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force-its greatest velocity was 75 miles an hour at eleven o'clock on Tuesday night and with that fact before us it is not surprising that the results are trifling in comparison with previous visitations of the same nature. So far as can be ascertained no loss of life has taken place-at least none has been reported, though the water police have been informed that a cargo boat and three sampans were driven ashore at Tsimchatsoi and wrecked. The rain, which usually accompanies a typhoon, was on this occasion remarkably heavy, there being 10.93 inches recorded in the twenty-four hours ending at 10 o'clock yesterday morning. The tide on Tuesday night was exceptionally high, so high that it was re- sponsible for a number of yachts drawn up on Ah King's slipway being lifted off the slips and tossed in various directions over the yard.
The Peak tramway service was resumed yes- terday morning at seven o'clock. The electric trams in town were unable to resume running before ten o'clock, as the lines had to be cleared | of debris. The Kowloon ferries started running | at six o'clock and the early launches took across the harbour many tired residents who had been atranded. Almost a hundred Kowloonites were detained in the city; many Peak residents also spent the night below, but a large number of the married men braved the elements on Tues- day afternoon and climbed up, but had a very trying experience.
The telephone service has suffered consider able interruption, especially in the upper levels, and many houses have been deprived of their Still, very little telephone communication.
In addition damage to property was done. to the losses mentioned yesterday the destruc- tion of the Star Ferry matshed, the Harbour Department jetty, the Corinthian Yacht Club jetty. the grand stand of the Hongkong Football Club at the Happy Valley-there have to be added to the list the unroofing of Mount Gough Police Station and a landslip at Conduit Road. Kowloon enjoyed the same immunity. There a considerable number of trees were uprooted or denuded of most of their branches, but property as a whole was undamaged.”
At Kowloontsai the paddy which was ripe for harvest has been practically destroyed owing to the large area under cultivation having been submerged. A report from the Now Territory states that several of the railway matsheds in the neighbourhood of Taipo have been blown
away.
At Kowloon city the wharf was damaged and windows were broken in many of the houses.
The police station at Tsz Mui lost part of the roof of the verandah, which was blown off, but at Shaukiwan itself comparatively little dainage was done, with the oxception" of the sea wall and roadway. From the Oil Works to Quarry Bay the road is undermined, large holes measuring in some instances twelve foot long having been made, making the thoroughfare particularly dangerous at night.
A salt junk of 6,000 pienls capacity is ashore at Saiwanho, but no lives were lost. At the
entrance to Taikoo Dock a trading junk sank and was afterwards smashed up. The damage is estimated at $1,000.
The body of a man, evidently a boatman, was washed up on the foreshore at Taikoo Dockyard. Apparently he had been drowned during the typhoon.
Teak logs to the value of over $800 drifted from the contractor's place at the Lyeemun Forts.
HARBOUR ITEMS.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND lying in Kowloon Docks, slipped and fell near the bilges, and dislocated his shoulder. When the gale had subsided somewhat, the doctor from the Chiyo Maru boarded the docked vessel A coolie on and attended to the injured man. the same steamer fell down the hatchway and injured his thigh.
|
Those who remained on board vessels in the harbour had stories to tell of anxious moments and slight damage. The sailing ship Lynd- hurst, which was lying in the western part of the harbour, dragged her anchors and collided with the ss. Hongkong Maru. The sailer damaged her jibboom and the fittings of her port bow, and also the boat deck and one of the lifeboats on the steamer. The steer ing gear of the Portuguese gunboat Patria, which was lying near Laichikok, was brok- The buoy to which the Government launch Stanley is moored broke adrift, but was eventually recovered. A strong gust of wind suapped the ring of the buoy to which the Miyasaki Maru was moored, and that vessel went adrift in the height of the storm. Two anchors were promptly run out, however, and the vessel held until the typhoon had passed.
en.
The Captain of the French river steamer Charles Hardouin, which arrived in port from Canton yesterday, reported that the wreck of a large junk was showing three cables south of Pillar Point, four feet of the mast being above the water line. There was also a large quantity of wreckage all the way from Tiger Island to Pillar Point, but the bulk of it was in the vicinity of the Taishan Customs Station.
The report issued by the Observatory yester- day mentions that Gap Rock reported full typhoon force from the N. E. on Tuesday as early as 2 p.m., the barometer reading 29.02. The typhoon is believed to have entered the Jand west of Mucno about midday on Wednesday.
EXPERIENCES AT SEA.
All the ships which came into port yesterday, whether from the North or the South, reported bad weather. The Haimun reported a strong typhoon at Swatow.
The German steamer Choising from Bangkok was in a typhoon from 8 a.m. on the 19th till 8 a.m. on the 20th, the barometer falling to-731.00 at 7p.m. on the 19th. Heavy seas broke over the ship and caused a good deal of damage. A sailor was washed overboard about noon on the 19th, and owing to the heavy sea which prevailed it was impossible to save the unfortunate man.
The fishing fleet suffered rather badly during the typhoon, and though there are comparatively few losses the vessels have undergone in many instances very severe treatment. The cripplod boats aro only getting back to port and many lame ducks were seen getting into Aberdeen at the wook-ond.
The ss. Telemachus, which arrived in port from Saigon on Saturday, brought in a slip- wrecked crew of 21 Chinese who wore rescued from a disabled junk south of Gap Rock.
LATER.
[October 25, 1909.
About 9. p.m. the wind began to veer round to the E. and then havoc was played with pro- perty ashore. The matshed over the pavilion in front of the Macao Hotel came down, and so also did the large matshed of the Victoria Cinematograph near the wharves. The road south of Praya Grande was washed away,
the and
Reas dashing up against the in the vicinity broke in many doors and carried the mud and stones of the roadway into the houses. Along the inner and outer Prayas there was about four feet of water, and great damage was done to merchandise in the Chinese shops, Consider- able damage has been done to windows and roofs throughout the city, the roof of the Boa Vista Hotel among them.
houses front
Afloat, the damage is less than ashore. Only two or three small junks were sunk, and their masts are showing above water.
The new Praya reclamation has suffered greatly, and the repair of the sea wall will be an expensive piece of work for the Public Works Department.
The wall surrounding the military tennis courts is down, so also are the walls surrounding Mr. Herbert Dent's summer house. The wood- en benches recently put along the Praya Grande for the use of the public were dashed against houses and walls and reduced to fire- wood.
Business was at a standstill in the Chinese quarters, on Wednesday, the people being en- gaged in bailing the water out of their premises and in "cleaning up" generally.
It is remarkable that the electric light wires suffered very little damage. Here and there a pole is down or a fastening torn from a wall, but it will not take long to repair this damage.
A RUSE THAT FAILED.
It is not an un common practice among a certain class of Chinese who demand heavy compensation for a slight injury to act the part of the dying man. But when such cases fal into the hands of the police at the Central Station the shammer usually finds it difficult to carry on the deception very long. On Sat- urday a boy was brought up by three women apparently on the point of death. While Inspector Fenton was attending to some other case he asked one of the European detectives to examine the lad, with the result that the conclusion was formed that the boy was very much alive, despite his apparent sufferings. The women having been ordered youth
out,
the Inspector informed the that he would have to send for a Euro- pean doctor, a statement which somewhat alarmed the youth, who raised his voice in loud wailing. Tired of this noise, the Inspector called upon a detective, who, assuming the demeanour of a doctor, examined the boy and The French gunboat Argus, which went up
gravely marked the place where his right leg the Hot Spring river near Macao for shelter would have to be amputated. Of course the during the typhoon, and was carried by the the boy promptly declared that the leg was all rising waters into a rice field, is still there,
right, but without paying attention the pseudo She is 600 yards doctor indicated in the same manner where an according to latest news, from the river, The Vigilante has gone up to arm would have to be cut. Without waiting Our Macao correspondent for further examination the boy shot out of the her assistance. mentions the report that the farmor to whom
room like a bird and wasn't seen again. Ap- the rice field belongs is asking $7,000 as comparently his object was to extract compensation pensation. A Chinese cruiser has gone up to
from a bricklayer whom he had annoyed by render assistance. The Portuguese gunboat throwing stones at him and who had beaten Macau, which got ashore on the bank of the him. river during the typhoon, was got off at high tide and returned to the harbour.
The trick, however, did not work.
A new oil tank steamer for the Toyo Kisen Kaisha has just been launched from the THE DAMAGE AT MACAO.
Tatagami slip of the Mitsu Bishi Dockard and Our Macao correspondent writes:-Not for Engine Works at Nagasaki. The vessel was named the Kiyo-maru and the ceremony of many years has this city been visited by so severe a typhoon as that which passed over it on releasing her from the slip was performed by Mr. M. Hara, Superintendent of Toyo Kisen Tnesday. The typhoon gun was fired at 10.15 a.m., but few people at that time believed that Kaisha. The keel of the Kiyo-miaru was laid the typhoon would come so close. While the down on March 4th, 1909, and, according to contract, she is to be delivered to the Toyo wind blew from E.N.E. not much damage was done beyond stripping the trees of their foliage, Kisen Kaisha, for which she is being construct- turning over the Chinese street stalls and cast-ed, in December next. Her dimensions, etc.,
The most serious damage throughout the blow occurred on the harbour and along the waterfront. At the Quarry Bay Shipyard the steam launch Tuikoo Shing was badly battered on the slipway and sank. The Government dredger St. Enoch was blown across the bay and washed ashore near the Sugar Works. While the craft was drifting helplessly in the rough sea, a Chinese joiner from the Taikoo Works courageously made himself fast to a line, struck out boldly for the dredger, which he boarded, and succeeded in saving some forty Two coolies who were aboard at the time. junks were washed high and dry on the beaching down u fow old walls. at Stonecutters, three dust boats sank off the Police Station at Yuumati, and two small cargo boats, which were lying east of the police pier at the same place, were badly damaged. The third engineer of the Hupeh, which vessel was
The river steamers which came in the pre- vious night sought a more commodious and safe anchorage after the passengers had disembarked, and they all appear to have safely weathered the
storm.
on completion, will be: Length, 470ft.; Beam, 56ft. 6 in.; Depth, 41ft.; gross tonnage, 9,320 tons; I.H.P. 8,509; speed, 12 knots. Engines, triple expansion (one set single screw). Boiler, four single-ended, Howden's forced
draft.