Directory_and_Chronicle_1931 — Page 1102

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HONGKONG

of the city. The original scheme, on which work started in 1923, was to level Morrison Hill and build the new reclamation from it, the site of the former hill to have been used as playing fields. As the work progressed, however, the plan altered somewhat. As the core of Morrison Hill was found to be of hard rock, and sufficient earth had been obtained from it already for the reclamation, the base of the hill was left standing and buildings are already being erected on its slopes. The roads on the reclaimed area are designed on modern lines, the main thoroughfare being 100 feet and others 60 feet in width. Godowns and over a thousand Chinese houses of ferro-concrete have already been built and were scarcely completed before being occupied, and two sites have been booked for tlie building of new theatres. Building is likely to continue on the new reclamation for another couple of years. Not the least of the benefits conferred on the Colony by the addition of this new territory, is that it has entailed the filling up of Bowrington creek formerly a most insanitary and unsavoury-if picturesque feature of the east end of the city. 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. The Central Market, situated between Queen's Road Central and Des Voeux 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. Opposit 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. The 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. 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 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 teakwood. 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