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Conservancy and Sewerage Disposal.
197. The collection and disposal of night-soil in the Colony is carried out partly by the bucket system and partly by water carriage. With regard to the bucket system arrangements are made with a contractor for the removal and disposal of excrement under conditions laid down by the Sanitary Board.
198. The excrement is removed by night from the latrines to a special fleet of junks which convey it up river to China where it is utilised as manure for the mulberry trees on which the silk worms feed.
199. Owing to the limitations of the water supply on the Island and the need for economy in the matter of consumption, it is necessary to restrict the number of water closets served by the public mains.
200. Where a sufficiency of water can be obtained from other sources, such as wells or streams, and the conditions other- wise are suitable, water closets are allowed. With regard to effluents, some enter the public sewers direct, some pass to biological tank systems to be treated before final discharge.
Drainage.
201. Drainage both surface and subsoil is controlled by the Public Works Department. $532,000 was entered in the 1932 Estimates for a programme which included drainage, training of nullahs and sewerage.
Water Supplies.
202. The water supplies of Hong Kong and Kowloon are in charge of the Water Works Branch of the Public Works De- partment.
203. All the water is surface water and most of it is collected from catchment areas which are free from ordinary risks of pollution. The water, after storage for a longer or shorter period in impounding reservoirs, is filtered in some cases by slowsand filters, in others by the rapid system, and finally it is chlorinated.
204. Routine examinations are carried out by the Govern- ment Bacteriologist and Government Analyst and the results furnished to the Water Authority. The results show that the water as supplied to the consumer is of excellent quality.
Clearance of Bush and Undergrowth.
205. Generally speaking in Hong Kong and the New Terri- tories bush and undergrowth is little in evidence except in those places where it has been planted and conserved. Routine cutting of superfluous undergrowth is carried out in May and October,
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Sanitary Inspections.
206. On the staff of the Sanitary Department there are 56 European Sanitary Inspectors but there are no Asiatic Inspectors and there are neither Health Visitors nor Public Health Nurses. Each Sanitary Inspector has for supervision a district with ap- proximately 25,000 inhabitants most of whom are ignorant of the very rudiments of sanitation. Under their supervision come tenement houses, lodging houses, places of common assembly, eating houses, bakeries, dairies, markets, laundries, etc., etc. it is physically impossible for these men to carry out the number of inspections necessary to ensure a proper standard of sanitation and much that should be done must necessarily be left undone. Work in connection with the routine cleansing of houses takes up much of the time of the Inspectors and there is little left for other necessary action.
207. Except in the matter of house cleansing matters are not satisfactory.
Common Lodging Houses.
208. Boarding Houses which include every place where any person is harboured or lodged for any kind whatsoever of hire or reward and where any domestic service whatsoever is rendered by the owner, lessee, principal tenant, occupier, or master to the person so harboured or lodged, but which do not include any boarding-house for non-Chinese, seamen within the meaning of the Merchant Shipping Ordinance, are licensed and controlled by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs under the Boarding House Ordinance.
209. They include hotels, common lodging houses, places where employers lodge their employees and the premises of socie ties within the meaning of the Societies Ordinance, where persons pass the night.
210. Under the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance Common Lodging House' includes any house or part thereof or other permanent structure where male persons of the labouring, artizan or mechanical classes, not being members of the same family, to the number of ten persons or upwards are housed, but does not include a house or other permanent structure where- shopmen or domestic servants are housed by their employers.
211. Under the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance the Sanitary Board is given power to make by-laws for the licensing, regulation and sanitary maintenance of Common Lodging Houses.
212. Sixteen by-laws have been made under this Ordinance one of which passes the power of registering the houses and licensing the keepers to the Secretary of Chinese Affairs.
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