676132-1883-Instructions-to-Sanitary-Officers-and-Police- — Page 3

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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 23RD JUNE, 1883.

Instructions to Inspectors of Nuisances.

1.—It shall be the duty of the Inspectors of Nuisances to see that all such provisions relating to practical sanitation as are contained in the Ordinances of the Colony are duly complied with by the Public, and to see that complete effect is given more especially to such Rules and Regulations as may from time to time be issued by the Governor in Council under the Order and Cleanliness Ordinances No. 9 of 1867 and No. 7 of 1883.

2. The Inspectors of Nuisances shall see that the Government Scavenging and Night-soil Contrac- tors for the time being strictly comply with the terms of their contracts, and that all night-soil and urine, all house-sweepings and dry rubbish, and all refuse, noxious or innocuous, are removed in accordance with the prescribed regulations at least once a day from every tenement in the City of Victoria.

3. The Inspectors of Nuisances shall see that all streets, public and private, all roads, courts' alleys, footpaths, passages, sewer-mouths and gully holes, sewer-traps, gratings, foreshores, nullahs, Government waste lands and open spaces, and private vacant lots within the City of Victoria are at all times maintained in a cleanly and inoffensive condition.

4.--The Inspectors of Nuisances shall take special note of houses where the occupants are in the habit of throwing out their house-slops and dry rubbish into the street, and take immediate steps to stop the practice.

5.-The Inspectors of Nuisances shall inspect their respective districts daily, taking a sufficient number of streets for close and thorough examination every day, in such manner as to insure that every thoroughfare in the district will come under examination once in three days, but they must so arrange as to prevent their visits to the same streets falling due periodically upon the same days of the week.

6.-The Inspectors of Nuisances shall with the permission of the occupants enter, within reasonable hours, all houses against which nuisance-complaints may have been lodged, or all such houses where they themselves may have good and valid reason to suspect the existence of nuisances prejudicial to the Public Health.

7.--Should the occupants of such houses object to admit the Inspector of Nuisances, the latter shall withdraw and submit the case to the Sanitary Inspector, under whose specific instructions he shall subsequently act in each intance, but in no case shall an Inspector of Nuisances, enter any private tenement against the wish of the occupants unless specially directed and deputed so to do by the Sanitary Inspector or by a member of the Sanitary Board.

8.--The first and principal duties of an Inspector of Nuisances in respect of Sanitary reform in private tenements are:-

(i.) To see by continuous and patient enquiry of the occupants, and by personal investigation, that the night-soil and urine of the house are removed every day with the strictest regularity, and to take the measures necessary to prevent two or more days' accumulation of night-soil and urine in a house.

(ii.) To see that every house is furnished with a proper dust-box as prescribed by law, that the day's dry rubbish and solid house refuse are kept in the dust-box, and nowhere else, and that the dust-box is emptied every morning with due regularity into the dust-carts or into the public dust-bins.

(iii.) To see that such house-slops as are saved by the occupants for the use of pig-keepers are kept in watertight buckets and actually removed every day by such pig-keepers, and to take the measures necessary to prevent two or three days' accumulation of house-slops within a

tenement.

(iv.) To see that the house drains are in working order, and to report the same immediately to

the Sanitary Inspector if they are found choked, broken or defective,

(v.) To see that there are no cess-pits or cess-pools on any premises; that any cess-pools dis- covered by them are immediately emptied of their contents, and filled up with clean earth at the expense of the householder, and that all liquid refuse and house-slops which are not saved for the pig-keepers, escape into the Government sewers through the house drains.

9.-The Inspectors of Nuisances shall be careful of the respect due to the privacy of even the poorest person in his own house, and will always ask to be admitted before entering a house. Their manner towards the inmates should be always obliging and conciliatory, and they shall have due care not to offend native prejudices unnecessarily. As cleanliness and sanitary reform are likely to be disagreeable to many, it is especially desirable to use persuasion rather than compulsion, and while the measures required should be insisted on with firmness, no opportunity should be lost of explaining to the ignorant that they are necessary for health and safety.