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A.--Of course, or else there should be a Board, to which such questions should be handed over, or to a Sub-Committee; to be dealt with in a common sense way.
Q-Of course, as you know, the present procedure is that the Sanitary Board has a Meeting once a fortnight, and those questions may have to stand over for 14 days, and then have to go to the Executive Engineer, and probably hang over for another week?
A.-It seems to me there should be something in the way of a business way of dealing with such questions. Now, I think it is probable that in a large number of cases,-the really essential point-does not come before the Board. Recently I applied for an exemption for opening a back yard in a house in Ship Street. It is a brothel. It faces How Fung lane, at the back and at the side. It has 23 windows at the side, and the back has more windows. Į was called upon by the Sanitary Board to open up half of the kitchen. We were called upon to do it, and it has been done, and it has cost my client $200 or $300 to do it. And the house is not a haporth more sanitary than it was before,—at least that is my opinion.
Mr. Fung Wa Chun.-Is it not in the Ordinance, that the open space at the side is not. counted as open air ?
A. -- Yes.
Q. Do you think it is absurd to expect people to have open spaces at the back,-insist on open spaces at the back, when you have plenty of open space at the side?
A.—I should think so, unless it obstructs somebody else,-certainly.
Q-Have you known of any case, in which the owner has been asked to provide an open space at the back, when he has plenty at the side?
A. Yes, this was a case I was referring to.
Q.-But other case ?
any
A.-I think so.
The Chairman.—At present, you are only allowed to build on three quarters of your property?
A.--Three quarters of the old property, and two thirds of the new property.
Mr. Shelton Hooper.-And it comes to this, that if the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank was burned down to-morrow, they must leave one third of the space at the back open, although they have God's air all the way right to Kowloon ?
A. Yes.
Q.--As laid down here, the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, which is open from Des Voeux Road to Kowloon Hills, only obstructed by the Queen's Statue,—they have to→
The Chairman.-And Sir Thomas Jackon's Statue.
A. Yes, I think so. Another experience: When we built an addition to the Peak Hotel, recently-about a year ago-we got permission from the Government, through Mr. Chatham, to erect matsheds under the coolie house there. We got permission to put them there, and then we or rather the contractor got served with a nuisance notice from the Sanitary Board, because he had not got 50 super feet for every coolie. That is very sensible for a building in Queen's Road, but to apply it to a building at the Peak, where you have got fresh air all round!!-Of course the next tender the contractor gets up there, he pust it on to his price.
The Chairman. That is a ridiculously extreme application of the law.
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