September 3, 1906.)
Cross-examined-Witness went to each of the houses with the_inspector when he examined the floors. He saw the concrete laid, and it was very well laid.
Re-examined-That was about six or seven years ago.
Cheung Cho said he was a carpenter carry- ing on business at 148 Queen's Road West. He remembered a sanitary inspector calling to inspect the ground surface of his shop last year. The inspector did not dig a hole in the floor.
Cross-examined-Two or three men accom. panied the inspector when he called at witness' premises. The inspector went all round the place and thumped the floor. Before and after this occasion he called several times to inspect.
Re-examined-There was not more than one thumping of the floor.
The case was adjourned.
REMARKABLE CHINESE STORY OF REAL LIFE.
Wong Chik-nam was charged at the instance of Inspector Collett with obtaining £20 by false pretences.
From the evidence it appeared that defendant was a friend of the complainant, an old man residing in the country. The complainant's son was in Victoria, British Columbia, but his wife resided with her father-in-law, on whom the defendant at a previous period was often calling. His acquaintance with the young wife ripened into improper intimacy, and it is believed that the woman
was hand and glove with him in the scheme which ultimately led to his arrest. Some time ago the defendant bade the complainant farewell, telling him that
going to America. About three months afterwards he returned, and handed complainant a forged letter purporting to be from his son, in which the sun asked the father to send his wife, in
he
Was
the defendant's care, to him at Victoria. All unsuspecting the father proceeded to make arrangements for a speedy departure, and handed the defendant £20, which defendant told him would be required for the lady's passage. The father decided to accompany his daughter in-law and the defendaut to Hongkong, here to take leave of them. The trio gathered on the Winglok Street wharf, where defen dant hailed a
them off sampan to take to the Americau steamer. As the weather was somewhat boisterous, the father was pre- vailed upon not to accompany them to the vessel, and took his last farewell on the wharf. When the sampan pushed off the old man returned to his hotel, and returned by first steamer to the country. The occupante of the sampan, instead of making for the steamer, went for a sail round the harbour, eventually landing again at West Point The defendant then sought a place of abode, and finding a suitable house in Elgin Street took it. He furnished it luxuriously after the Chinese fashion, supplied all the wants of his paramour and actually bought a share in a business with the complainant's money.
Things went well with him for a time, but a genuine letter from the ill-used man in America to his father, stating that he would be returning home short ly, revealed to the father the mean trick which had been played upon him. Hongkong, put the matter in the hands of the police, the result being that the happy home which the defendant had built at the expense of others was broken up and the defendant arrested.
He returned to
His Worship found Wong guilty of the charge, and sentenced him to three months' imprisonment with hard labour.
The Sinwenpao publishes a telegram from Peking dated the 22nd inst, which is to the following effect:- Gendarmes belonging to the Board of Public Safety bave arrested within the precincts of Eho Park Palace a man of suspi- cious appearance. Upon being searched the prisoner held in his band a les her receptacle, inside of which was found a bomb. Be stated that he was living in the Yuan Ho Timber Yard, whereupon an employee of the yard called Ma was forthwith also arrested. The matter, has been made known to Viceroy Yuan Shih- kai.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
THE BISHOP ON OPIUM,
A PUBLIC SIN.
|
135
our
farmer who said with regard to the opium farm there "Speaking for my conscience I am dead against the opium business
but if the law calls for fenders I will take advantage of the law, I will make money by it."
I can understand that man's attitude, for he knew nothing of the Sermon on the Mount. I confess I don't understand the attitude of a strong and wealthy Christian nation which for the sake of money persists in this trade which it confesses to be morally indefensible and tries to cover its sin by saying that poor weak distracted China must take the initiative to stop the socurved thing. To us, the English nation, the question ought not to be what do»s Chins want or what will Chins do? but-Is this trade right, or is it wrong! The trade increases the incalculable misery of millions of fellows, and tends to a grievous deterioration of a noble ruce, and is indeed morally indefen. sible. I would pray for more grace that our nation should do what is right even if at the cost of plucking it out we cut off our right hand. Then with regard to the local question, the manner in which the opium trade should be conducted in this Colony, I cannot speak
the at length. I would speak with caution." In close relationship in which we are necessarily one to another in this small com. munity, there is special peed to avoid anything which might cause pain to those who hold office and who are working for the good of the Colony. I do feel that the ofloe which I hold in the Church of God makes it clearly as I can for the clause of righteousness, incumbent upon me to plead as strongly and as and I believe that those who have really con- sidered the matter will agree with me when I say that the present mode of conducting the opium trade in this Colony is morally in- It is, I think, open to question whether any government is ever justified in In the case of the farming out its revenue. opium farm it must have an evil tendency. It must tend to the increase of the opium vice. It involves the shirking of responsibilities on the part of those who ought to control it. It places great powers, which we know are liable to abuse, in the hands of private individuals in. stead of being in
hands of duly government official.. It has appointed been defended, it is true, sometimes for the sake of the revenue, sometimes on the ground that government control is difficult and involves considerable expense. But the question is not Хо оде whether the revenue would suffer. would suppose that prohibition is to arrive at The most that can bɩ hop d for is its gradual reduction.
The main question for us ought to be, Is this thing right? If as I believe most of us agree that this mode of conducting the opium trade here is not right then surely it is our duty to endeavour to get rid of it, whatever the coat may be. Whether we consider the nation, the colony or the individual it is true with regard to all that righteousness exalteth and that sin is a reproach. May God in His mercy so stir the heart of our nation, so of our colony, that the stir the heart reprosob of this opium teide may be put away, and may He so stir the heart of each church to-day that we individual in this may all realise by God's grace the power of * God's holy spirit working in our heart to pat away sin not only in our publia lives but in our private lives, even though it be at the cost of plucking out of the individual or the Govern ment the right hand,
defensible.
On August 26th the Bishop of Victoria preached in St. John's Cathedral on Public Morality and the Opium Trade." Taking for his text the verse commencing "If thy right hand offend thee," he said that there were faw people who questioned the morality of the Sermon on the Mount. Very few people, bowever, lived up to its standard and the majority adopted a standard which they considered more in accord with their surround. ings.
After pointing out the unwisdom of lowering the standard his Lordship asked if it were applicable to national life. Surely there could be only one answer to that question. The whole Bible, especially the Old Testament, constantly enforced the duty of righteousness. Righteousness, said Solomon, exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Proceeding he said-I want to apply these prin. ciples to the question of the opium trade. It is a question which has been brought both in England and Hongkong, an also into considerable prominence this year in other parts of the world. There are two aspects of this question so far as we are con- cerned. There is the imperial aspect, that which naturally attacts the chief attention at home and which should also interest us here as being members of the empire. Then there is have our careful consideration as affecting the also the local aspect, which ought certainly to
public morality of the Colony in which we live. The imperial question is whether the Indo- Chinese opium trade should be continued. The local question relates to the manner in which the opium trade should be conducted in this Colony. The two questions are distinct one from the other. Let us therefore treat them separately. With regard to the Indo-Chinese opium trade, it will be out of place to enter bere into a discussion of the history of this trade in the past or to enquire as to how far if is true that the opium trade was forced on China at the point of the bayonet. It is not of the past I wish to speak. I confine myself now to the present. Twice within the last fifteen years the House of Commons has affirmed its conviction that the Indo-Chinese opiam trade is morally indefensible and has requested the Government to take steps for bringing the trade to a speedy close. During these fifteen years the Government has done nothing to carry out the moral conviction of the House of Commons, chiefly, it is stated, because of financial reasons. Seventy years ago the House of Commons came to the conviction that the slave trade was morally indefensible, and in the year 1833 the nation paid down twenty millions sterling in order to rid itself of that sin. Has the moral sense of the nation become so blunted during the last seventy years that it will not for financial reasons do away with that which it confesses to be wrong! I can understand, though I deplore, the weakness and the incou
cannot bring sistency of the individual who himself to give up some sinful habit, such for instance as gambling, that he knows to be I know many people morally indefensible. sympathise with the wretched condition of hundreds of thousands of Chinese
down by the opium deplore the evil and the misery which it and apon others entails upon themselves but who cannot summon up moral strength to break the chains with which they are Only held and cast the evil thing away. last February a medical friend of mine received an invitation to go down to a Chinese village to help in curing every opium smoker in the village. The whole community had decided to get rid of the accursed thing. With the help of the doctor all the opium smokers in the village, eighty in number, were cured of the babit, and the village elders cleared away every vestige of opium, every sign of an opium shop out of the place. We all know that there ar literally hundreds of thousands-I believe I may say millions of people like that, slaves of
men be free, but unable to vice longing to
them. With break the chains that bind such people I can sympathise. Again I can understand, though I cannot sympathise with, the cynical attitude of the Singapore opium
bound
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who
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the
V.R.C. FETE.
distinct success.
!
It was a happy suggestion which_emanated from the V R.Ü. committee to bold a swimming gals at night, and when it took practical shape last night the result was unanimously pro- Kitson lights illuminated the bathing area. Its rays danced on the rippling wares, and showed the gleaming bodies of the competitors, making a scene that was 'decidedly attractive. Its picturesqueness was of course enhanced by the dainty costum sa of the ladies and the light garb of the gentis-
It was feared at one time that the presence of a typhoon in the vicinity would affect the attendance, but fortunately all fears disappeared on Aug. 31, and the number present was exceptionally large. The arrangements
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