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A small Cadet Corps was commenced in May 1906 with boys from the Victoria British School, there are now 13 of them, instructed in squad drill and semaphore signalling. They attended Camp, and are already very efficient signallers.
The New Headquarter Building was opened in December, 1906, and is already very popular. A well equipped Gymnasium will shortly be installed, the necessary apparatus having been ordered from England.
The expenditure on the Volunteers, which is entirely borne by the Colony, was $47,351.34, compared with $58,311.12 in 1905.
XII-GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
The year 1906 is likely to be known by the present generation in Hongkong as the year of the great typhoon. Between 8.30 and 11 a.m. on the 18th September a storm of narrow. diameter but great violence passed over the Colony. In the absence of warning no prepar- ations had been made to meet it and great loss of life and property resulted. Fifteen Euro- peans were drowned including the Right Revd. Dr. JOHN CHARLES HOARE, Bishop of Vic- toria, who was on a tour of diocesan inspection. Capt. L. A. W. BARNES-LAWRENCE, R.N., the Harbour Master, died on the 2nd October as the result of exposure during and overwork after the storm. 2,385 Chinese were actually reported missing but the loss of Chinese life is believed to have been much greater than this and probably exceeded 5,000. Fifty-nine European-built merchant vessels of 72,185 aggregate tonnage foundered, grounded, or other- wise received injuries which in the case of eighteen vessels of 8,198 aggregate tonnage amounted to or resulted in total loss. In addition 80 steam launches were more or less damaged, including 32 that were sunk of which most were, however, afterwards raised. H.M.S. Phoenix, a sloop of 1,050 tons went ashore and has since been broken up; the French Torpedo Boat Destroyer Fronde though broken in two by a similar accident was con- sidered worth repairing; a number of Colonial Government vessels were damanged. 796 junks, 798 cargo boats, 275 sampans and 544 other boats making a total of 2,413 Chinese craft were reported lost or missing. All the temporary and some of the permanent piers in Victoria and Kowloon were destroyed and much injury was done to seawalls in both places and to dykes protecting cultivation in the Eastern part of the New Territories. 18 houses in Victoria, 122 in Kowloon and about 50 in the New Territories were blown down wholly or in part or rendered unsafe for habitation. Considerable injury was done to the roads in various parts of the Colony, to the telephone systems, to public buildings in progress, to the pine plantations on the Island, and to the crops on the low lying grounds on the shores of Tide Cove and Tolo Harbour. Two days after the typhoon a Relief Fund was started of which the principal object was to enable the boating people to again carry on the work of the harbour. The sum raised amounted ultimately to $279,903 of which $127,494, mainly subscribed by European firms, residents and sympathizers was collected by the Relief Fund Committee and $152,409, subscribed by Chinese in Hongkong and elsewhere, was collected by th Committee of the Tung Wa Hospital. Of the aggregate sum $244,892 has been exper d in buying, rebuilding and repairing 1,600 junks, sampans and other boats, in recovering and burying corpses, in maintaining destitutes, in relief to widows and orphans,
etc.
The great typhoon called forth expressions of sympathy from His Majesty the KING, from His Majesty's Government and from various British and foreign governments and communities in the Far East. Another bright aspect of it were the acts of heroism and duty performed in the rescue and aid of sufferers and in the clearing away of the more gruesome evidence of the catastrophe. The latter work and the putting in hand of the salvage operations in the harbour and of the heavy repairs on shore were delayed by subsequent storms of which one on the night of the 19th to 20th September passed within 300 miles and a second on the 23rd passed just beyond this distance of the Colony. The centre of a third moving from South East to West on the 28th and 29th passed not far from Gap Rock and resulted in considerable further damage. On October 1st the typhoon signal was hoisted for the last time in the year.
A disaster on a smaller scale than the typhoon but not less horrid in its details occurred about 3 a.m. on the morning of October 14th, when the S.S. Hankow (3,073 tons) of the Hongkong, Canton & Macao Steamboat Company within a few minutes of tying up to the Company's pier and with some 800 persons still on board burst into flames. Ninety bodies
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