Nemesis Tavern, J. Meveety, Queen's Road West.
Neptune Tavern, John Schipper, Queen's Road West.
Old House at Home, J.F. Borges, Queen's Road West.
Oriental Hotel, George A. Taber, and T.F. Andruss, Wellington Street.
Rising Sun, John Crowen, Queen's Road.
Royal Albert Hotel, John Cahill, 518 Queen's Road.
Stag Inn, J.B. Watson, 328 Queen's Road.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, James Borton, Queen's Road West.
Victoria Hotel, Thomas O'Brien, 347 Queen's Road.
White Swan, Joaquim Caldera, Queen's Road West.
Truly, here was the meeting place of sailormen from all over the world!
Reference was made the other day (7-8-33) to the hotels and taverns that flourished in the Colony. It is evident that there were a large number of mere drinking shops in the earlier years of Hongkong, with picturesque names, and probably picturesque frequenters. These have now gone, and the only public bars are found in hotels. The reform was probably gradual, and brought about by the easy expedient of refusing licenses for those premises which were not bona fide residential hotels. One of the places in the list published, of premises in existence in 1860, was a late and lone survival up to about the Eighties, this being the "Land we Live In", but all the public houses had gone by the beginning of this century; and the Licensing Board by keeping a close rein (under the good advice of the Inspector General of Police) on efforts to revive the mere drinking shop, has no doubt improved the tone of the Colony.
We can conjure up, in the imagination, the scenes of old when ships discharged their crews ashore. Yet for a time, seamen were subject to much restriction, and partly for their own good and the fear of their contracting sickness ashore, were rigorously kept on board while in port. This iron discipline, we find it explained in the old chronicles, was due to the belief that malaria was contracted ashore. There is nevertheless an admission that the men fell sick of fever while aboard, and we know now that mosquitoes were able to reach the ships and take the fever out to the crews!
In turning up some old records the other day, I came across further references to our old taverns and hotels, and in view of the subject deserving at least a whole chapter in any future narrative history of Hongkong, I need no excuse for referring again to the matter. Much of the aspect of the old days can be recaptured from a mere perusal of these extracts.
We find the following in the list of "taverns and seamen's boarding houses" in existence in 1847, just six years after the occupation: