The principal cause of the flooding of these low-lying areas is the water that ogles up from the river through the storm drains. These drains run down the middle of the road and are normally fed by pipes leading from the gutters on each side. Owing to the level of parts of the Settlement the normal procedure is reversed when the river is higher than the low-lying land. The water comes up the storm drains, up the pipes to the gutters and spreads over the road way. And there is no hope of dr Ing it away until the river sinks What the move after that will be it present difteult to say. Those whose business It is to keep an eye on expenditure have 9 habit of plotting It out in graphs, and when they see the line rising at too much of an angle, they bod into other popolo's offices and talk about it. Where, they ack, is the money going to come from? And upon the answer to that Question depends the extent and Speed of the road raising.
There is, however, hope for the roads of the Central District, Though they bear the heaviest flow of traffic they are good roads and stand up well under the strain. The cost of maintaining them in repair is, therefore, fess than it might be and there is margin which can be spent upon falsing them. Those who, among their many other duties, are looking after the raising, hope to be able start on Kiukiang Road after the Szechuen Road-Foochow Road chang-have been finished. Kiukiang Road will be raised as far as Kiangs2 Road, Then Kiengse Road will take tum and the raisers will work southward to. Hankow Road an¢, probably, back to Szechuen Road with the object of enclosing the Whole block betwen these roads with raised surfaces.
In time, another bad spot in the Settlement will be tackled. That is the neighbourhood of the Nanking, Road-Chekiang Road corner. Whenever there is high water this neighbourhood in one of the worst suffer-the surfaces of the roads—and therefore the cutlets of the pipes leading to the storm drains—are raised between eighteen and fifteen Inches, it will be impossible for the water to come up in this fashion, and the areas affected will be saved from the inconvenience and often serious damage of foods Those parts of the Western District affected by floods suffer less from water coming up the storm. drains than from the system of storia drains which "exists there. Thi particularly applies to the part round the corer of Bubbling Well and Hart Roads. There the main storm drain does not run down Bubbling Well Road, but goes through the Hardoon Estate to Ferry Road Corner. The drain down Buboling Well Rood is too small to cope with the rain water on the road and neighbourhood when it is heavy, and as a result there are floods.
This difficulty is being met by putting in a new storm drain which will run, not from west to east, but from south to north, sorrying off the surplus water into the Soochow Creek. This now drain, it is thought, will be ample for the needs of the area.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.