shop which have proved
so fatal
to the military in Hong Kong. This site
would give the Cantonment deep water
on
one side for the landing of
Commissariat stores, and a
beautiful
bathing ground on the other, being removed not more than one mile from that portion of the Kowloon shore which is nearest to Hong Kong. The site for the
barracks would be on
tolerably
high ground, meeting the southerly breeze
and could be made fit for
for less expense than the
new
one
which
the Colony proposes to put up for sale, but which the Military wish for themselves. The Engineers propose, in the first place to take 21 places
for
Forts, (it really makes one
mad
to think of such folly,
as fortifying an
utterly indefensible place from land attack, which could always be
made at the back of the Island, without
approaching any fort) and then they
mean to place their cantonment on
the only spot available for mercantile purposes, thereby destroying
the mercantile
advantages derivable from the acquisition
of territory,
and throwing their men
into all the danger which must
result from having
a dense population
growing up around them, and
a needless amount
of expense in
preparing sites which it may
be
worth the while
of
the merchant
to