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CHINESE PASSENGERS' ACT.
IV. Every hatchway leading into passengers' quarters must be covered by a well secured house about six feet high, having as much ventilation as is compatible with strength, and being water tight. The hatches are not to be closed during the voyage, unless stress of weather demands it.
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Note. When women are carried, they must have a separate hatchway entrance, apart from the males; and the male and female quarters must be divided by
a strong bulkhead with no door or aperture in it. The female quarters must be aft, as also the water closets for their use.
V.-The berths, cooking cabooses, water closets, &c., must be all properly secured; and the master must provide himself with two or three spare rice boilers, as they are very brittle, and liable to accident.
VI.-In the very important particular of ventilation, the Government Notification No. 51, of the 22nd April, 1856, is republished here, being not generally known.
No.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
It is hereby notified for the information of masters of ships carrying Chinese passengers, and unprovided with the improved appliances usually found in vessels of modern construction, and generally for the information of all interested, that in addition to a windsail for every hatchway, it is required that a constant supply of fresh air be ensured to the between decks in bad weather, by fitting, at each end of the space set apart for passengers, two funnels of wood or metal, four in all, with moveable heads, in manner following, that is to say:-the body of the air funnel to reach from underneath the lowermost deck overhead to a height of 3 or 4 feet above the uppermost deck, and to pass through holes cut for the purpose in either side of the deck, and made water-tight by a canvas coat or other suitable means.
The attention of the emigration officer has been called to the above regulation.
By Order,
W. T. MERCER,
Colonial Secretary.
Colonial Secretary's Office, Victoria, Hongkong, 22nd April, 1856.
NOTE. This regulation will be strictly enforced, in every vessel crossing the tropics. And no vessel in which any part of the passenger deck is in total darkness, requiring artificial light, consuming oxygen, will be passed by the emigration officer as fit to carry passengers.
Other questions affecting Chinese passenger ships, such as length of voyages, regulating supply of provisions; cabin passengers; description and stowage of cargo; stowage of water, &c., &c., and many items of detail differing in vessels of different tonnage and build, and in those carrying a greater or less number of passengers, can be settled definitely on application to the emigration officer at this office.
A. L. INGLIS,
Emigration Officer.
Extract from Instructions to Emigration Officers, 1856.
No sailing ship is to carry more persons (counting infants and everybody on board) than one statute adult to every two tons.
Of the two checks, by space and tonnage, it is not optional to take either indiffer- ently, but that must be taken which will most reduce the number of passengers; this double rule, however, is applicable only to sailing vessels. To steamers, as the machi-
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