#
June 16, 1902,7
`CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. has been done in this Colony. Part II is a very important section, as it treats of the Public Health Administration and the Sanitary Board. The result of the adoption of Messrs. CHADWICK's and SIMPSON's Bill will be to increase further the staff in charge of the public health by the appointment of a Sanitary Commissioner, ex-officio Chairwan of the Sanitary Board and Head of the Sanitary Depart
time has gone on the houses have become generally deeper and deeper, until there are being erected on the Praya back-to- back buildings of from 75 to 90 feet each "in depth with an extra ten feet of verandah in each encroaching on the public street." The report goes very fully into the question of back yards and kitchen. In one example cited it is shown that notwithstanding the provisions of a backyard to each house, what has come about is practically back-to-ment. back buildings, which resolve themselves into three blocks of buildings, two of which are the dwelling-houses, and the third the kitchens, forining a middle block separated from the other by narrow spaces called back yards. The houses on both sides are rendered insanitary by the intervening stories of kitoben-buildings. Back-lanes, as the report points out, situated behind kitchen-buildings in the rear of back yards do not light and ventilate the dwelling house. The type of house showing improvement in the right direction, which is to be found in one part of Hunghom has kitchens at'ached to and forming part of the house, not built in the back, yard so as to shut out air and light from the house itself. With such insanitary kitchens too must go, if possible, alle basements, and all verandahs and balconies encroaching on the public way. It is looked on almost as a right, the report remarks, that builders should con struct in a three or four-storied house two or three extra rooms at the expense of the Government, that is encroaching on Crown land. These verandabs lessen the width of the street and darken the rooms, especially on the lower floors Behind the verandahs (which are really front rooms) the cubicle system renders the whole of the rooms, so-calld, unhealthy and leads to overcrowd, ing in its worst form, while the darkness absence of fresh air, and overcrowding together render cleanliness impossible Messrs. CHADWICK and SIMPSON mention designs for improved Chinese houses sub mitted by Mr. CHATHAM, Mr. DANBY, and Messrs. PALMER and TURNER, which show that the problem is not an insoluble one.
As we quote in another place the whole of the section of the report devoted to the subject of overcrowding within the houses, we need not refer to it further! We must leave the consideration of the proposed Bill for another occasion.
•
superfluous. With a section in “Contra- ventions and Penalties" the draft Bill concludes. Though we are unable to criticise its legal and technical merits, we can commend it as an honest and genuine attempt to reform an intolerable state of affairs.
THE KING'S PARK.
(Daily Press, 14th June.)
*
The difficulty no doubt experi- enced by the framers of the draft Bill We have not yet had the opportunity of was to separate the duties of this new Com-referring to the announcement made on missioner and the Medical Officer of Health, Wednesday evening by H.E. the Officer who is still to be retained though to Administering the Government with regard preserve the statutory majority of unofficial to the permission granted by the Secretaries members on the Board he is to cease to be of State for the Colonies and for War that a member and will attend meetings only as
a public park should be opened at Kowloon. professional adviser and chief executive As was already known, and as Major. officer. We are not certain that this is a
|General Sir William GascOIGNE reminded very happy arrangement, and Messrs. his hearers on the Coronation Committee on CHADWICK and SIMPSON admit their Wednesday, the project of cutting the first reluctance over the proposal owing to the sod during the Coronation ceremonies and invaluable services of Dr. CLARK. On the preparing for a speedy opening of the park Sanitary Commissioner devolve the duties
was only taken in hand a comparatively of dealing with all nuisances and defects short time ago. In fact, His Excellency was, of whatever nature, the Board still having as he said, at times in despair whether per- the power of granting licenses, permite, mission could be obtained in time; we have exemptions, etc., of controlling the Sanitary good reason for saying that he personally Department's policy, and of advising the worked his bardest to gain the assent of the Government on sanitary affairs,
home authorities, who have yielded before his energetic support of the wishes of the com- munity. The Government deserves hearty congratulations on its achievement, and we are glad to see that it is in the term of office of Sir WILLIAM GASCOIGNE, once as he admits the "obstructionist of the scheme, but latterly its warm supporter, that the consent of the two Secretaries of State has been obtained. But while congratulating the Government we must not forget the actual originator of the idea of a public park, "to whom," as His Excellency told the Coronation Committee; "the credit really of this scheme is due." We refer to Mr. CHARLES FORD, the Superin- tendent of the Botanical and Afforestation Department. It is now some two years ago that Mr. FORD first brought forward the plan of such a park, but it did not meet with the approval of the authorities, chiefly no doubt on account of military objections. The Hon. F. H. MAY, we believe, while-Acting Colonial Secretary in the absence of the Hon. J. H. STEWART LOCKHART, took up the idea again and
gave it his support, but it was not until the present Coronation year that the local authorities' consent was finally obtained, the Officer Commanding the Troops with- drawing his objections. To Mr. STEWART LOCKHART Occurred the happy ideas of calling the new park the King's Park and of holding the opening ceremony during the Coronation festivities, thus giving to Mr. FORD's scheme an appropriate finish but not of course rendering his credit for its original suggestion any the less. The
.
Into the technicalities of Parts III, IV, and V it is hardly possible to go here. What is the scope of the Bill can be gathered from the criticisms of the existing state of affairs which we published yesterday and the sketch of the Bill in the report itself. The framers have incorporated the pro- visions of the European Reservation Ordinance of 1888 with certain amendment. of boundaries. Among other points Messrs. CHADWICK and SIMPSON urge the prohibi- tion of ceilings outside the European quarter as a further protection against rats in the Chinese quarter. It inny be remembered that some medical men last year spoke against ceilings anywhere in Hongkong. One of the greatest reforms in the Bill is the prohibition of all windowless cubicles in domestic buildings hereafter erected, which the two experts think no great hard ship, and everyone, we think, will agree is necessary.
Combined with stricter regula- tions as to the height and depth of build- ings, the lot of the Chinese tenement dwellers will be altered very much if such a Bill becomes law. The enforcement of the clause limiting the depth of buildings (Daily Press, 13th June.)
may occasionally necessitate the resumption The summary of the draft Bill proposed by of a portion of a building lot by the Crown, Messrs. CHADWICK and SIMPSON, as given say the proposers, but in view of the insuf- in their report on the question of the ficient width of many of th public streets housing of the population of Hongkong, in the Colony and the lack of open spaces which we published yesterday, is sufficiently this resumed land area will be utilised to full, perhaps, to render comment need increase the width of the public street less. Attention, however, may profit or streets abutting on such lot or be ably be drawn to a few salient points. reserved as an open space for the im- The proposers, it will have been seen, ask provement of the neighbourhood. As to for a reference of the Bill to the Attorney-height, the proposers put the maximum at General for necessary legal alterations, but they deprecate indirectly any other changes! They have aimed at consolidating all the sanitary and building ordinances in this one Bill, citing the construction of the Imperial Public Health Act of 1875 and subsequent amending acts as precedent. That such a combination will prove useful not only to the official whose duty it is to see that the law is complied with, but also to the architects, is obvious,
¿
Part 1 of the Bill, dealing mainly with definitions, as the proposers explain, need
detain us, except to notice that it
sed that there should published an thorised list of qualified architects, engi. necessary provision in view (of some of the building work which
A
3
one and a half times the width of the street on which buildings front, and in the case of land not yet sold by the Crown advise that the height be only equal to the width.
The ideas of Messrs. CHADWICK and SIMPSON on the question of the resumption of insanitary property are well set forth in one of the paragraphs under the head of Proposed Bill" which we published yesterday. The fist sentence deserves particular attention-"The right of an owner of property to re-erect dwellings of an insanitary type, because his present dwellings are insanitary, should not be admitted." It is hardly creditable to the Colony that it is possible for such a sentence to be written, but unfortunately it is not
result of the various contributions to the
plan of the park is that Kowloon and the Colony in general will obtain an open space of about seventy acres which will serve both for recreation and for a future "lung' (as it is called) when the neighbourhood is fully built over. Not only will Hongkong be benefitted by the addition of another playground, but the suburb on the main- land will be preserved for the future, in one district at least, from one of the greatest evils which has affected the city of Victoria namely, that of absolute congestion of houses.
The Roman Catholic Mimion at Ningpolis reported to be obliterating the public, road, over which there is a dispute in which - the French Consul refuses to interfere.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.