Sessional_Paper_1898 — Page 481

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The CHAIRMAN-Not with cubicles?—No, but I do not see why they should not be allowed there providing there are ventilators immediately under the ceiling.

Could that be easily done ?-Yes, at a trifling expense. In some of the home Acts it (ie., these proposed ventilation above the windows) is compulsory in respect to lodging houses-common lodging houses.

Then in streets more than 15 feet wide with a back yard or a shaft, would you have any objection to houses having cubicles either on the second or third floor ?—No.

Mr. EDE--You have referred principally to ventilation. Do you not think that in houses abutting on a street 15 feet in width and 25 feet in depth and with only an air shaft cubicles would make them very dark?-As a rule cubicles are very seldom occupied in the day time, when there is light. I have been in hundreds of them and in regard to most of them there was nobody inside and many were locked up. They are occupied only at night when they do not want light, except an artificial light. They do not sleep in the cubicles in the day time. The principal thing you want in the matter of improving the cubicles is a through draught ventilation in such a way that the Chinese will not be disposed to close the ventilators.

Do you consider that light is of as great importance for the sanitation of healthy dwellings as air?-It is of very great importance, but I do not think it is anything like of the same importance as air. You take a prisoner who is in solitary confinement in a dark cell; he has no light, but the authorities take care that he shall have plenty of ventilation in the dark cell.

I want your opinion as to the necessity for light for sanitary dwellings. Do you think it is important to have light? Do you not think that light is one of the principal things that produces health, quite apart from ventilation ?-Light and ventilation together. You are referring to existing insanitary dwellings?

I am merely asking your opinion as an engineer whether you consider that light is of importance. I consider that the suggestions that have been made are excellent. It is not however as if we were going to lay out a new city. We have to tackle a city in which lots have been laid out by the Crown in such a way that the sites are not adaptable to modern houses.

I was asking whether, in your opinion, light was essential to health ?—Yes.

Hon. T. II. WHITEHEAD-Of course it is dark at night, but is it continuously dark in the day time ?-Well, a man who is confined in a cell for three days cannot see the light.

Mr. JACKSON--Having special regard to the bubonic plague, as in pretty nearly all the papers it is stated that darkness conduces to the growth of the bacillus, do you not think that bears a very great importance on the question of light in dwellings ?-- You go

into the cubicles here. I will not say you do not come across dark cubicles, but taking them all round I have not seen a cubicle yet in which I could not see what I was doing, probably not at first but when I had been in them a few minutes and had got accustomed to the light. You go into a room on a bright day and you would probably not see anything for a few minutes; you stop there three or four minutes and your eyes get accustomed to the light and you can see everything that is going on. There are a lot of cubicles in the Colony now which I would not allow; I do not under- stand why they are allowed to be there. I saw some the other day in a certain

street.

The CHAIRMAN-What is the objection to them ?--They were so dark-they were in Possession Street-and not in accordance with the Ordinance.

Not in accordance with the Ordinance ?-No. The houses are 16, 18, and 20, Possession Street. I assume that the partitions and cubicles are periodically white- washed, the same as the walls.