146
W. SCHOFIELD
supplementary votes. Some D.O.s seemed to pride themselves on saving as much as possible of this vote, but I always thought it a D.O.'s duty not only to see as much of his district as he could, but to let its inhabitants see him.
One of the first questions I had to deal with was a request from the Sheung Tong villagers to make a grant from the small public works fund of $400 at my disposal to enable a footbridge to be built over the deep ravine dividing one side of their valley from the other. This was to be of granite beams, quarried in the Shap Pat Heung, and carried up over 1000 feet to Sheung Tong. I was anxious to get the village to contribute to the cost, as my vote for small public works was only $400 a year, and the cost of the three granite beams, and their transport by coolie up the mountain, would have come to about $160; and a good slice of the vote was usually granted to the Cheung Chau Residents' Association for upkeep and extension of paths there. The villagers could raise no money; they could not furnish coolies for transport; and they would not consider laying anything so ill-omened as an even number of stone beams: so to my regret I felt I could do nothing for people who could or would do nothing to help themselves.
In those days the Cheung Chau ferry was a large one-deck launch and passengers paid 3 cents each for a passage, but for 5 cents the Kaifong committee who ran it, largely in the interests of the fish industry, would give you a bamboo chair on the foredeck to sit on and this ferry was what drew missionaries to settle on the island from about 1907 onwards and build themselves bungalows for summer holidays, so saving the high cost of a Hong Kong apartment. Its timetable rarely suited my official arrangements, as by it I could never spend more than an hour ashore unless I got a night's lodging on the island; so I generally used my hired launch. In the thirties a guest house was opened for visitors in a large bungalow not far up the hill from the police station, and after 1934 I went there two or three times with friends while working on archaeological sites on Cheung Chau and the nearby coast of Lantau. This police station was not built till 1913 or 1914: before then the police had used a large house near the Kaifong pier, about 150 yards south of the later concrete pier, as their station. In 1912 a junk came to the pier by night, the crew and passengers landed, and carried the station by a sudden rush, as they were an armed pirate gang. The sergeant in charge and some police escaped and