BOOK LISTS
173
perhaps the case.* A list of Canton and Hong Kong newspapers is included in Roswell S. Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press 1800-1912 (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1933).
(n) Subscription books
These are not strictly speaking “books,” but subscription lists bound in the same Chinese-style format. They either promote an object like the reconstruction, repair or extension of a temple, school or charitable hospital, the repair of a bridge or road, or in Republican times the financing of a militia or a self-managing local government or commercial or other association. Whatever the cause, a full subscription list was usually printed upon the conclusion of the work or the closing of the lists; or in the case of temples, buildings and public works often placed in the building or nearby, on a stone tablet. The short list which follows is merely a sample.
There were many more subscription books in handwritten format: I saw these when District Officer South 1957-62 as they were sometimes brought in for endorsement, and I have collected others.
Section B BOOKS PROVIDED FOR AND BY SPECIALISTS
I have not attempted to provide any listing of material in this huge field, save for the specialists in family rites and social etiquette, whose stock of knowledge seems mostly to have been derived from the hand-written volumes which researchers in Hong Kong have chosen to style “village hand-books”. If not actually derived from the printed books listed in sub-sections (b), (d), (f) and (g) above, their contents were similar in nature. A detailed comparison has yet to be made, and is an important scholarly task.
I wish to thank Mr. Peter Yeung, Curator of the Hung On-To Memorial Library (Hong Kong Collection) of the University of Hong Kong for his great help in preparing these lists.
Hong Kong, 1982
JAMES HAYES
* A fragment of a Hsuan-tung issue of a Canton newspaper (1909) was given me by a Tai O (Lantau) shopkeeper, and I recall seeing a newspaper that came to light at Pui O (also Lantau), behind the plaster of a decaying temple last repaired in 1914.
BOOK LISTS
173
perhaps the case.* A list of Canton and Hong Kong news- papers is included in Roswell S. Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press 1800-1912 (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1933).
(n) Subscription books
These are not strictly speaking “books," but subscrip- tion lists bound in the same Chinese-style format. They either promote an object like the reconstruction, repair or extension of a temple, school or charitable hospital, the repair of a bridge or road, or in Republican times the financing of a militia or a self-managing local government or commercial or other association. Whatever the cause, a full subscription list was usually printed upon the conclu- sion of the work or the closing of the lists; or in the case of temples, buildings and public works often placed in the building or nearby, on a stone tablet. The short list which follows is merely a sample.
There were many more subscription books in hand- written format: I saw these when District Officer South 1957-62 as they were sometimes brought in for endorse- ment, and I have collected others.
Section B BOOKS PROVIDED FOR AND BY SPECIALISTS
I have not attempted to provide any listing of material in this huge field, save for the specialists in family rites and social etiquette, whose stock of knowledge seems mostly to have been derived from the hand-written volumes which researchers in Hong Kong have chosen to style “village hand-books”. If not actually derived from the printed books listed in sub-sections (b), (d), (f) and (g) above, their contents were similar in nature. A detailed comparison has yet to be made, and is an important scholarly task.
I wish to thank Mr. Peter Yeung, Curator of the Hung On-To Memorial Library (Hong Kong Collection) of the University of Hong Kong for his great help in preparing these lists.
Hong Kong, 1982
JAMES HAYES
* A fragment of a Hsuan-tung issue of a Canton newspaper (1909) was given me by a Tai O (Lantau) shop-keeper, and I recall seeing a newspaper that came to light at Pui O (also Lantau), behind the plaster of a decaying temple last repaired in 1914.
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