Sessional_Paper_1902 — Page 531

15

bridge, are the kitchens, on each floor. The kitchens form a building as high as the house, and practically cut off the greater part of the light from the back. These long tunnel-like rooms are dark of themselves and are still further darkened by insufficient open space behind. As if this were not enough, a masonry verandah ten feet wide is added in front on each storey and projected not on the site belonging to the house but over the public street. This verandah still further obstructs the light. When occupied as a tenement dwelling each room is still further darkened by being sub-divided into cubicles each separately occupied by a cubicle holder who may have his wife and family or his friends living in it.

or his friends living in it. The air in these cubicles is stag- nant and the light in them, from a sanitary point of view, is most inadequate. The projection of these several-storied masonry verandahs over public streets is a curious privilege or custom that has arisen in all streets over fifty feet in width. It is tantamount to the Government making a present of a certain amount of land for habitable purposes-f

-for most of these verandahs are practically rooms- -to every builder of a house. On the Praya, it is a gift of ten feet for eighty, but in some parts of the town the proportion of land given is greater. In Queen's Road the street is fifty feet wide and the houses on each side of the street have three-storied verandahs. Each verandah encroaches on the public street ten feet to eleven feet, so that practically the street originally fifty feet has been narrowed to less than thirty feet. In determining the height to which a building shall be erected the full width of the street from house to house and not the actual width of the street from verandah to verandah is taken as the measure. It seems as if the builder gave nothing and received a good deal.

34. In any future Ordinance and in any future sales of land the Government should have powers to prescribe the type of house to be built in different parts of the Colony. The long deep rooms without any lateral windows to them are very objec- tionable. It is obvious also that rules and regulations suitable for European houses at the Peak are not suitable for Chinese houses or for houses of the warehouse and office class. Excellent plans of improved Chinese houses have been prepared by the present Director of Public Works, and by one or two of the local architects. Powers should also be obtained to regulate the maximum proportion of the roofed over area of any domestic building hereafter erected in such a manner that every such building shall have an adequate open space attached to it. This open space should in future be at least one-third of the total area, and the streets and scavenging lanes should not be included in calculating this total area. Back yards should bear a minimum proportion to the height of the houses and not as now to the depth. The depth of a house should be regulated by its lateral windows, the objection to deep rooms is removed with lateral windows. No cubicles should be allowed in new houses unless each cubicle is provided by a window. In old houses the cubicles should be gradually eliminated except perhaps in top storeys, where skylights and special arrangements for ventilation can be introduced. To prevent overcrowding, the superficial area or floor area should be raised from thirty to fifty feet per head.

35. There are other matters which call for attention, but probably the fore- going will suffice to indicate that many important measures require to be enforced and that the details of them can only be properly considered and efficiently carried out by having an administrative President of the Sanitary Board whose whole time is devoted to this work and whose title might be "Sanitary Commissioner" for the Colony.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

The Honourable

J. H. STEWART LOCKHART, C.M.G.,

Colonial Secretary.

W. J. SIMPSON, M.D., F.R.C.P.

435