C. O.
16557
Race
ter 27 Jul 19
TRANSLATION OF PETITION TO THE SAN ON MAGISTRATE.
509
The humble petition of the following committee of the Tung No Kuk (i.e. the Committee appointed to deal with the affairs of the Sha Tau Kok Division) Ip Iu Kai one of the gentry, Ho Shui Chun senior graduate of the third degree Li Cheung Chun, Li Hing Tsai, Li Tai Ting, Chan Sheu Sheung Yan, Li Tsung Shin, Wong Tsung Hin, Li Tsai Chun graduates, sheweth; that the people are dissatisfied and that Your Petitioners beg to present this petition stating facts of the case and praying that they may be submitted to the higher authorities so that covetousness (of the British) may be restrained and the wishes of the people complied with and so that the interest of those who constitute the strength of the nation may receive due consideration.
On the morning of the 6th of the End Moon (16th March) Your Honour came to Sha Tau Kok to delimit the frontier. Your Petitioners not being then acquainted with the feeling of the people did not presume to rashly lay the case before you. But before you had proceeded for several hundreds of the gentry of over eighty villages from the neighbourhood assembled in the meeting house and complained that the territory had been leased with the object of improving the defences of Hongkong, that the Imperial Government of China condescended to lease to the British the territory of Kau Lung as sufficient for purposes of defence, that the territory nominally leased is in reality annexed and that the annexation has extended to lands and houses for several hundred Li (3 li – 1 mile) beyond the Kau Lung district, that the annexation outside the district of Kau Lung extends from Lik Un (Sha Tin) to Tai Po, from Tai Po to Loi Tung (Nai Tung).