National Hotel, 200A Queen's Road, Central (John Olsen, proprietor).
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Stag Hotel, 110 Queen's Road, Central (J. Cook, proprietor).
Star Hotel, 142 Queen's Road, Central (F.D.Linde, proprietor).
Welcome Tavern, 288 Queen's Road, Central (Joaquim Gomez).
Kowloon Hotel, Kowloon (J.Wetgrove).
Licensed boarding house keepers,
West;
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Sailors Home, West Point; Peter Smith, Queen's Road, Ismail, Circular Pathway; Alli Moosdeen, Lower Lascar Row; Ignacio
eltrao, Tank Lane; Francisco d'Assis, Upper Station Street; Lenterio Vilanueva, Bridges Street.
Some of these boarding houses were for Asiatic seamen, and dated back to the Forties.
I am indebted to a reader for an interesting contribution to this column in the form of a bronze token issued about fifty years ago by the Hongkong Hotel. Rubbings of this token are reproduced here, actual size. What visions of thirsts quenched it conjures up!
As the inscription implies, it was good for "one drink" or specified, and leaving the modern historian wondering what range that description covered - from water to champagne. But it probably served for nothing stronger, most of the time, than aerated water, as I find that the explanation for issuing this coinage runs as follows.
In the old days, when the Hongkong Hotel did outside catering at interport cricket matches, regattas, and so forth, these tokens were sold to patrons at the price, each, of a drink in those days. Presumably there was a definite unit value for each coin. With a handful of these tokens patrons could secure their drinks quickly, as the giving of change was avoided. It also simplified matters for the hotel, as the "boys" had only to account for the number of drinks sold by producing the same number of coins. The last occasion on which these tokens were used was in 1908, but forty or fifty years ago they were often in use at special occasions.
It is to be presumed that the pros and cons for their adoption were well weighed before they passed out of use just twenty-five years ago.
Apropos the references yesterday to the Hongkong Hotel, I am able to give the names of the gentlemen who signed the original Memorandum and Articles of Association in 1866. Their signatures were subscribed as follows:
W. Nissen of Hongkong, Merchant; H. Kaiser, Banker, Hongkong; M. Bosman, Merchant, Hongkong; G. Overbeck, Merchant, Hongkong; Benj. T. Kindersley, Merchant, Hongkong; N.J. Ede, Merchant, Hongkong; J.I. Murray, M.D., Hongkong.
The document is dated the 2nd day of March, 1866, and the signatures are witnessed by Mr. Edward H. Pollard, C.C., who was a leading light among the Colony's legal fraternity in those days. Something of the career of Mr. Pollard will be of interest, for he was connected with several big court cases in England in later years.