266
THE KONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
Deposits (current, fixed, etc.) ..$16,510,846.287 |woman residing in Hongkong, and it appeared Bills payable, bills rediscounted, ac
and other sums due by the
Bank...... Dividends unclaimed Amount brought forward from last ac-
count
Net profit for the past half-year
Yen 147,187,397.864
Yen.
49°FT8.
Cash account-
In hand......
At bankers
Yen. 5,557,054,900 4,424,217.-40
Invest
Bills.
Bills
the bank
ecurities.
ums due to
Bullion and foreign money Bank premises, properties, furniture, &c.
Yen 147,137,397.861 PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT.
Yon. To current expenses, interests, &c....... 3,841,564.890 To reserve fund.
200,000,000 To dividend-
Yen 6.500 per share for 120,000 old shares yen 780,00.000; and yen 3.250 per share for 120,000 new shares-yen 390,000,000
1,170,000.00
admit that.
Mr. Morgan Phillips remarked that at any rate that statement was made in the affidavit and was not denied in the reply. The Registrar- General, he contended, did not exercise a wise discretion in withholding the girl from the custody of her mother.
REVIEW.
[April 7, 1902.
His
that the latter proposed to sell the girl to a somewhat aged Chinaman to become his con- John Chinaman. By E. H. PARKED. London, 71,672,594.834
4,741. 20 sabine-a man s'ated to be over 60 years of John Murray. Imperial Library.
age. No doubt the girl did not approve of this | MR. E. H. PARKER's new work is one of the 527,081.325 proposal, and not unnaturally, considering that most readable books dealing with the Far East 1,387,075.468 the man was old enough to be her grand-which it has been our fortune to come across father, if not her great grandfather. She for a long time. We may regret that Mr. accordingly absconded. She went to the Parker has not seen fit to select a more Po Leung Kuk institution and upon the mother dignified title, for "John Chinaman" is on becoming aware of her being there she c me
a par with The Japs, Tommy Atkins," down from Canton and went to the institution and other detestable colloquialisms which dis and asked that the girl be released. The girl figure present-day writing. But it is impossible 9,981.272.140 22,230,733.830 was also anxious to go back to her mother. A to deny to Mr. Parker's volume a prominent advances, &c. 34.742,981,459 joint application was accordingly made for her place among the lighter literature dealing with release but it was refused. It must have been things Chinese. Mr. Parker takes as a motto 79.293,150.734 well-know to the Registrar-General that in Dr. Jolinson's saying, "No man but a blockhead
203,516.080
returning the girl to the institution in Canton ever wrote except for money." Such candour 635,743.600
she would again come under the domination of is refreshing, and we are certain that John this woman who had purchased her in Hongkong, Chinaman is none the worse for having been
His Lordship, interposing, said he could not written primarily to add to its author's income. It is not necessary for us to insist on the qualifi cations of the Professor of Chinese at Owens College, Manchester, and the former resident at Peking and, as H.B.M. Consul, at Tientsin, Taku, Hankow, Kewkiang and Canton, to write a book concerning the Chinese, China: Her History, Diplomacy, and Commerce is too well known to admit of any doubt on the subject. The book before us is one of reminis cences. Mr. Parker, however, starts out not so much to describe his own doings as to illustrate Chinese character by means of concrete examples. His general position toward the Chinese may be gathered from the following sentence in his preface:-"I cannot help thinking that we Christians have not only acted foolishly, uncharitably, and unjustly, but that we The Registrar-General, Hon. A. W. Brew ni
are rousing a feeling of bitter resentment both in was then called to give evidence. He stated China and Japan; and more especially for Russia, that he first saw the girl on the 25 h of France, an Germany; that is to say, unless we February. Mrs. Wai came to his office and told decide to recognise and make allowances for a him that one of her maid-servants had dis-human nature which is to all essential purposes appeared and that she believed her to be with another family. He sent to that family and got her. She said she ran away because her mistress wished to sell her as a prostitute. He proposed to her that she should go to the Kan Fan Shi applied for a writ of habeas Po Leung Kuk antil her mother, who was in corpus to produce the body of her daughter China, could come down for her. His intention Kan Sing Yee, alias Kan Tsui Ngan, who was was to hand her over to her mother then. He detained in the Po Lenag Kuk institution in sent her to the institution and asked the Hongkong. Mr. T. Morgan Phillips, barrister-committee to hand her over to her mother when at-law, appeared for the applicant (instructed by she came to the Colony.
To balance carried forward to next ac-
count....
The Acting Attorney-General poin ed out 544,156.793
that it was the custom in China for girls to go Yen 5,755,721.683 to this institution in Canton to become concu- bines; he did not see why she should not be 527,081.325 agreeable to the customs of the country.
By balance brought forward 30th June,
1901
Yen.
By amount of gross profits for the half-
year ending 31st December, 1901 ...... 5,228,640.358 Yen 5,755,721.683
SUPREME COURT.
Wednesday, 2nd April:
IN SUMMARY JURISDICTION.
BEFORE HIS HONOUR T. SERCOMBE SMITH (ACTING PUIsne Judge).
A HABEAS CORPUS CASE.
Mr. Morgan Phillips-But to a man 60 years of age. And, after all, this is not a custom which is approved of in Hongkong.
The girl, having been sworn, deposed that she wanted to go back to her mother.
Messrs. Wilkinson and Grist, solicitors) and the Cross-examined, Mr. Brewin stated that he defendant side was represented by the Acting understood that the girl was sold when she was Attorney General, the Hon. A. G. Wise (in-seven years old for $64 by her mother to Mrs. structed by Mr. F. B. L. Bowley, Crown Wai. "All the proceedings he had taken in con- Solicitor).
nection with the case were for the girl's good. The mother's declaration was to the effect He proposed to send her to the institution in that her daughter was confined in the Po Canton because she was bought in China Leung Kuk institution by order of the com-originally.
mittee of that institution. She was 18 years His Lordship, in giving judgment, said that of age and was until recently in the employ this was an application for the release from the or under the charge of a woman named Mrs. Po Leung Kuk of a girl who had been sent Wai, with whom she had been placed several there by the Registrar-General with consent of years ago. Mrs. Wai, according to the mother's all parties, including that of the girl herself. declaration, recently arranged that a Chinaman The Registrar-General had made a return to over 60 years of age should take the girl as his the writ of habeas corpus and stated that be concubine, and in consequence of that arrange was willing that the girl should be taken ment and her objection to it the girl left Mrs. away by her mother. It had been all along his Wai's employment and was afterwards taken to intention that the child should be restored to the above-mentioned institution. Upon hearing the mother but whit he wanted to do was of the girl having been placed in the Po Leung to restore her to her mother not in Hongkong Kuk the mother came down from Canton to but in Canton. The question arose as to whe- Hongkong for the purpose of obtaining her ther nader these circumstances the mother was release. Slie applied to the Registrar-General entitled to the custody of her child. That for the girl's release, but he informed her that question, it seemed to him, was altogether it was intended that she should be sent to a disposed of by Section 24 of Ordinance No. 9 Chinese institution in Canton and there dealt of 1897; (His Lordship read the section and with as it might seem fit to the persons in continued): Now under that enactment the authority there. Inasmuch as it was not con- mother was not entitled as of right to the sidered immoral for a girl in the station of life custody of the girl, because she had parted of this girl to become a concubine and that she with her for some purpose-the purpose of being would be deemed to be properly provided for if a maid-servant--and, so far as the evidence she were taken as such by the man referred to, went to show, had received money on that the mother verily believed that if her daughter account. That of course was a common process were sent to the institution at Canton she would in China It came to this, that the Registrar- be compelled to become his concubine.
General refused the application of the mother The Acting Attorney-General said he desired and was justified in refusing that application, to state on behalf of the Registrar-General It seemed to him that it was more a matter of that there was no question now as regards the grace-in fact entirely a matter of grace return of the girl to her mother. Th, only that the Registrar-General should now point before the Court, therefore, was the ques come into Court and state that he was willing tion of costs.
to restore the girl to her mother. Therefore the.e should be no costs allowed; the girl should be restored to her mother.
The Court adjourned.
Mr. Morgan Phillips stated that this girl was 18 years of age. She was at an early age handed over by her mother to the custody of a
|
our own." Lest it should be hastily concluded from this that Mr. Parker is excessively pro- Chinese, we may mention that in the same pre ace he says:-"I do not say the Chinese are very nice people to live with; in fact, odi profanum vulyus et arceo was always my feeling- Lowards them."
+1
14
M
($
It may perkaps give some idea of Mr. Parker's book if we quote some of his chapter-headings." He writes of Births, Marriages, and Deaths," The Hand of God" (cholera, tornados, etc.), Rows-Missionary and Other," "Piracies and Murders," Viceroys and Governors," "Religion and Missionaries," Army and Navy," Psendo-Chinamen," Distinguished Foreigners," Police and their Masters," and 80 on. These various subjects are illustrated. by an interesting collection of photographs, lent to Mr. Parker by various friends, among whom we notice the name of the Hon. J. H. Stewart Lookhart. Among these is one of Mr. Stewart Lookhart himself, in his cadet days, and his Chinese teacher "Old Ow." Of the latter, Mr. Parker says that he was in one sense "a sort of Chinese Carlyle" and that our pre- sent Colonial Secretary always cherished a noble veneration for his memory.
Other people whose names will be familiar to the older residents in Hongkong and Canton will also b found in Mr. Parker's pages; and events not yet lost in the mists of antiquity will similarly be found described. Among those is a vivid account of the great Can'on tornado of April, 1878.
Among so many subjects as Mr. Parker deals with, it is naturally difficult to discriminate as to which are most worthy of notice. He touches on all alike in a vigorous, breezy, and anything but squeamish style, Some of his stories have already gone the rounds of the Press, others will no doubt follow them on the same journey. That of Archdeacon Gray, of Canton, and the Duke of Edinburgh is almost hackneyed by now, but it will perhaps bear one more repetition. The Duke was at the British Yamen at Canton and expressed a wish to see the deer in the park.
The deer were called to the gate, and the Archdeacon (who really, Mr. Parker says, spoke very mediocre Chinese) asked the keeper why they did not come. Mou!" ("No got!"), responded the Chinaman. "What does he say ?" asked Prince Alfred. "Your royal highness, the man says that, look whithersoever he will, he really cannot discern the whereabouts of the
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