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the examination successes and the honours won must also have been very impressive. Although there is no evidence that the villagers in general had acquired a higher level of literacy, yet school attendance in the village, with the school-going children amounting to 7.5% of the population, was higher than the average of 5% for the New Territories as a whole estimated by Lockhart in 1898. There was, furthermore, a relatively large number of teachers in the village, which was described as a "haven for the unsuccessful candidates of the yuan-kao", who usually worked as teachers.12 We have come across in the village some old hand-written manuscript collections of poems, couplets and essays written by village scholars, probably in the late Ch'ing. These were in many cases original collections of material either written or gathered by individuals and kept by their own families. There is no evidence that any of these collections had been copied out or printed for circulation. Literary appreciation of this order was, however, confined to the relatively small group of village scholars.
The traditional pattern of village life remained very much the same after the arrival of the British in 1898. Yet there was some evidence of change. The coming of British rule had brought the lineage into direct contact with the West and into easy communication with the world outside. Construction of the Tai Po Road began in 1900 and of the railway in 1905. A number of other public works such as the erection of police stations, government offices and paths linking the villages with the main road were also undertaken. This, together with the setting up of a new administration, must have brought opportunities for new jobs. The more adventurous villagers might find their way to urban Hong Kong and Kowloon, while a number would seek jobs in the new construction works. We have oral records of a few who worked in the construction of the railway and the building of the paths. There was a teacher who gave up teaching to work in the Land Office. The total number of such new openings might be very small and had not yet brought any important changes to the traditional economic conditions of the village, yet they did open new avenues for work and wealth. This, together with the abolition of the civil