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Road from the City Hall to Arsenal Street was practically completed, only a small portion of the old Provost Prison remaining to be removed. A portion of the widening of Arsenal Street still remained to be done. The roads on the Praya Reclamation were practically completed, but were much disturbed and interfered with by the extensive building operations in progress on the recently reclaimed land. The two steam road-rollers were kept well employed, the roads being maintained generally in good condition. The use of salt-water for watering is, however, exer- cising a very injurious effect upon them causing the surface to break up on the occurrence of damp weather. The heavy rainstorms experienced caused some damage in the way of landslips, which blocked or carried away portions of the roads, whilst the surfaces of some of the steeper roads were scoured out.

27. Maintenance of Rouds and Bridges outside City. The remarks made in the preceding paragraph apply here also to a considerable extent as the Electric Tramway extends to Shaukiwan and one of the Telegraph Company's cables already mentioned continues from Wongneichong to Deep Water Bay. The Jubilee Road from Kennedy Town to Aberdeen, which is referred to elsewhere, constituted the only addition to the roads in the outside district, a portion of the old road near Aberdeen which has been superseded by it, being closed to traffic. A landslip which carried away a portion of the disused road occurred during the year. Some improvements were made by constructing concrete side-channels in places and several of the more dangerous parts of the roads in the Hill District were protected by iron railings or stone parapet walls.

28. Maintenance of Roads and Bridges in Kowloon. A steam roller was obtained for the Kowloon roads but was employed for a time on the Praya Reclama- tion in Hongkong to assist in consolidating the filling deposited to form the roads there. The application of granite macadam for surfacing the main roads in Kowloon is being extended as funds permit. By arrangement with the Contractor who is carrying out the Tsim Sha Tsui Point Reclamation, an embankment was constructed outside the road past Gun Club Hill which will admit of widening and improving the latter considerably, when the Contractor's light railway has been removed. This part of the road was formerly very narrow and, from the fact that there was an awkward corner in it and that it was at a considerable height above the beach, it was ill-adapted for vehicular traffic which has increased largely of

late years.

29. Maintenance of Roads and Bridges in New Territory.-The road to Tai Po continues to be practically the only one in the New Territory, there being besides only a couple of short portions of roads near Kowloon City, north of the old boundary line of British Kowloon. The Tai Po Road suffered a good deal from the rainstorms and from the operations of the Contractor engaged in quarrying stone above it and conveying it to the site of the Kowloon Storage Reservoir for the construction of the dani. Repairs were in progress during the latter part of

year, the principal portion of the road being in a satisfactory condition.

the

30. Maintenance of Sewers, Nullahs, &c.-It was proposed by Mr. CHADWICK in his Report of the 10th April, 1902, that the cleansing of the drains, sewers and nullahs, which had formerly been performed by the Public Works Department, should be relegated to the Sanitary Board and placed under the charge of the Medical Officer of Health and, with a view to giving effect to this proposal, tenders were invited by the Government. The conditions upon which the tenders were based were that the Contractor should find all necessary labour whilst the Government were to supply all tools required and the scope of the proposed contract was limited to the City; the Hill District, Kowloon, Aberdeen and Shau- kiwan not being included. Any case of a blocked sewer or drain which defied ordinary methods and involved opening of the ground in order to clear it, was also excepted from the proposed contract. As the lowest tender received amounted to $19,560, it was decided to carry on the work under the Public Works Depart- ment as formerly and it is satisfactory to note that the entire cost of maintaining the drains, sewers, &c., in the various localities throughout the Colony in good condition only amounted to $17,293.61. The details are as follows :—

Labour for cleansing operations,

Tools for

Repairs,

do.,

..$13.288.80 1,107.48 2,897.33

Total,

..$17,293.61