886
Minister in Korea, having been acting for. the Russian Government, is not an eligible claimant, and asserts that he believed the ressel to belong not to M. PAVLOV, or the Russian Government, but to the nominal
"
11
and registered owner, Baron THOMAS CHARLES ROBERT WARD, a British subject, and (presumably) another agent for the Russian Government. The jury, as our telegram shows, decides that if M. PAVLOV ever owned it, he owned it as agent for the Russian Government, and that "Baron WARD, although the registered owner, had
to
no right to sell it. Evidently, if the officially recognised owner's authority to sell (by his attorney) is now denied, the case presents curious complications. The name of the overt agent of the Russian Government did not appear, perhaps because his appearance in the transactions was undesirable. If "Baron" WARD was not a Russian agent, why was the vessel registered in his name, and why was Mr. KRISTENSEN's authority not valid? But, argues the defendant, "Baron" WARD did have a "beneficiary interest" in the vessel; and he (defendant) did not know at the time be sold it that M. PAVLOV bad any right to forbid it. He, therefore, refuses to deliver up the Taels 80,000 he received from the Shanghai Tug and Lighter Co., Ltd., and denies M. PAVLOV's right to claim. M. PAVLOV maintains, on the other hand, that it was a conspiracy between "Baron" WARD and his attorney, Mr. KRISTENSEN, to cheat the Russian Government of the vessel. It was defendant, KRISTENSEN, who, in October, 1904, under instructions from "Baron" WARD, purchased the steamer" for the purposes of the Russian Government," and he paid Messrs. WHEELOCK AND CO. Tls. 105,000 for it, receiving from them afterwards a rebate or commission of Tls. 10,000, which was paid M. Pavlov, "by whose direction this " commission was arranged." It was "Baron" WARD, however, who paid out Tls. 10,655.84 for account of the Samson, In the following month, when the Edendale had also been purchased in a similar way, his principal, "Barou" Ward, first told him that he was acting for M. PAVLOV. The Edendale not being required, defendant, KRISTENSEN, paid the vendors' brokers' expenses, Tls. 9,600, for which he later received M. PAVLOV's cheque, signed "A. PAVLOV, Minister for Korea in China." M. PAVLOV promised him a large flour contract for Vladivostock to compensate him for his disappointment and losses. He did not get the flour contract. M. PAvLoy still owed him a thousand taels for medical stores purchased on his behalf. It was by "Baron" WARD's in- structions that he re-sold the Samson in February, 1905, to Messrs. WHEELOCK AND Co., for Tls. 57,000, having failed to find a purchaser at Nagasaki and elsewhere; and he deducted what was owing to him (defen- dant), and paid the balance to "Baron WARD. "Baron" WARD, and not the defen- dant, was the proper man to sue, and, as a matter of fact, M. PAVLOV was suing him contemporaneously at the British Court,
""
"}
It is to this suit that our telegram refers, the jury referred to being a British jury. The suit against Mr. KRISTENSEN Was entered at the Danish Consular Court. The British jury does not seem to have clarified a knotty case, although we may take it that the decision means that M. PAVLOV was the recognised and supreme agent for Russia in the matter; and that
Baron
WARD will be held accountable to him for the value. It might have been more interesting if the Japanese had
"?
seized the vessel
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
HONGKONG JOTTINGS.
26th June.
A correspondent writes to me that he has many times contemplated sending a few lines of poetry for this column. Tossing a weary head on the pillow in a vain effort to woo Morpheus between mid-night and the wee sma'
hours he has been driven by the distracting noises in his neighbourhood to seek relief in attempts to write withering odes to his neigh bours within a radius of half a mile. But concentration of thought, he complains, has been as impossible as sleep, and so he confess, s
(June 26, 1905. encouragement and support of the Chinese of the district. Now, after six years' delay, when the route is being surveyed with a view to a commencement of the work, the concessionairəs are confronted with a Chinese agitation against railway outerprises by foreigners of nationality, and the negotiations at Peking are
any*
in consequence impeded. The British Govern- ment is apparently bringing pressure to bear on Peking, and as the Chinese have not the that of the great trunk line between Canton same reason for resisting in this case as in
and Hankow it is quite likely that the matter will be amicably arranged. But it is not a happy angury that a large number of in-
that he has been obliged to borrow the following Auential merchants and gentry of Canton and lines as a start:--
There is a youth who keeps a "crumpled horn
(Living next me, upon the self-same story), And ever, 'twixt the midnight and the morn
He solaces his soul with Annie Laurie. The tune is good; the habit p'raps romantic;
But tending, if pursued, to drive one's neigh-
bours frantic. And now, at this unprecedented hour,
When the young Dawn is "trampling out the
stare".
-
I hear that youth-with more than u ual power And I do think the amateur cornopean
And pathos-struggling with the first few
the cities along the proposed route to Kowloon are urging that the line should be bu lt exclusively with Chinese capital.
It appears from the Blue-Book that advice was sought from the Indian Government, on the proposal of the Botanical and Afforestation Department, to introduce a scheme for felling and re-planting the pine forests of the Colony on the block system with a twenty-five years rotation. This is the system which was intro. bars.duced at Aberdeen last year. It was, as the Blue Book says, looked upon with ill-favour by the public, and it is interesting now to learn that "the opinion was expressed in well-informed. quarters that a longer period of rotation was preferable." There has been time for a report from the Indian Government on the subject and it would be interesting to know the nature of it.
Should be put down by law-but that's per-
haps Utopian !
The correspondent mentions that the scheme of the poem also covered the gramaphone, the piano and the pianola, as well as vocal efforts, the howling of dogs and the noises of the poultry yard; and in the belief that it was equally Utopian to put down all these things, he intended, by way of conclusion, to fling this at them :-
Play, play, your sonatas in A Heedless of what your next neighbour may say? Sing, play-if your neighbours inveigh Feebly against you, they're lunatics, eh? Then, maskee neigh, bray, simply obey All your sweet impulses, stop not or stay Is not your neighbour your natural prey?
But after reading Saturday's paper the correspondent deemed it unnecessary to com- plete the Ode, the public being duly warned that late dinner parties are a public nuisance and that the perpetrators thereof are liable to be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.
Though the Ordinance under which that prosecution took place is, I imagine, one that was Anacted in 1864, bachelors' messes and scores of other households have all these years been giving their dinner parties and singing-or rather "trying to sing"-their national anthems after midnight quite oblivious of the fact that for disturbing the peace and quietude of the neighbourhood at night-time they were rendering themselves liable to fines and imprisonment! In this connection
a great The moral to be drawn by the jovial deal evidently depends upon one's neighbours.
from the case reported in Saturday's paper, and the other recent case in which a coolie whom the magistrate evidently mistook for a bloated compradore) was fined & 5 for "making & noise in the vicinity of a district police station, is this:-Don't make your noise tos near the sleeping quarters of the police! If you play your sonatas and sing your national anthems anywhere else, you can do it with impunity: it helps to keep the policeman on his beat awake. Many, I know, wish the police were not so confoundedly selfish in this respect-or rather that they were a little more altruistic But how busy they would be after sunsetbe sure if only they rigorously carried
11
out the Ordinance of 1864. The correspondent who wrote to the Daily Press last week about the noises made by the trams would not have had his nerves shattered, and the correspondent I have referred to above would cease to have occasion to wrap a wet towel round his head in the dead of night in order to restore that mental equilibrium which is so necessary to those who are seized with an impulse to write poetry.
Another difficulty seems to have been en- countered in connection with the Kowloon. Canton railway project. Had the British and Chinese Corporation been prepared to proceed at once with the construction of the railway when the concession was obtained, the line might have been made with the active
It is officially recognised in the report on the Blue Book on Hongkong for !904 that "house- rents especially on the higher levels, have advanced to an extent probably unknown in other British Colonies.” It seems to me that little or no distinction can be made between the higher and the lower levels in this respect. and Kowloon has shared to the full in this "advancement."
'BANYAN.
HONGKONG LEGISLATIVE
COUNCIL.
A meeting of the Legislative Council was held at the Council Chamber on the 22nd June. There were present:-
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR, SIE MATTHEW NATHAN, K.C.M.G.
H. E. MAJOR-GENERAL VILLIERS-HATTON, C.B. (General Officer commanding the Troops).
Hon. Mr. F. H. MAY, C.M.G. (Colonial Secre- tary).
x
Hon. Sir H. S. BERKELEY, K.C. (Attorney- General).
Hon. Mr. L. A. M. JOHNSTON (Colonial
Treasurer).
Hon. Mr. A. W. BEEWIN (Registrar-General). Hon. Captain L. A. W. BARNES-Lawrence, R.N. (Harbour Master).
Hon. Mr. W. CHATHAM (Director of Public Works).
Hon. Sir C. P. CHATER, C.M.G: Hon. Dr. Ho KAI, M.B., C.M., C.M.G. Hon. Mr. WыI YUK.
Hon. Mr. GERSHOM STEWART.
Mr. A. G. M. FLETCHER (Clerk of Councils).
The minutes of the previous meeting, meeting No. 3 of the present year, held on June 1st, were confirmed.
REPORTS.
Hon. COLONIAL SECRETARY—Sir, I beg to lay on the table the Report of the Harbour Mas- ter for the year 1904, Report on the Blue Book for 1904, Report of the Government Bacterio- logist for the year 1904, Report of the Acting Medical Officer of Health on the Epidemic of Plague in the Colony during the year 1904, and the Report of the Director of the Observatory for 1904. I also, by Your Excellency's com- mand, beg to lay on the table Financial Minutes 15 to 18 and more that they be referred to the Finance Committee.
Hon. COLONIAL TREASUREE seconded and it was carried.
QUESTION BE VAGRANTS. Hon. Mr. GERSHON STEWART-I beg to ask the question standing in my name.