Sessional_Paper_1893 — Page 858

[XLV]

From this return it will be seen that during the past 4 years, no fewer than 2,412 males and females have been sent to the Pó Léung Kuk and restored to their relatives: that 218 women have been married, and 46 children have been adopted: and that the total number of persons dealt with has been 2,851. A glance at the figures contained in the return will shew that the figures for the period from the 12th July, 1891, up to the end of 1891, or a period of less than six (6) months, amount to a total of 506, by far the largest number for such a period since the Society was first established. This increase in numbers is to a great extent due to the increased powers given to the Registrar General under the Women and Girls' Protection Ordinance, which came into force last year, and to the unremitting exertions of the present Committee, who, though business men whose time is much occupied by their own affairs, have contrived to devote an amount of energy and time to the work of the Society which has increased its efficiency and has been of the greatest assistance to this office. Such zeal in the cause of humanity is, I submit, not only worthy of support but should also receive some formal recognition from this Government.

The Committee, however, does not ask for reward or favour, but, in the petition which I am forwarding, requests that the Government may grant the Society some aid in order that it may have a suitable place for housing and maintaining those who are entrusted to its care, and this brings me to the question of a Home.

The Pó Léung Kuk has hitherto had no Home of its own, the persons placed under its care having up to the present time been quartered in a portion of the Tung Wa Hospital, which the management of that Institution kindly placed at the disposal of the Society. The accommodation thus afforded has been for long recognised as insufficient and in no way suitable for the purpose for which it is now used. Both the Government and the Society have been fully alive to the defects in the present arrangements and steps were taken many years ago to find a site, but the difficulty was to find one suitable, a difficulty intensified by a feeling of soreness which existed among some of the members of the Society owing to the Chinese Recreation Ground, which had been granted as a site, being resumed by the Government under instructions from the Secretary of State: Mr. CHADWICK, the Sanitary Commissioner sent out by the Colonial Office to Hongkong, having strongly recommended the retention of the site in question which the late Sir RICHARD MCDONNELL described as the "Lungs of Taipingshan." In 1887, another site, a vacant piece of ground immediately behind the Tung Wa Hospital, which is now built over, was applied for, but it was finally decided that the Government should build a row of houses, the top-floors of which could be used as a Home and the other floors. let out as shops or residences. These houses were accordingly constructed, but when completed the Society represented that they were not suited for a Home, and when I returned from leave at the end of 1890, I found the Pó Léung Kuk still located in the Tung Wa Hospital and the question of a Home still undecided.

On viewing the houses, the top-floors of which had been built for a Home, I reported that I agreed with the members of the Society in considering the proposed accommodation unsuitable. The idea of utilising the top-floors of the houses in the manner proposed has been abandoned, and the question of the erection of a suitable Home has not yet been definitely settled.

The Committee of the Pó Leung Kuk and the Tung Wa Hospital now offer a solution of the difficulty.

Opposite the Tung Wa Hospital is Lot No. 361, which was granted to the Tung Wa Hospital Corporation by the Government 'for the lawful and charitable purposes of the said Corporation.'

Only a small portion of this lot being used by the Tung Wa Hospital for hospital purposes, the members of that Corporation, at a meeting held on the 13th December last, resolved:-

"That on Lot No. 361, where the Kwong Fuk I Tsz stands, which was given "by the Government to this Hospital, a plot should be marked out for the "site of the Pó Léung Kuk.”