The square tower, just above the roof level, can be clearly seen from the top of Gloucester Building as an Architect in the P.W.D. at that time I am sure of these facts.
The old photograph reproduced on this page shows the junction of D'Aguilar Street and Queen's Road Central as it looked more than thirty years ago. A.S. Watson and Co.'s establishment, the Hongkong Dispensary, is shown at the corner. These premises were vacated by the firm in 1904 (see article published on 18-8-33), and are now occupied by On Lok Yuen.
On the left is seen part of the old Hongkong Club building, later adapted by the Yee Sang Fat. Co. Theatre now stands on the site.
To the right, where the pillars are seen, we now have China Building, and a little further, opposite the old dispensary, the Queen's Theatre has been built. Here were the old Post Office and the Law Courts. The only building of this group still standing is On Lok Yuen's, which is exceedingly old, going back to 1860.
The line of trees seen in this photograph remained until about 1920, and are still remembered by many residents. They were felled at the time the old buildings were demolished to make room for the present imposing reinforced concrete structure.
Reference to Hongkong's street sleepers the other day recalls the early efforts to mitigate the lot of destitute Chinese in the Colony. Something of the conditions that prevailed sixty years ago is revealed in the following extract from the Hongkong Times of July 11, 1873, referring to what the paper termed "the Rangel's Labyrinth"
"Those of our readers who are interested in the topography of Hongkong should pay a visit to this wonder of our colonial antiquities. Behind the Central School (now Queen's College), in a direct line, a dilapidated shanty at the head of a 'street' two and a half feet wide, shows the entrance to the Labyrinth which occupies about two acres of valuable ground and contains about 80 pig sties, built in 1849 by the coolies of Mr. Floriano Rangel at a cost of about $8 to $15 each: mud, mother earth, and old timber being the only materials used in the construction of these primitive abodes. Numerous serpentines, the broadest about three feet, give entrance to the shanties which are let out to Chinese of problematical character at a rent ranging from $2 to $5 per month. Policemen and lamposts are things not to be found in that ground. Each typhoon razes half a dozen of these shanties and, not long ago, a few of the most dangerous were pulled down by order of the agents.
"Some are without the back walls and some minus the front, but all are inhabited by day and night tenants, the former being gamblers and the latter, hawkers of congee. The gamblers enjoy during the day their vices undisturbed excepting some fights, now and then, among the fraternity; and the hawkers prepare their congee all night for sale, at break of day, talking Chinese fashion, loudly and all at once, without the slightest regard to the peace and comfort of the Europeans who live in the adjoining houses forming a semicircle to the Labyrinth".
These ramshackle slums must have been cleared away in due course, for the locality has been built over with dwellings of a substantial type.