1
HONGKONG
199
Medicine for Chinese. The Royal Naval Hospital occupies a small eminence near Bowrington. The Victoria College, a handsome and commodious structure, which stands on a fine site having its chief frontage on Staunton Street, is the home of the chief Government educational institution in the colony. It was opened in 1889. The Hongkong Public School, for European boys, is held in St. Paul's College. The Tung Wa Hospital, a Chinese institution, occupies a large and roomy building. The Barracks for the garrison are extensive, and constructed with great regard to the health and comfort of the troops, and the buildings belonging to the Naval Establishment are substantial and spacious. Head-quarter House, the residence of the General in Command of the Troops, occupies a pleasant elevation overlooking the cantonments. A new and commodious Central Market has been designed, and will shortly be built on the old site, which has been increased by the removal of a number of houses; a temporary market has been constructed on the water frontage to supply accommodation in the meantime. The building of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank is large, handsome, and massive, and would do credit to any city. It occupies a large site next to the City Hall, and has frontages on Queen's Road and the Praya, while the eastern elevation occupies the whole of one side of Wardley Street. The exterior walls and fine fluted pillars are of dressed granite, and the offices on the Queen's Road fron- tage are crowned with a large dome. The Praya wall, which was reconstructed in 1879-80, is a work of much solidity and strength, of dressed granite with a strong backing of concrete, and has successfully withstood some heavy seas. The present Praya will not, however, long continue to be the water frontage, as the reclamation of a further strip of land from the foreshore has been commenced, which will make the existing Praya an inland street from the City Hall in the centre of the city to the Sailors' Home near West Point. The Clock Tower, near Pedder's Wharf, was erected by public subscription in 1862, and the illuminated clock was presented to the Colony by the firm of Messrs. Douglas Lapraik & Co. The tower, though of fair proportions and height, is now some- what dwarfed by the lofty annexes to the Hongkong Hotel.
The chief religious buildings are: S. John's Cathedral (Anglican), which occupies a commanding site above the Parade Ground, erected in the year 1842, and is a Gothic church of considerable size but with few pretensions to architecture. It has a square tower, with pinnacles, over the western porch, and possesses a peal of bells. A new chancel was built in 1869-70, the foundation stone of which was laid by the Duke of Edinburgh on the 16th November, 1869. A handsome stained window in the east end, over the altar, is the chief adornment of the interior. It also possesses a fine three-manual organ containing 47 stops, erected in 1887. S. Peter's (Seamen's) Church, at West Point, close to the Sailors' Home, is a neat Gothic erection with a spire. It also has a stained glass window, presented in 1878. Union Church, a pleasing edifice in the Italian style of architecture, with a spire, and containing accommodation for about 500 persons, formerly stood in Staunton Street, but was rebuilt in 1890, on the plan of the old building, on a new site above the Kennedy Road, together with a parsonage adjoining. This church possesses an organ. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is situated in Glenealy ravine, near the Botanic Gardens, and is a large structure in the Gothic style; the bell tower is at present incomplete, and the central tower is furnished with an insignificant wooden apology for a spire. It was opened for worship in 1888. S. Joseph's Church, in Garden Road, is a neat edifice erected in 1876 on the site of one destroyed by the great typhoon of 1874; S. Francis Church, at Wanchai, and the Church of the Sacred Heart, at West Point, are small and unattractive structures. There is a Jewish Synagogue in Staunton Street, and a Mahomedan Mosque in Shelley Street. There are also several Protestant mission chapels. S. Joseph's College, a school for boys managed by the Christian Brothers (Roman Catholic), occupies a large and handsome building on a prominent site below Robinson Road. The Italian Convent, in Caine Road, educates a large number of girls, and brings up many orphans gratuitously. The Asile de la Sainte Enfance, in Queen's Road East, is in the hands of French Sisters, who receive and train up numbers of Chinese foundlings. The Roman Catholics also possess a Reformatory at West Point for Chinese boys, which is efficiently managed. Other denominations likewise support establishments of the same character, conspicuous among which are the Diocesan Home and Orphanage, the Berlin Foundling Hospital on Bonham Road, and which has a neat little chapel attached (in which services according of the Lutheran creed are performed). the Baxter Vernacular School, the Victoria Female Home and Orphanage, &c. St. Paul's College, situated between Pedder's Hill and Glenealy Ravine, was erected in 1850, and was originally founded for the purpose of giving a theological training to young Chinese and others intended for the ministry of the Anglican Church, but is