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refuse would be exposed and the smell emanating from it would be unquestionably a danger to the public health. very one using the barbour knew that a large quantity of this rubbish was also unshipped as soon as the boats got away from the eyes of the Water Police at the back of Stonecutter's Island. That accounted for the quantities of rubbish that came floating back over the harbour at times, making the harbour extremely foul. Some of this was also thrown up on the sandy beaches and foreshores. The refuse of the City of Victoria was about 180 tons a day or 3,900 tons a month. Now, they had a letter from Singapore in which it was distinctly stated that a four-cell destructor consumed 2.743 large cart-loads of refuse in one month. The Hongkong cart-loads could hardly be called large, and yet he believed each of them held about a ton. So that they might assume that if their refuse only amounted to 3,900 tous a month, the probability was that a six-cell destructor would be capable of destroying all the refuse of the City. The Municipal Engineer of Singapore said that the destructor there had been in use for years with the most satisfactory results,' He also said that no fuel was used in the furnaces but that fuel was needed to produce steam for the blower engines.' The Public Works Committee had been largely influenced by the opinion of Mr. ORMSBY that the destructor would require a large quantity of fuel to consume the refuse. Comparing Hongkong with Singapore, the population was much similar, but in the latter place they had rain every day so that the refuse was bound to get wetter than here, and, if they required no fuel there other than that re- quired to produce forced draught, surely they might reasonably assume that they would require no fuel to burn the refuse of Hongkong. He had it in his mind to suggest to the Committee to send a practical man of the Public Works Department to Singapore to see the actual working of the refuse destructor, and report. Such an Officer would be in an excellent position then to say whether the system would work in Hongkong, and they would get far more information from him than by any amount of documents or correspondence, and he might say, any amount of special pleading. With regard to the Chairman's proposal of hopper barges and piers, he thought that was perhaps equally as good an expedient, provided, of course, that it was properly controlled. He (Dr. CLARK) thought that, everything considered, the Chairman's scheme would probably be found the more expensive of the two. In speaking of the cost of running the refuse destructor, the Chairman rather pooh-poohed the idea of there being any saving in the cost of the scavenging contract. In discussing the other sug- gestion, he stated that a very considerable saving would be effected by the abolition of the junks. Either scheme would effect practically the same saving.

Mr. THURBURN.-May I ask a question? Is it not the case that a destructor for the destruction of carcases has been already ordered, and is to be available for the destruction of plague refuse ?

Dr. CLARK.-The Sanitary Board has pointed out that a destructor designed specially for the destroying of carcases of cattle would not be suitable for the destruction of City refuse.

Mr. CHATER.We had it here that it could destroy plague refuse, but it came out in the Sanitary Board meeting that it could not.

The Chairman.It could be done, but it is not an economical method.

In reply to a question by the Captain Superintendent of Police, Dr. CLARK said :—- -If you want to know the most economical way of getting refuse from the various parts of the City to the refuse des- tructor, I think that the proper way to do so is this. You fill the carts at the doors of the houses and the rubbish in these carts should not then be transferred or handled in any way. The carts should be taken to the level of Queen's Road, and put upon bogey trollies (some twelve or eighteen inches high) which would run on the tram lines, and then with ordinary coolie labour could be run along to the refuse destructor. Continuing, Dr. CLARK said that, if they were to have three wharves and only one hopper barge in use, he should be very sorry for the sanitary condition of this City, as while the barges would be loading at one pier, many cart-loads of rubbish would have to lie on the other two piers awaiting shipment.

Mr. OSBORNE said:-The reason given to the Sanitary Board by the Government when refusing the Board's application for a refuse destructor was that the matter had been referred to the Public Works Committee and they had decided not to recommend the expenditure on the grounds that the present system of disposing of Town refuse appeared to work satisfactorily.

Before entering upon a discussion of the relative merits of new schemes, he thought they should first of all come to a decision as to whether the present system was, or was not, a satisfactory one.

Speaking for himself, and he thought other members of the Sanitary Board agreed with him, he considered the existing methods most unsatisfactory and felt sure, if those present were conversant with these methods, they would also not hesitate to think the same.

The refuse was collected in carts drawn by coolies and deposited, not direct into boats, but on the Praya, where it was immediately pounced upon by men, women and children who speedily appropriated every atom of wood, rags and other morsels of the slightest value. These refuse heaps lay sometimes for days on the Praya, a nuisance to passers by and a hindrance to traffic, and he had himself seen, during a Plague epidemic, the Praya literally blocked for a distance of some 200 yards by heaps of rubbish collected from the squalid hovels of a Plague stricken district, awaiting removal by the dust boats.