NEWSPAPERS
(Contd.)
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resort Tunbridge Wells, Mr. Murrow had so far recovered as to be pronounced out of danger and likely to live for some years with care. In his last letter, dated the 27th of February, he stated that his health was much better and continued to improve, but it seems that early in March he had a second attack of congestion in the lungs, which at first did not seem serious, but he grew worse, and died on the 12th. He leaves a widow (his second wife) and six children.
"The London and China Express contains a lengthy obituary notice of Mr. Murrow, evidently written by some old China hand who doubtless knew him well intimately and was his contemporary here, from which we take the following:
"Mr. Murrow was born in Wales in 1817, arrived in China in 1838, and died in Jersey on the 12th of March (1884). For several years he represented the firm of Messrs Jamieson How and Co., and afterwards in business on his own account as a merchant in Canton and Hong Kong. He exercised great influence in the southern ports of China during a period of nearly thirty years, both in his public and private capacity. His public life may be said to have commenced the year after his arrival in Canton, when he was imprisoned in the factories by Commissioner Lin, along with other residents.
"When Hong Kong was colonised, the communication with Canton was tedious and uncertain, but his keen intelligence soon induced him to establish, at his own risk, a daily postal service in the first instance of fast native row-boats of his own design, as specially adapted to the service, and afterwards by steamers which he also designed. These steamers were constructed in this country (England), sent out in parts and put together by native craftsmen whom he trained for the purpose. The facilities thus afforded were recognised as a most important public benefit by all save those who had previously held a practical monopoly of early intelligence through a costly organisation of private express; but all, contents and non-contents, foreigners and natives, largely availed themselves of the regular, rapid, and cheap mode of transit which Mr. Murrow's enterprise had created.
"He was the pioneer of the China and San Francisco native passenger traffic, which led to the strange anomaly of an extensive emigration of Chinese to America, and probably did more than all other forces combined to free the Chinese from the hereditary shackles of exclusiveness, in which many centuries of 'custom' had previously enthralled them.
"Shortly after the commencement of the war of 1856-1860, when up to 1858 the foreign trade of Canton was suspended, and the customary commercial employment for Mr. Murrow's steamers almost ceased, their handiness and small draught of water made them invaluable to the Government, and they were for a time extensively employed as despatch boats. It was while thus employed that one of them was captured by the Chinese Government and burned, while the others, thrown out of their regular employment, and not being adapted for any other, became valueless as soon as Her Majesty's gunboats appeared on the scene.
"Mr. Murrow's claim for losses sustained was admitted by the official assessor. The amount was, in 1860, recovered from the Chinese Government, but a considerable portion at this moment (1884) still remains in the coffers of Her Majesty's Treasury. Owing, it is generally believed, to the independent