CO129-299 - Administrator Major Gen Gascoigne - 1900 [5-6] — Page 234

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the demand for living accommodation created by the increasing

: pressure of population than the immediate occupation by res- .peccable families and business people of these floors

A

• SO

lately occupied as brothels for respectable Chinese: have a strong aversion to reside in premises or even in a street

possibly formerly occupied by brothels: if they can avoid it, and it is a fact that speculators in property expected a sharp fall in rents and a consequent depreciation in the value of pro- perty in the localities which were' purged of brothels owing 00 this disinclination of the Chinese.

But the demand. for house room is NO

great that their anticipations were not realised and as a

· matter of fact I learn that rents have if anything appreci- ated in the localities referred to.

5. Under section 3 of the Ordinance 35

i prosecutions have been instituted by the Police in respect

of 89 complaints made by soldiers and sailors of Her Majes- ty's Forces,and convictionswere obtained in 24 cases fines

to the amount of $1,860 being inflicted.

One effect of these prosecutions has been that the keepers of Chinese and Japanese brochels frequenced by Europeans have retained private practitioners as their medical advisers, and a small private Lock Hospital has been instituted for Japanese Women.

Another effect has been that whereas in

June 1899 chere were 94 soldiers of the Garrison suffering

1 from venereal in Hospital, in January of this year there

ware 67 while at the present time there are only 35 such

cases.