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which it had supplanted eighteen years before. Great hardship was encountered which is hardly surprising, and the people were eternally grateful to their benevolent officials and commemorated them in several temples dedicated in their honour. One of these was burned down in 1955 during the fire which destroyed Shek Wu Hui near Fanling, and others are to be found at Sha Tau Kok and Kam Tin, and Sai Heung in Chinese Territory. In addition a school was named in their honour at Kam Tin, and when it was repaired in 1744 the San On magistrate of the time composed a Confucian discourse which was inscribed on the wall of the restored building, to instruct the pupils and their parents. An interesting survival which still existed in 1898 was the appearance of an old beggar in the Yuen Long villages every Chinese New Year who brought statues of WONG and CHOW for the people to worship, and incidentally to supply him with food and money.'' To these men-become-gods for whom the construction of a temple was necessary to ensure their better worship and resulting favours, there must be added an equal and possibly much older faith in sacred tree spirits and the multitude of earth spirits known as pak kung ih, tai wong ★, and ordinary she taan 4, who look after villages and localities such as passes, bridges, and fords over streams.
This insurance with the spirits who ruled this world and would assuredly be encountered in the next was expressed in the continual reconstruction of temples. A great many of the temples in the New Territory to-day owe their present fabric, or a great part of it, to repairs made during the last fifty years of the Ching dynasty. It was evidently a highly necessary part of the proceedings that the god should be informed of the names of the contributors so that his benefits should not pass anyone by, since their names, and often the amounts they gave, were scrupulously inscribed on the commemorative tablet which was always let into the wall to mark the occasion. Sometimes over a thousand names had to be recorded in this way, most of them in respect of trifling amounts, even for a small and out of the way temple, as in the reconstruction of the Tin Hau temple at Cheung Chau in the second year of the last Ch'ing Emperor (1909).
The magistrate, too, was expected to play his part in warding off disaster. The District History mentions that CHAN Kuk
LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES
91
which it had supplanted eighteen years before. Great hardship was encountered which is hardly surprising, and the people were eternally grateful to their benevolent officials and commemorated them in several temples dedicated in their honour. One of these was burned down in 1955 during the fire which destroyed Shek Wu Hui near Fanling, and others are to be found at Sha Tau Kok and Kam Tin, and Sai Heung in Chinese Territory. In addition a school was named in their honour at Kam Tin, and when it was repaired in 1744 the San On magistrate of the time composed a Confucian discourse which was inscribed on the wall of the restored building, to instruct the pupils and their parents. An interesting survival which still existed in 1898 was the appearance of an old beggar in the Yuen Long villages every Chinese New Year who brought statues of WONG and CHOW for the people to worship, and incidentally to supply him with food and money."" To these men-become-gods for whom the construction of a temple was necessary to ensure their better worship and resulting favours, there must be added an equal and possibly much older faith in sacred tree spirits and the multitude of earth spirits known as pak kung ih, tai wong ★, and ordinary she taan 4, who look after villages and localities such as passes, bridges, and fords over streams.
This insurance with the spirits who ruled this world and would assuredly be encountered in the next was expressed in the continual reconstruction of temples. A great many of the temples in the New Territory to-day owe their present fabric, or a great part of it, to repairs made during the last fifty years of the Ching dynasty. It was evidently a highly necessary part of the proceedings that the god should be informed of the names of the contributors so that his benefits should not pass anyone by, since their names, and often the amounts they gave, were scrupulously inscribed on the commemorative tablet which was always let into the wall to mark the occasion. Sometimes over a thousand names had to be recorded in this way, most of them in respect of trifling amounts, even for a small and out of the way temple, as in the reconstruction of the Tin Hau temple at Cheung Chau in the second year of the last Ch'ing Emperor (1909).
The magistrate, too, was expected to play his part in warding off disaster. The District History mentions that CHAN Kuk
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