Auruit 12, 1898,]
NEGLECTING TO EXHIBIT LIGHTS ON A LAUNCH.
*
}
Chán Kan, master of the steam launch No. 8K was brought before Commander Rumsey, at the Harbour Office on Thursday, for having unlawfully neglected to exhibit a green light on the starboard bow and a red light on the port bow of the said steam launch while under way between sunset and sunrise, also that he unlawfully did fail to observe the rules of the road, Lance Sergeant Burchell said on 6th August he was on duty in the police patrol Lannon. About 4.20 a.m. when coming from Chintan, on the east side of Chung Hus, about half-way through the pass, he saw a light about 300 or 400 yards on his starboard bow. The coxswain blow his whistle twice. Witness then saw the defendant's launch about three yards off the police boat. The police
·lannoh was stopped, and the defendant's launch attuok the police launch before the starboard light. The defendant's launch slided off, and kept Witness hailed him, and told him to stop. He did not stop at once, but came back after wards. Witness saw no side lights as the launch was approaching. There was only a bright light which he took to be the light of a junk. After the collision witness saw the two side lights ly- ing close together on the top of the cabin hatch. They were burning, but had no screens on them He thought before the collision the lamps must have been screened by something. The coxswain of the Police launch corroborated. The defendant said the other launch had no lights at all. - He could not see her. If the other launch had had lights no collision would have taken place. He went astern when he saw the other launch.-Commander Ramsey, in imposing a fine of $5, explained that the fine was not of so much consequence as his certificate. which would probably be taken from him, The damage done was very considerable, about $200 in value.
OD.
WATER RETURN.
LEVEL AND STORAGE OF WATER IN RESER- VOIRS ON THE 18T AUGUST.
1898
1899 Tytam...... 14ft. liin. below overflow Oft. lin. sbors overtow Pokfulam fall Wongueicheong
Tytam
Pokfulam
2ft. Sin. below overflow Bft. 7in, below overflow
STORAGE GALLONS.
1898. 270,130,000 60,000,000
Wongneicheong ap- proximation only
Total
1899.
}
336,130,000 463,680,000 CONSUMPTION OF WATER IN THE CITY OF
VICTORIA AND HILL DISTRICT DURING THE MONTH' or 'July.
1898
1899 104,488,000 114,763,000 gals.
Consumption Estimated popu."
lation
196,00:1 201,500
18.3 gals
Consumption per
head per day..
17.1
CHINA OVERLANII TRADE REFORT.
REVIEWS.
$1
**
China Cons Tales. By Liss BOEHM. Hong- kong, etc.: Kelly and Walsh, Limited. 1899, THE present volume of Lise Boehm's series contains two tales. Nos. 5 and 6, entitled: re spectively Coming Home' and Peter Wong." The fra tale deals with the home coming of a prosperona China mercantile as- sistant to his native town in Scotland. Sandy Gordon, as the hero is called, has risen in the social scale, as have his mother and sisters, Bud since his departure for the Far Fast there has been a recasting of their circle of acquaintances. When Sandy arrives home, however, be finds it impossible to throw over all the old friends, especially Jessie Ross, a girl friend of his boyhood's days. But he also raus across a Mrs. Peregrine-Searle, whom he had known as a social star in China before her hus. baud's death and who had amused herself at Sandy's expense when he was a shy and awkward griffin. She was Sir James Johnson's place, the Baronet being now staying at the uncle of her late husband, but the title did not carry with it much pecuniary ease and Mrs. Peregrine Searle would apparently have deemed Sandy Gordon an eligible match. Both Jessie Ross and Mrs. Peregrine-Searle are invited to the party arranged by Sandy's mother and sister to celebrate his home-coming, and the pic ture drawn of the high stepping widow as she appeared on this occasion affords a good example of Lise Boehm's style :-
|
“If Mrs. Peregrine-Searle was guilty of and unpardonable breach of Gilltonian etiquette in arriving an hour-and-a-half later than she was invited, the splendour of her entrance went a long way towards condoning the crime. She at once took her place as queen of the room, and the Universe, of which Gilltown is the hub, straightway fell down and worshipped her. In her band she carried a magnificent bouquet, in her hair glittered shining diamond stare and by her side bung a fan of exquisitely carved ivory. She had put off all mourning, and wore a golden-yellow satin brocade, the finest chat Shanghai could produce. Possibly her raiment | may have cost less than many others in the
room.
But whereas the worthiest Gilltown matron never seemed to lose the consciousness of her own splendour, never rose above being a olothes-peg, in Mrs. Peregrine-Searle's case the personality of the wearer was never for a moment lost sight of. Her clothes were a part of herself; she createdęthem, not they her.
family and the fanatical Dr. the latter we are told that
the
He
kwasian, enthusiast, in, the s rageous sense of the term, a man of in and physique, of boundless influenos Chinese: A quack be undoubtedly manino many of the more sober-minded unlo no one denied he was honest, single-henried devoted to his work. Whatever he undertook, from building a chapal, with his own' handie to forcing a nominal Christianity on a whole village, that he accomplished. His feats, of on- durance or of strength, bordered on the mii. aculous.
ant
Naturally, however, this great by his Mission in England, had great, Laulta as Apostle of Chingcha, as he was fondly styled well as great virtues. He could not.. rival, nor even an equal. And in, cons his fellow-workers were always, insign second-rate men, against whom he railed for idleness and fondness of the loaves and fishes, but whom, it must be confessed, he would have attempt to follow in his footsteps to a martyr's hounded out of the Mission had they dared to glory. With an almost childish conceit, he combined an equally childish simplicity, which made him an easy tool in the bands of his mo clever Chinese couverts. He distracted, Aoting Consul, and very nearly drove bir delirium tremens, by taking up the most.zi culous convert squabbles. Thus, when a Chris- tian Chinaman, having defranded his heathen neighbour, was about to suffer punishment at the bands of the authorities, Dr. Mackenzie was the refuge of the distressed convert. And he, as per Treaty, invariably insisted on the wretched representative of Her Majesty healing Taotsis and District Magistrates in utterly un- lawful endeavours to go against native justice. The doctor was never so supremely happy as when the Consul was sullenly refusing to take up his cases, the Toatai was swearing, and he was writing or telegraphing to the Mission Com mittee in England to lay such and such mat. tar before the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs."
The Chinese Drama. By WILLIAM STANTON. Hongkong, etc. Kelly and Walsh, Limited. 1899.
In this little volume Mr. Stantou presents us with three plays and two poems, reprinted with slight alterations from the China Keview, and an introductory account of Chinese theatrical affairs. We must congratulate Mr Stanton on his work, which is scholarly without being pedantic and affords the reader a very good introduction to the native drama, a subject of which most residents in the Far East know but little. In the introductory sketch the anthor tell us :--:
There are about thirty companies in the Canton district, which embraces: Hongkong and Macao. Every year, on the first day of the sixth month. they are disbanded, and now bom- binations are organised in time for the companies to fufil engagements by the twentieth of the same month. For the year, each company is designated by a name, and is also spoken of as the number such company, according to the rank it holds in the estimation of the organizers and the public..
"But while the people around stared in opeu eyed, speechless wonder, the scales suddenly fell 385,520,00 from Sandy Gordon's eyes, and the glamour 60,160,000 she had been weaving over him melted away for ever. One glance at her had sufficed to 18,000,000 bring back a multitude of bitter recollections.
Those stars in her hair.
had meant to one of her old admirers the first step to ember- zlement, forgery, a wrecked career. The fan was the price paid by a miserable husband for a humiliating silence, scarcely kept; the brocade meant the brazen risking of a good name; the golden ropes stood for the tortures of jealousy to a young bride. And Sandy, Sandy himself, was he not there? It was a great mistake, Mrs. Peregrine Searle, to have pinned on that sparkling batterdy That stood for your hos "There is a great difference in the companiei pitality to the young Scotchman; but what had and in the pay, they receive, The that hospitality been, after all? A debt to be about thirty-six thousand dollars a ye paid off, an experience, the anguish of which which it has to defray expenses could never be wholly forgotten. And he had females included in any of the been such a fool as nearly, very very nearly, tostituted companies; but there are girl. run his head into the collar again !"
with boys in the Tang-tzu pan, strol The second tale "Peter Wong" has itanu-pan, male and female, tronps, scene in one of the minor Yangtsze ports where the foreign community, consists chiefly of missionaries. Peter Wong is a Europeanised convert engaged in mission work and has been promised the hand of Maggie Brown, the daughter of one of the missiouaries, who leads & somewhat unhappy life with her stepmother, Upon this little circle intrudes Gregory King attractive and shallow hearted
CONSUMPTION OF WATER IN KOWLOON
PENINSULA DURING THE-
MONY.
Consumption
Estimated popu.
1899 6,742,000 7,882,000 gals.
lation..
25,900 27,100 Conanmption per
head per day 8.3
8.8
gals, The Government Analyst reports that the water is of excellent quality.
R. D. ORMSBY,
Water Authority.
The Singapore Free Press of the 2nd August 3} –––H.M.Š. Endymion is oraling at Tanjong Parar. She will leave on Friday afternoon or
"A proper company consists hundred persons, and the uptors' from thirty dollars to twelve thous each per annum. Generally speaking who personate female characters paid. As a rule, each actor alwa same kind of chai-se, or r and comparative rank, but a man differ in being of an historica presenative of a shipping firm, and poor differs to suit it. In the who has been sent to the port as re-nature, so the rank of the actor Peter Wong's matrimonial chances rapidly plays acted, although some of the diminish. The tale leads up to a tragedy, and one
an
.
-
| bafly on Saturday morning after the delivery that does not strike the reader as overdrawn ored as taking anch and such
of the French mail from Europe, to relieve HM.8. Orlando at Manila, the latter proceeding to Hongkong for some repairs before leaving to Join the feet in the north,
improbable, though it is decidedly ghastly. The descriptions of life in a small outport are ex: cellent and characterised by a good deal of humour, as also are the portraits of the Brown
the play they represent. ~ The pr
any mention made as to
what chiao-se the various theatre goers, although they thing of the play, understand-
at of
Hned
1