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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
seems to me, showed some lack of sense in making the request he did, for he might well have left the Chinese Government to make its own arrangements. Had those arrangements just limits, they could have been set right, which is the proper way of with an Asiatio Power.
y, you admit that Sir Robert did not the Customs, but infer that. as it has to its present dimensions during his of office auch growth is due to him. As well might you suggest that the Chief Collector of British Customs is responsible for the immense growth of British trade. Such a line of argu. ment would be only parallel with yours. For many years it was fashionable to credit Sir Robert Hart with the creation of the Chinese Customs. That argument proving untenable by those who diligently fostered the idea, it seems that the equally fallacious idea that he is responsible for the growth of China's foreign trade is now to be promulgated."
The truth you quote, that all great men have their detractors, is capable of being subject- ed to some analysis, for all great men are not, perfect, often far from being so, and the fact of their being great does not raise them above being criticised AR to their Botions and the motives of those actions.
Napoleon's admirers would not admit that personal ambition, rather than desire, for the welfare and glory of France, was the actuating
• motive for the wars he undertook, yet such is the verdict of succeeding generations and of history. I might quote uumerous other cases, but will be content to leave yourself and the public to think of them and arrive at a just conclusion as to whether seeing faults in great men and pointing them out warrants the charge of throwing mud. The leading papers at home constantly handle great public men more se- verely than I have done Sir Robert Hart and his ambitions and no one supposes that it is unfair criticism.
OLD CHINA HAND.
Hongkong, 10th July, 1899. [Our correspondent has strayed from the point of his previous letter, which was that Sir Robert Hart is continually by his rul ing endeavouring to block British trade." As to his citation of General Black, Mr. Gray, and Mr. Hosie as his authorities for an attack upon Sir Robert Hart, readers who have followed what those gentlemen have written or said will be able to form their own opinion as to whether the oitation is justified. His distortion of our own views may be al- aplowed to pass.—ED D.P.].
THE UN LOONG MARTYRS.
C
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESS.
SIE, —Justice may have been to some extent satisfied by the conviction and sentencing of the Un Loong murderers, but I think that compensation should be given to the widows and families of the murdered men, whose lives
were taken because they favoured British rule in preference to that of the corrupt Chinese Government. It would be a small matter for the Legislative Council of this colony to vote a pension of $10 or $15 to the widows and families of each of these three men and such recognition would go a long way towards raising a feeling of loyalty to Great Britain amongst her Chinese subjects in this portion of the British Empire. Hoping that this suggestion may lead to some action being taken in the matter.
Hongkong, 10th July, 1899.
RESIDENT.
FRANCE AND PERŠÍA AND AFGHANISTAN.
•
#1
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “DAILY † PR89.'
BIR,—I noted recently that it was stated that the French Government were sending Pierre Loti, the novelist, on a mission to Persia Afghanistan. What can be the object of mission? They cannot expect him to push sale of French wines in that part of the nor do they surely, hope to induce the an tribesmen to take to wearing Lyons silks. I do not know whether that extremely dull animal yelopt the British Lion, but which should be more inclined to designate the
British Jackass, has taken note of the mission this estimable gentleman is to undertake, but if not I should think it would be advisable for someone in authority to jog his memory and suggest the advisability of keeping an eye où the doing of this mission at the present critical period in the history of Afghanistan.
WIDEAWAKE.
Hongkong, 10th July, 1899.
THE PLAGUE,
1.
TO THE EDITOR OP THE DAILY PRESS.
[July 15, 1899.
in trustees. During the long period of his trance his estate had accumulated prodigiously, as much so that he was the owner of half the world and his trustees wielded almost unlimited power in his name, and for their own aggran- disement.
When the sleeper wakes had passed into a proverb, signifying the time when wrongs would be righted and injustice cease, and when at last the awaking came the ruling powers did not welcome it, but on the contrary proposed to send the subject to sleep again for good and all "by administering poison to him Theat- tempt is frustrated by the popular party, who carry off the hero, and civil war and revo lution ensue. During the two hundred years that are supposed to have elapsed since the pre- sent era the resources of science and their appli- cation to civic and domestic requirements have effected radical changes in the conditions of life, but moral advancement has not kept pace with physical progress, human nature being much the
Sir,-In your advertising, columns a notice appears signed by the president of the Sanitary Board wanting fifty volunteers from the civil population for the purpose of aiding the house to house visitation of the Colony. I am told that in Bombay the practice has been to assign the duty of house visitation to the Justices of the Peace. The Governor called a meeting of Justices, and appointed to each a certain area or district which he had to visit aúd report on. In this way Jews, Parsees, Mahommedans, &c., bad each a quota of his own sect to visit, and no race prejudices were stirred up. Would it not be better to have some such system here ? There are over 100 Justices of various races on the roll, upon whom this should fall naturally as a part of their duty should the Government deem it necessary.-Yours truly,
HOUSEHOLDER.
· Hongkong, 1 th July, 1899.
REVIEWS.
Domitia. By S. BARING GOULD. London; Methuen & Co. (Hongkong Kelly & Walsh, Limited)
In the winter of 1890, Mr. Baring Gould tells us in his preface, he was in Rome and Florence, and whilst engaged in accumulating material for his "Tragedy of the Caesars "
he was held irresistibly by one face-it was that of Domitia Longina, whose story did not come within the purview of his scheme, that comprised only Julian and Claudi- an princes. "In the Chiaramente Gallery is an incomparably lovely bust of her, taken,
was married I think, just when she
to Lamia. I got an artist to draw it for me, but owing to the bad light in which it is placed, he failed to render it satisfactorily. The face is full of possibilities of love, tender- ness, pity, and laughter. In the Capitoline Gallery is another of her, taken some years later; the face is still beautiful, but the shadow bas fallen on it, and the flexible mouth has become set, and the merry dimple has gone from the cheek There are other portrait busts of this lovely woman, that show the pro- gress of hardening and deterioration, and, finally, in the Florence Gallery she may be seen after the death of Domitisu, aged by sorrow more than by years, with the hardness giving way, and the glimmer of a new life, the breaking up of the sweet springs of her true nature, appearing after a long night, a cruel frost."
haunted him for seven or eight years, and in this That face. Mr. Baring Gould says, has story he has endeavoured to tell what he thought was her inner life's tale as revealed to him by the study of that series of busts. I he theme is fine one, aud, needless to say, the author
treats it with the skill that characterises all his work. The book affords a graphic picture of life in ancient Rome, and the tale of Dom- itia, with her disappointed love, her, enforced and unwelcome union with the Emperor, and her cravings after the Ligher life, finally satisfied by her acceptance of the Christian faith, is full of absorbing interest.
When the Sleeper Wakes. By HE. WELLS. With Illustrations. London: George Bell & Sons. 1899.
This is a tale of the future, but, unlike Mr. Bellamy in his "Looking Back war 1," Mr. Wells does not give us a utopian pioture, A man named Graham falls into a trance and continues in that state for more than two hundred years. When he awakes he in is strange surround- ings and finds himself the most important personage of the world. When he fell into his trance he was possessed of some property, which, in view of his condition, was rested
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same as in the present day, with greed, corruption, and tyranny rampant. Graham, “the Master,' as his adhereaty call him, champions the cause of right, and the tale ends in the midst of a titanic conflict in mid-air, in which the hero seems likely to come to destruction. The book supplies exciting reading with a rather disap- pointing ending.
The Captain of the Locusts, A. WERNER.
London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1899.⠀
A COLLECTION of tales of South Africa forms the second volume of Mr. Fisher Unwin's "Over- Seas Library." 'The Library proposes to print literature from any quarter that deals with the actual life of the English outside England, whether of Colonial life or the life of English among foreign and native races, black and emigrants, travellers, traders, officers, over-seas,
white. The present volume, including fourteen separate tales or sketches, well fulfils that aim as regards South Africa.
In Guiana Wilds. A Study of Two Women. J. MES RODWAY. London:T.✅ Fisher Unwin. 1899.
IN vol. III. of the "Overseas Library" we are transported to Guiana and invited to follow the fortunes of a young Scotchman who, start- ing with very good intentions, falls under the influence of a bewitching coloured girl, mar- ries her. and is astonished at the change that afterwards comes over her. Her de- mands for luxuries far exceed his pecuniary · resources, and when he finally gets hopelessly involved in debt, he makes a bolt for the forest, joins a native tribe, shares their wanderings, forms a union with the chief's daughter, goes through many adventures, finally reaches the borders of civilisation again with his com panion, and just at the point when the situation becomes most exciting, the tale breaks off with the statement that how Allan sold his treasure, and met Chloe, of his for- tunate escape from her, and of his further wan- derings with Yariko, will be told by the author in a sequel." Mr. Rodway writes with strength and is equally at home in scenic descriptions, in exciting adventures, and in treating of the more subtle movements and caprices of the affec- tions and intellect. The tale is a distinctly good one, its only fault being that it is left in- complete. The sequel when it appears will be welcomed by all readers of the present volume.
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THE MENGTZU DISTURBANCE,
The latest received Tonkin papers are still without details of the recent disturbance at Mengtzu, but the Europeans were expected to arrive at Hanoi on the 7th, coming down the river by steamer, and full accounts of the affair would then be available. - Meantime the Courtier d'Haiphong writes as follows:-
M. Doumer states that he will remain in Tonkin until the Mengtau affair is com- pletely settled. Government circles incline to the opinion that the trouble was not fomented by the miners, M. Doumer is said to be certain that the band of three or four thousand men operating in Yunnan are part of the Kwangsi rebels who have crossed the frontier and made the attack on Mengtau. This would explain the looting of the French Consulate, the burning of the Custom house, and the murder of certain Chinese. Tho
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