RAJ
COPY.
Enclosure
31203 Eks Surna 13
Lilong, August, 29th. 1899.
370
To the Honourable Secretary,
J.H. Stewart Lockhart.
Dear Sir,
The law-abiding Chinese of this our region were very glad to come under the British Government, looking forward to a time of quietness and prosperity; but since a few weeks I hear a good deal about their disappointments. It is now 25 years since I came to Lilong and was all these many years working among the Hakkas between here and Hong Kong. As long as I am here there were never so many robberies going on as in the last two months. The Chinese say that in various places of the New Territory the members of the Triad Society are spreading terror, that everybody is in fear of them; for instance, in the region of Sha-tau-kok (Starling Inlet) nearly half of the male population entered this secret society. As is well known, this secret society has nothing to do with the much spoken of Reform party of Kiang Yu Wei etc. Most of the Triad men are common robbers. The elders of the various villages of the New Territory who were a few weeks ago selected are mostly of no use at all. They don't dare to speak, because they fear the Triad men, especially since a graduate in the Sam Chun valley was murdered some time ago by the robbers of Sha T'au near the mouth of the Sam Chun river. This man was last year a witness when the Chinese admiral Ho from Fuzhou was in this region to clear the country from the Triad plague. This Chinese mandarin has done good work last autumn. All was quiet and many of the robbers left