90
At the Assizes at Penang, on the 23rd inst. the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank case was called on, and Lee Chee Saing, who was extra- dited from Hongkong, pleaded guilty to exten- sive frauds. This caused general surprise in Court. He was sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment. Mr. A. R. Adams eloquently appealed for a mitigation of the punishment.
A Hanoi paper commenting on the prevalence of plague in Tonkin urges that it is necessary not only to combat it at the time of its anuual appearance but to take all possible measures to prevent the outbreak. Our contemporary urges (1) organisation of a rigorous medical surveillance. (2) that the natives should be taught the elementary rules of hygiene by the distribution of printed rules at their doors, and (3) the creation of a proper system of drainage for the city.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[ August 2, 1909.
THE SCIENCE OF ETHNOLOGY. [engravings by the cave dwellers in Southern France the almost entire absence of chin is à marked feature. This want of chin in these rude sketches seems to be accompanied by an enormously developed nose, and it is remarkable that we find similar personal peculiarities marking the sculptures of the so-called Hittite peoples in Asia Minor. More curious still is the fact that for a like development we have to go almost to the antipodes, where in the ancient aboriginal carvings of Easter Island we find traces of a similar development. Other branches of what we are seemingly justified in calling the Tauric race may be noticed in Etruscan statuary, where the artist had not modelled his faces on Hellenic lines, but condescended to actual portraiture.
The practicability of conveying trains from the Stanghai-Nanking Railway over
the Yangtsze to the Tientsin-Pukon Railway by means of a steam ferry running from the water's edge at Hsiakuan (Nanking) across to Pukou is being discussed, but, as far as the British Consul is aware, nothing definite lasing already apparent. It has, of course, long yet been decided. The great variations in the een held by those most competent to judge water level of the Yangtze at different seasons of the year would appear to constitute a very serious difficulty.
that human life must have commenced un our planet at least as early as the pliocene
|
The Japan Mail quotes an official return age, but hitherto the actual evidence of power to the jaw, and was found useful in
showing that from the date (1899) when the Revised Treaties went into operation until the close of 1905, the number of civil actions tried by Japanese tribunals in which foreigners were concerned totalled 114, and out of that aggre. gate the foreign litigant was successful in 80 instances. This, adds our 'contemporary. is practical and conclusive evidence as to the impartiality of the Japanese judiciary visi eis alien suitors, but unfortunately it is the unsuc- cessful litigants who raise their voices loudest, and by theiroutery a false impression is produced.
The Hon. A. Murray, colonial engineer and surveyor-general of the Straits Settlements.
remains having been found was wanting. The pleistocene, as all geologists, with the exceution of a small but busy clique of extreme uniformatis:s, are willing to allow, was an epoch of marked geological distur1
Alee
when relative levels were profoundly altered, and the coast lines must in con- sequence have trended differently from the present conditions. The finding of the new lossil in the lowest bed of a vertical cutting 24.1 metres (79 feet) deep, composed of regularly deposited horizontal beds of sand aud gravel, is a plain indication that pro- found changes have since man was first a resident in Europe marked the position of
the coast lines.
*
In the
(Daily Press, July 24th.) The recent discovery of a fossil human lower jaw, 10 kilometres S. E. of Heidelberg in Baden, seems likely to add considerably to our knowledge of early ethnology, anil forces us to date back another stage the appearance of the human race on the face of the earth. The bone was only a lower jaw, yet fortunately it was so well preserved that the entire set of teeth, as well as the Processes, are practically perfect, so that we are enabled to argue with certainty as to many points in the early history of the race. First, as to the age of the fossil: it is associated with remains of elephas antiquus, and rhinoceros etruscus, both well known
But we have not done with the pecu- pleistocene species; and so marking a com paratively early stage in the European iceliarities of the jaw; others are the thickness age; the earliest finds up to this discovery of the body, the width of the ascending belonging to a later stage when the Euro- ramus, and the low level of the coronoid pean glaciation had passed its maximum process, which must have considerably aided and traces of modern conditions were becom-in emphasing the pithecoid character of the animal. The condyloid process by which the mandible was articulated to the upper jaw possesses a much wider facet than in exist- ig races, which probably gave greater cracking the nuts which must have largely formed the food of the possessor. ordinary human jaw the mandible assumes the shape approximately of a slender horse- shoe in this Heidelberg example, owing to the greater thickness of the bone itself, and the different position of the coronoid process, the general shape approximates to a trefoil and in most of these respects the nearest approximation is to be discovered in certaiu aboriginal Australian jaws. Taken iu connection with the discovery in Java of a cranium of the accepted Pithecanthropus erectus, which now generally
showed many correspondences, and the mysterious, and
hitherto unexplained From perfectly independent sources we carvings from Easter Island with their know that Europe since that period has been rude chinless caricatures, there are presum- several times connected with, and discon-able grounds for connecting the South nected from, the island of Britain;
Pacific Ocean with the appearance of · know likewise that the Mediterranean as a Pleistocene man. Even at the present day gr at bea is of later origin than the pleisto-one occasionally may notice amongst low- cne age, yet ethnographers, frightened by class Malasians, or degenerat Japanese, the terrors held out by the modern geologisi, | individuals with abnormally developed hesitate to accept the necessary corollary noses, and an almost entire absence of chin, that to account for the present distribution the two seeming to be in some manner For almost six weeks now, says the Shanghai of the human races we must go beyond the correl ted. Considering the interest of the Mercury, a strenuous battle has been proceeding exisiting grouping of ocean and continent. investigation, it is wonderful how little we between the Chinese and foreign authorities in
Seeu in this new light the Heidelberg jaw know o the early development of the human Shanghai for what practically amounts to posis of special interest, as we have actually to race, as compared with the rest of the mam- session of an unfortunate Chinaman's bodygo to the "t er side of the world to find its malian fauna. We can, for instance, make The issues involved in the case are not new, in
out a very complete genealogical tree of the fact there is a well established precedent in the
succession of the horse, which we can trace matter, but the Chinese officials are fighting the affair with the utmost tenacity. A little over a
from a tiny three-toed ancestor in the month ago a squabble occurred in a tea house in
Eocene. We can likewise make out a fair Hongkew, and as a result one of the participants
series of elephants, down to the mammoth, was so severely injured that death supervened
which seems to have lived in China within within a couple of days. The loafer who was
the historic age, and the two surviving alleged to have struck the fatal blow was taken
species, the Asiatic and African; while the into custody by the police, and the fight
authentic remains of man are confined to a which has been proceeding ever since be tween the Mixed Court Magistrate and the
few detached bones in the various museums Taotai on the one side and the American
of the world. There is, of course, a reason Assessor and Consular Body on the other, has
for this; and that reason appears to be con- been whether the man should be tried at the
nected with the instinct, ever since man Mixed Court or in the City. Trial in the Mixed
became a thinking animal, of burying his Court would be according to precedent estab-
dead.. lished in similar cases, but ignoring this the Chinese are endeavouring by every means to have him taken to the City. So far they have been unsuccessful and the case has hung fire, but now they seem to be determined upon drastic A despatch has been sent by the Taotai to the effect that if an arrangement is not come to the Chinese will send the man to the City on their own authority, heedless of the objections raised by the foreigners. This they will, however, probably find to be supremely difficult, as the man is securely in custody in the Municipal Gaol, and will not be released without word from the proper quarters.
retires from the colonial service, on pension, ou September 1, and will, it is understood. leave theolony at the end of next month, when he will have completed 38 years' service. The greater portion of this time-from 1871 to 1897 -was spent in Ceylon. Mr. Murray came to the Straits in 1898. It is believed that Mr. Murray's successor as head of the P. W. D. will be Mr. F. J Pigott, at present deputy colonial engineer and surveyor general at Peuang, and that Mr. Pigott will be succeeded by Mr. (..G. May. Mr. Pigott commenced his colonial service in Ceylou 22 years ago, and came to the Straits
in 1905.
measures.
1
i
W.
nearest affinities. The first thing to be re- ma k-d ab utt e jaw is the toe h; and here it is the resembl nce, rather than the un- lik ness to the most advanced trpe of to-day. that is most striking. In one important respect it has hitherto been held that one of the most striking characteristics of the human teeth is th ir almost uniform vertical In development, e-pecially of the canines. nearly all of the apes the cauines are largel developed, while in man they hardly ris above the general level. Even in such jaws of early man, as in that of Spy. &c, the caines are considerably more developed than in this still older fossil; the reason is was less possibly that the Heidelberg wan aggressive than his predecessors, and was a more exclusively vegetable feeder. The form of the mandible is, however, more remote from present types than any other as yet discovered which can be referred to human type. The most remarkable of these differences is the entire absence of chin, which must have given the owner particularly bestial appearance. This is a peculiarity now found in no human race, but it is remarkable that in many of the rude
a
Still, withal the views of scientific men are being devoted to the subject with less prejudice, and more in accordance with scientific methods; and although we are unlikely ever to make any grand discovery of human remains, such as occur with regard to other mammals in the south European caves, these long continued efforts are at last beginning to show some tangible results, on which in the near future will doubtless be erected a tangible science of ethnology.