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SERIOUS FIRE ON THE S.S.
KUTSANG.”
FIRE-FIGHTERS HALF-SUFFOCATED.
The Indo-China Steam Navigation Co.'s steamer Kutsang, which cleared for Singapore last Wednesday, returned to port on Sunday morning at seven o'clock flying the signal fire in the hold." he anchored in the western part of the harbour, and later proccoded to her usual buoy west of Blake Pier. The fire brigade from Hongkong and Kowloon, under Lieut. C. W. Beckwith and Superintendent Lane, were con- reyed aboard to render assistance, the fire float also being run alongside. When the firemen boarded the vessel the hatches were removed from No. 4 hold, and the hold was filled with water to a depth of about eighteen feet.
The Kutsang, as previously stated, left for Singapore on Wednesday, having on board a general cargo and nearly 200 Chinese passengers, On Friday the fire was discovered by a Chinese passenger who, observing smoke issuing from one of the ventilators, reported the matter to the, Chief Officer. The vessel was then hove to for some twelve hours, and the hold was partly filled with water with the object of extinguishing the fire. But as it continued to smoulder, Captain Bradley decided to put back to Hongkong.
When the hold had been flooded yesterday, partly pumped out again, and after the smoke had been given time to clear off, the firemen went down to combat the fire. But the brigade had no light task before them. Apart from the excessive heat, obnoxious gases were generated, it is believed, through the burning of chemicals or the heating of iron, and it soon became apparent that it would be dangerous for the firemen to remain long below.
The fact was first borne in upon the Superin- tendent of the Brigade by the collapse of a number of Chinese firemen, whom it was necessary to remove to the deck to resuscitate. When the men were brought round, however, three were found to be in so serious a condi. tion that it WAR thought advisable to remove them to hospital. Then the Euro- pean firemen began to feel the effects of the poisonous gases, and Sergeant Kendall. Lance- Sergeant Edwards and a constable had to be removed from the hold. When once in the fresh air, however, they soon revived, the ship's doctor rendering every assistance.
It was about noon when the first batch of firemen went off and reliefs continued at work during the afternoon; and although the fire was believed to be extinguished by five o'clock a number of firemen remained on duty on board as a precaution against a fresh outbreak. The cause of the fire is unknown, and the damage yesterday was not ascertainable, but it is believed to be considerable.
Captain" Bradley has been rather unfortunate of late, for it will be remembered that only a few months ago the same steamer struck a rock in the Haitan Straits, had to be benched, and when part of the cargo was lightered taken on to Shanghai for repairs.
ILL-TREATING A CHILD.
At the Magistracy on the 11th inst. Mr.
F. A. Hazeland heard the case in which a Chinese woman was charged with ill-treating a child eleven years of age.
Inspector Murisou prosecnted, and Mr. Reader Harris (of Messrs. Wilkinson and Grist) appeared for the defendant.
Inspector Murison informed his Worship that 2 r. Shellim took the complainant to the Central Police Station and informed him that the girl would not leave him. She complained of having been beaten.
she had
Complainant told the Court that her mistress had beaten her many times with a cane, and in cross-examination she stated that climbed railing, when forbidden to do so.
Dr. Koch testified to examining the child, and he was of opinion that she had received a severe beating. All the bruises had been made within a month.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
In cross-examination he stated that he did not think any of the bruises could have been caused, by a fall. Any particular one might have been caused by a fall on a pailing.
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His Worship-Why didn't you send someone to tell me?
Defendant-I had no one to send. Mr. Harris asked his Worship to reconsider
the matter of bail.
His Worship said he found as a fact that the bruises were the cause of a heating. There was no donht it was common among Chinese to use the rattan, and his Worship did not think they | really appreciated the serious nature of a boat ing by a rattan. He was quite satisfied that the complainant was a very naughty child indeed, instified in giving her a heating. But the ques. and the defendant would have been quite
tion he had to decide in this case was whether it was excessive or not. If not, it was quite lawful, for a person in loro patrentis was quite justified in giving a child a beating. He was clearly satisfied, however, after hearing the the evidence of Dr. Koch, that the beating was tion the fact that the woman's bail of $50 had excessive. He proposed to take into considera-
been estreated, and would order her to pay a further fine of $10
SIR FREDERICK LUGARD. K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O,
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(June 21, 1909.
Defendant was then called to the witness. spare, bright, keen, gray eyes, a dark brown, stand, and stated that the complainant was heavy moustache, an exact copy of the fashion sometimes disobedient. The bruises on the in which Richard Burton wore his, and which body of the latter word caused through pinching, gives to Colonel Lugard, as it did to the while those on the arm were scratches caused | discoveror of Lako Tanganyika, a suggestion of through elimbing. The cane before the Court ferocity, that is, however, more apparent than sho borrowed from a neighbour to strike bugs.“ real; strongly marked aquiline features, also, as On her last appearance at the Magistracy sho in the case of Captain Burton, curiously was bailed out, but did not appear again he reminiscent of the profile of an Arab nomad, and cause she was sick.
burnt to the colour of a pigskin cigar-case, Such is the outer man of the most romantic of our latter-day Empire-builders, who, ons night when we were fellow-passengers from that Golgotha of our time--otherwise written West Africa-spun to me the story of his first intrusion into that mighty slice of the earth's surface where, according to old Herodotus, always is to be found something new." Quoth Lugard: With forty sovereigns in my belt and with practically no outfit at all, excep ta well-tried 45 expresse rifle, paid for in India in the absence of funds by shooting man-eating
tramp at tigers with rowards on their heads, I boarded a Gib.. where my regiment was statióne), and sailed as a second-class passenger for Naples, and afterwards for Suez, on the off-chance of being permitted to be a witness of a big action which was impending between the Italians and Abyssinians. Too soon I found my sovereigns running down, and I was driven to strange shifts and expedients. In the exigency of rapidly-diminishing financial resources I took a deck passage in a timber ship bound for Massowah, and slept at hazard among the deck cargo. The necessities of my position drove me for my morning bath to the forecastle and a bucket of water among the sailors; and for my meal of broken victuals with the Italian cook in the galley alongside the engines--this in the summer in the Red Sea, where the heat Was such as would grill a black stoker. A Adversity finds ns strange bedfellows, Genoese, who spoke a little English, the boatswain of the steamer, had become my friend; I saw him seldom, but though I was herded with Arab pilgrims he saw through my disguise, and told me that ho knew that I was a gentilhomme, and, impulsive but sincere, he surprised me one evening by suddenly saying, with a lurid im- precation, I do anything for you. You want shirt ? Here is my other shirt. I give it to you because I see you have good heart for some inclined to believe the ex-High-Commissioner I am rather of these poor black people.'
of Northern Nigeria and present Governor of Hongkong has proudly retained that opportune undergarment of the good- hearted boatswain 118 猛 memorial of the
forth to savage Africa, as a gentleman adven- days when, in the early nineties, he set
advancement and kudos, which he never could turer, on that wonderful career of professional have hoped to have attained ad his life been confined to buffooneries of the parade ground and the red tapery of the orderly room. name is written large on the African map as having been the means of transferring to English authority independent native kingdoms that had existed for centuries as centres of cruelty and rapine, and of a verity there can be but few of his countrymen who would grudge Freddy' Lugard his present magnificent appointment.—Imperial Review.
BY COMMANDANT DARNLEY STEWART-
STEPHENS,
With the exception of a trifle of the no longer dark continent, we of the present genera- tion know the configuration of our globe fairly well, and so the exploration and development of Inner Africa is the only outlet for that spirit of adventure and enterprise which in the past found its expression in the person of Hawkins, a
Drake, or perhaps a Cavendish, who sailed far ont. animated by a spirit to rectify 21 deficit in the family budget, int proved no less by a huge desire to penetrate the Unknown. And, bad these gentlemen's adventures lacked the support of their Sovereign and Ministers sitting at home, the boundaries of our vast Empire would have stopped at the Cirque Ports,
Which brings me to that fin-de-sičele Clive. Sir Frederick Lugard, the untiring explorer | and soldier-statesman, whose capacity and courage, so memorably displayed in the winning to Britain of Uganda and the great Niger basin, would have accomplished 110 more enduring results than followed in India the brilliant achievements of the Gallic rivals of Clive, gallant Dupleix and poor; Labour- donnais, if he had not found in the temper and genius of Lord Rosebery and Mr. Chamberlain that sympathy and operation that so largely leut to the success- ful results of his memorable journeys on both sides of the tragic continent. Lugard's is the one instance I know of where, in the long story of the opening up of Africa, inflexible resolve,
tempered by a powerful infusion of "Ciod's own
common-sense has met with meet and almost immediate roward.
A trio of my dearest friends, who were cach in their own time lenders in the noble mission of throwing open to the outer world the sealed regions of mysterious frica, departed for the happy hunting-grounds with but seant | mark of official recognition in the cases of Sir Richard Burton and Captain Lovett Cameron, and none at all in that of that most perfect of Nature's knights, Joseph Thomson, who found a bloodless path from the Indian Ocean to the shores of the Victoria Nyanza.
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GREAT EARTHQUAKE IN WEST SUMATRA.
TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY LIVES | LOST. LOST
His
A Batavia telegram to the Straits Times dated the 11th inst. says:-
Official reports have been recoived from Korintji of terrible earthquakes which con- t nue unceasingly.
Several kampongs have been destroyed, and nearly all the rivers are in flood.
Up to the time of wiring, the number of deaths is 230. Many people have been injured.
But to the present Governor and Commander- Mount Korintji is inland from Indrapura in-Chief of our great Far Eastern Dependency, some fifty miles and is in the main range of better fortune was accorded. He stands forth in mountains running down the coast of west my recollection of our last meeting, which took
Sumatra. It is approximately 100 miles from place at Boussa, on the Mid-Niger, at almost the the seacoast town of Padan. Near by is the exact spot where Mungo Park, one of the large Korintji lake, formed in the merged original pioneers of African discovery, met with
craters of volcanoes which are supposed to be an inexpressibly sad end, a tall, hard-trained" | extinct. There are many such lakes in this figure, without an ounce of adipose tissue to region.
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