372
Messrs. Johnson. Stokes and Master. solicitors. appeared in support of an application for adjudication.
His Lordship granted the petition.
THE LE MUNYON BANKRUPTCY. Mr. C. E. Bearis, of Messrs. Wilkinson and Grist, solicitors, made an application for the payment of costs amounting to 8506 out of the Le Munyon estate on behalf of the New York Export and Import Co.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
REVIEWS.
-0.
Japan: Aspects and Destinies. By W. PETRIE
WATSON. London: Grant Richards. Of books about Japan there is no end. Japan is not a country to which one can recommend persons suffering from caco the scribendi to exile themselves with prospect of a cure, for conditions in Japan offer an overpowering temptation to the visitor to " write a book.' His Lordship granted the petition, being The catalogue of books on Japan affords abun- satisfied that the property of the debtor had dant confirmation of this fact, for there are been preserved for the benefit of the creditors many authors in the list whose acquaintance with by means of legal proceedings brought by the Japan might have been made on a Cook's tourist creditor against the debtor without notice of ticket. Mr. Watson's book can hardly be classed any available act of bankruptcy committed as one of these, though it contains nothing of by the debtor; he ordered payment of the costs fact in it pages which can be regarded as out of the estate in the same priority of pay-essentially new to those who are already ment as was provided in respect of taxed costs. familiar with the island empire. The author's qualifications are those of a journalist who has followed his vocation in the country for the space of three or four years, and the use he made of his powers of observation and trained inquisitiveness has resulted in a volume which gives the reader in a compendions form a clearer conception of the life of the nation in its various aspects than any one-volume work we are acquainted with. No country in the world is better worth writing about
A BIG DEFICIT.
Yau Luk Lam, who at a previous sitting of the Court was committed to prison for contempt in respect of having failed to lodge a statement of his affairs, came up for public examination. Mr. H. W. Looker, of Messrs. Deacon. Looker. & Deacon, solicitors, appeared for the debtor Mr. O. D. Thomson, solicitor, for a creditor to the extent of $7810; Mr. F. X. d'Almada e
Castro, solicitor, for a creditor representing $1099; and Mr. P. W. Goldring. solicitor, for other two creditors representing 81139. part of which was secured: this debt, he said, was not proved.
Mr. Looker on behalf of the debtor argued that Mr. Goldring had no locus standi unless the debts were proved.
His Lordship-All we can do. Mr. Looker. is to see you, but we cannot hear you.
Mr. Looker contended that he had a right on behalf of the debtor to address the Court in the protection of his interests.
Mr. Goldring stated that he had just been instructed to appear for another creditor repre- senting $300. which had been proved.
The Official Receiver (Mr. Bruce Shepherd) $95.659. The assets were out of the Colony,
said that the debts of the estate amounted to
up.
but he believed that about $9,000 could be recovered Debtor was a Californian merchant Examined by the Official Receiver the debtor stated that he was the sole proprietor of the On Hing firm. Californian merchants. The business was started 30 odd years ago. He had been in the business about four years. Thirty years ago it was his father's business; his father died over 20 years ago. He was not sole proprietor. There were three other partners. Ou his father's death the property was divided"
Debtor got $7.000 cash and the business, which was worth $14,000. He was interested in other business. He lost $8000 through the failure of a business in Honolulu. He also lost money in connection with the Opium Farm at Macao, this loss was due to the high taxes. smuggling of opium and
small sales. The smuggled opium came from a place called Wantsai. on the opposite side of the harbour, and from other places in Chinese territory. His losses amount- ed to $200 or $300 a day sometimes. His tender for the farm was $170,000 a year. He put $24,000 into this business. When it failed he got three-fifths out of it-$15.000; with this money.he paid debts all round for goods and other things. He did not buy a girl in Hongkong with the money. He went into another business called the Yik On Steamship Company. Into it he put $15,000 and got back about $11,000. He sold his share because he had not enough money to carry it on. His assets in addition to the On Hing shop were simply book debts, due from Honolulu, Australia! and Kwangchauwan. These amounted to $48.000: $31,000 were bad debts,
His good debts amounted to $9.000; the rest were doubtful. He borrowed money to the amount of $28,500, which was all spent in buying goods for export. He also received $45,000 on deposit which he spend in buying goods. If all his assets were good, he would have about $50,000, leaving an absolute loss of $46,000. He lost that in sharks' fins, fish-maws and companies. He also lost money on ex- change. He sent sharks fins to Canton; some were sold at a loss, some went bad. There was less demand for them, as the flowerboats had been driven away from the place.
The examination was afterwards closed.
+
book.
(May 16, 1904.
China and to give some idea of the difficulties and perils which beset the path of the genuine Reformer. The story is woven round one Kum Tong, a Reformer of the best type, whom the Chinese authorities are anxious to get hold of, and to that end employ an attractive and in- telligent girl who has acquired fame as a poetess, to allure him away from the Foreign Settlement of Shanghai to facilitate his capture. He is so charmed by Sih Jin's conversation that he is easily induced to visit her at Soochow, but as she hears Kum Tong reci e the evils of the administration and enunciute his ideas of reform the girl develops a sympathy which ripens into affection, and she aids the Reformer to escape from the trap she had prepared for him. She herself subsequently rests under the suspicion of being a revolutioniet. and is vered by real as well as superstitious fears. In her distress she goes to the famous monastery at Hangchow to consult the abbot, and in the interview it transpires that she is the adopted daughter of is told by the priest that, instead of atoning for the abbot and that Kumn Tong is his son. her sina by becoming a nun, she would only add at the nuns in the nunnery would have to share to them, as if arrested for being a revolutionist, her fate, for having given shelter to her, and as for himself! if he were known to
Fhe
be the father of a son who is in rebellion
again t the Son of Heaven, both himself and the hundreds of monks inhabiting the monasteries who were his disciples, would have to lose their lives. In the end she resolved to
bring back Kum Tong to China (he was at that time in Nagasaki), mike a clean breast of her feelings towards him, and then share his fate. When Kum Tong came to see her, Shanghai was placarded with an offer of 10,000 taels reward for his person, alive or dead; and he intered her house at a moment when an angry interview had terminated between herself aud the emissary of the Government, whom Kun ultimately shoots in the street, the result being that both Kum Tong and Sih Jin are arrested, tried and sentenced in the Mix d Court for dis-
than the Japan of to-day, where we see the old order in collision with the now; and when it is done intelligently and the picture is faithfully depicted it is one of engrossing interest to social, economic, or political progress, and here- everybody who is more or less a student of in lies the merit of Mr. Watson's Events, the author pleads. are chiefly guilty or this book being issued at a moment when the Far East has become the world's moving anxiety, but since it has hit the psychological moment in its full career. it may prove a stroke of good fortune alike for the author and his publisher. This is not, however, to say that the book contains much that directly bears upon the Titanic struggle now proceeding, ex- cept in its political chapters. The chief merit charging a firearm and causing grievous bodily of the book, as we have said, consists in its in-harm. When at the end of the novel the teresting descriptions of the social. industrial Reform movement has triumphed Kum Toug and political conditions, which we may describe and the poetess are of course released so that as word-pictures in an unusual setting. That is
their abilities might be available for the good to say, the author has made his study from a
of mankind." The story is interesting though rather novel view point. and has given the result disjointed, but it should be read chiefly for the n a style which is at once lucid and picturesque. insight and information it supplies of the Re- though at times it suffers from the defect of pro- form moremeats in China and the means lixity. The volume is "light reading "in spite employed to squelch them. A very interesting of the somewhat ponderous title given to it. and chapter is that which purports to give an the leisure hour may he very pleasantly and profitably beguiled by its pages. Each chapter held at Nagasaki. The want of unanimity in account of a Congress of Chinese Reformers objects ant methods is clearly exposed, and the reader gathers from it that in the opinion of revolution. The hero of the story, however, is the majority reformation can only come through
ously protests against marching through rapine a Reformer of quite another stamp, and vigor-
to the goal of their ambition. What is pri- marily needed, he argues, is to dispel ignorance, and to abolish dishonesty.
there are thirty-seven of them-deals with a different subject. and the aspects" are not only interestingly but on the whole very accu rately described. That in itself is high praise for a book written about Japan. Two maps and several illustrations are incorporated in the book, which we may add may be obtained from Messrs. Kelly & Walsh.
The Drum-Wave Island: and other verses.
By B. N. Hongkong: Kelly & Walsh. Messrs. Kelly and Walsh send us a book of verses by an author whose identity is barely disguised under the initials B. N. We recognise in him an occasional contributor to the columns of the Daily Press a few years ago, and indeed one poem in the little collection entitled The Falling Dollar," closing before us appeared thus. That is the Roundel
To One-and-Six !
The Russo-Japanese War. Tokyo: Kinkodo
སྙས་
Co. No. 1. THIS is the first part of a fully illustrated- record of the war now proceeding, which an enterprising Tokyo firm intends to publish in monthly parts. If the work keeps up to the standard of its first number, it deserves all success. Published as it is in English and at gall.Tokyo, it is a real achievement for a Japanese firm. The illustrations, mostly from photo- graphs, are first-rate; the coloured plates are interesting; and the maps and plans are most useful. The letter-press seems to have been carefully revised, though of course a few slips are unavoidable seeing that the record is attempting to keep pace with the actual war. We must congratulate the producers heartily and wish them good sales.
Remembrance of the past but swells the We hated halfpence, now we're
cursed with kicks; For it may fade (the very words appal) Most of B. N.'s" verse is in a light vein, but there are a few more serious pieces. Kulangsu, it may be noted, is the Drum-Wave Island" which gives its name to the first poom in the book, which was, we believe, one of the fruits of the author's stay at Amoy. · B. N. evidently regards Kulangsu with affection; to it he
dedicates also the final rondeau in the volume. This is a very readable collection of verses.
The Upheaval in Fur Cathay. By NG HING SHANG. Published at the Shanghai Mercury Office.
THIS is a novel the purpose of which obvious. Jy is to describa the yearning for Reform ia
In the course of an interview with a represent- ative of the Japan Cazette, Sir Frederick Treves expressed himself as surprised at the excellence of the arrangements, the perfection of the organisation, and the splendid discipline of the hospitals, several of the larger and more important of which he has visited during his tour in Japan: