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sewage of Wautsai and Bowringtou at some additional outlay by conveying it as far east as North Point where the tidal scour is at its greatest and there esta- blishing a steam-pumping station, an expedient commonly resorted to in English towns similarly circumstanced. These extra works are estimated at $113,000 making the total cost $343,000.
5. The establishment of the Separate System of drainage will in no way nul- lify or minimize the importance of the main drainage improvements which have been effected by the Government from year to year during the last ten years, for even if house-sewage is now diverted to special channels of its own, properly built rain water drains of adequate sectional area and laid to proper falls are none the less a necessity to the city for the removal of sub-soil drainage and storm-waters.
6. The Separate System can be carried out without adding to the expense of house-owners, for it will impose no greater burthern on the landlord to connect his house-drain with a Government main sewer under the Separate System than with one under the Combined System. Two house-drains-one for dirty water and oue for rain water--will not be required of him. His roof drainage and the rain which falls upon his back-yard may in most cases be allowed to escape over the surface through gutters into side-channels, and thence into the nearest of the numerous street gratings which everywhere communicate with the storm-water drains.
7. The Separate Systein of drainage is no new experiment in European cities. As its advantages are brought to light by practical experience it is becoming every year more generally adopted by Municipal and other public Bodies. To Hong- kong, if not adaptable before owing to the inadequacy of the public water supply, it will be specially adaptable now for the first time that we have a new reservoir admitting of a daily consumption of water in every house in the town sufficient to afford the drains in the shape of waste waters that volume of dry weather flow throughout the winter which is essential to the effective working of a system that seeks to act in a measure independently of rain.
8. Though Mr. COOPER's Report relates principally to main drainage I wish to invite His Excellency's special attention to that portion of it wherein he refers incidentally to house-drains for it is impossible to overestimate the importance of remedying as early as possible the evils to which he alludes.
9. Up to the passing of the new Public Health Ordinance (Ordinance No. 24 of 1887) the law on this branch of practical sanitation was inadequate for securing efficient house-drains. The Statute Book contained no provisions for the class of materials to be used in their construction, nor yet did it prescribe the method of that construction, nor were there any provisions for trapping, ventilation, or disconnexion. The result of this inadequacy of the Law was that the Public Works Department was ever in conflict on the subject of house-drains with landlords who deeply resented what were considered the expensive whims of the Surveyor General, whims which they alleged they did not find supported by any special definition of the law.
10. In 1884 a Public Health Bill designed to meet this evil-together with many others--was drafted and submitted for the consideration of the Colonial Government, but for reasons into which it is unnecessary to enter here, that Bill unfortunately was never presented to the Legislature until the assumption of the Government by His Excellency General Gordon CAMERON in 1887 when it was passed by him in spite of the opposition of the landlord interest.
11. Again a further delay arose from a request of the opponents of the Ordinance that it might not be confirmed until a Petition which they were to frame against it--had been previously considered by the Secretary of State, but after
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a lapse of three months no l'etition being yet forthcoming, the Governor was obliged to inform these gentlemen that unless their Petition was presented within a stated period the Ordinance must be transmitted home without it. A third and of course unavoidable delay occurred in the reference of the Ordinance by the Secretary of State to the Local Government Board, in the consideration of it by the latter, and finally in the confirmation of it by Her Majesty the Queen.
12. The Ordinance has been in force since the 2nd of June, 1888, but more delay has occurred, for after a lapse of over two months it has not yet been found possible to pass in the Sanitary Board the Bye-Laws relating to house-drains; even the original motion made by me to give preference to this most urgent matter was not carried without opposition.
13. These delays are unfortunate as it is of urgent importance to the Public Health that the reconstruction of defective and insanitary house-drains should be grappled with without further loss of time, and this can be done without any need whatsoever of waiting for the adoption or otherwise of the Separate System as pointed out by Mr. COOPER in his Report.
14. The many miles of modern main sewers that have been built by the Government within the last ten years and which have almost entirely replaced the former old defective main drains of the earlier days of the Colony, more especially in the upper levels of the city, have been well constructed and laid to proper falls as testified to by Mr. CHADWICK in his Report on the Sanitation of Hongkong, but
it is clear that in spite of the best workmanship and of every precaution the newest and best built main-drain in the world will become an offensive nuisance along its whole length if the liquid matter that is led into it at every step from the connexion drains of private houses, is already in a high state of decomposition by reason of previous long stagnation, and this is what is now occurring in the city of Victoria and calling for an early remedy.
15. The remedy to be adopted to remove the bad smells in the streets which are found to emanate from the Government main sewers is so obvious that no person examining the matter for himself can fail to see it. The evil must be attacked at its source: that is at the house-drains. All house-drains found in a defective and insanitary condition, wherein kitchen and other foul waters stagnate and ferment for long periods, must be taken up and relaid to proper falls in impervious glazed stoneware in lieu of porous black brick, and must be furnished with those safeguards to health in respect of trapping, ventilation, and disconnexion which are now clearly specified in the new Ordinance and its proposed Bye-Laws. When properly reconstructed and passed by the Sanitary Board such house-drains may be connected with the present main-drains, and when the time arrives for laying the new pipe mains on the Separate System, it will be the duty of the Public Works Department to see that the conuexion between such improved house-drains and the new Government maius is properly effected free of cost to the house-owner. If groups of the worst of these defective old house-drains are taken in hand at the same time and dealt with in rapid succession--and there is no reason why this should not be done the Sanitary Board at the end of twelve months will be already far on the road to relieve the public frequenting the streets of the city from the smells that have given rise to complaints, and what is far more important, as regards the inmates of private dwellings, the Board will have done more for their health and comfort than could possibly be obtained at this moment from any other form of sanitary improvement.
16. 1 make the foregoing remarks lest it be misapprehended that the con- sideration of the Separate System need retard curly drainage reforms in private premises.
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