ROYAL HONGKONG YACHT CLUB.
The sixth race for the championship took placi on Sunday, the 16th instant three boats starting in the second class and six in the first, the course being from the Police Pier to mark boat off Green Island, to Cosmopolitan Dock buoy, to Channel Rocks, and home; all to star- board.
A light easterly breeze and a flood tide carried the boats (the second class with the usual ten minutes start), to within about a mile of the Green Island mark, where a dying wind and a calm gave a chance to the laggarde to close up. The whole of the nine yachts worked round the mark in a bunch, not three lengths separating the leader from the last. The easterly breeze immediately coming on again set everybody racing in grand style, the Maid Marian by early making a long board towards the Hong kong shore and avoiding the pinch across the tide turning Cosmopolitan buoy first. The times at this mark were :—
Maid Marian Chanticleer
Meteor
Active
Dart
Раупе.
Phoebe.
Ladybird Sybil
H.
8.
45
3
0
12 ·
30
40
50
3
3
3
40 50
=
The breeze held, and at Kowloon Point the Chanticleer had picked up a little on the leader, who got away again at North Point, but. was finally passed at the Rooks. Times :-
Chanticleer
Maid Marian
Meteor
Ladybird
Dart
Payne
Phoebe Active Sybil
H.
8.
M.
43
10
30
5
55
10
51 45 51
52
· 10
A long run home against a strong ebb, with a failing air, closed the whole fleet up again, the Maid passing the Chanticleer just before the finish and winning by thirteen seconds after a four hours sail, and saving closing time by a bare seven minutes.
The absence of the Erica was regretted, and she no doubt missed a favourable opportunity of adding to her leading score. times:-
Maid Marian.`
Chanticleer
Meteor
Ladybird
Phoebe...
Dart
Payne
A CLASS.
Erica
Marks gained are:---
Finishing
H.
AT.
8.
51
122 R R18 NO
10.
31
58
B CLASS.
38 Ladybird.
48
Maid Marian... 32 Payne
Meteor....
Chanticleer
Active...
Phoebe
9-Dart...
CORRESPONDENCE.
36
(We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents!]
THE NEW POST OFFICE.
"
"
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESS. DEAR SIE-Though the letter signed by Enquirer" which appeared in your issue of 17th inst. disposes, to the satisfaction of the writer, of the important question of site of the new Post Office, I venture to think that there are many who (without the unworthy motives hinted at by "Enquirer") regret the view you have taken in your leader of the 14th inst.
The example mentioned of the General Post Office, London, is not analagous, as practically fo mails arrive by water, while all maïls do so arrive in this Colony, and as the Government possesses a site on the water front it appears to me that following the example of Singapore, the new Post Office should be built at the
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
| waterside and save the risk and trouble of con- |
reying the mails to the Queen's Road'
Further, do you not think that in say ten years practically all European business firms will be located between Pedder Street and, Murray Pier and between New and Old Prayag and that the Queen's Road will be entirely occupied by shops and principally by Chinese ?
Also the Post Office is chiefly used by Euro- pean firms, who will be nearer the site on the New Fraya than the present position of the Post Office, and also it will be more convenient for the Army and Navy. It has been sug gested that for Chinese there should be a branch Post Office in the centre of their business pre- mises and near the sea, say the present Harbour Office.
14
I have not the time to write more fully on the subject, but wish merely to say that the question is not to be decided in so off-hand a manner as by Enquirer," and that there are many who think the retention of the Post Office in a position which will eventually be away from the principal business firms to be a mistake, and I trust the matter will not be settled without the fullest publicity-Yours truly.
Hongkong, 18th January, 1897.
IT GETS WORSE! WHAT? THAT UNSPEAKABLE POST.
SA
27
January 27, 1898, - abettors, so waited till I could get the measure of our Chinese passenger and be sure of his game, which I pretty accurately surmised, before trying to persuade the victims to free themselves from the trap that they had fallen into.
no
It was the second day out before I found a fair opportunity to interview the Chinese kidnapper, and a few minntes conversation soon convinced me that he was one of the servant or "boy" class, as I had guessed from the first. I eventually found ont, towards the end of the voyage, that he fulfilled the exalted position-of junior cook to the Legation and that his Shang- hai address as a cook-shop for native eating. house) in one of the back streets of that city. On my first addressing him he pretended to be vastly pleased to find that I had been in China, but my queries proving that I knew more about China and Shanghai than was likely to suit him he retired into the stolid savey English which is the Chinaman's refuge when finding that his knavery is likely to be exposed. For the remainder of the voyage he studiously avoided me-alhough I often caught him casting furtive glances in my direction- and never knew much English when I was around, though I found out he could speak English well enough to other passengers, especially to three young missionaries, who were charmed to find that he was a christian, or professed to be one. It was from one of the latter that I got the wily Celestial's card, with the address of the cook-shop written at the back of it; the young fellow who showed me this informed me that the address at the
back of the card was his Celestial friend's home.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY PRESS."]
SIR, Formerly when the Postal Authority thought fit to close any of the home mails before the usual honr he notified it by express
The day before arriving at Gibraltar I resolved and also got the newspapers to mention the fact. People have for so many years been accustomed to screw myself up to the unpleasant task of to 11 a.m. for letters that they never think of persuading the girls that they were being taken looking at the postal notices for the regular out to China under false pretences and that mais. In business it is always important and they had better, at all costs, return from sometimes a vital matter that a firm should not Gribraltar by another steamer, even if they had miss its mail and therefore a departure from the to throw themselves on the generosity of the usual hour should always be notified amongst P. & O. agent to give them a free passage, for the new advertisements in the newspapers, at I guessed that they would not have the means to which every one looks. Many persons never pay for one themselves. I found an opportunity вее expresses," but it should be "expressed
to speak to the one supposed to be the wife of the also, and the papers should be asked to call secretary and as soon as I touched on the sub- ecial attention to the advertisement; indeed ject of the deception they were under I was prominent attention ought, to be called in roundly abused for my pains and told to mind The my own business. Later on the voyage, I found every possible way to the change. Post Office charges for what it does, and that this young woman was the daughter of the therefore should not, for the sake of saving English honsekeeper of the Chinese Legation $3 or so, neglect to do it properly. It in London and both herself and her friend had should do as
been married to their (nominal) Chinese hus- any other buying and selling institution would do. This neglect was especi- bands according to the usual rites observed in ally awkward and dangerous in the case of to-the Church of England./ Anyone who knows 'day's mail owing to the arrival of the inward anything of Chiuese customs would know that mail late last evening, which entailed a great these men must have had wives in China and deal of hurried work to get replies off this that the English marriage service they had morning. If you will back this up with the gone through was little better, under the cir
The Chinaman, it weight of your authority as the public voice cumstances, than a farce. you will be commended by every business man in appears, was well supplied with funds, but he Hongkong and possibly the Postmaster General was careful never to let the girls have a cash. or Particular may be shamed into giving the There is no doubt that a man in his position, whose salary was only a few dollars a month, could not possibly pay £45 (forty five pounds sterling) for a passage for his wife and that therefore the passage of these two girls was paid by others and he was merely their agent to see the two girls safely landed at Shanghai, while the men who financed the business went by another steamer, -
matter his
ATTENTION!
Hongkong, 19th January, 1898.
BRITISH GIRLS IN DANGER IN SHANGHAI.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY PRESS."
SIR, I have just read the article in your issue of 19th inst. entitled "British Girls in peril in Shanghai" and hope you will kindly allow me space in your widely read paper. to throw some light on the case of two of these girls and make a few comments on the case.
In April last I left London for the East per P. & O steamer China. Amongst the second- class passengers was a Chinaman, belonging to the staff of the Chinese Minister recalled on account of the Sum Yat Sen kidnapping case, and two young English girls who were his companions. The youngest girl was, supposed to be his wife; the other was, or believed herself to be, the wife of one of the secretaries, who, with another Chinese friend, came down to see the party off. Doubtless this secretary or possibly some one in a higher position, financed the transaction, whatever it may have been.
I had been many years in China and was pretty well versed in the ways of the wily heathen and those of his European advisers and
I think that no steamer company should grant a passage to any English girl accom- panying, or accompanied by a Chinaman to China or elsewhere; and some action should be taken by the British Authorities to ensure this.
It was only too evident to myself what the fate of these poor girls would be, but I found that they would not listen to counsel and that therefore I was powerless to help them.
I note, by the account in the paper, that the poor girl in question was left, in the depth of winter, in an empty house with only a night- dress as her sole covering or article of apparrel. This speaks volumes both as to the diabolical cruelty and meanness of the Chinese concerned and to the purity of the girl thus left to her fate, for had she not been too pure to fall in with their views and be their willing tool she would not have been left thus.
As for the English secretary of the Chinese Legation, he is beneath contempt, for he ob tained this position and keeps it by truckling to the Chinese; he lends himself most actively