192
The number of Chinese at present settled in Hawall is given officially as 25,762. The Japa- nese in the island number 61,116. The late governor of the territory recommended that a limited number of Chinese labourers should be admitted to the territory conditionally on their engaging only in agricultural. mill. and domestic work during their stay, and subject to deportation at their own expense upon their ceasing to do so. The introduction of such labourers would, if authorised, says the British Consul, be a great boon to the planters.
The Seoul-Fusan Railway Company recently applied for 2,300,000 yen subsidy to complete the construction of its line. The Government has decided to advance the company 1.580.000 yen as a grant-in-aid for this purpose. The difference between the sum requested and the sum advanced will be made good by the curtailment of the expenditures of the company. As to the method of redemption, it is reported. says the Japan Daily Advertiser. that no re- payment will be made for five years, during which period no interest will be exacted. After the lapse of this period the subsidy will be re paid in yearly instalments of about 50,000 yen.
The Administration of Salt Revenue in Burms reports, inter alia, that the most marked feature of the year's trade in foreign salt was the attempt made by the shippers of Liverpool salt to recover the position which was held by salt of British manufacture up to the year 1894. Imports of this salt rose from 332,474 maunds to 579,238 maunds and the pro- portion of the total imports increased from 24 per cent. (1902) to 42 per cent. The total quantity of German salt imported decreased slightly, and the proportion fell from 59 per cent. to 57 per cent. The import of salt from other foreign countries and other provinces of India in the course of the year was inappreci- able."
HONGKONG.
Mr. L. H. Hussey, late chief officer of the Indo-China Steam Navigation Co.'s s.s. Fiksang. has been appointed captain of the Loksang.
Messrs. Blackhead & Co. are coaling the Italian cruiser Elba. She arrived from Shanghai on the 3rd inst.
1
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
Six Indian constables, returned from leave were recently re-enlisted in the Hongkong Police Force.
At Sutherland Street a collapsing house has had to be propped up another at Pokfulam Road; and another in Des Voeux Road West as a result of the recent rains.
We are officially informed that the quarantine restrictions imposed against arrivals from Hongkong have been removed both at Singa- pore and Saigon. Telegrams to that effect have reached the Colonial Secretary.
At the Public Works Department recently Mr. L. C. Rees, Principal, Land Surveyor, put up for sale by auction two lots of Crown land. Kowloon Inland Lot No. 1,158. Austin Road and Kimberley Road, 16,945 square feet, with an annual rent of $136, was sold for $6,120 (820 above the upset price) to Captain Boyd. R.A. The other subject of sale was Inland Lot No. 1,721, near Shaukiwan Road, Tsatszemui. 17,675 square feet in area, with an annual rental of $142. It was exposed at an upset price of $5,303 and was knocked down at $5,323 to Mr. A. Essabhoy.
The case of Mr. A. W. Symons, who figured in the Supreme Court recently in connection with a claim against him by a Chinese con- tractor for building a mat roof, serves as still another instance of the clashing that occurs between some of the Government departments. Mr. Symons is a waxworks proprietor. For the housing of his show he obtained the permission
of the P.W.D. to erect a matshed. This was done. Then a Sanitary Board inspector came along and ordered that the matshed be pulled down as being inflammable and dangerous. This order had to be obeyed, and the proprietor was forced to erect canvas sides and roofs, thus being put to double expense by the carelessness of someone or other of the P.W.D. servants.
On the 3rd inst the portrait of H.E. Sir Henry A. Blake, G.C.M.Ĝ.. subscribed for by the Chinese community on the occasion of His Excellency's departure from the Colony. was removed from the Commercial Union Insurance Co.'s offices on the Praya to the Tung Wah Hospital, where it is to be permanently hung. The removal was attended with much ceremony. A Chinese procession was formed. and the portrait was borne through the streets to the hospital in a special conveyance, richly Mr. Peter Quincey, a graduate of the Hong decorated, such as one sees at Chinese mar- kong Medical College, has been appointed to the|riages, though on a more gorgeous scale. A medical staff of the coolie emigration depart large number of the influential Chinese in the ment and leaves shortly on one of the transports Colony were present at the hospital. to witness for South Africa.
the formal handing over of the portrait, which is a very fine likeness of His Excellency.
His Excellency the Governor has been pleased, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, to appoint Geoffrey Norman Orme, Passed Cadet, to be Assistant Secretary to the Sanitary Board, vice Joseph Horsford Kemp. promoted, with effect from
the 1st instant.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Captain Barnes, of the 1st Chinese Regiment. has been appointed Transvaal Emigration Agent for Shantung.
Since coolies are the chief beasts of traction in China, ought not motorists here to reckon their automobiles as of so many coolie power? In the case of some cars, the odour would help
His Excellency the Governor has been pleased to appoint Lieutenant Hugh Wilfred Thomas Smith, Royal Garrison Artillery, to be extra Aide-de-Camp with the local rank of Captain from the 1st instant, and Captain William Armstrong. Hongkong Volunteers, to be the estimator. Honorary Aide-de-Camp.
The Hon. Treasurer of the Alice Memorial and Nethersole Hospitals begs to acknowledge with thanks donations of five dollars each from Yau Shang, Ni Shing Hing. Shing Un. Fun Kat, Wing Cheung Shing. Yau Kee. Wing On, Wo Fung, Tseung On, Ming San. Shing Tak. Sui Kat, Hung U, Fuk Tai, Shi Lung. Shü Un, Lai Tsün, and Wing Shang.
The cashier of Messrs. Hogan and Boss, Penang, has gone astray with $10,335. He was given cheques for $10,000 and $4,665, and 8335 in notes. He cashed the former, taking $8,000 in silver, presented the second cheque ; but never went back for the money.
We, having been misled by the Union, have to withdraw it also.
The Shanghai Union, which some time ago started the report that one of the oldest and foremost citizens of the northern port, the Mr. E. D. C. Wolfe, a police magistrate from editor of the N.-C. Daily News, was about to the New Territory, was on the 6th inst, adminis-retire, has since withdrawn the statement. tered (by H.E. the Governor, assisted by Mr. Ross. erk of councils) the oath of allegiance and the magistrate's oath, in which he swore to serve truly and well as a police magistrate at Hong- kong. administering justice impartially Mr. J. R. Wood has taken Mr. Wolfe's place in the New Territory.
Mr.. L. A. M. Johnston, the Postmaster- General, has sent a circular letter to various gentlemen in the Colony, reading as follows:-
Sir-His Excellency the Governor is of opinion that the Hongkong Volunteer Corps is not of the strength required to enable it to take its proper share in the defence of the Colony. I shall be much obliged if you will let me know whether you are willing to join the Corps and also whether you have been a Volunteer before."
I
|
[September 10, 1904.
The new Kintoan light-vessel was launched without ceremony from Messrs. Farnham, Boyd & Co.'s Pootung yard on August 29th, and anchored in midstream, awaiting completion and the erection of her light. She has been built to the designs of Mr. J. R. Harding, Chief Engineer of the I.C.S. at Shanghại, and there are only about two other ships of her particular character in existence. She is of steel and will be gas-lighted, and it is hoped to got her into position in about a month's time or less.
"The words in a summons are works of art,” explained Mr. Plowden last month to a police court. defendant. who after having had occasion to express forcibly his opinion of s him for being a loose and idle person. constable, objected to that official summoning
"Loose and idle person, indeed!" repeated the defendant in great wrath. Oh, you must not take these words too literally." said the magistrate soothingly. "they really mean you are most industrious-and fast. You pay 28.. and then you will be loose."
like consternation has been caused in official In a neighbouring foreign Colony something
circles by a certain state of affairs which has arison. Recently the British Vice-Consul went on leave, and as his locum tenens, there was appointed the Commissioner of Chinese Customs. One can see that it would hardly suit the book of the officials to have these dual positions merged in one foreigner who would be able, as it were, to use both ends of the wire in carrying out his double duties. What the outcome will The officials, however,
be remains to be seen. in all probability will protest in vain, for the right of the Consul-General to appoint whom he likes as Vice-Consul seems unquestionable.
The foreign residents of Japan who have not heard of Mr. John Hartley and his thirty years old complaint against the Japanese Government are few. Mr. Hartley, now in Shanghai, hás sent us a book published by Kelly & Walsh, in which are bound together, all higgledy-piggledy. which Mr. Hartley has accumulated during the the letters, papers. newspaper cuttings, &c., quarter of a century he has nursed his grievance, We are all sorry for him, but there seens no doubt that Mr. Hartley did persist in importing opium against the wishes of the Japanese authorities. In fact, he admits it, and defends it: and in pestering everybody, the late Queen, the King, numerous Ministers and M.P.'s, Marquis Ito, the British Consuls, &c., &o., Mr. Hartley has come to be a familiar figure, almost as much to be dreaded as to be pitied. Of course the thing has become a sort of habit, or monomania, by this time; and his acquaintances may now avoid boredom at a cost of $1.50, the sum charged for Mr. Hartley's brochure. Care- ful study of it will show that there was much to be said on both sides, for Mr. Hartley seems to have omitted nothing, even of the points that tell against him.
The number of residents of Shanghai who were contemporaries of Mr. Alfred Charles Westall is getting very small, but there are still
a fow to whom the news of his death on the
23rd of July last means a very heavy personal loss, and there are still a great many who knew him well and loved him as one of the kindest- hearted and most popular men who ever came to China. He came here, says the N.-C. Daily Newce, considerably more than forty years ago to the firm of Smith, Kennedy & Co., in which his brother Robert, who retired from Foochow only last year, was one of the partners." Dad- dy Westall, as he was affectionately called, zoon became one of the leading men here. He and the late Mr. E. W. Batt laid out the pre- sent ground of the Shanghai Cricket Club; be was an enthusiastic rowing man, a most valu. ger, and afterwards & Mih-bo-loong; in fact, be was a keen sportsman all round. And he was a hard-working business man withal. His wife, who was most popular here too, died some yenɛs ago, and he leaves a daughter and four sons who, we are glad to know, are well provided for He was one of the men who made Shanghai what it is. He died in harness, being struck › down in his office in London by apoplexy, and the only intelligible remark he made after he was taken home to die was to ask after one of his sons, who had just undergone successfully an operation for appendicitis.
A fire at Binan, Laguna, P.I., has resulted in the loss of four or five lives and the destructionable member of the A.D.C., a Shanghai Rin- of several blocks of nips and bamboo houses. | One of the lives lost was that of an infant, who was left in the burning house while the father rushed to save his game-cock.
The average minimum of the thermometer in the Shanghai Settlement in August was 75.2, the average maximum 87.6, and the mean 81.4. against 78.5, 92.4, and 85.4, respectively, in August 1903. The rainfall in August was 2.81 inches, and rain fell measurably on 9 days, avainst 1..7 inches and 8 days in August 1903, and an average of 6.08 inches and 103 days for the twenty-two years 1882-1903.
F