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of the motion referred to. No record could be found, and the
Senior Chinese clerk, who has served over 20 years on the
staff of this Consulate-General, assured me that he was
quite certain no request of this nature had ever been made
to the Chinese authorities by my predecessors. I therefore
assumed, and I do so still, that no precedent existed in this
office. It did not, however, occur to me, having no previous
experience of such cases, that a request of this kind might
have been complied with in a modified form. This is what
actually occurred on the occasion referred to. At the request
of Messrs Bons and Harrington of Hongkong, dated October 17th,
1906, transmitted through His Excellency administering the
Government, Mr. Mansfield did attempt to serve a writ of
summons on the Chinese defendant in the case of I.B. Watson
and Company v. the Yuan Kwong Wo firm and others. The
attempt was apparently unsuccessful, for on December 1st,
1906 Mr. Mansfield forwarded to plaintiff's solicitors,
among other documents, a certificate of failure to serve
notice personally as requested by the Supreme Court.
On