CAB11-57-17 — Page 147

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CHAPTER VI (5) and (6).

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The headquarters of the Brigade are at No. 5 Station, in Queen's Road, Central, and most of the stores and engines are kept there. A certain number of European and Chinese firemen also sleep there, and the Assistant Engineer, who is responsible for the upkeep of the engines and appliances, is permanently located at this station. The other and subsidiary stations are at the Police Stations at West Point, Wanchai, Yaumati, Sai-ki-wan, and Aberdeen.

There are also numerous places in different parts of the town where fire despatch boxes are kept. These are barrows supplied with 300 fect of hose and all necessary appliances for at once making use of street hydrants. They were specially designed for dealing with fires on high levels.

In addition to the despatch boxes the Brigade possesses four land steam engines and one floating engine. It also possesses some manual engines, which are kept in the various out-villages.

The Brigade is so organized and distributed as to form an excellent nucleus for expansion in war time, by means of civil volunteers, to any extent that may be required, under the supervision of the Superintendent.

The naval and military establishments and barracks are, in addition, well supplied with their separate fire engines, &c., which could be utilized in their immediate neigh- bourhood.

(6.)-Action by Principal Civil Medical Officer.

Care of Sick and Wounded.

1. The Principal Civil Medical Officer will form one of a consultative committee, the President of which will be the Principal Medical Officer of the Fortress, and the other member the Deputy Inspector-General, Royal Navy.

The duties of this Committee will be found in Chapter III (H) (ii), paragraph 5.

2. Provision is required to be made for 750 naval and 518 military sick and wounded in time of war. The increased sickness or number of casualties among the civil population at such time will probably not be considerable.

3. The Colonial Government will provide accommodation for 400 out of the 1,000 anticipated naval sick and wounded-

(1.) In a Mat-shed Annex, to be constructed for 200 beds by the Public Works Department in the compound of the Government Civil Hospital;

(2.) At the Peak Hotel, of which possession will be taken by the Colonial Secretary under section 7 of the Order of the late Queen in Council of the 26th October, 1896, and which would be altered as might be required by the Public Works Department, and fitted with 200 beds for convalescents and cases that were not serious.

The Mat-shed Annex will be put in hand at once. The Peak Hotel will not be taken over till the necessity for this step becomes apparent.

The military authorities have made their own arrangements for the accommodation of their sick and wounded.

Additional civil requirements will be met by sending Chinese cases (police and destitutes) to the Tung Wa, Alice, and Nethersole Hospitals and the Victoria Hospital for Women and Children, keeping only oue ward at the Government Civil Hospital for women requiring urgent treatment.

The sick and wounded of the Chinese Coolie Corps will be treated at the Tung Wa Hospital.

4. For the equipment of the Mat-shed Annex Hospital, and for surgical appliances and drugs for that hospital, and for the one at the Peak Hotel for naval patients, the P.C.M.O. will indent on the Deputy Inspector-General.

The furniture, bedding, crockery, and other articles forming the present equipment of the Peak Hotel will, under section 6 of the Order in Council above referred to, be taken over at the same time as the building itself by an officer of the Public Works Department, a representative of the hotel proprietors and an officer detailed by the P.C.M.O. being present. The reserve of one year's supply of drugs, &c., kept in the

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