NOTES AND QUERIES
153
Land, labour and gold; or, Two years in Victoria, with visits to Sydney and Van Diemen's Land, by William Howitt, London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1855. 2 vols.
The chop of the Victoria Library and Reading Rooms appears on the front end-paper of each volume, with the shelf-mark C244 written in ink. The transfer of this work to the City Hall Library in 1871 is evidenced by its chop on the half-title and title-page. It is interesting to speculate whether the selection of this book, the title of which on the spine is "Two years in Victoria”, was due to a confusion between Victoria, Australia, and Victoria, Hong Kong. At least one user of the Victoria Library, or possibly the City Hall Library, got as far as p.57 of vol. 1, since a bookmark consisting of a strip from an old Hong Kong newspaper (not identified) is inserted there.
Similar marks of successive ownership appear on the other book, though here the Victoria Library chop appears on the title page and dedication leaf as well as on the front end-paper or fly-leaf. The shelf-mark on the fly-leaf appears to be F404. The title-page is reproduced at plate 18, to show the two ownership chops. The rectangular chop at the top is the processing chop of the University of Hong Kong Library, to which this book came as a gift from an unknown source in 1962; it is impressed on the back of the title-page, but shows through.
All three volumes are bound in a typical mid-Victorian style, brown polished calf with marbled paper. The shelf-marks do not appear on the spines, though they may have been on labels which have long since come off. The precise significance of the shelf-marks is not clear, though probably they were similar to those used in the Morrison Library, where the letter indicated a broad subject grouping (e.g. C for books of travel, D for natural history), each volume being given a running number within the appropriate group when added to the collection.
It is much to be regretted that no copies of the catalogues of any of the earlier Hong Kong libraries appear to have survived, other than the 1873 catalogue of the Morrison Library, when it was located in the old City Hall.
Hong Kong, 1969.
H. A. RYDINGS
NOTES AND QUERIES
153
Land, labour and gold; or, Two years in Victoria, with visits to Sydney and Van Diemen's Land, by William Howitt, London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1855. 2 vols.
The chop of the Victoria Library and Reading Rooms appears on the front end-paper of each volume, with the shelf-mark C244 written in ink. The transfer of this work to the City Hall Library in 1871 is evidenced by its chop on the half-title and title-page. It is interesting to speculate whether the selection of this book, the title of which on the spine is "Two years in Victoria”, was due to a confusion between Victoria, Australia, and Victoria, Hong Kong. At least one user of the Victoria Library, or possibly the City Hall Library, got as far as p.57 of vol. 1, since a bookmark consisting of a strip from an old Hong Kong newspaper (not identified) is inserted there.
Similar marks of successive ownership appear on the other book, though here the Victoria Library chop appears on the title page and dedication leaf as well as on the front end-paper or fly-leaf. The shelf-mark on the fly-leaf appears to be F 404. The title-page is reproduced at plate 18, to show the two ownership chops. The rectangular chop at the top is the processing chop of the University of Hong Kong Library, to which this book came as a gift from an unknown source in 1962; it is impressed on the back of the title-page, but shows through.
All three volumes are bound in a typical mid-Victorian style, brown polished calf with marbled paper. The shelf-marks do not appear on the spines, though they may have been on labels which have long since come off. The precise significance of the shelf- marks is not clear, though probably they were similar to those used in the Morrison Library, where the letter indicated a broad subject grouping (e.g. C for books of travel, D for natural history), each volume being given a running number within the appropriate group when added to the collection.
It is much to be regretted that no copies of the catalogues of any of the earlier Hong Kong libraries appear to have survived, other than the 1873 catalogue of the Morrison Library, when it was located in the old City Hall.
Hong Kong, 1969.
H. A. RYDINGS
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