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facts are that on the 16th December last the compradore of the defendant company sent a foki around to the plaintiff shop and asked the manager to see him. The manager went around, and the compradore asked him what quantity of biscuits of ✡ certain kind he could supply. He said 50,000 lbs. in a month at 6 cents per lb. This was accepted, and the plaintiff then went on baking biscuits, and on the following day Mr. Weismann came around and inspected some of the biscuits, and signified his approval of them. On the 18th December, the following day, Mr. Weismann called and took samples of the bis- cuits which were marked in Chinese ink by the manager. On the 20th December 200 tins of biscuits were delivered on the Praya to the defendant; the tins contained 54 lbs of biscuit éach. These biscuits were soldered up in tias. These tins were examined by Mr. Weismann in the presence of the plaintiffs' manager, and were found not to be according to the quality, but the defendant refused to take delivery. The plaintiff then took them back. On the 22nd December, Mr. Weismann called in person at the plaintiff shop and interviewed the manager with the assistance of a European inter- preter, and offered to take the rejected biscuits lat 5 cents per lb. provided that he had the right to make a selection from the rejected biscuits, and biscuits being baked. After some discussion the original order was amended, and the plaintiff received an order for 15,000 lbs. of biscuits at six cents per lb., it being provided that the defendant or his representative should be permitted to select the biscuits. On the 30th December, Mr. Weismann and another European called at the plaintiff shop at eight o'clock in the morning, and at their request the plaintiff unpacked the tins. Biscuits from 200 tins were put into baskets in the shop, and the defendant started to pick out biscuits from these baskets. At nine o'clock Mr. Weismann left, leaving a European baker in charge. The biscuits were pointed out by the European and the plaintiffs' foki, who put them in tins which were soldered up by the employees of Mr. Weismann, working on the Hep Loong premises. This was continued all day till eleven o'clock at night. During the whole of that time either Mr. Weismann or another European was present selecting biscuits, and the tins were marked in German by one or the other of them. The tins were left in the shop till the 31st. December, when 45 tins were delivered to the defendant at Blake Pier, and the balance on the 2nd January at the same place. On the 3rd January Mr. Weismann and his baker called and after examin. ing the remaining biscuits in the baskets refused to take delivery of them, The other biscuits were sent to Singapore by the defendant company, where they remained some time, and arrived back yesterday. The defendant refused to pay for 10,800 lbs. of biscuits at six cents per lb.
The Court adjourned before the plaintiffs'
case was concluded.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
A thousand years passed away from this prehistoric period (Fu-hsi), and but little was known of what occurred during the interval. One thing might be predicted of it-that worship solidified into methods of performing it. The worship of the Supreme Ruler was practically restricted to the Emperor, along with the worship of his ancestors and other objects of adoration; the common people had that of their sacestors and to this added hosts of spirits and idols and other objects. Worship occupied a curious position, for, with slight exceptions, the adoration of this sovereign being was only performed by the Emperor himself. It was s state religion, high above that of the common people. In striking contrast to other classical nations of antiquity, the Chinese had been a pure nation as far as their religion was con- cerned.
Buddhism had a great influence on Chinese life, customs and religion since its appearance in China shortly after the Christian era.
The Chinese dragon had doubtless its origin in one or some of the zoological monsters of bygone ages. In the present day it seemed to be mixed up with serpents, and even small snakes. A small temple in Chao-chao-fu, 35 miles from Swatow, had
&
snake kept in it. At the present time, when a small snake was caught in a river it was worshipped as the rain-sending dragon, and high officials asked for a recognition of it by the throne.
Smooth round stones were often placed at the foot of a banyan tree and worshipped.
In a small shrine in a shop near the police station at Yaumati a number of these stones could be seen. It was suggested that the adoration of stones had arisen from the ancient worship of mountains and hills.
(March 11, 1900.
mark, and the Chinese, perhaps, thought that it looked like a petticoat string.
said, at the end of the thirteenth century. Hongkong was a wooded island, the leotarer There was primeval forest on both sides of the harbour. The bills of what is now known as Hongkong Island were used as places for the pirates to keep a lookout from--"the man who puts up signals about incoming steamers, you see had his predecessors" (laughter) predecessors, though, "keeping a lookout for less peaceful purposes, pirate had his lookout staționed there.
About 100 years ago a calabrated
date, during the British occupation, had been Speaking about crime, Hongkong, at a later
a notorious place for robbery. The Chinese made use of the European drains to enter and rob houses. Robbers in this way got into the Bank of India, at Hongkong, and succeeded in making off with $100,000. Twenty-two pri- soners escaped from Victoris Gaol in the
he was able to inform the Government of same way; and Dr. Legge told of how another plot, thus preventing eighty more prisoners from escaping. The criminals in those days tunnelled to the drains.
Three classes of Chinese settlers, came to Hongkong. From 250 to 800 years ago the Punti people came from the heart of the great Tung Kuu District, which in those days, before the province of Sun On was cut off, was the Yorkshire of China. Hongkong formed a part of the Sun On District when it was taken over by the British. These Punti people denuded the hill-side of its trees, alearing the ground for cultivation. After the Puntis caie the Hakka people, from the north-east of the province. Whereas the Puntis had out down the wood, the Hakkas even cut down the grass. Between the two they left a great deal of work for the pre- There W&5 no doubt that for two thou-sent day Afforestation Department, both at sand years many fantastic and superstitions had been growing in China when two groups of villages in the Colony. The gross Hongkong itself and at Kowloon. There were Confucius appeared on the stage. It was Punti speaking villages, including Wong-nei- against these that Confucius said "Respect the chong, Tang-lang-chan, Pok-fu-lam, Chik-ohu spirits but keep aloof from them." His idea (Stanley; in former days the capital of the was that superstition was best combatted by island) and Shek-o. Two Hakka villages were taking no notio of it.
Tang-lo-wan and Tai-tam-tuk. Hoklo people came from the region of Swatow. These people formed no villages of their own wan, Cheung Chow (Long Island, to the right of but settled in existing villages such as Shau-ki. Macao), and Yaumati and Hunghom on the mainland. These Hoklos were terrible fellows for piracy and smuggling, and a great deal of trouble arose through their mixture with the other people. It was only right to say, how- ever, that these Hoklo people were the nucleus of the Chinese who had done so much under the European occupation. The lecturer questioned if there was ever a spot of earth where enter- colonies in the eastern seas, the Chinese prise had done so much. If the British founded developed them, and these Hoklo people were the nucleus of those who did the developing
Notwithstanding the advent of Buddhism with its atheistical originality in its concep tions; of Taoism, with its original system of philosophy; and of Confucianism, the founder of which admitted that he knew nothing of the future-the old world cult, ancestor worship, had held its own and grown stronger and more binding on the masses of the people than in bygone days.
33
'OLD HONGKONG.”.
The Rev. T. W. Pearce on the 9th inst. deliver ed a very interesting lecture on "Old Hong kong to members of the Union Church Literary Club. He said that the name 44 Hong. kong" meant pleasant port or port of fragrant streams. There was no evidence that the Chi- nese named Hongkong. What the Chinese called
PRIMEVAL WORSHIP IN CHINA, Hongkong was the port of Aberdeen. Why
LECTURE BY MB. J. DYER BALL.
Mr. J. Dyer Ball on March 5 lectured at the Y.M.C.A. rooms on "the primeval conception of God in China, and the primitive religions of the Chinese." He said that the Chinese language in its hieroglyphic characters afforded not a few pictures of the dead past. Dr. Legge, late professor of Chinese at Oxford, and for many years a resident at Hongkong, had quarried out several of the primitive ideas of the Chinese on such matters. By these characters it was discovered that the ancient Chi- nese had ideas of a spiritual being and of nature worship. Then a fear of the dead led to worship. The early Chinese were very mixed in their ideas. Monotheistic in the belief of one supreme ruler, but also polytheistic to a certain extent, for, below this Supreme Ruler, were a host of spirits which were also shipped. The idea which the Chinese mind had perhaps always held was that of a hierarchy, presided over in their earlier conceptions by one head with numerous subordinate ranks of executive officers, or administrators of the different branches of the universe; and worship, described as an inferior worship, has veen paid to them all.
wor-
this place was called the port of fragrant streams fishy (laughter). But the Chinese did call that was a question; the smell there was decidedly place
name thus
Thirdly the
Dr. Eitel had humorously described how Hongkong became British. It was the off- spring of a marriage alliance concluded st Canton in 1649 between the East India Com. pany on the one part and the Chinese Govern. ment on the other. It was an ill-assorted and ideas of international equality, and the marriage, one party having free-trade notions Hongkong, and still called it 80. How did the whole island come to be called possessing claims of political superiority over other having enunciated ideas of monopoly and Hongkong? It was a fact that European the Universe. Divorce was bound to come and vessels went to Aberdeen to take in water from this was pronounced at Canton by Commissioner a not very fragrant, but fresh water stream-Lui; and Captain Elliot secured Hongkong for the brook flowing by the paper mill. It is pro- | the British. bable that these people were told that the place was called Hongkong, and the became applied to the whole of the island. The Chinese, though, had names for the diffe- rent parts of the island. part was called Petticoat String. Why? A The northern lady with a poetic inclination had attempted to answer this question in an advertisement book of one of the steamship companies. She said the roads looked like ribbon bound around the hill-side. In the old days Hongkong, from the other side of the harbour, looked very much like what the Kowloon side of the harbour looks like to-day from the Hongkong side. There was then one road around the northern side. Toilers of the ses used to tow their junks there. That was where Des Voeux Road and a part of Queen's Road were now, From the opposite shore; that road was a white
The Chinese had been dominated by a system of monotony. For countless centuries the mother. the son had copied the father, and the daughter The British, on the other hand, determined beforehand. It was the high had escaped the limitations which had been destiny of Hongkong to aid in the inevit able work of diffusing the existing culture of all nations to every part of the earth.
"The aspect of old Hongkong during the first three years of British occupation -had, been Legge. At the western part, bayo described by both Mr. Tarrant and Dr the Sailors' Home is to-day, were of the 55th Regiment. Sal-ying pun. nese name of the district, meant We There were no buildings berean, the spot where the Government- Hospital was built. This nits wha võ
Docupled"