ELECTION OF DIRECTORS
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About this time notices would be sent out by the hospital to the various Guilds who for the time being have the right to nominate representatives to serve as directors. On receipt of such notices, each Guild would proceed to call a meeting of its members and to nominate one to serve. The Guild would inform the Hospital of the person nominated. The hospital would then write to the person in question telling him that he had been elected by his Guild to serve, and inviting him to do so. According to old custom, if he intended to accept, he would first write a letter to the hospital declining on account of his imaginary unfitness and incapacity. Another letter from the hospital would be sent to him extolling his accomplishments and virtues, and pressing him to accept. He would probably write a second letter declining. A third letter would be sent to him and he would then write in reply and accept. In more recent times, however, the practice of going through a formal refusal twice is not adhered to. If he really wished to decline, the hospital would then notify the Guild, requesting the Guild to proceed to nominate another person to serve.
Eventually the representatives elected by the Guilds would all have signified their agreement to serve, and their names would then be posted up in the big hall of the Hospital as notice to the public in case anyone should like to raise any objection to the nominees.
GUILD REPRESENTATIVES
The number of Guilds sending representatives varies from time to time. Besides the Yan Sheung, to which I will refer, the following Guilds nominate representatives to serve as directors: Pawnbrokers' Guild; Piece-goods and Silk Guild; Californian Merchants' Guild; Chinese Bankers' Guild; Chinese Insurance Guild; Importers of Foreign Goods Guild; and the Chinese Medicine Guild.
The above Guilds are Guilds properly so called. There is one special body which is not strictly a Guild, but which has always had the right of sending representatives, namely the Yan Cheung, literally meaning "Wealthy Merchant". Anyone who subscribes either $50 or $100 to the Hospital becomes a member of this body, but he has to continue to subscribe such sum annually, otherwise he ceases to be such a member. The number of Directors elected by the Yan Sheung varies from time to time. This year the Yan Sheung elected 8 out of the 20 Directors serving.
THE YAN SHEUNG NOMINEE
The mode of electing a representative of the Yan Sheung is the same in principle. But as the body is necessarily vague and fluctuating, the exact method of election is as follows: About the time when letters would be sent out to the various Guilds, but usually a little later in the year, a public advertisement is inserted in the papers stating that the election of representatives of the Yan Sheung would be held at the hospital on the date therein stated.
On the day in question, usually a few of the Yan Sheung would be present, but in any case the current directors...