Sessional_Paper_1901 — Page 529

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construction, and to show that they may be secured without any considerable

additional cost, it will be well to construct some model dwellings.

The Sanitary Board in November, 1899, asked the Government to give a premium for the best design of a Chinese house, and also asked the Government to erect model dwellings at Taipingshan. Both requests were refused.

11.-In Paragraph 217, Mr. Chadwick recommended the construction of flushing tanks for sewers, remarking "that the perennial flow of the Nullahs will, in most cases, suffice." These tanks have not been constructed and filtered water is used for the little flushing that is done.

12.-In Paragraph 263, Mr. Chadwick pointed out the need of Urinals. There are still only but four very inadequate one-man public Urinals in the whole city of Victoria.

13.-In Paragraphs 270 and 271 Mr. Chadwick referred to the native hawker nuisance. This nuisance yet prevails and was reported several times by the Sanitary Board to the Government within the last twelve months. The only reply the Board obtained was that the nuisance did not exist.

14-Mr. Chadwick also referred in Paragraph 272 to the need of Public Bathhouses for the use of Chinese labourers, and recommended their erection. This proposal was again urged by the Sanitary Board, and in May 1901, after an interval of nineteen years, a number of matsheds were erected on the orders of H.E. the Governor as temporary Bathhouses.

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15. Mr. Chadwick in his Report called attention to the defective drainage, and Mr. Cooper some years ago introduced the separate System of Sewerage, but the benefits anticipated from it have not followed. That Separate System is without the safeguards Mr. Chadwick recommended; viz., abundant water supply; flushing tanks at the head of each drainage valley; pumping stations at each end of the city to relieve the intercepting main drain and throw the sewage into the sea well clear of the city. On October 19th, 1894, the Hongkong Chamber of Commerce brought the question before the Governor of the Colony, in the hope of having the system altered, and pointed out that with regard to the drainage of the city, there is a wide-spread belief-but the Chamber has no means of verifying it-that the scheme, as drawn up by "Mr. Osberthadwick, endorsed by Mr. J. M. I rice, the late Surveyor-General, "and approved by the Government, has not been carried out on the original lines, "and that the separate system has been more generally applied than was intended." The Chamber was also of opinion that "the neglect of all effective Sanitary measures throughout a period of years, and in the face of continuous and "repeated protests, makes it abundantly mani.est that there has been no effective administrative Sanitary System in this Colony." It has been shown in Official Reports that the contents of the storm water drains are nearly as foul as those of the sewers, yet the inlets to the storm drains from the public streets are mostly untrapped; and the emanations therefrom are thus necessarily discharged direct into the streets. In lieu of an adequate flushing by the rains it has been found necessary to prevent choking to cleanse the sewers of this Colony by means of an elaborate system of chains and drags, gangs of coolies being kept constantly employed on this duty, which indicates either that the sewers have not a sufficient fall or that they are insufficiently flushed.

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16.

-The late Ir. Ph. B. C. Ayres, C.M.G., Colonial Surgeon, in his Annual Report for 1882, said :-

78. This year the Report of Mr. Chadwick, the Sanitary Commissioner