Directory_and_Chronicle_1900 — Page 779

HONGKONG

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an excellent and valuable Library, and a Museum yearly increasing in importance. In front of the main entrance is a large fountain presented in August, 1864, by Mr. John Dent, a merchant of the Colony. Eastward of the City Hall is a fine open space or lung in the shape of the Parade Ground south of the road and of the Cricket Ground on the north. The latter is furnished with a neat Pavilion, and the turf is kept in perfect order. The Government Offices, Supreme Court House, and Post Office are plain but substantial edifices. Government House occupies a commanding situation, in picturesque grounds pleasingly laid out, in the centre of the city. The Gaol is a large and massive structure. The Police Barracks and Central Station adjoin the Gaol, as does the Magistracy, a small and inconvenient structure. The Police Force numbers over 900, of whom 156 are Europeans, 350 Indians, and 400 Chinese. The Lunatic Asylum consists of two small buildings, one for Europeans and the other for Chinese, below the Bonham Road. The Government Civil Hospital is a large and well designed building affording extensive accommodation, situated in the Western part of the town. The Alice Memorial Hospital, situated at the corner of Hollywood Road and Aberdeen Street, is a useful and philanthropic institution, which is also the headquarters of the Hongkong College of Medicine for Chinese; affiliated with it is the Nethersole Hospital on Bonham Road. The Royal Naval Hospital occupies a small eminence near Bowrington. The Queen's College handsome and commodious structure, which stands on a fine site having its chief frontage on Staunton Street, is the home of the chief Government educational institution in the colony. It was opened in 1889. The Tung Wa Hospital, a Chinese institution, occupies a large and roomy building. The Barracks for the garrison are extensive, and constructed with great regard to the health and comfort of the troops, and the buildings belonging to the Naval Establishment are substantial and spacious The cantonments lie, on both sides of the Queen's Road, between the Cricket Ground and Arsenal Street, Wanchai. There are also extensive Barracks at Kowloon, in which the "Hongkong Regiment" are quartered; and a magnificent sanatorium (formerly the Mount Austin Hotel) at the Peak for the European troops. Head-quarter House, the residence of the General in Command of the Troops, occupies a pleasant elevation overlooking the cantonments. A new and commodious Central Market was opened in 1895. The building of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank is large, handsome, and massive, and would do credit to any city. It occupies a fine site next to the City Hall, and has frontages on Queen's Road and Connaught Road. The exterior walls and elegant fluted pillars are of dressed granite, and the offices on the Queen's Road frontage are crowned with a large dome. An extensive reclam- ation along the city water frontage from West Point to Murray Road is now approaching completion, and the various sections as they are ready are being rapidly built upon. On the eastern section a handsome building for the Hongkong Club was finished in 1897, and was occupied in July of that year. Near the Club stands the Jubilee statue of Her Majesty the Queen, the erection of which was postponed until this site became available; it was unveiled on the 28th May, 1896. The statue represents Her Majesty in a sitting posture and is of bronze enclosed in a stone canopy. The Clock Tower, near Pedder's Wharf, was erected by public subscription in 1862, and the illuminated clock was presented to the Colony by the firm of Messrs. Douglas Lapraik & Co. The tower, though of fair proportions and height, is now somewhat dwarfed by the lofty new building of the Hongkong Hotel.

The chief religious buildings are: St. John's Cathedral (Anglican), erected in the year 1842, occupies a commanding site above the Parade Ground, and is a Gothic church of considerable size but with few pretensions to architecture. It has a square tower, with pinnacles, over the western porch, and possesses a peal of bells. A new chancel was built in 1869-70, the foundation stone of which was laid by the Duke of Edinburgh on the 16th November, 1869. A handsome stained window in the east end, over the altar, to the memory of the late Mr. Douglas Lapraik, another in the north transept erected in 1892 to the memory of the late Dr. Stewart, formerly Colonial Secretary, one in the south transept to the memory of those who perished in the wreck of the Bokharu, and another to the memory of the Hospital Sisters, who died in 1898, are the chief adornments of the interior. It also possesses a fine three-manual organ containing 47 stops, erected in 1887. St. Peter's (Seamen's) Church, at West Point, close to the Sailors' Home, is a uent Gothic erection with a spire. It also has a stained glass window, presented in 1878. St. Stephen's Church, for Chinese, was built in 1892. It is a neat building in red brick with white facings, with a tower and spire about 80 feet high, standing on the Pokfo- kum Road side of the Church Mission compound. Union Church, a pleasing edifice