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A. I think the chief fault of the drainage in Hongkong is that it has grown from time to time, without any proper system being carried out. As the sewers became a nuisance, so they were trapped, both by private individuals, on a very wholesale scale, and also by the Government in the roads. This trapping to all intents and purposes unventilated the sewers and increased the nuisance. As to the sewers themselves, some of them---many of the more modern ones-are on a very good section. Some of the older ones are not. I have taken up sewers that have been choked by banian roots for a distance of twenty to thirty feet.
831. In the Western district?
By Dr. Jordan.
A.-I have no doubt they are the same there, but I have not taken any up there.
By the Chairman.
832. How do the roots get in ?
A.-The roots grow in through the chink in the covering stone and finding a very congenial soil, they throw out shoots and the more they accumulate sewage matter the better they like it and the quicker they grow.
833.--That could be remedied by examining them?
A. You could not examine them unless you opened them at very short intervals; they are too small.
By Dr. Yarr.
834.-Will that be so in the present form?
A. They adopt several forms here.
835. But they have the V shape?
A. It is not the bottom or sides they get in at, but the covering stones.
836. But they are set in mortar too?
A. Yes; but the joint between them cannot be set with mortar, not well, it has got nothing to set against.
837.-Is there no means of joining them together?
J
A. Yes, if they were squared joints.
By Dr. Young.
838. Are not these joints all covered with concrete?
A. Not all of them. They may have adopted that system more lately, but it used
not to be so in the old days.
839. Do you think that would prevent the roots getting in?
A.-Yes; if you get a good sound concrete, that should stop them.
By Dr. Jordan.
840.-You don't know of this defect you allude to existing in the Western District ? You have not seen it there?
A.--I should think it most probable.
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