?
466
gress
directorate the affairs of the Hospital will be carefully administered. Remember that" Pro. is the spirit of this age, and that those who try to act in opposition to that spirit are doomed to failure. The spirit of progress, 30 long absent from the Tung Wa Hospital, has at last commenced to show itself in that institu- tion. It is your duty, gentlemen, to nourish that spirit into a healthy vitality in the interests of such of your countrymen in this colony as are too poor and too weak to care for themselves. In the discharge of that duty you can always rely on the encouragement and support of this Government. I wish you all good-bye and 1 can assure you that though I may be thousands of miles from Hongkong I shall never forget it, or fail to pray for the success and pros- perity of the colony and of all its inhabitants.
Mr. LIAO Tsz-SHAN, in reply, said-Your Excellency, on behalf of the retiring Directors I have to thank your Excellency for the kind words you have just spoken. We have been endeavouring during the tenure of our office to do our utmost for the public benefit, but I am afraid we have not done all that we ought to have done. I am glad, however, that the man- agement is left in better hands. We beg to avail ourselves of this opportunity to thank Your Excellency and Mr. Lockhart for your as- sistance and kind treatment.
Mr. FUNG WA CHEUN said-Your Ex cellency, on behalf of myself and the other members of the present Committee of the Tung Wa Hospital, I beg to thank your Excellency for condescending to receive us here to-day. We have listened with great interest to your Excellency's encouraging words, which have inspirited ns. As to your Excellency's instructions for the improvement of the Hospital, we will do our humble best to see that your desires are carried out in a proper manner. We are very sorry to hear that your Excellency is about to leave us. The Chinese in this colony have always found in you a very kind Governor. They will all very much regret
your departure.
+
venture
to
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
|
any
by the Queen. The tale is one of the most exciting we have read for a long time and shall we
be glad to welcome more of the same kind that Mr. Balfour may have to give us. Our review copy reaches us through Messrs. Kelly and Walsh, Limited,
Here They are. More Stories by J. F. SULLIVAN. The Christmas Volume of London: Longman's Colonial Library. Longmans, Green & Co. 1897. MR. SULLIVAN's book, which also reaches us throngh Messrs. Kelly and Walsh, is a collection of half-a-dozen fairy tales, full of quaint conceits, and just the thing for a Christmus-box. In the Land of the Givers- away the prevailing sin of the people was to give away everything they possessed, so much
50
Dots
that it had to be kept in check by severe penal laws. Into this strange land there. wandered a greedy little boy and his sister, and their strange adventures there form very pleas- ant. reading. The Blue Thing with White is the tale of an animal out of a Noah's ark and a forlorn little beggar boy. The former becomes an idol in a heathen temple and the latter a celebrated discoverer and ex- plorer, so much so that the Royal Geographi- cal Society had made quite a pet of him, and had given him food in a great hall on his return from each of his voyages; for in England, when one desires greatly to honour a celebrated man one always gives him food, whether he is hungry or not; and then makes him get up and talk so as to spoil his digestion." All the tales are amusing and so are the illustra- tions.
The People of Clopton. By GEORGE BARTRAM.
Lordon: T. Fisher Unwin. 1897. THIS is a dialect and poaching tale of the Midlands. The characters are cleverly drawn and the descriptions realistic, though the plot is not very exciting. What will our Scotch friends say to the following passage:—
"All the Needhams have gone to the colonies now-and so hare their equally stalwart ́ and goodly cousins, the Panters. Shortly after I left Clopton for Clopton's good a great readjustment took place in this part of the shires. The old Squire became cursed with a pushing steward-one of those practical. "men with a mission" who cause nearly all the mis chief in the world. Mr. Edward Turnbull, not satisfied with having welded the cottagers'
We express a hope that
you may be long spared to enjoy health and prosperity. As to the allusion to myself, I felt very highly flattered by Your Excellency's kind remarks. If I have rendered any service to the colony, it has been a pleasure and a privilege to me, and could not have been done without the support and assistance of many friends. I shall always be ouly too glad to do everything in my power to help in any matter connected with further-holdings into big farms, and driven that worthy ing the welfare of the colony. Sir, we again thank you for the audience you have granted us, HIS EXCELLENCY then thanked Mr. Liao Tsz-Shan and Mr. Fung Wa Cheun for their kind remarks. He stated that he felt sure his wishes regarding the Tung Wa Hospital would be duly and properly carried out. During the six years he had been Governor of Hongkong, he bad always received the loyal support of the respectable and wealthy Chinese of this colony. His Excellency then concluded by requesting those present to drink a glass of wine and proposed as a toast, "Success to the Tung Wa Hospital and Prosperity to the Chinese Com-
munity."
The toast was drunk with enthusiasm. The proceedings then concluded.
REVIEWS.
By Stroke of Sword. ANDREW BALFOUR.
London: Methuen & Co. 1897.
A stirring romance, which will appeal alike to boys and men. The period is the time of Good Queen Bess and Sir Francis Drake, and much of the action is laid in the island of Trinidad. Jeremy Clephane, who is supposed to tell the tale, is the son of the dominie of Kirktoun, aud when he grows too old to be any longer a scholar in his father's school he takes the position of
up assistant. It is not long, however, before he leaves home, and from that time his life is a succession of adventures, the number of people he kills being quite prodigious and his escapes almost miraculous. He is decoyed into joining a pirati cal craft and gets into trouble, but escaping from gaol he joins one of Sir Francis Drake's ships and sails for the West Indies, where he takes an active part in the rough and tumble work of the period, in which he always plays a manly, part and appears to advantage. On his return he is welcomed as a hero and knighted"
race wholesale into the towus, commenced re- forming the Squire's affairs by steadily swelling rents all round-acting, in short, on that blessed maxim, that a mau is entitled to all he can get." One by one the finest teuantry that ever trod the earth turned their backs on Clopton. The Squire was obstinate-he would not give in-and Turnbull, to save his credit, suggested an importation of Scotsmen. Thus gradually things worked to that pass that you shall scarcely find in Clopton at the present day a labourer able to carry a sack of corn-while the descend- ants of the jovial Anakim that peopled the lodges and granges in my youth are now wielding scythe and shears where the shadows fall south- ward at noon-and their fathers' places have been filled by hungry, cackling, cautious Northerners. And when even Sandy is com- pelled to throw up the task of rent-production- and perhaps we get John Chinaman in his place --still we may be comforted. The lords of the soil shall still have
Horse to ride, and hound to hallo, Game to shoot, and fox to follow.
The Blind in China: A Criticism of Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming's Advocacy of the Mur- ray Non-Alphabetic Method of writing Chinese, with Additional Remarks. By Rev. W. CAMPBELL, F.R.G.S., English Presby. Mission, Formosa, Hongkong, Shanghai, and Yokohama: Kelly and Walsh, Limited.
terian
MR. CAMPBELL is a staunch advocate of the Braille system pure and simple and entirely disapproves of Mr. Murray's system of numeral notation. In the volume before us the corres- pondence that has taken place on the subject, minutes of the Missionary Conference and other bodies, and extracts from periodicals are printed, together with a preface of fourteen pages by. Mr. Campbell setting out the bearings of the
[December 16, 1897. controversy. From the material thus supplied those who have any knowledge of books for the blind and the requirements of the Chinese lan- guage will be able to draw their own conclusions.
THE INDIAN YARN TRADE,
THE CHINESE MERCHANTS ADVOCATE
REDUCED SHIPMENTS.
The following correspondence has been for- wared to us for publication:
Hongkong, 7th December, 1897. To Sir George Cotton, Kt., President, Bombay
Millowners' Association, Bombay. SIR,-At a meeting of the Chinese mer- chants dealing in Indian yarn held on the 30th ultimo, it was unanimously resolved, after fully considering the present position of the yarn trade in this market and in Shanghai in connection with the question of excessive and disproportionately heavy supplies that of late have been pouring in, and in connection with to the question of the financial stringency pre- the positions of the country markets in relation railing all over the country, to send the follow- ing messages, dated the 1st and 6th instant respectively, advocating as a remedial measure against over-supply short hours by the spinnings affiliated to your Association :---
1.-Chinese merchants meeting unanim- ously advocate mills working short time. Excessive over-supply Hongkong Shang- hai. Unsold 60,000 25,000 respectively interfering clearances. Recommend strougly above for trade interests. 2.-Advisable short time. Reply Hung Kee
President.
The meeting was fully impressed with the necessity of advocating the measure of short hours to your Association as, owing almost to unprecedentedly heavy accumulations of over 60,000 bales unsold in stock here and over 25,000 bales in Shanghai over and above bargains to the extent of about 12,000 bales remaining uncleared at each of these two centres at a time when fluctuations in exchange have been inter- mittently severe and at a time when all tangible relief to the trade has been extinct owing to financial stringency heralded in by the scarcity f sycee prevailing all over the country, it was considered that the only remedy for relieving the present serious congestion lay in the mea- sure advocated of working short hours. The meeting was painfully aware that even this measure might not have such an instantaneous and adequate effect as was desirable, inasmuch as with respect to this market it might be said that even if not a single bale should.arrive, Present stocks would be sufficient to last against all the exigencies of the country markets for some six months to come, and as regards the Northern market, when the curtailment of de- mand incident to the winter closure of the river ports already begun is taken into account, even the present unsold stock with bargains on spot would provo sufficient to last in the same manner as here. But it was held that the
stemming of the torrent of shipments following curtailment of production might have beneficial effects on the markets all round, if not imme- diately, later on. Hence the advocacy.
The incubus of the aforesaid abnormal piles of stocks, taken by itself, is heavy enough to put the Indian yarn trade out of gear, but coupled therewith there has been palpably evident the last three months a severe stringency of money, astringency which, though not felt very much at first under the gradual withdrawal of the Japanese yen, is getting intensified as time wears on, and now it has become very much patent that the country has been denuded very exten. sively not only of its yen currency but also of its sycee currency, and that, though the appre ciation of the new British dollars in the place of Japanese yens is complete, their importation has not been equal to meet the displacement and to fulfil the requirements of the trade of this vast country, though the importation has been very much coupled of late by the coinage of Chinese dollars in most of the mints started of yore and of late in the principal provinces of China. In this connection it might be men- tioned that at the present moment nearly ten million dollars remain locked up in these parts in Indian yarn, and as this fact very materially
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