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speedily attracted a considerable boat population and the profits accruing from the supply of provisions and necessaries at once raised many from poverty and infamy to considerable wealth. The shelter and protection afforded by the presence of the fleet soon made our shores the resort of outlaws, opium smugglers, and indeed of all persons, who having rendered themselves obnoxious to the Chinese laws, had the means of escaping hither.
It was not to be expected that Hongkong would attract at that time the best elements of the Chinese people. Hongkong was occupied by the British at a time it was at war with China.
The Chinese, who flocked to Hongkong to take advantage of opportunities to trade, sell produce, construct roads, level sites, erect buildings or find employment in foreign residences and business firms, were regarded as collaborators and traitors by Chinese with a national pride.
The majority were people who had no established place within the approved Chinese social system. Many were boat people who were traditionally regarded as an inferior class.
Others were those who could find no employment in their native place. Still others were renegades escaping from Chinese justice.
There were, of course, also the honest shopkeeper, tradesman and labourer, but the community was dominated by the less respectable class.
The chief personage in the Chinese community during the years immediately after the British occupation of the island was a man known familiarly as A-king, or more formally as Loo King. He came into possession of a substantial section of the Chinese part of town known as the Lower Bazaar (Sheung Wan).
Along with other business interests, he operated a gambling establishment, a theatre and brothels. Beside the wharf adjoining his main business premises he had erected a small temple.