Sessional_Paper_1907 — Page 310

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(3) In the case of the poorest classes of the Chinese people (especially in the case of married people) whose income is only sufficient to pay the rent of a part only of a floor, but who at the same time require a reasonable amount of privacy, and wish to obey the ordinary rules of decency, I am fully pre- pared to admit that with this class of the population much more supervision is required, but at the same time it is this class of the population which need

up-lifting, and to my mind it is only a kind but firm policy carried out in a just, sincere and conscientious manner that will succeed.

I very stongly advocate an improved form of cubicle and a reduced number of them, rather than to make such sharp, jerky movements such as the wholesale sweeping away of cubicles, by the more steady and sure way we shall gain the respect, confidence and assist- ance of the inasses in the forward march of Sanitary reform.

Official returns have been sent in from the various Inspectors reporting 17,493 illegal cubicles removed during the past 33 months, or 530 removed on an average per month, but it is well known to those who have had practical experience of this cubicle question that in a very large number of cases matchboard partitions have been removed, and curtains, sacking, etc., have been substituted, these curtains, etc., are often torn down at the approach of an Inspector.

I am firmly of opinion that no substantial improvement has been made, in fact the people are completely out of touch with the Sanitary Authorities in this matter.

In proposing a remedy for the cubicle question I would very strongly advocate that every floor should be treated on its merits as regards light and ventilation, for instance take an ordinary four storey house.

Plan of each floor shown on

* Drawing No. 1.

Ground Floor, badly lighted and ventilated. No cubicles should be allowed.

First Floor, lighting and ventilation only moderate. Not more than 1 or 2 cubicles should be allowed.

Second Floor, lighting and ventilation very fair. Not more than 3 cubicles should be allowed,

Third or Top Floor, lighting and ventilation good. Not more than 4 cubicles should be allowed.

When speaking of cubicles I mean properly constructed wooden cubicles, which should be not less than 64 superficial square feet in floor area, to be not more than 6 feet in height, and should be well painted, so that they could always be scrubbed and cleaned.

I do not advocate the formation of skylights in the roof of the upper floor, unless they are thoroughly well constructed, for in the bulk of cases they leak badly and are often boarded over to keep the rain out, and in many cases the roof is seriously weakened by the cutting away of rafters to form the skylight, clearly in the majority of cases they are not

a success.

I do not think that any safe rule can be formed for fixing the number of cubicles allowed on the depth of the floor, for instance many of the very deep floors are very dark in the centre of the floor, midway between the front and back. To show this I have prepared

* Drawing No. 2.

which shows that in the very deep floors the light is not evenly distributed.

My opinion being that the best remedy for deep floors in new buildings is to strongly enforce Section 151, Sub-section 1, of Ordinance No. 1 of 1903, which reads as follows:-

"No domestic building shall hereafter be erected of a greater depth than forty feet unless every storey of such building is provided with a lateral window or windows opening into the external air, and having a total glazed area equal to not less than one tenth of the floor area of such storey, in addition to the window area required by the foregoing section."

*Not Published.