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the increasing number of new cases and at the same time adequately supervise cases on hand. There were, moreover, clear indications that the requirements of the Kowloon Penin- sula were not receiving sufficient attention.
Accordingly an additional Inspector, Miss V. C. Chan, was appointed and assumed duty at Kowloon on the 1st July. Up to this date the number of cases in Kowloon had been negligible, but in the first month the new Inspector was called on to deal with no fewer than nineteen.
During July there was a further heavy increase in the number of cases on the Island and by mid-August your Com- mittee were satisfied that, in order to secure adequate super- vision of the large number of cases spread over an area extending from Shaukiwan to Kennedy Town, the appoint- ment of a further Inspector and the division of the Island into two districts were essential.
Accordingly a further Inspector, Miss A. Anderson, was appointed and assumed duty on the 1st September.
Thus the Society has now three Inspectors and the Colony is divided into three districts. Miss Seto has charge of Western Central and Western Victoria, Miss Anderson has charge of the Eastern Victoria and the outlying Eastern District (from Aberdeen Street to Shaukiwan), and Miss Chan charge of Kowloon and New Kowloon.
In appointing the additional Inspectors your Committee have had regard to the great number of cases of a medical nature, over a hundred and fifty in number, with which the Society has been required to deal and have insisted upon the possession of full qualifications as trained nurses,
Your Committee were much concerned as to the in- adequacy of the hospital accommodation available for the children of the Chinese poor on the Kowloon Peninsula. At the beginning of this year that accommodation was limited to a maximum of five beds in the Kowloon Hospital and sixteen beds in the Kwong Wah Hospital, with the possibility of further accommodation in the adult wards dependent on the demand for beds for adults.
When therefore the Chinese Sisters of the Precious Blood approached the Society in May last with a project for in- stituting at Shamshuipo a Children's Hospital with thirty beds your Committee felt that this would be a valuable con- tribution towards meeting a very urgent need and accordingly made a grant of $1,000 towards the initial expenses of fitting out the wards.
The Sisters were fortunate in securing for their hospital the gratuitous services of Dr. MacGown and on his pointing out the urgent necessity for the provision of equipment and supplies which were beyond the Sisters' means your Committee sanctioned the expenditure of a further $800 for this purpose.
At this hospital Dr. Macrown is conducting a children's clinic thrice weekly and the Society's Kowloon Inspector attends and gives her services. One hundred and three different children attended as out-patients in the first twenty- one days. The average daily attendance of old and new out- patients is now about eighteen.
Your Committee are satisfied that the hospital and clinic are performing a useful and necessary function in a district which has no other hospital, and as the Sisters have not the funds necessary to enable the work to be carried on effectively a further sum of $1,200 has been allocated for expenditure by twelve monthly instalments in payment of the hospital's accounts for medical and other supplies.
It will be remembered that the Society's first Inspector was appointed only in August, 1930, and consequently this present report must be regarded as dealing with a period of exploratory work.
The most outstanding fact gleaned from the year's ex- perience is the extreme poverty in which many of the com- munity are living-a poverty for which there is no organized relief.
Out of the three hundred and thirty-three cases dealt with during the period under review there were forty-four cases in which there was no income at all, while in a further one hundred and sixty-three cases the family income did not exceed $4.00 per head per month out of which to provide food, clothing and lodging.
In numerous other cases this slender income was only slightly exceeded and in the majority of cases the income was of the fluctuating and precarious nature common to incomes which are the fruits of casual labour.
The high rents prevalent in this Colony are a matter of common knowledge and even the scanty accommodation which is the lot of the poorest of the poor is obtainable only at a cost which puts a severe strain on their means. It is difficult to get accurate figures, but the average cost of accommodation probably exceeds one fifth of the income.
The problem of accommodation is well illustrated by examination of the second hundred cases dealt with. In five cases the streets constituted the only lodging, in forty-five
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