered.

45. The slope from the upper cookhouses is conducted down by a pipe of rough earthenware, coated with plaster. Frequently this is inside the house, in which case it simply delivers its flow on to the floor of the cookhouse below, as in the case of the house shown in Fig. 1-3, Sheet I.

At other times, it is put outside the house. As the upstairs lodgers have no convenience 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.

46. Trapping, disconnexion, and ventilation of houses may be said to be unknown. The drain gas has a free channel to the interior of the house, except when the drain is blocked up with filth. Even houses of Europeans may be found, where waterclosets and baths, within the house or in a verandah, are connected to the drains, without ventilation or disconnexion of the soil pipe, and without any proper trap.

It is not to be wondered after these exposures that we have inserted a good deal about drains. There is another extract about them which I would wish to read to you.

184. I have left the consideration of one of the most important improvements to the last, namely, the redrainage of the houses. This is so universally and ...

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