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NOTES AND QUERIES
everlasting as the Southern Mountain (a classical allusion symbolizing the “realm of longevity”). Providence has showered blessings of prosperity upon the family and bestowed her posterity with divine qualities. Here are gathered the young and the old to offer her their greetings and celebrations. May she live long like the evergreen pine-trees. Her descendants, who devote themselves to academic studies or engage in husbandry, have come forth with their fervent blessings of the "Nine Similes" [a psalm from the Book of Poetry].* Your mother, sitting in the North Hall, is presented with auspicious peaches [the "fruit of longevity" in Chinese legend]. She radiates with the spirit of the Dragon and the vigour of the Horse. Assembled at this Birthday party in this sumptuously decorated hall are honourable guests, all from noble and dignified families (Scribbled by Sun Ying-suet).
Hong Kong, 1976.
FRANCIS SHAM AND JAMES HAYES
HƯNG HȮM (£): AN EARLY INDUSTRIAL VILLAGE IN OLD BRITISH KOWLOON.
British Kowloon was ceded in March 1860. Its population at that time was around the few thousand mark, and its growth was steady over the next twenty years. In 1881 the population numbered 9,021. Thereafter the population rose sharply and by 1897 it was 26,402, of which 19,202 were male, (Sessional Papers 1897, p. 485).
The increase in the Kowloon population from 1860 on may be attributed to the establishment of industrial and manufacturing concerns, that undoubtedly owed their existence to the presence of nearby Hong Kong, then making great strides towards its establishment as a great entrepôt and commercial and financial centre. Among them the Hong Kong Whampoa Dock Company set up its yard at Hung Hom in the 1860's, the Cosmopolitan Dock began at
*The "9 Similes" (*) from the Book of Poetry()
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
如山如阜,如同如陵,如川之方至,以莫不增,
(6)
(7)
(8)
如月之恒,如日之升,如南山之壽,不騫不崩,
(9)
如松柏之茂,無不爾或承 [FSYS]