304
GAMBLING Continuation.
No scenic beauties has Shumchun. As a health resort, it would never be in the running. What, then, is its attraction? Just this. It is the latest gambling hell in South China, replete with facilities for roulette, fan tan and other games of chance; in short, a veritable Monte Carlo of the East.
Shumchun has proved a formidable rival to Macao, famous for its one-class first-class gambling houses. Macao authorities are seriously perturbed by the loss of revenue resulting from the opening up of Shumchun:
But I digress. This article is not intended to be an expose of social conditions just outside British territory. It is necessary alone to prove how history has repeated itself.
Towards the end of the last century, Shushuipo - it was then known as Sam-sui-po - was merely a small Chinese village and had a most evil reputation. It lived on vice and gambling. In those days, of course, it was outside British jurisdiction and its ill-gotten profits flowed in a ceaseless golden stream into the pockets of the rapacious Mandarin who controlled it.
So far, no public protest has been made about the... evils of Shumchun. But the moralists of the nineties had plenty to say about Sam-sui-po.
Following is an extract from a slashing leading article, which appeared in the Hongkong Telegraph on March 19, 1890:
For some years past we have from time to time directed the attention of the Hongkong Government to the pernicious gambling which is permitted to go unchecked in the Chinese villages of Sam-sui-po and Kowloon, which are situated on the borders of British Territory. It is almost needless to say that the fear of raising an international question with its attendant difficulties has hitherto prevented the Executive Council of this Colony from taking any active steps to put a stop to a very fruitful source of serious crime in our midst. With a few rare exceptions, Hongkong Government officials are quite content to draw their liberal salaries and allowances for supervising in a more or less perfunctory fashion the routine work of their respective offices, without troubling themselves as to the real interest of the public, from whom they receive their generally easily earned wages. And we do not hesitate to assert that our public interests have been most prejudicially affected by the existence of the low-class gambling hells in the places above named being ignored, nay, almost recognised, by the Hongkong Government. It used to be a common custom, and we have no doubt that it is the same at the present time, for crowds of a certain section of the community, including women and even children, to go over in steam-launches to Sam-sui-po and pass their Sunday afternoons in filthy Chinese dens, gambling at poo-chi.
304
GAMBLING Continuation.
No scenic beauties has Shumchun. As a health resort, it would never be in the running. What, then, is its attraction? Just this. It is the latest gambling hell in South China, replete with facilities for roulette, fan tan and other games of chance; in short, a veritable Monte Carlo of the East.
Shumchun has proved a formidable rival to Macao, famous for its one-class first-class gambling houses. Macao authorities are seriously perturbed by the loss of revenue resulting from the opening up of Shumchun:
But I digress. This article is not intended to be an expose of social conditions just outside British territory. It is necessary alone to prove how history has repeated itself.
Towards the end of the last century, Shushuipo
it was then known as San-sui-po - was merely a small Chinese village and had a most evil reputation. It lived on viqe and gambling. In those days, of course, it was outside British jurisdiction and its illgotten profits flowed in a ceaseless golden stream into the pockets of the rapacious Mandarin who controlled it.
So far, no public protest has been made about the... evils of Shumchun. But the moralists of the nineties had plenty to say about Sam-sui-po.
..
Following is an extract from a slashing leading article, which appeared in the Hongkong Telegraph on March, 19,1890:
น
For some years past we have from time to time directed the attention of the Hongkong Government to the pernicious gambling which is permitted to go unchecked in the Chinese villages of Sam-sui-po and Kowloon, which are situated on the borders of British Territory. It is almost nee-less to say that the fear of raising an international question with its attendant difficulties has hitherto prevented the ¿xecutive Council of this Colony from taking any active steps to put a stop to a very fruitful source of serious crime in our midst. With a few rare exceptions, Hongkong Gove: ment officials are quite content to draw their liberal laries and allowances for supervising in a more or less functory fashion the routine work of their respective offices, without troubling themselves as to the real interest of the public, from whom they receive their generally easily earned wages. And we do not hesitate to assert that our public interests have been most prejudically affected by the existence of the low-class gambling hells in the places above named being ignored, pay, almost recognised, by the Hongkong Government. It used to be a common custom, and we have no doubt that it is the same at the present time, for. crowds of a certain section of the community, including women and even children, to go over in stear-lawiches to Sam-sui-po and pass their Sunday afternoons in filthy: Chinese dens, gambling at poo-chi
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