- 3.
favourable rate, and take up as little as a half chest. The
amounts agreed on were paid gradually by instalments, in fact
some were paid after the ship had arrived back with her cargo.
A deposit was paid of apparently about ten per cent on the opium
ordered from Behbehani, the remainder was remitted through the
Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank direct to Bombay for the credit of
Behbehani about two days before the ship sailed from Bushire.
Where the opium was disposed of is not clear from the docu-
ments 55 chests were stored at one time somewhere in this Colony.
The opium was mostly sold in odd lots in packages each containing
48 taels, occasionally a whole chest is sold at once. The opium
cost from $1,900 to $2,400 a chest, and was sold for various
amounts up to about $4,500 in notes. The amounts realised were
paid over to the subscribers less any portion of the subscription
not already paid up. In many cases the subscribers never saw or
dealt with the opium in any way, when the goods were sold they
received a certain sum, in many cases no actual allotment of any
particular chests were made, and it is not clear how it was
decided how much the chest subscribed for by a particular person was sold for. It appears probable that when subscribers were in
arrears with their subscriptions that the money required for
immediate remittance was obatined from a Chinese Bank by name
Sheng Fook, who owned a share in the Kwong lling Loong firm, this
bank also acted as the repositary for the money aid in, and in
many cases actually collected the amounts fram Canton and dong-
moon.
Many of the names of the partners were already familiar, they were connected with the nam Lei Loong firm, which was searched in connection with the wing Tai firm in 1923, in fact one of the partners had started a new firm under a different name
in the same premises as were occupied in 1923 by the ing Tai.
The name of the chief defendant, Lo Yue Heung, in the case reported on in connection with 20 Lei Yuen street East in July
last