240
Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
STATE OF HER MAJESTY'S COLONIAL POSSESSIONS.
The growth of the native population, a growth still likely to progress, makes the services of the Registrar General and protector of the Chinese more and more important. The Chinese houses in the city are not only crowded but crammed, while the increasing proportion of females to males shows tendencies of the most encouraging character. It is impossible to walk through our streets without observing a marked improvement in the domestic comforts as in the dress of the people. Localities where there were a few years ago nothing but rude and ragged shantees are now being covered with respectable dwellings of bricks and stone. Shops exhibit undoubted evidence of progress and prosperity; and I observe many of the respectable shopkeepers of Canton establishing themselves among us. The prejudices against the colony are gradually wearing away; and, notwithstanding very many uncorrected and not easily traceable abuses, I think there is among the Chinese a strengthening confidence in the integrity of the higher officials, in the due administration of justice, and in the protection of the inhabitants against arbitrary and despotic acts.
If we could ensure the retention of the services of the present Colonial Surgeon, I should be well satisfied with the present arrangements, except that I think Dr. Menzies is inadequately paid. I have great pleasure in reporting my thorough approval of the manner in which the duties of the Colonial Surgeon have been lately discharged.
You will observe a great defalcation in the quantity of mercantile shipping which entered the harbour in 1857 as compared with 1856.
Vessels.
1856.
Tons.
Vessels.
1857.
Tons.
Entered 2,091 811,307 1,070 541,063 Decrease 1,021 270,244This is principally to be attributed to the stoppage of the river trade with Canton, which employs ordinarily many steamers, whose frequent voyages greatly add to the amount of the return.
Public education has taken an important stride in the course of the past year, but this I hope is only an introduction to a far greater advance. I have personally visited many of the schools, and observed a very marked improvement. We have lent the services of the inspector, W. Lobscheid, for a short time, to the allied authorities at Canton, where his knowledge of the local idiom cannot but be very useful.
I have to add that, by the Colonial Treasurer's report, there will remain to us from the services for the year 1856 a balance of about 4,700£.
EXTRACT of a REPORT from Mr. BRIDGES (Acting Colonial Secretary) to Governor Sir J. Bowring.
Colonial Secretary's Office, Victoria, Hong Kong, March 20, 1858.
I HAVE the honour to lay before your Excellency the Blue Book for 1857. It contains the details of perhaps the most remarkable year in the history of this colony, and it will not be impertinent to advert to some of the more prominent events before remarking in detail upon the several establishments.
The commencement of 1857 found Hong Kong, in consequence of recent occurrences at Canton, suffering under a panic among the foreign residents, and an apparent intention on the part of all the more respectable part of the Chinese to return to the mainland. The almost universal poisoning, by arsenic, of foreigners, which occurred on the 15th of January, brought this feeling of insecurity to its height, and the knowledge that for the next three succeeding months a crafty and unscrupulous enemy was in our immediate...