Directory_and_Chronicle_1927 — Page 993

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HONGKONG

wing, to provide accommodation for 120 patients, was completed in 1921. A well- designed Plague Hospital for Chinese, situated at Kennedy Town, was also buil at the expense of the Chinese community. The Barracks for the garrison are exten- sive, and the buildings belonging to the Naval Establishment are spacious if not substantial. The chief cantonments lie on both sides of the Queen's Road, between the Cricket Ground and Arsenal Street, Wanchai. Representations have been made to the Imperial authorities to relinquish this area in order that it may be available for the constantly growing needs of the commercial community. Terms for the surrender of the property have been offered to and accepted by the local Government. There are also extensive Barracks at Kowloon, in which the Indian regiments 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 in Victoria. A commodious Central Market, situated between Queen's Road Central and Des Vœux Road, was opened in 1895, and in 1906 another fine market was opened further west, and is known as the Western Market. The building of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank is large, handsome and massive, and would do credit to any large city, It occupies a fine site next to the City Hall, and has frontages on Queen's Road and Des Voeux 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. Opposite the Des Voeux Road entrance to the Bank stands a bronze statue of the late Sir Thomas Jackson, Bart., who from 1876 to 1902 was chief manager of the institution. The statue was unveiled by Governor Sir Matthew Nathan on February 24th, 1906. At the opposite end of the Bank garden, facing the Praya, a memorial has been erected to the 42 members of the Bank's staff who made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War. It takes the form of a female figure of "Fame," in bronze, 8 feet high, holding in her hand a wreath, while in front is a smaller statue of a soldier with kit and rifle. The Memorial was unveiled by H.E. the Governor (Sir R. E. Stubbs) on May 24th, 1923. An extensive reclamation along the city water frontage from West Point to Murray Road, initiated by Sir C. P. Chater, C.M.G., was completed in 1903, the total area reclaimed from the sea being approximately 65 acres. Of this area 33.73 acres constitute building land, the remainder being occupied by roads and open spaces. total cost, including reconstruction of Government piers, was $3,362,325. The various sections as they were ready were rapidly built upon and some of the finest buildings in the Colony have been erected on the reclaimed land. On the eastern section a handsome building for the Hongkong Club was finished in 1897, and was occupied in July of that year. Another extensive reclamation extending from Arsenal Street to East Point-a distance of about a mile-and involving, incidentally, the partial demolition of Morrison Hill, is in progress and, when completed will add another 90 acres to the land available for commercial purposes in the locality. The Pier at the foot of Pedder Street was opened on the 29th December, 1900, and named Blake Pier in honour of Governor Sir Henry Blake. A hundred yards to the East is Queen's Pier, a handsome structure now used on all official occasions. Further west is the Harbour Master's Office, a commodious building completed in 1906.

The

The chief religious buildings are:-St. John's Cathedral (Anglican), which was 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 late Duke of Edinburgh on the 16th November, 1869. A handsome stained glass 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. F. Stewart, formerly Colonial Secretary, one in the south transept to the memory of those who perished in the wreck of the P. & O. str. Bokhara, another to the memory of the Hospital Sisters who died in 1898 while in execution of their duty during an outbreak of plague, and the stained clerestory windows of the chancel, presented by Lady Jackson in 1900, and one to the memory of Bishop Hoare, who lost his life in the typhoon of 1906, are the chief adornments of the interior. The choir stalls, pulpit and Bishop's throne are fine samples of Chinese carving in teak wood.

It also possesses a fine three-manual organ. A Church Hall adjacent to the Cathedral was opened on January 31st., 1921, and on the previous day a Memorial, in the form of a granite cross, to those who fell in the Great War was unveiled in the compound by the H.E. The Governor. St. Peter's (Seamen's) Church, at West Point, close to the Sailors' Home, is a small brick Gothic erection with a spire. It has a stained glass

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