CO129-320 - Governor Sir Blake Acting Governor May - 1903 [11-12] — Page 248

COPY.

Enclosure 3

Sheweth:-

To

His Excellency

C. O.

3076

Red 20 JAN 041

245

Sir Henry Arthur Blake, G.C.M.G.,

Governor of the Colony of

Hongkong and its

Dependencies.

The humble Petition of the undersigned residents of Hongkong.

1.

Your Petitioners are residing in Chinese houses

in Victoria in the Colony of Hongkong.

2. Your Petitioners with their families inhabit

flats or floors in such houses; they have been accustomed to

divide such floors by means of partitions into separate rooms

or cubicles for the purpose of ensuring privacy for the

various members of their families.

3. By Section 154 (1) of the Public Health and

Euildings Ordinance 1903, it is provided that no cubicle or

room which is not provided with a window or windows or a sky-

light opening directly into the external air may be maintained

in any storey of any domestic building.

4. This provision renders many of the cubicles in

existing houses illegal as not having a window opening into

then.

5. With regard however to cubicles which have

windows of the necessary size opening into them it appears

that they are also illegal for the reason that the partitions

reader the remainder of the house an illegal room.

This may be explained as follows:-

(a). Assuming that one cubicle in front of the floor, surrounding the front windows, and one cubicle at the back, surrounding the back window, are legal; then the in-

-tervening