ENG-1951 — Page 90

buildings and the provision of yards, scavenging lanes, latrines and bathrooms. Since this date buildings erected to accommodate the lower income groups have shown a great improvement, and with the advance in ideas about housing this improvement can be expected to continue.

Many of the Chinese who have taken refuge in Hong Kong during the last three years have been unable to obtain accommodation of any sort, and as a result colonies of squatters' shacks have been constructed. Since many of these are built of wood, packing cases, corrugated iron and sacking and are constructed extremely close to one another the dangers of fire and disease are great. Efforts to keep the centre of the city free from squatters' huts have been successful, and special sites have been provided in certain localities where squatters may build for themselves at a low cost huts of a standard design. During the year the Government prepared a large-scale plan for squatter resettlement, which is discussed later in this chapter.

Rural Housing

In the New Territories there are few houses of European type, the largest group of these being along the Castle Peak Road and on Cheung Chau. Housing for the main population in the New

Territories market towns is similar to that of the urban areas, and in most of these towns there is similar congestion of population.

Housing in villages varies considerably. Some villages are surrounded by a wall and moat and still retain heavy gates at their one entrance. The bolting of these gates and the maintenance of the outer walls have, however, lapsed with the increase of security in this area since British administration began.

In these villages the dwellings are built in rows of a dozen or so with the front of one row facing the back of another. The streets between are usually not more than six to eight feet wide, and the drainage is primitive. Latrines are erected apart from the dwellings, and are similar, though inferior, to those still found attached to some rural cottages in the United Kingdom. The houses are for the most part kept in reasonable repair and the structural design is never altered. Furnishings consist usually of trestle beds, perhaps a table, and a few small stools.

A typical village dwelling consists of one ground floor room, entrance being made through the front door-there is no back door- into a partially roofed-over space, one side of which is reserved for cooking, and the other side for storage of dried grass, the principal fuel. An inner door gives entrance to the single room, the rear portion of which is screened off with wooden partitions for use as a bedroom. Over this rear portion, raised some 8 feet above floor level, is a wooden

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