[
    {
        "id": 204972,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1965",
        "page_number": 80,
        "title": "RAS-1965",
        "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n71\n\nPiracy was firmly rooted along the South China coast. Then, during the First China War, many junks were allowed to act as armed privateers, and when the war was over, became pirates rather than return to peaceful trade. Hong Kong and its neighbouring islands had always been centres of piracy, or the home of fishermen ambitious to earn a dishonest dollar or two from piracy. The new British colony must have appeared like manna from Heaven to these people, and the colony's first years were marked by an increase in piracy. There was a similar increase in piracy around Singapore at the same time. The founding of Singapore in 1819 had resulted in a great increase in native trade in the area, and this suffered severely from attacks by well-armed Chinese junks, which sometimes attacked European ships. Captain James Brooke with his sea Dyaks played a big part in suppressing piracy in these waters.1\n\nThe period between the First and Second China Wars is one of the most confusing in Chinese history. On one hand is the founding of a British colony at Hong Kong, the opening of the treaty ports, and the inception of regular shipping services along the coast; while on the other is the persistence of lawlessness and piracy. In the background is the increasing weakness of the Manchu Dynasty, and during the last years of the period, the Taiping Rebellion.\n\nWhen the East India Company controlled the China trade, there was little need for naval protection in Chinese waters, and the Cantonese were traditionally opposed to the Royal Navy. The large and well-armed East Indiamen and \"Country\" ships were perfectly capable of fighting their way past the pirates who infested the Canton River delta, as were smaller, but faster and equally well-armed opium clippers. In spite of Chinese objections, however, British warships visited Canton on several occasions. Anson called in the Centurion in 1741, on the famous voyage on which he captured the Manila galleon, and Cook in 1779 with the Resolution and Discovery after his three-year cruise in the Pacific. Cook's ships were careened, refitted, and provisioned at Canton, the East India Company advancing the money in return for bills on the Admiralty in London.\n\n1 The first white Rajah of Sarawak.",
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    {
        "id": 204973,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1965",
        "page_number": 81,
        "title": "RAS-1965",
        "content_text": "72 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nFor the first few years after the cession of Hong Kong, the British Government and Royal Navy practically ignored piracy on the South China coast; and the American, French, and Portuguese governments were equally indifferent. Any attempts at suppression by the Hong Kong Government were as feeble and ineffective as those of the Canton authorities. British traders in Hong Kong and the treaty ports, however, considered that they were entitled to much greater protection, and after repeated protests and representations to the home and Hong Kong governments, the Hong Kong Government passed its first anti-piracy ordinance in 1847, and the Royal Navy began to take more effective action. As a result, many unsavoury practices were uncovered. It was found that certain British merchants were supplying arms and ammunition to the pirates against whom they were demanding protection; and that Hong Kong officials were licensing ships to provide convoy protection for Chinese traders, which ships were using the cover of the British flag to plunder the cargoes they were paid to protect. This licensed convoy system was open to much abuse, and a source of great trouble to the Navy. The Chinese called these ships \"protecting tigers.\" The Navy itself was not blameless in its anti-piracy operations. The over-generous bounty system, which made pirate hunting a lucrative profession for the first decades after the cession of Hong Kong, often led to innocent Chinese traders and sailors losing their lives and property. Admiralty records ignore most of the errors committed by overzealous naval officers, but the Navy's anti-piracy campaign was one of the many British activities to draw unfavourable criticism from Lord Elgin in his mission to China and Japan in 1858.\n\nThe Royal Navy and the Hong Kong Government faced a difficult and complex situation when they undertook serious anti-piracy operations in the late 1840's. The Navy could attack pirates anywhere on the high seas, and commit them for trial to any British or Chinese court; but Hong Kong could only free its own waters of pirates. Piracy on the coast and rivers came within the jurisdiction of the Chinese Government, and neither the Navy nor Hong Kong could operate there without permission from the Canton authorities. Anglo-Chinese co-operation, therefore, was essential for successful anti-piracy operations, and this was not always available. The Treaty of Tientsin was the first",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204975,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1965",
        "page_number": 83,
        "title": "RAS-1965",
        "content_text": "74\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nthis time he visited Amoy, Foochow, and Shanghai several times, and it was in 1857 north of Shanghai that he captured his compatriot Eli Boggs. Hayes was a guest on H.M.S. Bittern when she attacked Boggs's fleet of between thirty and forty junks. When the junks fled into shallow water out of range of the Bittern's guns, Hayes persuaded Captain Vansittart to allow him to continue the chase in the longboat, and in this he personally captured Boggs. Boggs was taken to Hong Kong and found guilty of piracy. He escaped hanging, however, as no one could be found willing to swear to having seen him commit murder.\n\nHayes helped the Royal Navy on another occasion shortly afterwards, when he was on the steamer, Paoushan, and on this occasion obtained some of the pirates' ill-gotten gains for his trouble. He was a free spender, however, and everything went on a series of parties he gave for the officers and men of the Bittern in Shanghai, after which he left with his port dues unpaid and owing money to Chinese shopkeepers and tailors. This was a favourite trick which he repeated in Australian and South Pacific ports, and his final departure from the coast was in the same vein. He loaded a hundred coolies in Swatow for Australia, before Swatow was legally open as a treaty port, and did a large illegal trade in opium and emigrants. Hayes induced his passengers to pay him their poll tax for Australia as well as their passage money. After passing through Sydney Heads he flooded his bilges to give his ship the appearance of sinking, and then persuaded a tugboat to take the Chinese ashore to safety, by promising it the salvage work on its return. When the tugboat returned, however, Hayes and his ship had disappeared beyond the Heads.\n\nThe Navy had several spectacular successes against the pirates during this period, on a much bigger scale than those in which Hayes was involved. The most notable were Admiral Sir John Dalrymple Hay's actions against Shap-ng-tsai and Chu-apoo in South China waters in the summer of 1849, in which dozens of pirate junks were destroyed and hundreds of pirates killed. These actions cost the Admiralty £42,000 in bounty money, which was considered far in excess of the risks involved, and were responsible for the bounty system being modified. In spite of these naval successes piracy continued to flourish in South China, and new",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205612,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1968",
        "page_number": 154,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nJARDINE, MATHESON & CO.'S FIRST SITE IN\n\nHONG KONG\n\n149\n\nAlexander Matheson told the House of Commons Select Committee on Commercial Relations with China in 1847 that his firm had, without authorisation, commenced building \"to a certain extent\" before the first Land Sale held by Captain Elliott* on 14 June 1841 in Hong Kong. It is commonly assumed that the site of this building was at what later became known as East Point, in the present Causeway Bay area of Hong Kong, where the firm was to build extensive godowns and residences. One writer, for example, speculates that by the time of those first land sales, Jardine, Matheson & Co. had already selected for themselves a \"spacious area at East Point\" and intimates that it was there that they were building in June, 1841.2 However, even on the rather scanty evidence available, it seems clear that the site of this unauthorised building was not East Point but an area on the present Queen's Way, in the old Admiralty Dockyard.\n\nContemporary evidence, in any event, makes it unlikely that East Point was the site. Pottinger, the first Governor of Hong Kong,† gives us a graphic description of East Point as he saw it, possibly in August 1841 but more likely in mid-1842, when he returned from the military expedition against China. He describes its \"wild and uncouth state being one chaos of immense masses of granite and other rocks, that it was hardly accessible by person or on foot, either on the side of the water or the land, that the firm in question, by the application of science and extraordinary labour and by an expenditure of about £100,000 (sic), have not only made it available for their vast mercantile concerns, but have rendered it a credit and an ornament to the colony.\" The site sounds at that time, to put it mildly, somewhat unattractive though it did stand at the head of the Wongneichung Valley and would be well-placed to dominate any settlement there; there is evidence that the firm conceived a plan in 1842 for building a seawall and\n\n* Administrator of Hong Kong January-August 1841 as well as plenipotentiary for the current negotiations with the Chinese authorities. See p. 16 and Appendix I of G. B. Endacott's A History of Hong Kong (London, Oxford University Press, 1958).\n\n† Sir Henry Pottinger, Administrator and subsequently first Governor of Hong Kong August 1841-May 1844. Endacott op. cit. Appx, I.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205643,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1968",
        "page_number": 185,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "180\n\nTHE LIBRARY\n\nBACKHOUSE, E. and BLAND, J. O. P.\n\nAnnals and memoirs of the court of Peking, from the 16th to the 20th century. London, Heinemann, 1914.\n\nBALL, J. Dyer.\n\nThings Chinese; or, Notes connected with China. 5th ed., rev. by E. Chalmers Werner. Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1925.\n\nBELCHER, Sir Edward.\n\nNarrative of a voyage round the world, performed in Her Majesty's Ship Sulphur, during the years 1836-1842, including details of the naval operations in China from Dec. 1840 to Nov. 1841. Publ. under the authority of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. London, Colburn, 1843, 2 vols.\n\nBERNARD, W. D.\n\nNarrative of the voyages and services of the Nemesis, from 1840 to 1843; and of the combined naval and military operations in China: comprising a complete account of the Colony of Hong Kong, and remarks on the character and habits of the Chinese, from notes of W.H. Hall, London, Colburn, 1844. 2 vols.\n\nBISHOP, John L., ed.\n\nStudies in Chinese literature. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard U.P., 1965.\n\nBLAND, J. O. P., and BACKHOUSE, E.\n\nChina under the Empress Dowager; being the life and times of Tzu Hsi, compiled from state papers and the private diary of the comptroller of her household. New and rev. cheaper ed. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1914.\n\nBODDE, Derk.\n\nChina's first unifier: a study of the Ch'in dynasty as seen in the life of Li Ssŭ († 208 B.C.). Hong Kong, University Press, 1967.\n\nBOUCHOT, Jean.\n\nScènes de la vie des Hutungs; croquis des moeurs pékinoises. 2e éd. Pekin, [Nachbaur] 1922.\n\nBREDON, Juliet.\n\nHundred altars. Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1936.",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205965,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1970",
        "page_number": 45,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "40 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nRegistrar-General in 1864, a key post, Deane Superintendent of Police in 1867, and Tonnochy who held the offices of Sheriff, Coroner and Marshal of the Vice-Admiralty Court in 1865, became Assistant Harbour Master in 1867 and Superintendent of the Jail in 1875, a post he held until his death in 1882. Lister was soon sent to the Harbour Office and Russell, who also acted as Governor Sir Richard Macdonnell's private secretary, was sent to the Magistracy. James Legge, long resident in Hong Kong, was critical of the way in which the original scheme was modified by expediency and argued that \"there should have been no directing them away from their proper business of study until they had given proof of their actual interpretation in the supreme court”,22 Legge was right in principle; but although it was not the Government's intention to produce a supply of sinologues but rather administrators with a knowledge of Chinese, these early cadets did work hard at their Chinese, and one, Lister, supplied the China Review and Notes and Queries on China and Japan with many thoughtful comments on Chinese language and society. \n\nThe development of the cadet scheme can only be understood in relation to changes that occurred outside Hong Kong. The scheme was influenced - if not directly inspired by changes in public administration in India and the homeland. Open competition was first invented for India and the germ of the idea is to be found in Lord Macaulay's 1854 report on recruitment of the Indian Civil Service. In Great Britain appointments to the civil service until the year 1855 were made by nomination. In 1855 a stringent examination was introduced; and in 1870 the principle of open competition was adopted as a general rule. The year 1870 witnessed, then, the abolition of patronage and the admission of people into the civil service at prescribed ages and by means of competitive examinations; and a distinction was drawn, in terms of grades and hence of salary and prestige, between the routine and intellectual tasks of government. Competitive examinations meant, of course, that there was little chance of success into the higher grade except for candidates who had a successful university career, and, often, in addition, special preparation by a private tutor. These reforms influenced the recruitment of cadets into the Hong Kong Civil Service. \n\nIn 1869, as a result of the evolving climate of thought in English, a competitive examination by the Civil Service Commis-\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206010,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1970",
        "page_number": 90,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 85\n\nat the French settlement on New Caledonia, after which the French authorities sent a ship to rescue the survivors on Rossel Island. Only one small Chinese boy was found, whose story was that the rest of the passengers and crew had been eaten by the natives. This was accepted as gospel by the press in Sydney where the boy was taken, although there were some glaring inconsistencies in his story, and it was repeated in the British Admiralty Sailing Directions. Not until thirty years later was it seriously questioned, when its most important critic was Sir William MacGregor, the first Australian administrator of New Guinea. It is now generally believed that, rather than wait to be taken on to Australia and a life-time of labour to repay the inflated cost of their passages, the Chinese had preferred to take a chance in New Guinea. Food, including the highly prized luxury bêche-de-mer, was comparatively plentiful, and life in New Guinea with freedom must have appeared infinitely preferable to life in the Australian goldfields saddled with a heavy personal debt. When the first official census was taken in New Guinea, many Chinese were recorded, of whose origins there was no satisfactory explanation.\n\nAnother notable incident in the history of Chinese emigration, and which had a happy conclusion, concerned the Peruvian ship Maria Luz in 1872. The Maria Luz had left Macao with over 300 indentured labourers for the Peruvian guano islands, and was forced into Yokohama harbour in distress. One coolie jumped overboard and swam to H.M.S. Iron Duke, where he reported that the passengers on the Maria Luz had either been kidnapped or decoyed on board under false pretences. As a result of the publicity and outcry which this caused, all the passengers were sent back to China. Peru had then no treaty relations with Japan, but threatened war unless Japan apologised and indemnified her. The British government, however, warned Peru that any hostile act on her part would invite retaliatory action by the Royal Navy; and the whole question was referred to France, who gave her verdict in favour of Japan. This case focussed public attention on the many unsavoury aspects of the emigrant trade, and also led to the opening of diplomatic relations between China and Japan.\n\nIt is necessary to remind ourselves that conditions in many of the emigrant ships to South-east Asia during the 1850's and\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206058,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1970",
        "page_number": 138,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "A BRITISH WARTIME CHART SHOWING HONG KONG\n\n133\n\nLister, R. How to Identify old Maps and Globes (London, 1965) p. 222. Robinson, A. H. W. Marine Cartography in Britain (Leicester, 1962) p. 123, pp. 182-183.\n\n3 The whole matter is extremely complicated. It is not possible to say with confidence whether the mathematical basis of the chart is Mercator's projection or a simple Plain Chart. The mean distance on the chart between 22°N and 23°N is 333.5 mm.\n\nCf. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, 1910, Vol. VIII, pages 802 and 810. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. World Weights and Measures (New York, 1967) page 13.\n\nDoursther, H. Dictionaire Universel des Poids et Measures (Brussels, 1940) page 279.\n\nChriss, M. and Hayes, G. R. An Introduction to Charts and Their Use (Glasgow, 1964) page 10.\n\n1936.\n\nTaylor, E. G. R. The Haven-Finding Art (London, 1956) Chapter 10.\n\n4 For modern latitudes cf.\n\nBritish Admiralty. Chart No. 2562, Canton River and Si Kiang Delta.\n\nBritish Directorate of Overseas Surveys. Series 231, Sheet 13B, 1968. For navigational techniques cf. Taylor, op. cit.\n\n5 Cf. The Principles of the International Phonetic Association (London, 1949) p. 10.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206220,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1971",
        "page_number": 37,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "THE TAIPINGS AT NINGPO\n\n31\n\nof the entire Taiping Revolution from 1853 to 1864 as it related to foreign powers. At the least, it suggests once again a need for renewed consideration both of the Taiping period in itself and of the historical tradition which transmitted our understanding of it.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Romaine to Hammond, No. 34, Admiralty, February 17, 1862, Inclosure 1, Hope to Admiralty, Shanghai, December 22, 1861, Blue Books, pp. 90-91.\n\n2 Harvey to Hammond, No. 32, Ningpo, December 7, 1861, Inclosure 1, Ibid., p. 85.\n\n3 The letters to both Taiping generals are translated as Inclosures 3 and 4 in Harvey to Hammond, No. 32, Ibid., pp. 86-88.\n\n4 Harvey to Hammond, No. 33, December 18, 1861, Ibid., p. 89.\n\n5 Romaine to Hammond, Admiralty, February 17, 1862, Inclosure 3, Ibid., p. 95.\n\n6 Ibid.\n\n7 Frederick Wells Williams, The Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL.D., New York, 1889, p. 336.\n\n8 W. H. Sykes, The Taiping Rebellion in China, London, 1863, p. 34.\n\n9 The China Mail, Hong Kong, May 8, 1862, reprinted from the Shanghae Commercial News, May 2, 1862.\n\n10 Sykes, p. 19.\n\n11 Ibid.\n\n12 Ibid., pp. 49-53.\n\n13 G. E..., \"Rebels in the Ningpo District,\" North China Herald, No. 615, May 10, 1862.\n\n14 Harvey to Hammond, No. 36, January 3, 1862, Inclosure 1, \"Correspondence respecting....\" Blue Books, p. 107.\n\n15 Romaine to Hammond, No. 34, Inclosure 5, Corbett to Hope, Ningpo, December 20, 1861, Blue Books, p. 97.\n\n16 This seems evident, for example, in the writings of A. E. Moule obtainable at the Church Missionary Society archives in London, and in his undated Personal Reminiscences at the Essex Institute Library.\n\n17 Harvey to Hammond, No. 3, Ningpo, March 20, 1862, Inclosure 4, \"Further Papers....\" pp. 12-16.\n\n18 In this dispatch, Bruce makes another unwarranted generalization about foreign views of the Taipings: \"The experience of several years and the testimony of all foreigners who have been among them, show that they are unable to govern.\" Bruce to Russell, No. 14, Peking, April 10, 1862, Ibid., pp. 18-20.\n\n19 Bruce to Russell, No. 15, Peking, April 8, 1862, Ibid., p. 21.\n\n20 Admiralty to Hammond, No. 32, July 28, 1862, Inclosure 4, \"Further Papers relating to....\" Blue Books, p. 44.\n\n21 Inclosure 9 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 48.\n\n22 Inclosure 6 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 45.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206221,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1971",
        "page_number": 38,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "ADV \n\n: \n\n32 \n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, JR. \n\n23 Inclosure 7 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 46. \n\n24 Inclosure 8 in No. 32, Ibid., pp. 46-47. \n\n25 Inclosure 12 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 49. \n\n26 Inclosure 13 in No. 32, Ibid. \n\n27 Harvey to Hammond, No. 27, Ningpo, May 16, 1862, Inclosure 2, Ibid., p. 38. \n\n28 Dew to Hope, Ningpo, May 7, 1862, No. 32, Inclosure 15, Ibid., p. 50. \n\n29 Inclosure 16 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 51. \n\n30 Harvey to Hammond, No. 27, Ningpo, May 16, 1862, Inclosure 1, Harvey to Bruce, Ningpo, May 9, 1862, Ibid., p. 36. \n\n31 Dew, \"Proceedings of Encounter at Ningpo detailing the events which led to the capture of that city on May 10th, 1862,” Gordon Papers, Vol. VII, British Museum 52392, p. 22. Intriguingly, there is in this handwritten account a following sentence which says that Hope replied to Dew asking the latter to keep the peace until he could get there with sufficient force. This sentence was crossed out in the manuscript. \n\n32 Inclosure 17 in No. 32, \"Further Papers relating to...\" p. 51. \n\n33 Inclosure 19 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 52. \n\n34 Hsiang Ta, et al, eds., T'ai-ping Tien-kuo, Chinese Modern History Collection, Shanghai, 1952, Vol. 6, p. 602. \n\n35 Inclosure 1 in No. 27, \"Further Papers relating to....,” pp. 36-37. \n\n36 T'ai-ping T'ien-Kuo, Vol. 6, p. 604. \n\n37 Admiralty to Hammond, July 14, 1862, Inclosure 2, Dew to Hope, Ningpo, May 10, 1862, Ibid., p. 30. \n\n38 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, May 15, 1862, No. 592, Local Correspondence Section, Ningpo (1858-62), B2/132, Jardine Matheson Archives, Cambridge University Library, \n\n39 Cited in A. F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution, London, 1866, II, 536. \n\n40 Jen Yu-wen, T'ai-p'ing T'ien-Kuo tien-chih t'ung-kao, II, Hong Kong, 1957, p. 1059. \n\n41 Captain D. Patridge to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong) via Shanghai, Ningpo, July 28, 1860, Local Correspondence Section, Ningpo (1858-62) B2/132, JMA, \n\n42 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, August 1, 1862, No. 602, Ibid. \n\n43 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, November 5, 1862, No. 613, Ibid. \n\n44 Green to Jardine Matheson & Co. (Hong Kong), Ningpo, January 20, 1863, No. 622, Ibid. \n\n45 Inclosure 3, Harvey to Bruce, Ningpo, May 16, 1862, in No. 27, p. 39. \n\n46 Russell to Bruce, No. 28, July 22, 1862, \"Further Papers relating to...\" \n\n47 Alexander Mitchie, The Englishman in China, I, Edinburgh & London, 1900, p. 380. \n\n48 Cited in Lindley, II, 538 \n\n49 Ibid., 537.",
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        "id": 206433,
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        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1971",
        "page_number": 250,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "224\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nthe familiar background of the disasters — natural and man-made which afflicted China from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards.\n\nThe author, a retired Naval Officer, himself with a first-hand knowledge of the China Station and with some apparent experience of the military and political intelligence work supporting the diplomatic moves described in this book, weaves his story from the letter books of the Great and Ancient House, Taikoo. The period covered by these extracts and quotations is from the Sino-French war of 1883-5 through to the so-called Great Boycott of 1925. There are appended a number of short notes, some by the author, others contributed to the book, on topics ranging from \"The origin of Tribute Rice and of Lao mei\" to \"Treaty Port Racing\". Several of these are probably not to be taken as serious studies of these subjects; for example, the two devoted to \"Opium\" and \"The Eunuchs of the Empress\" are mere fragments not embodied in the main text.\n\nThere is undoubtedly a wealth — even an overflowing — of rich historical material in this volume; so much so, that the author, unwilling to sacrifice any scraps of illustrative comment from these business records, ends up by creating a confused picture of events. The significant fact throwing particular light on the business activities on the China Coast, is circumscribed by coils of superfluous trivia. From a naval writer, one might have expected a direct, economical style of exposition; and of course, the impact on the reader would have been much more effective. It is, indeed, painfully obvious throughout the book that despite the authorship of a considerable number of publications, the writer is an amateur. The book is written in a mixture of styles compounded from the Boys' Own and official memoranda; it is ridden with clichés and undigested wedges of administrative gobbledy-gook.\n\nFor the historian who would like to use this book as a compilation of source material, there are also the difficulties that the extracts are frequently not dated nor ascribed to a writer or only vaguely so. For example, there is the telegram from the Admiralty to the Commodore Hong Kong — one wonders how this came to be with the B & S records, if in fact it is extracted from them. The exercise would have been much more useful if the range of extracts had been more carefully selected, given full documentation, and",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206492,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1972",
        "page_number": 40,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "34\n\n!\n\nLEIGH R. WRIGHT\n\nThe issue of Brooke's status revolved around, firstly, the question of whether or not a subject of the Queen could hold the position as a sovereign prince of a foreign state; and, secondly, whether Brooke was in fact an independent ruler or a vassal of the Sultan of Brunei.\n\nThe issue, however, was not a burning one in the ministries of Whitehall. Despite the fact that Borneo was of concern to Britain as the guardian of the eastern flank of the South China Sea route to the China coast, and was to assume, gradually, more strategic value as first France and later Germany began colonial operations in the area, at mid-century Britain possessed a colony and naval station at Labuan and a (“good strong”) consular treaty with Brunei which gave her a certain measure of control, if she chose to indulge it, in Brunei's relations with foreign states. Most of the Colonial and Foreign Secretaries in London, until the 1870s were not very interested in defining precisely Raja Brooke's status,\n\nFor the most part, Whitehall grudgingly approved of Brooke's “civilizing influence\" in Borneo. Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary in 1846, offered naval support for the suppression of piracy, and during a later term of office gave standing orders to the Eastern squadron to visit Sarawak at regular intervals. But the Foreign Office generally held to the view that \"it is not the policy of Her Majesty's Government that British subjects should possess territory on the mainland of Borneo\".\n\nLord Clarendon, when Foreign Secretary in the mid-1850s, came close to disavowing Brooke's position in Sarawak. In 1853 the Raja took issue with a Foreign Office statement that seemed to assume that Brooke was a vassal of Brunei. Clarendon minuted,\n\nIt seems to me that the various documents tend to prove how cautiously the government abstained from recognizing his (Brooke's) independence although in various ways the anomalous character of his position has been admitted.\n\nBut Clarendon did not leave it at that. When in 1855 Spencer St. John succeeded Brooke as Consul in Brunei he suggested to the Foreign Office that he also be accredited to Sarawak as an independent state. The Raja agreed and insisted that the new consul must receive his exequatur from him. This act would render the desired\n\n6 FO to Admiralty, 24 July 1846, FO 12/4.\n\n7 Clarendon minute upon Brooke to FO, 27 September 1853, FO 12/13.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207020,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1974",
        "page_number": 91,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "FATHER ERNESTO GHERZI, S.J., 1886 - 1973 AN APPRECIATION\n\nG. J. BELL*\n\nIn the Bulletin de Geophysique No. 34 from the College Jean-de-Brebeuf, Montreal there was enclosed a notice of the death of Father Ernesto Gherzi, S.J. at Saint-Jerome, Quebec. He died on 6 December 1973 at the age of 87 years and 4 months. Fr Gherzi was a very well known and popular figure on the China coast between the years 1910 and 1954. He made notable contributions to the science and practice of seismology and meteorology while at Zikawei Observatory, Shanghai from where he operated an efficient typhoon warning service. He was a colourful character who made a great impression on all those who met him and he is remembered with affection by very many mariners and aviators—both military and civil—who served in the Far East in the thirty years prior to 1954.\n\nEARLY YEARS\n\nFr Gherzi was born in San Remo, Italy on 8 August 1886. In October 1903 he joined the Society of Jesus, an order whose members had made great contributions to geophysics and meteorology at their Observatories at Zikawei and Manila. He was posted to Zikawei for the period 1910-13 after which he went to England to work with Appleton on ionospheric studies for the Admiralty, London. He was ordained in England in June 1916 and returned to China in October 1920 to start his long scientific career in the famous meteorological, seismological and magnetic observatory at Zikawei.\n\nThe Zikawei Observatory was supported by grants from the Chinese Customs, the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, the Shanghai municipality and the telegraph companies; in return it provided time signals, weather forecasts and magnetic data for shipping. Fr Gherzi produced annual summaries of typhoon tracks for 1926 and for the years 1928 to 1940; they were addressed to the\n\n* Mr. Bell has been Director of the Royal Observatory, Hong Kong, since 1965. This article first appeared in Weather, Volume 29, No. 5 (May 1974).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207288,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1975",
        "page_number": 56,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "INCIDENT BETWEEN HONG MERCHANTS AND THE SUPERCARGOES OF THE BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY IN CANTON, 1811.\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG*\n\nA detailed account of this incident was recorded by the senior officer on the British side, Captain the Hon. Hugh Lindsay,† the Commodore of the East India Company's fleet at that time. It is in the form of a letter to his sister, Lady Anne Barnard, undated, and was printed in The Lives of the Lindsays by Lord Lindsay, 2 vols., London, 1849. A full copy of this letter, retaining the original punctuation, has been supplied by Mr. Tom Lindsay, a long-time member of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. It is worth printing because of the details it supplies which are missing in the brief account of the same episode in Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China, 1635-1834, Vol. III, Oxford 1926, p. 156.\n\nHistorians of early Anglo-Chinese relations, and of the British East India Company's trade with China, have to rely to a great extent for their material on Morse's five substantial volumes. It is worth examining, at this point, how Morse wrote these volumes which are based on a massive collection of hand-written documents.\n\n* Professor Cranmer-Byng belongs to the Department of History at the University of Toronto. He was the first Hon. Editor of this Journal and has contributed to it from time to time.\n\nHon. Hugh Lindsay was a younger brother of Alexander Lindsay, 6th Earl of Balcarres and 23rd Earl of Crawford. A note at the bottom of page 400 of Vol. II of Lives of the Lindsays states:\n\nMr. Hugh Lindsay was for many years Member of Parliament for the burghs of Forfar, Perth, Dundee, Cupar and St. Andrews, and Marshal of the Admiralty.\n\nIn the text on the same page it is stated that he was also a Director and Chairman of the East India Company. He died in April 1844 in his eightieth year. The biographical note goes on:\n\nHugh Hamilton Lindsay Esq., his only son, and long a resident in China, is the author of the extremely interesting 'Voyage of the Amherst, — along two thousand miles of the coast of China,- published in 8vo. by a speculating bookseller, from his report to the East India Co., which was printed by order of Parliament.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208495,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 219,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n203\n\nHe won his knighthood in 1902. His activities also extended to religion (he built St. Andrew's church in Kowloon), sport (he presided over the Jockey Club for many years) and the arts (the \"Chater Collection\" of porcelain, pottery and paintings was highly valued).\n\nThe house\n\nMarble Hall was built towards the end of the nineteenth century. About five hundred feet above sea level, it was said to command excellent views of the harbour and stood amidst two acres of shrubs and tropical plants. A Public Works Department memorandum noted that its external walls were of \"stuccoed brickwork finished in the Classic Style through which runs a strong Jacobean tendency\"; the main staircase was \"of monumental design executed in polished Italian marble.\" The house was flanked on three sides by wide verandahs and contained a spacious hall, drawing room, card room, dining and billiard rooms, four bedrooms (each with its own bathroom and easy access to a drying room), a large kitchen, pantry, scullery, silver and wine closet, and ample servants' quarters. Internal materials included mahogany from England and stained and polished teak.\n\nAdmiralty House\n\nSir Paul Chater died on 26 May 1926 and, in his will, bequeathed Marble Hall and its furniture, fixtures and household effects (including pottery, paintings and all his racing cups but excluding some china and curios) to the government of Hong Kong. The gift was to take effect when his widow, Lady Maria Christine Chater, ceased to live in the house. She apparently left the colony in 1927 with no intention of returning, but the house did not become the property of the government until her death on 11 March 1935. Governor Sir Cecil Clementi had suggested in 1926 that Marble Hall be offered to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty for use by the Naval Commander-in-Chief of the China Squadron, and in 1935 the gracious residence became the colony's \"Admiralty House.\"\n\nThe Admiral found other accommodation after Christmas Day, 1941, but following expulsion of the Japanese from Hong Kong in 1945 he once again took residence in Marble Hall. Soon afterwards, however, the house was damaged by fire. It apparently stood dere-",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208590,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 47,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "20\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG\n\n62 \"The Hong Kong Question during the Pacific War (1941-45)”, p. 72.\n\n63 Brigadier A. J. H. Dove of the War Office to C. H. M. Weldock of the Admiralty, 12 August 1945, communicated to the Foreign Office, FO371/46251, and Admiralty to commander-in-chief, British Pacific Fleet, tel. 131957A, important, 13 August 1945, communicated to the Foreign Office, FO371/46252.\n\n64 Seymore to Ernest Bevin, foreign secretary, tel. 857, most immediate and top secret, 16 August; tel. 865, most immediate and top secret, 17 August; tel. 909, most immediate and top secret, 23 August; and Bevin to Seymore, tel. 984, 25 August 1945, FO371/46252.\n\n**Harry S. Truman, Memoirs by Harry S. Truman (New York, 1965), I, p. 492.\n\n**Thorne, op. cit., p. 649.\n\n67 General Hurley, now United States ambassador at Chungking, to secretary of state, tel. 1414, 21 August 1945, in FRUS, The Far East, China, 1945 (Washington, 1969), VII, pp. 507-8.\n\n**Truman, op. cit., pp. 493-4.\n\n*Hurley to secretary of state, tel. CFB$633, 23 August 1945, in FRUS, The Far East, China, 1945, op. cit., p. 511.\n\n70 Truman, op. cit., pp. 494-5.\n\n71 Truman, ibid., p. 496.\n\n72 G. B. Endacott, A History of Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 302.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208800,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 257,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "230\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nThe years following the change-over were not peaceful. The western relations with China were not, on the whole, harmonious. This was largely because a tradition-bound and conservative bureaucracy, loosely ruled from Peking, was reluctant to allow contact with outsiders except within the long established tributary relationship by which the \"middle kingdom\" dealt with foreigners.\n\nProfessor Graham uses mainly western (and almost completely British) sources in his research. His extensive use of Foreign Office, Colonial Office, Admiralty and Indian Office Records in London and New Delhi has given him the expertise with which to assess British policymaking and the multifarious problems arising in its implementation in the imperial period of the nineteenth century. He uses private papers to complement official sources, delving into such well known collections as those left by the \"actors\" of the story, among them Palmerston, Wellington, Russell, Pottinger, Aberdeen, James Matheson, William Jardine. And he does not neglect the less well known diaries and journals left by common seamen and admirals who were participants in the action of the book.\n\nThe purpose, then, as the author admits, is to see the conflict between China and the west \"through European eyes” (p. viii). But here the author is rather modest for he does make excellent use of the best available translated sources to attempt to understand the conflicts from Chinese views.\n\nThe chapters are roughly chronological, beginning with a discussion of the Canton \"system\" of trade in tea, silk, opium and silver, and tracing the \"campaigns\" of the naval skirmishes in 1839-41 and 1856-60. Inserted, at appropriate places, are chapters on the founding of Hong Kong as a colony, the problems of administration and command in the Royal Navy (the China Station was not actually established until a division of the East Indies Station occurred in 1844), and the impact of the Crimean War, Russia and the Indian Mutiny upon events in China.\n\nIt is curious that rather limited naval skirmishes leading to consular treaties should be denominated by historians as “wars”. Professor Graham defines three separate Anglo-Chinese Wars, viz. 1839-41 (\"the Opium War\"), 1856-58, and 1860. These limited campaigns were found necessary, according to the preponderant British view, because Chinese officialdom was largely ignorant of western armed strength and must be shown by a demonstration of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209270,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1981",
        "page_number": 173,
        "title": "RAS-1981",
        "content_text": "28.48\n\nJUAN YUAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826\n\n159\n\nThe Topaze crisis, lasting from late 1821 into 1822, was the most serious confrontation between the Chinese and the British to that day, especially since the controversy involving all the significant issues of the day, including naval presence, jurisdiction over foreigners, and opium smuggling, came so close on the heels of the Terranova crisis. British trade at Canton was stopped for several months. The British factory, fearful that they would be held responsible for the misdeeds of sailors from the frigate Topaze, fled to their ships at Chuenpi on 11 February 1822. At the end of the crisis Juan Yüan made a compromise by not insisting on the surrender of the already departed criminals, but the British capitulated by abandoning the policy of using \"threat of force as a means of protecting or forwarding British interests in China\" at least for the time being. The Court of Directors of the East India Company \"advised the First Lord of the Admiralty to stop all peace-time visits of His Majesty's ships to the China coast unless assistance was urgently requested by the Governor-General of India\". An Order in Council was subsequently issued to this effect in 1823,\n\n1\n\n$\n\nIn December 1821, rancour from the Terranova case had hardly died down. Foreign traders realized that they could not escape completely the newly reinstituted stringent anti-opium laws even by sacrificing Terranova. The Emily, Terranova's ship, as well as three British ships, all with opium on board, were sent away from their Whampoa anchorage to Lintin, where they remained for three years without discharging or taking on cargo. During this period, two British warships, HMS Curlew and HMS Topaze, had sailed into the Pearl Estuary to \"protect\" these commercial vessels. Sailors had gone ashore \"to fetch fresh water\" from time to time. On 14 December 1821, a group of sailors from frigate Topaze came ashore. Only this time they brought along their pet goat. Unfortunately, the goat dug up potatoes, eating a number of them, and damaging the potato patch. A Chinese peasant, Huang I-ming, owner of the patch, then called upon his wife, brothers and neighbours to trample upon the sailors with sticks and stones, and in the fracas two urns of wine on the side of the hut were broken. When the sailors were driven aboard their ship, they discharged the cannon to disperse the pursuing and cursing villagers. During the skirmish among the potatoes a number of British sailors were injured, but none died. The next morning, the sailors, reinforced, went ashore again to revenge their mates. They chopped down the door of the hut of Huang I-ming, and fired a musket, killing him instantly. His son-in-law, also injured by the fusillade, died a",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210725,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1986",
        "page_number": 76,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "59\n\nStreet on the Natural History of Hongkong contained numerous references to the flora of the region and these notices would undoubtedly have had the effect of keeping the idea of a Botanical Garden in the minds of the relevant authorities, both in Hongkong and in London. For example, in Despatch no. 130 of 1860 it is stated that:\n\n\"Botanical notices have appeared in Hooker's Journal of Botany 1842. Collections made by Mr. R.B. Hinds, Surgeon, H.M. Ship “Sulphur”. Also in Journal of Horticultural Society 1844 and subsequent numbers by Lindley, of plants collected by Mr. Fortune on his first visit to China.\n\nIn Walpers Annales, descriptions by Dr. Hance of Hong Kong Plants. Some plants were described by the Botanist Mr. Wright attached to the American exploring expedition published by that government.\n\nA review of the Flora of the Colony, derived chiefly from the collections of the late Major Champion, 95th Regiment, was undertaken by Mr. Bentham, V.P.L.S. in Sir W. Hooker's \"Journal of Botany”, 1851 and succeeding years. This version was entitled 'Florula Hongkongensis'. The concluding section of the Botany of the voyage of H.M. Ship “Herald\" (London 1852-7, -4 to 100 plates) edited by Dr. Seemann, under the authority of the Lords Commissions of the Admiralty, is entirely devoted to Hong Kong, and includes, (in addition to the materials at the disposal of Mr. Bentham), the collections of Dr. Seemann himself, (not extensive, however). Since the date of these publications however, the knowledge of the vegetation of the island has been much extended and many novelties added by the constant explorations of the late Dr. Harland, Mr. Wilford (a collector sent out from Kew) and Dr. Hance now Vice Consul in Whampoa.\n\nA flora of Hong Kong to comprise all the plants hitherto discovered is now in preparation by Mr. Bentham",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
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    },
    {
        "id": 211615,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1989",
        "page_number": 30,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "Cinema, at North Point (constructed in the early 1950s), is suspended; or the English style, Kentish-Rag, stone retaining wall on the south side of Battery Path in Central. One wonders if the latter was commissioned by some homesick Englishman.\n\nAnd, while parts of the Territory have been disparagingly called \"concrete jungle”, there are modern structures of merit. Depending on your taste, the St. John's Building (Lower Peak-Tram Station), Admiralty Centre; and the Macau Ferry Terminal spring to mind. The foyer at the Landmark, and the high-rise, high-tech Exchange Square, with its \"electronic plumbing\" so tenants can plug in for centralised computer services, are also of merit. Other recently completed buildings show an impressive degree of distinction and aesthetic sensitivity.\n\nIn an article written by Doctor Alan Birch in 1978, previously Reader in History at Hong Kong University, he stated that 95 per cent of the Territory's buildings had been erected from 1946 onwards (even if the deterioration of some belies their age). Although that was probably a very approximate estimate, since then many more old buildings have been torn down. Hong Kong is a city-state where, with the exception of the plot on which Saint John's Cathedral stands (which is freehold), all land is leasehold held from the Crown: this demands that landholders maximise their income from the land in as short a time as possible.\n\nTo give some idea how dramatically the skyline has changed: until World War II the seven-storey Peninsula Hotel, on the Kowloon waterfront, which served as the Japanese army headquarters during the occupation, was considered tall. Since then, the skyline has changed dramatically every decade.\n\nCatherine II (Catherine the Great) (1729-96), Empress of Russia, who together with her many architects erected royal palaces and public buildings, said that building was a disease, like alcoholism. Not too dissimilarly, in Hong Kong, Aw Boon Haw, the son of a Chinese herbalist, who together with his brother, Boon Par, produced the famous \"cure-all\", Tiger Balm, was told by a sooth-sayer that he would lose his fortune and die if he stopped building. When he eventually departed he had erected 26 castles around Asia, as well as the well-known Tiger Balm Gardens in both Singapore and Hong Kong. These, which contain figures depicting stories in Chinese history or mythology, were built to promote Aw's well-known pharmaceutical products.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
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    },
    {
        "id": 211619,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1989",
        "page_number": 34,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "recounts that the crew of the Sulphur landed on Hong Kong island on Monday 25 January” and as 'the bona fide first possessors' drank the health of Queen Victoria on Possession Mount. Then 'On the 26th the squadron arrived; the marines were landed, the union hoisted on our post, and formal possession taken of the island, by Commodore Sir J. G. Bremer, accompanied by the other officers of the squadron, under a feu-de-joie from the marines, and a royal salute from the ships of war'.\" Bremer himself was no more expansive. In his official despatch to R. More O'Ferrall M.P. at the Admiralty, written on 24 February but received only on 8 June 1841, Bremer reported that on 26 January he proceeded to Hong Kong ‘and took formal possession of the island, and hoisted the colours on it, with the usual salutes and ceremonies'.\n\n12\n\nNews of the acquisition of the island of Hong Kong became public knowledge in England on the morning of Friday 9 April 1841, but yet again there was no description of the ceremony of possession. On this day Elliot's circular of 20 January was printed in The Times, and it was discussed in an optimistic editorial: it was considered good news because Hong Kong was much more convenient for trade than Macao and a settlement there would be able to maintain itself independently of the Chinese.\" By the following day the tone of the editorial had changed. Its author wrote that 'the nominal cession of the island of Hong Kong to the British crown, though apparently promising considerable advantages to our mercantile interests, has been clogged with conditions which in practice may substantially defeat them', and then referred to the island as an 'insulated and unfrequented locality'. One factor which may have been decisive in settling on Hong Kong in the negotiations was, as the merchant James Matheson noted, the Chinese language, for such, he felt, is its ambiguity that it is difficult to fix in it a definite meaning.\" Matheson believed that, when Ch'i-shan remarked in one of his communications ‘as we have granted you territory you do not now require another port', Elliot in consequence gave up thoughts of British access to a port in northern China in the hope that he could hold Ch'i-shan to an interpretation of the Chinese characters which meant that the British had been granted the territory of Hong Kong rather than merely being given a trading factory there.'5\n\nTwo letters to The Times published in the same week expressed dissatisfaction with the new British acquisition. The first was dated Macao, 22 January and was presumably written by a merchant: 'Regarding the terms of Captain Elliot's treaty with the Chinese, I have",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
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    {
        "id": 211671,
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        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1989",
        "page_number": 86,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "61\n\nTHE KIUKIANG INCIDENT OF 1927\n\nP. H. MUNRO-Faure\n\nThe turgid waters of the Yangtze rolled by to the sea, four hundred and eighty miles away. They swirled past the two hulks, alongside which river steamers came to discharge the cargoes of cotton material, hardware, salt, and those edible sea-products so dear to the heart of the Chinese gourmet; loading in return tea, porcelain, grass-cloth, and camphor.\n\nInshore small wavelets glistened in the wintry sun, and lapped along the edge of the dark mud, which sloped down to the water in front of\n\n* Editor's Note. Paul Hector Munro-Faure was born in 1894 of Swiss/Scottish parentage. Educated in England, he entered the Supplementary Army Reserve in 1912, and volunteered on the outbreak of War, being commissioned in the Sherwood Foresters. He was wounded on the Somme in 1916, and, on his recovery, was attached to the King's African Rifles, with whom he saw action in Tanganyika. By the end of the War he had risen to the rank of Captain. He was Mentioned in a Despatch for distinguished services in the field, and was commended in writing by the Secretary of State for War.\n\nAfter the War, he joined the Asiatic Petroleum Company, and remained in their service until the outbreak of the Second World War, as Manager of one or other of their offices in China. In 1937 he established a Chinese Refugee Safety Centre in Shanghai, and was later decorated for this by the Chinese Government with the Brilliant Star with Ribbon. In 1938 he was connected with the International Relief Committee in Nanking, by whose Chairman he was commended for his work for the displaced. He was also commended at this date by the Secretary of the Admiralty for his work in evacuating from that city civilians at risk.\n\nOn the outbreak of the Second World War he was commissioned as Major (shortly afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel) in the Special Operations Executive. He worked at first in the Bush Warfare School at Maymyo, Burma, which trained Chinese guerillas for behind-the-lines work. (For this school, see \"Prisoners of Hope\", Michael Calvert, (London, 1951), where Lt. Col. Munro-Faure is mentioned at p. 11). He then opened a similar school near the front lines in the Hangchow-Nanking area. For this he was awarded an OBE in 1943. Later still he worked between the front lines on the north-east frontier of Burma, attempting to ensure the continuing support for the British of the native princes of the region, in the face of Japanese, and particularly Chinese, attempts to replace the British as the dominant local power. He was commended for this work by his Commanding Officer. In 1944, he was recalled to England. After the War he was seconded as Oil Attache to the British Embassy in Romania. He retired in 1949, and died in 1956.\n\nLt. Col. Munro-Faure wrote a book of Memoirs in 1944-1945, in 11 chapters, covering his experiences in the Kiu Kiang Incident (1927), and between 1937 and 1944, together with an exposition of his views on the proper role of foreigners in China. The text is in the Imperial War Museum, London,\n\nBecause of the immensely valuable picture these Memoirs paint of the Kiu Kiang Incident (in which the writer was closely involved), of China during the early War years, and of the border areas of Burma during the period when the present troubles in the area were first developing, it is proposed to print them as a series in this and the next several issues of the Journal.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212601,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1991",
        "page_number": 155,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "Maymyo 1941 \n\nGUERILLA TRAINING* \n\nP. H. MUNRO-FAURE \n\n135 \n\nThe shortage of British shipping along the China coast became more marked during 1940 and 1941. The vessels built for this traffic, generally between three and four thousand tons in measurement, with comparatively shallow draft, were particularly suitable for use in the Persian Gulf and along the shores of North Africa. Many had been taken to serve as transports in those seas. Moreover, the Admiralty, sensitive to the dangers threatening the peace of the Far East, had directed such larger ocean-going vessels as still were available not to proceed west of Singapore. Consequently there was pressure on the remaining cabin space, and I was fortunate to obtain a berth in a small coaster, which took seven days to reach Hongkong from Shanghai, as against the usual four.\n\nHongkong was very quiet, a state of affairs not to be attributed to an entire absence of females. It was remarkable how many had succeeded in avoiding the order to leave the Colony. I had to wait a whole week for a passage to Singapore, where formerly berths on a dozen different ships would have been offered in the time. This gave me an opportunity to look around. Friends took me out to Deep Water Bay, where we sunbathed on the beach, and drank our tea on the club verandah, looking out over the little golf course. High up on the hill towards Wong Nei Chong Gap I could see the green tiled roof of the house where my wife and I, only three years previously, had been caught in the rain. I wondered whether the lady of the mansion was one of those who had contrived to remain behind. In the evening we drove round to the next bay and bathed from the Lido, a steel and concrete building of pleasing design housing a restaurant, and bathing booths. The hot weather had set in, but here a cool breeze blew down a gully on the hillside into the windows. I had always liked the place because of its informality. You could eat your dinner, and dance and talk, in shorts, and so keep cool, as compared with the stricter etiquette of the Gloucester and Hongkong Hotels, or the Repulse Bay Hotel, or even the Peninsular Hotel across the harbour, where several nights a week you were required to don “black ties”.\n\n*This is the third part of the Memoirs of Col. P H. Munro-Faure. See Editor's Note, p 61, vol. 29, and Plate I",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213332,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1994",
        "page_number": 154,
        "title": "RAS-1994",
        "content_text": "136\n\nDistrict Regional Hospital, from which a good view was obtained of the reclamation for the Mass Transit Railway Extension to Chaiwan; then being constructed along a 12.5 kilometre route from the western side of the Central Business District at Sheung Wan. Completion of its 12 stations, plus additions and alterations to those at Central and Admiralty, was expected in 1985-86. 17 With both new transportation links in operation, the Eastern District would at last come into its own, increasing the value of existing land and buildings there, and enabling the construction of more public and private housing development.\n\nThe coach then took us to Shaukerwan. Our purpose here was quite different: to visit a new temple complex and walk through one of the large old squatter areas on the hillside, then still so characteristic of Shaukerwan, ending the visit with tea at the City District Office premises on the main road. The main temple, the Fuk Tak Chi, had been a 1970 removal and reconstruction of an earlier shrine that had served the old villages in that part of Shaukerwan from the late 19th century onwards. The shrine had prospered in its new location, and two more temples had been added in the mid 1970s. Together, they made an attractive group on the hillside. We were entertained to tea there by friends among the local Kaifongs and the temple managers, managing to attract a group of excited children.\n\nWe then walked up to the large and heavily populated Nam On Fong Squatter Area, built around the nucleus of an older settlement that had originated with the extensive quarrying of the Shaukerwan hillsides in the mid-19th century. Passing through we had vivid glimpses of how people in the older squatter areas lived in all kinds of structures - in some places abutting onto large rocks - some made of wood and others of tin, with a few older cottages of brick and stone. Livestock, mainly pigs and chickens, occupied other premises and some buildings served their inhabitants as both home and workshop. A few religious establishments were dotted here and there on the hillsides or among the huts. They included the large hundred year old Kik Lok Tung, which unfortunately for us was barred and shuttered, its owner being overseas. Moving along, we saw residents engaged in the various pursuits and occupations. This part of the tour provided the visitors with sights that very few European city residents would see in the normal way - and the local people likewise!",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214048,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1997",
        "page_number": 116,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "83\n\nShelters\n\nHong Kong has been hit by many severe typhoons causing tremendous damage to shipping, a violent one occurring in 1841 wrecking the cutter Louisa on which Captain Elliot, the British plenipotentiary in China, was travelling to Hong Kong from Macau. In order to protect the smaller-sized shipping, mainly junks and sampans, from excessive danger during storms, major typhoon anchorages protected by heavy rockfill breakwaters were constructed at Causeway Bay in 1883 (c.23ha, now Victoria Park) and another in 1915 at Mong Kok Tsui (Yau Ma Tei - 65ha which has recently been reclaimed). Meanwhile, a 4ha tidal basin and smaller boat basin with slipway were completed around 1905 at the Admiralty dockyard in Victoria (now Central) to afford protection and berthing for naval vessels.\n\nA small basin was constructed in Tsim Sha Tsui in 1885 for the Water Police and, about the same time, another larger one for the Royal Naval torpedo depot. Around the turn of this century, a further anchorage was built adjacent to the old coal briquette works lying near to the end of Austin Road (the Camber Typhoon Shelter).\n\nDocks\n\nSoon after the partial destruction in 1857 of the Couper Dock at Whampoa on the Pearl River as a result of the Arrow incident, the first granite dry dock in this region, the Lamont Dock in the 4½ ha dockyard site at Aberdeen was commissioned and was a complete success from the start; it received its first ship in 1860 and could accommodate a 50-gun steam frigate of 110m length on the blocks. Subsequently the larger and deeper Hope Dock, 125m long, 30m wide at the top and 15m wide at the bottom with an entrance width of 26 metres and 6.7m clearance at neap tides, was constructed adjacent to the Lamont Dock and completed in 1867, in its time being the best in Asia and one of the finest in the world. It could take the largest vessel visiting Hong Kong, even at low water; only one ironclad in the whole of the Royal Navy would be unable to enter without first being lightened by stripping it, for example, of its heavier armament and machinery.\n\nThe smaller 100m-long dry dock at the Hung Hom dockyard in",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214049,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1997",
        "page_number": 117,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "84\n\nKowloon, mainly for ships in the coastal trade, was opened in 1868 to be followed soon afterwards by a shorter 80m-long dock. A few years later (1876) the 140m-long Cosmopolitan Dock and dockyard at Tai Kok Tsui were commissioned. Subsequently the much larger 168m-long Admiralty Dock at Hung Hom was completed in 1888 and later extended in length by some 8 metres in 1903, to be followed by further lengthenings in 1911 and 1931.\n\nIn the summer of 1907, the 170m-long Admiralty dry dock in Victoria, with an entrance width of 29 metres and 9m clearance at lowest spring tides, and Tai Koo's great ashlar-faced 238m-long 27m entrance-width graving dock (now a car park in the Tai Koo Shing development) at Quarry Bay, the latter capable of accommodating the largest ship then afloat (the liner Oceanic), were both commissioned. By laying down the former dock where it did and extending the original dockyard, with an 8ha reclamation which was started in 1900, the Navy sealed the long-held hopes of making Victoria a coherent city with a continuous commercial waterfront. Due to difficult foundation problems, including removal of a 1.2 to 1.8m layer of hard porous coral and the need to install hundreds of steam-driven hardwood piles through the underlying decomposed granite to secure the site, the naval dry dock finally took seven years to build whereas the larger commercial dock at Tai Koo was finished in five.\n\nThe whole of the Tai Koo dockyard development took seven years to completion in 1908, a remarkable achievement in so much that it not only included the large dock but also excavation of some 1.3M cubic metres of hillside to form a 21ha site, which included a 8ha marine reclamation, and the adjacent section of the 23m-wide cut for King's Road, and the building of an entire complex of slipways, workshops and all the ancillary works which are needed to make a large dockyard a world of its own. It is interesting to note that Admiralty engineers in 1908 regarded locally-made cement as unsurpassed in fineness and tensile strength (at 28-days around 750lb/sq in or 5.2MPa), and it was used exclusively when building the new naval and Tai Koo dockyards.\n\nWharfs\n\nBy 1843 there were several comparatively small piers and jetties on the Island located between East Point and Sheung Wan. Pedder's",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214074,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1997",
        "page_number": 142,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "110\n\nAdmiralty Dock at Hung Hom under construction, c1885\n\nHK Museum of History, Provisional Urban Council\n\n7",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214297,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1998",
        "page_number": 155,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "118\n\n16 Mackenzie, op. cit., includes an Appendix giving details of all the guns captured in the period 1 January to 1 June 1841.\n\n17 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 150.\n\n18 Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 113.\n\n19 Loch, op. cit., p. 52 notes \"In fact, the carriage was precisely like a large garden barrow, with a locker before for shot, and a drawer between the handles containing loose powder and a small shovel to load with.\"\n\n20 Giuliano Bertuccioli ed., La Cina Nelle Lastre Di Leone Nani (1904-1914), Pontificio Istituto Missioni Estere 1994, p. 67.\n\n21 David Woodward, Armies of the World 1854-1914, London 1978, p. 157.\n\n22 Loch, op. cit., p. 113.\n\n23 Jocelyn, op. cit., p. 64.\n\n24 Jocelyn, op. cit., p. 152.\n\n25 D. Bonner-Smith, op. cit., p. 27 notes that in January 1858 \"Mr. H. Thompson, Midshipman of the Sans Pereil, a most praiseworthy and zealous young officer, was mortally wounded by a spear-rocket.\"\n\n26 D. Bonner-Smith, op. cit., p. 339 a report by Rear Admiral Sir M. Seymour to Secretary of the Admiralty dated May 21, 1858.\n\n27 Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 153.\n\n28 Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 156.\n\n29 Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 37 describes that the force comprised \"a compact and serviceable body of troops, mustering about 3600 bayonets.\"\n\n30 Jocelyn, op. cit., p. 114.\n\n31 Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 274 et seq.\n\n32 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 22 notes \"The tortures which most of the Chinese endured,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214952,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 48,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "had become a mere staple drink. May be so, but no one would doubt its importance to the Chinese people. 'The cup that cheers but not inebriates' as the Chinese describe it, remains one of the pillars of Chinese social customs.\n\nTea and the British\n\nThe British people's love of tea is proverbial, but it came late, centuries after its pleasures were known to the Chinese. Who introduced tea to the western world? Thoughts naturally turn to Marco Polo. But the Venetian traveller, who wrote vividly and at times with exaggeration of the many marvels of Cathay, did not mention tea; perhaps it was not a favourite drink in the court of Kublai Khan. Instead, credit is sometimes given to another Venetian called Ramusio who in the 16th century wrote enthusiastically about tea. However, this lies in the realms of conjecture. Historically, it is the Dutch who are credited with introducing tea to Europe, around 1610 AD. Europe was slow to respond. Opinions swayed as to its merits or demerits. Within the next hundred years, Europe accepted tea as its best loved beverage, and while it has remained popular in Holland and the rest of Europe, it had never reached the level of popularity it enjoyed in Britain.\n\nStories abound as to when Britain took to tea, but all are agreed that 1660 was a milestone - when Samuel Pepys, that inveterate diarist and Admiralty official, took his first cup of tea and so noted in his diary. It had infiltrated into Britain slowly. First drunk in tea houses, then favoured by the Court, by the beginning of the 18th century, tea had found its way into the home and to the daily table of the common man. It seemed to permeate every aspect of British life. It became a panacea for a multitude of ills and support in difficult times. Confronted by an emergency, tea was the immediate remedy. The Army made its own particular brand of strong sweet tea. 'Let's have a brew' was a great encouraging cry during a lull in fighting. Some would go as far as to assert that it helped the people of Britain to endure the blitz during the Second World War.\n\nBy the end of the 18th century, the rise in tea consumption in Britain was phenomenal. To the British people tea had come to be almost a necessity of life. Afternoon tea had become a treasured custom in every British household, and a whole ritual had evolved as to how to prepare",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215134,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 230,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "187\n\nvirtually cut off the supply to the waterfall other than when they are overflowing, for instance after a heavy storm.\n\nApart from pleasure boats and other small craft, Tai Tam Harbour was used more in the 19th century than it is today. During the period 1806 to 1819, long before Hong Kong was taken over by Britain, James Horsburgh, a hydrographer with the East India Company, surveyed the waters around the Island. He wrote that Tai Tam afforded shelter from almost all winds (Liu Shuyong, 1997:24). It is not of course a harbour as we sometimes know it with wharves and godowns. It is an inlet, which provides a place for ships to shelter. To illustrate again the Harbour's use as a place for protection from the elements mention is made of ‘tactical manoeuvring and target practice,' in February 1878, by the Royal Navy (White Ensign-Red Dragon, 1997; 39). It continues, 'The 20th February being very misty the fleet remained at Tytam Bay.'\n\nPeople naturally ask when exactly were the two Obelisks first erected; who erected them; and what purpose did (or do) they serve? As a start, with the aims of answering such questions, two Chief Inspectors, H J W Chetwynd-Chatwin and Keith Francis, both then serving in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, arranged an informal meeting, in 1994. The meeting took place in a bar at a police officers' mess in Wan Chai. It was followed by a curry lunch. About a dozen people were invited who, it was felt, could contribute. They included the Government Director of Marine and RASHKB member R S Hownam-Meek who spent his career in shipping with Jardine. A couple of weeks or so after the meeting the topic of the Obelisks was raised by Radio Television Hong Kong. Little of real substance emerged from the meeting or the ‘phone-in radio programme. The late Arthur May, then a retired civil servant, did however ‘phone in to say that, as a youth, he went to live at Tai Tam in 1919. He also recalled that when he sailed around the Harbour in the 1920s the two Obelisks were definitely already there.\n\nThe Hydrographic Data Centre, at Taunton in England, maintains that information was received from the Commander-in-Chief, China, that two beacons, each 30 feet high, had been erected. These were first inserted on Admiralty charts by 'Notice to Mariners 755' of 1900 (Atherton, 1996:94). I have a chart showing Tai Tam Harbour, dated 1894, which shows the Obelisks, but Atherton informs me that this is a",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215135,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 231,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "188\n\ncopy which was corrected in 1900. Earlier versions do not, apparently, show the two Obelisks. It seems then that the two Obelisks were erected in their present forms at the end of the 19th century. I was, however, told by a Chinese Chief Inspector of the Royal Hong Kong Police, at the informal meeting organised by Chatwin, that at one stage in his career the Chief Inspector had served in the Tai Tam district. There he had met an elderly, retired police officer who informed him that, before the two concrete Obelisks were constructed, two timber obelisks stood in about the same places. This is purely oral history and, although it may well be true, I have not been able to trace anything more about them. Joseph Aspdin did not invent artificial Portland cement until 1824, in Britain. It would take time for its use to spread around the world. This meant that if obelisks were erected in the middle of the 19th century, in Hong Kong, they would likely have been made of some material other than cement concrete.\n\nThe two beacons were probably used by shipping, then, as navigational aids when entering the Bay, and sailing on into the Harbour, to avoid hazards or for use in times of bad visibility. In a Government Antiquities and Monuments Office paper a master mariner, Mr A Davidson, is quoted as saying that following the courses of the two Obelisks, 'in line,' results in a course which clears a patch of rocks lying across the entrance to Tai Tam Bay. These rocks, he states, are now lighted (Antiquities and Monuments Office, 1980).\n\nBearing in mind that just about all useful records from the Government Harbour Master's Office and the Public Works Department were lost during the Japanese occupation (1941 to 1945), it has not been possible to trace who erected the two Obelisks although attempts have been made to do so (Lack, 1994). It could have been the Public Works Department. It could have been the Royal Navy itself through its Royal Naval Dockyard. Until the late 1950s this was situated where Admiralty is today, in Central District. If it was the Royal Navy one would have thought there would have been some marking on the Obelisks, such as the Admiralty fouled anchor. One would also perhaps have expected the concrete finish of the Obelisks to have been better although they have stood the test of time.\n\nCould the Obelisks have been used for other purposes? Sometimes two sets, each comprising two beacons, are erected to clock ships in a",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215138,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 234,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "191\n\nBard, Solomon (1988). In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong, the Urban Council Hong Kong.\n\nEmpson, Hal (1992), Mapping Hong Kong, A Historical Atlas, Hong Kong.\n\nLack, Alan (1994 March 17), retired senior member of staff of Government Marine Department, Hong Kong. Letter to the author.\n\nHacker, Arthur, letter together with sketch to the Author dated 29 October, 2000.\n\nLiu Shuyong (1997), An Outline History of Hong Kong, Foreign Language Press, Beijing.\n\nThe Mariner's Mirror, The Journal of the Society for Nautical Research, England, vol. 81, no. 3, August 1995.\n\nOp. cit. vol. 82, no. 1, February 1996.\n\nMok, Sam (1995 February 25), 'Peaceful sea villages a Tai Tam treat', Hong Kong Standard.\n\nSinclair, Olga (2000, June), e-mail to the author.\n\nTai Tam Bay (1894), chart, surveyed by Lieut. J W Combe RN et al, published by the Admiralty, London.\n\nTrayhurn, Rob (1995, January 16), letter to author from Public Relations Officer, Clyde Submarine Base, Scotland.\n\nWhite Ensign - Red Dragon, The History of the Royal Navy in Hong Kong 1841-1997 (1997) ed. Commodore PJ Melson CBE, Royal Navy.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215192,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 288,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "PHOTOGRAPH OF HONG KONG HARBOUR AND WATERFRONT TAKEN IN 1954\n\nJACK LAO MOU CHI\n\n251\n\nThe photograph is actually five photographs joined together, approximately 30 inches by 6 inches.\n\nStarting at the Central District Vehicular Ferry to Jordan Road, it can be seen that, moving to the right, Connaught Road at the time formed the Praya or Waterfront. Near the right-hand end of the photograph both Blake Pier and Star Ferry Pier can be seen. The Star Ferry moved to its present piers, on reclaimed land, in late 1957 when a number of people complained about the extra distance to walk!\n\nBehind the two piers can be seen the Queen's Building (where the Mandarin Hotel stands today), the old Hong Kong Club building and Mercury House (Cable and Wireless). Behind is the Royal Naval Dockyard, which was where Admiralty is situated today. Beyond, of course, is Wan Chai, where Gloucester Road at that time formed the Waterfront, and still further on is North Point.\n\nOn the other side of the Harbour the skyline is formed by the Kowloon Foothills and one can pick out such landmarks as Kowloon Peak (Fei Ngo Shan), Lion Rock and Beacon Hill. Passes along the Foothills, from west to east include Kowloon Pass, Sha Tin Pass, Grasscutters' Pass, Customs Pass and Tate's Pass. Further to the north are Heather Pass and Buffalo Pass.\n\nRight over to the west of the photograph is Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong's highest mountain.\n\nIn those days there was a clear view of the Harbour from Government House and Governors were said to use the number of ships in the Harbour as a barometer of the economy. In this photograph there does not appear to be a great deal of activity.\n\n(Question from Dan Waters, who borrowed the photograph and copied it: 'During the 1956 Riots I served as a Special Constable based at the Waterfront Police Station. I was under the impression that this",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215789,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 88,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "21\n\n* infra para. on Chinese secret societies and Indian convicts, for a more balanced understanding of the population behaviour at that time\n\n54 Indian Charter Act of 1833\n\n❝ the Charters of Justice, 1807, 1826, and 1855; Regina v Willians Esq., cf. Maxwell PB, 'The Law of England in Penang, Malacca and Singapore', JA, ns iii (1859) p 26 - 55\n\ncf. Thio Eunice, \"The Singapore Chinese Protectorate and Events and Conditions Leading to Its Establishment, 1823 - 1877' Journal of the South Seas Society xvi (1960); Tan DE, supra, Chap 6\n\n\"Hansard, 3rd series, vol cxlix, p 995\n\n*Thio, supra, p 47 - examples include gang robberies, collection of \"protection\" money from shopkeepers, or contributions in the nature of blackmail; Chiefs of secret societies were also known to hold their own Courts of Justice to settle disputes between members, even for serious crimes eg sometimes mutilated trunks of victims were found in the jungle or elsewhere, usually with the right or left hand chopped up into a certain number of parts and left hanging together by the skin\n\n*Thio, supra, p 51, 52 ; Buckley, supra, p 757 - in the petition, the European merchants had made suggestions to the Indian government on how to improve the situation but the EIC responded with indifference and 'sometimes without even the slightest acknowledgment of their having been made'\n\nThio, supra, p 52\n\n71 Thio, supra, p 53\n\n7\n\n74\n\nThio, supra, p 34\n\nThio, supra, p 77; Tan D E, supra, Chap 6 p 72, 73\n\n(for example, the Currency Act 1855)\n\n(for example, 1837 admiralty jurisdiction, 1848 insolvency jurisdiction, 1855 Charter of Justice etc.)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215899,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 198,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "Pottinger Battery: 1 officer + 26 soldiers\n\n3 February 1920 The Chief of Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, considered that Hong Kong could resist Japanese attack for 3 months before relief from Singapore arrived.\n\nWashington Treaty\n\n1920/1921\n\n1922\n\nThe Admiralty informed the Committee of Imperial Defence that it was the authority to advise the scale of attack on ports and that for Hong Kong, the \"status quo applies.\"\n\nRollo, 1992, p.98\n\nRollo, 1992, p.101\n\nRollo, 1992, p.102\n\n1924\n\n\"Devil's Peak Sheet No.3,\" Ordnance Survey 1904, corrected and printed at the War Office 1924, shows road access, including \"roads suitable for man-handled guns\" and detailed land uses in the Devil's Peak area, with boundaries of War Department lands delineated. However, the locations of batteries and the Redoubt are not shown.\n\nPRO100(2)\n\n1927\n\nAerial Photograph No. H19 15 taken by HMS Pegasus.\n\nThe Joint Overseas and Home Defence Committee review.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.104\n\n1928\n\nSteel choke caused problems to the 9.2-inch guns at Devil's Peak.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\n1929\n\nAugust 1930\n\nFebruary 1931\n\nChinese writer/composer, Tien Han, visited Hong Kong and was impressed by the scenic views of Lei Yue Mun, as stated in his poem \"Good Bye Hong Kong.\"\n\nThe 12th Heavy Battery replaced the 9-inch guns with anti-choke pattern.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\nThe 12 Heavy Battery fired new guns at Gough Battery. \"Gough Battery fired over Hong Kong Island and Repulse Bay.\"\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\n1933\n\nAnnual Review of the Defence of Ports.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.105\n\n22 October 1934 The 12 Heavy Battery practised indirect shots at Pottinger Battery.\n\n1934\n\nA letter from the Military Operation Branch of the War Office indicated plans to modernise two 9.2-inch guns at Devil's Peak in 1936/37 with 35-degree mountings.\n\n1936\n\nThe Hong Kong Defence Scheme\n\nRollo, 1992, p.107\n\nRollo, 1992, p.108, 109\n\nRollo, 1992, p.110, 112\n\n131",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216024,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 323,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "257\n\nand pleasure-grounds, all of which showed evident signs of great neglect. The suburbs were one dense mass of habitations of two stories in height; the lower portions of which were devoted to the handicraftsmen, who employed themselves in them, or to store rooms, in which merchandise was deposited. There were numerous public buildings, most of them appearing to be of a religious character, either dedicated to Buddha or Confucius.\n\nMainly for safety reasons ships passing up and down the Yangzi tended to use the main channel which ran along the north bank of the Great River opposite Zhenjiang. Down the years spits have formed close to Zhenjiang, mainly off Ganlu Si [Consular Bluff] and Xiang Shan Bluff, whilst the Zhengrenzhou spit steadily advanced downstream from the west blocking off the approaches to the harbour. The flat sandy bottom, so the Admiralty Guide tells us, does not provide good holding ground, especially during autumn gales.\n\nThe channel of the Great River at Zhenjiang is some two miles in breadth and had long been a ferry crossing point over the Yangzi, linking Zhenjiang with the major city of Yangzhou, a short distance upstream of the northern section of the Grand Canal. The long-mooted bridge over the River has still to be built. In the early days of the opening up of China by the West the city was believed to be the furthest point upstream on the Yangzi which seagoing vessels of the heaviest burden could reach with comparative ease. When Hankou, over five hundred miles further upstream, was opened to foreign trade it soon became apparent that trade at Zhenjiang consisted of little more than being an agency for steamers using the port as a stopping point, and for the Customs House for Chinese merchants. So it was that when vessels had access to the fountainhead of trade at Hankou, together with the fact that the harbour at Zhenjiang having silted up, the importance of the port became in great measure superseded. Sadly, the dolphins which not too long ago frolicked in the Great River and were commonly seen off Zhenjiang have been fished into extinction with today's oily pollution preventing any return, though a very occasional porpoise may still be seen.\n\nA Victorian writer described the climate and temperature of Zhenjiang as 'little different from that in Shanghai, whereas the varied scenery and hilly surroundings of Zhenjiang were an advantage which",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216099,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 398,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "332\n\nSir Robert had a wonderful funeral procession with 16 bands. In those days popular tunes at Chinese funerals were; Abide with me, Polly Wolly Doodle all the Day, and Yes, we have no Bananas! They were good, rousing tunes and most Chinese did not understand the words anyway. Bamboo ramps were a common sight in the 1950s to bring coffins and corpses down to street level. Ramps disappeared with traffic congestion and with the introduction of high-rise buildings, about 1960. Major Chinese festivals occur in the calendar when there are marked changes of seasons. People are then likely to feel \"under the weather.\" When the body is at a low ebb a sick person is more likely to die. In 1956, it was said that Sir Robert had “passed over\" Ching Ming and should be able to carry on at least to Dragon Boat Festival. However, it was not to be.\n\nIn March 1955 I had managed to obtain a government quarter at 56 Conduit Road. At the time it resembled a quiet country lane, gay with flowers, where you could occasionally hear barking deer calling from Victoria Peak. A few people were still carried up to Mid-Levels by sedan chairs which, until the end of the fifties, were parked at the bottom of Wyndham Street.\n\nI engaged a Chinese amah to whom I paid $130 a month. She spoke Pidgin English and talked of \"going topside” when she meant going upstairs. Indeed some of us old Hong Kong hands still use pidgin expressions. I, for example, still talk of a makee-learn, for someone learning a job, and I say small chow when I mean canapés which are provided at receptions. A Chinese colleague complained that, at $130, I was overpaying my amah. He gave his $70 a month. He also said that his amah had no time off. If she had anything important to do she would request a few hours off work. Several people had gold teeth in those days and the saying was that one should have enough gold in one's mouth to pay for one's funeral. The present-day, gold-coloured building, at Admiralty, is nicknamed the \"Amah's Tooth.\"\n\nWhen I first lived in Conduit Road there were a number of quite palatial mansions standing in their own grounds, often with tennis courts, in the Mid-levels. One example was the house on the site, at No.41, on which I live today. The old building was demolished in the mid-1960s. From 1951 to '61 it was occupied by the Foreign Correspondents' Club (FCC). The film, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, based on Han",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216399,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2003",
        "page_number": 158,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "108\n\nA total of five officers and thirty men were saved, and eighteen lives were lost.\n\nThe commanding officer of H.M.S/M POSEIDON was found to have been in error by improperly starboarding his helm when he should have maintained his course and speed under Collision Regulations.\n\nBased at Wei-Hai-Wei, through the summer until the latter part of August HERMES exercised regularly with other units of the fleet.\n\nMeanwhile in England the difficult financial situation, largely brought on by the effects of the Great Depression, had deteriorated further. The Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald had been unable to cope with the rapidly rising numbers of unemployed and in August had resigned. From 25th August MacDonald had continued as prime minister, but now as head of a coalition administration consisting of Labour, Conservative and Liberal members.\n\nOne measure of financial stringency which was adopted was to reduce the pay of civil servants and of members of H.M. Forces. Unfortunately in the Royal Navy the matter was badly handled by the Admiralty, and to a lesser extent by senior officers of the Atlantic Fleet. In addition political agitation had occurred, and elements of the press had not been of much assistance in calming the situation, rather the opposite in fact. The result was that early in September the Invergordon Mutiny had taken place.\n\nIn China too all was not easy.\n\nAdmiral Sir Howard Kelly drily noted:\n\n'Even for the China Station, where dull moments are unusual, the month of September has been one of considerable excitement.'\n\nHe continued in paragraph two:\n\n\"The assumption of office by the new Government of the United Kingdom and consequent economy measures, the advance of the Cantonese Forces against Nanking with the prospects of increased unrest in the Yangtze valley, the commencement of the fall of the River, when",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216407,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2003",
        "page_number": 166,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "116\n\nJapanese cruiser YAHAGI11 was due to arrive at 2200 hours that evening.\n\nIn the interim the freighter MADRAS MARU2 arrived. She attempted a rescue operation but this was not successful. Indeed the seas were so high that it was not even possible to contemplate sending the nine survivors across to her for repatriation to Japan.\n\nSince all these Japanese flag ships had appeared or were due to appear at the scene of the grounding Captain Mackinnon informed NASHI that he would sail for Hong Kong that afternoon, and take with him the nine men. Later he was to write:\n\n'Many friendly and complimentary flag signals were exchanged with all ships present, including the wreck. At 1700 I proceeded to Hong Kong leaving the Japanese destroyer NASHI in charge of the situation.'\n\nOn Saturday 7 November HERMES returned to her buoy at Hong Kong and a short while later the nine rescued seamen were landed ashore.\n\nIt is pleasant to be able to record that in due course official thanks were rendered by the Japanese minister of foreign affairs, Baron Kijuro Shidehara. His letter was addressed to the British ambassador to Tokyo, H.E. Sir Francis Oswald Lindley who forwarded these thanks to the Foreign Office in London from where, in turn, they were passed to the Secretary to the Admiralty.\n\nA year later, on 6th December 1932 at Hong Kong, the C. in C. came onboard our ship to present Lloyds Silver Medals to the three officers, and Bronze Medals to the six ratings who had taken part in the rescue. Also a bronze shield, mounted on a wooden base, was presented to the ship by the Committee of Lloyds.\n\nIn December 1931 an epidemic of diphtheria struck Hong Kong. Amongst those taken ill was Captain Mackinnon. Commander Baxter temporarily assumed command until the arrival of the ship's new commanding officer, Captain W.B. Mackenzie, on 25th February 1932.\n\nCaptain Mackinnon duly returned home and on 21 January 1933",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216483,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2003",
        "page_number": 242,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "192\n\nKarun without an effective paddle wheel but he met every emergency with energy and resolve.\n\nWherever he went, he surveyed the river, recorded his observations and updated his map. He explored other waterways, first by sailing boat and then in the Shushan in order to establish which rivers in the area were navigable. The account of Shushan's journey of exploration up the River Diz in 1891 is still included in the current edition of the Admiralty Pilot for the Persian Gulf,\n\nLife in Iran\n\nLife in Iran for the young Cornell Plant was not all hard work. Game was plentiful and he enjoyed shooting it. If it was edible he ate it, if not, he just enjoyed the shooting. He shot hare, fox, jackal, wolf and deer and went pig sticking with mixed results. He was asked by representatives of one of the villages along the route to shoot a desert lion that had been raiding their herds. Less sportingly, he shot another lion that he spotted from the bridge of the Shushan. Far more dangerous was his encounter with a wild buffalo, which he dropped in the true tradition of the best heroic tales with a shot from his .577 Express, as it charged at him from a few yards away. The most amazing of his adventures was watching a formal battle between two warring Arab tribes from a concealed position on a hill overlooking the chosen battleground. It took several hours for the 600 or so mounted warriors to assemble and hurl insults at each other but once the battle proper started, it was over very quickly. One side felt they were losing and left the field at speed leaving their Sheikh and his family to fight on alone. The opposing warriors withdrew to allow the families of the two opposing sheikhs to fight it out - to the death which they did. Only one 14-year-old boy was spared from the losing Sheikh's family.\n\nThe whole area through which the Shushan travelled was under the direct control of the Nizam, an official appointed by the Shah but when he lost favour and another took over, law and order seemed to break down and Plant found himself threatened by gangs of river pirates. Fortunately, he kept on the move and away from trouble but on one occasion, when anchored overnight in a remote spot he and his team were stood to with their hunting rifles at the ready. The watch, while half asleep, had observed what he made out to be dusky figures stealing",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]