[ { "id": 206289, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "100\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nalias\n\nFung Ming Shan alias Fung Po Hai Fung Chew, another of the founders of Tung Wah, in the 1870s was compradore to A.H. Hogg and Company, but later became the compradore of the Chartered Mercantile Bank. He had received an English language education and may have been a classmate of Ng Choy (Wu Ting Fang) at St. Paul's College, as they were partners in several land transactions in Hong Kong. Fung Ming Shan was one of the signatories in 1878 of the petition of natives of Tung Kwun District to Government concerning the kidnapping and sale of children, which resulted in the organization of the Po Leung Kuk. He was naturalized as a British subject in 1881. He died in 1898, leaving a widow and two sons, one of whom died in 1906.\n\nYet another of the organizing directors of Tung Wah was the compradore of Gilman and Company, Choy Wing Chip **蔡永接 alias Choy Lung Chi. Along with Choey Teo Soon and Chop Aping, he was a partner in the Wing Cheong Shun firm which failed in 1873 owing some 160,000 taels. He was probably the brother of Choy Aloy, who was compradore to J. J. dos Remedios and Company in the 1870s; both were in Hong Kong as early as 1865. Choy Achip died in 1874 and the administration of his estate was granted to his eldest son Choy Afoong.\n\nA compradore family that appears on a number of the various lists and by 1881 had become the largest rate-payer was headed by Ng Acheong alias Ng Ying Cheong(A) who died in 1873. He left an estate of $260,000. The family were compradores to the firm of Messrs. Douglas Lapraik and Company. Lapraik began his career as a jeweller and watchmaker, but by the 1850s had extended his business into commerce and eventually the firm built up a large shipping concern. His compradore first appears on the Hong Kong records in 1855. After the death of Ng Acheong in 1873, a near relative Ng Sang(A) alias Ng Ying Sang alias Ng Chuk Shau succeeded as compradore. He fell victim to the fever of land speculation in 1881 and suffered heavy losses. Concern over his strained financial position so affected his health that he died in 1883. Action was brought by his employers against the Ng family property to cover debts he left in his compradore's accounts. The family had come to Hong Kong from Macao.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206610, "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": 158, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "152\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS EVANS\n\nNovember 1846, he assigned the lot to Foong Achi (otherwise Attai) for an unspecified amount. The transaction was recorded as an absolute assignment and this led Tarrant, then Clerk of Deeds in the Land Office and to whom we shall shortly return, to add a note on the lease register to the effect that the leaseholder's name could not be altered in the Lease Register until the mortgage encumbrances were cleared. Though Foong later claimed that the transaction was an absolute assignment, with $1,000 as the consideration, Tarrant rejected this on the ground that the document of assignment was a forgery.10 But in 1848 Foong re-assigned the property to Hwei's administrator, stating that all sums owing were satisfied. This is sufficient to show that, when the market passed to Hwei's brother Afoon on his death in 1847, the picture was already complicated. It was to become more so.\n\nHwei Afoon seems to have felt the need for more cash for reasons which will soon become apparent and he entered into a transaction which is very difficult to understand, though he may have done so under duress. On 28 June 1847, he assigned his interest (as administrator) to two others on trust for various purposes. These two named persons were, first, Chow Aoan who, at the time was compradore to the Government Treasury and, as such, a powerful man. He already had extensive property interests in the Chinese parts of the town and was to extend them in the years to come. The other person was Le Quong-cheong about whom less is known. He described himself on one occasion as a 'bookseller' but certainly also lent money.\n\nThe purpose of the transaction must have been to secure the repayment of monies borrowed by Hwei Afoon. Ying Wing-kee had transferred to Le on 19 June 1847 his interest in the property, the transaction being memorialised as a mortgage to secure the repayment of $2,400 owing to Le by Ying, but it may have in fact been a transfer to Le of Ying's interest under the mortgage of 12 October 1845. As shall be seen, however, Ying retained some interest in the market. The deed of assignment of 28 June 1847 required the trustees (Chow and Le) to pay the Crown Rent twice a month. Then they were to permit Ying Wing-kee to receive the rents of the nine shops fronting on the Queen's Road, showing that Ying retained some interest though precisely what it was is not clear. Hwei Afoon himself was to be paid $100 per month and the trustees were to pay", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206611, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "H.K.'S CENTRAL MARKET AND THE TARRANT AFFAIR\n\n153\n\nto themselves, in the case of Le, interest at 4% on the principal sum of $2,400 (the figure given in the deal between Ying and Le) and, in the case of Chow, at 4% on the sum of $1,000. All disbursements were to be met by them and any balance after all these purposes had been satisfied was to be put to reducing the principal outstanding to them. Once the capital sums were repaid, then the property was to be reconveyed to Hwei Afoon for a nominal $5.\n\nThus, by mid-1847, four different people had different interests in the market. There remains one other who so far has not yet appeared on the scene.\n\nHwei Afoon was a builder and contracted with the Government for some work on Government property at Stanley (Chek Chu). He completed the work and received an order for payment drawn on the Treasury. When he went to the Treasury to collect his money, the Treasury Compradore (Chow Aoan) told him that he would deduct $750 which was owing to Colonel Caine's Compradore (named Lo Een-teen) in respect of the Market. Afoon knew that his brother, Hwei Aqui, had agreed, in consideration of influence being exerted on his behalf to secure the lease of the Market, to make a payment of $150 per month to Lo Een-teen and also to allow him to select meat and produce in the Market without payment. The point was that Lo represented that he could persuade his master, Caine, then the Colonial Secretary, to give the lease to Hwei; apparently made these payments and after his death Afoon paid $400 to have the lease transferred to him but demurred at the payment of $150 per month, considering no doubt that there was little that Lo could do about it if he did not pay. But he was reckoning without Chow Aoan who attempted to dock the arrears of 'squeeze' unpaid by Afoon.\n\nThe arrangement of 28 June 1847 may have been an attempt by the parties to reach an 'honourable' solution. But matters did not stop there for Afoon unadvisedly went to the Surveyor General's Office to complain that he was not receiving all the money due to him under his Government contract and, no doubt, explained why. He told his story to William Tarrant, the Clerk of Deeds and general factotum in the office of the Surveyor General.\n\nTarrant had had a mixed career since arriving in China a few years previously. He had first come as a steward on board ship and, on the establishment of the colony, was able to secure the position of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206613, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "H.K.'S CENTRAL MARKET AND THE TARRANT AFFAIR\n\n155\n\nwhich went into his own pocket. The accusations had, of course, been withdrawn because they were impossible to substantiate but doubts still existed on the expenditure of the money which had undoubtedly been collected—Caine's version was that it had been used to run a voluntary hospital for the women but the Hong Kong Register alleged that a sum of about $500 per month was still being collected. To make matters absolutely plain, the Register reported that Afoon had told them that the Compradore's 'squeeze' was known to the Chinese as \"Caine's rent\" or \"tax.\"20\n\nThe finger was pointing at Caine though it is fair to say that Tarrant, whatever his motives, merely recounted the alleged facts. It was the two newspapers which implicated Caine in the dealings of the two compradores, but it was only Tarrant who found himself arraigned, with Afoon, for conspiring to damage the reputation of Caine. He was committed to trial before the Supreme Court by a bench of Justices. As it happened, the three justices were all Government servants (Campbell, Hillier and C. G. Holdforth) and two of them held to be Caine's protégés. It is probably true that the public was taken aback at this and Tarrant had their sympathy. When his case eventually came before the Supreme Court in October, Tarrant being suspended from duty during this period, the Attorney General moved that the trial be postponed because of the absence of a material witness. Lo Een-teen, Caine's Compradore, had disappeared from the Colony. Tarrant was willing for the trial to proceed but the Chief Justice Hulme ruled that it should be postponed and when it came up again, the Attorney General (now Parker, acting) moved before Campbell, now Acting Chief Justice, that there was no case to answer and did not offer any evidence.21 But, although Tarrant was now a free man, he found himself without a job—during his suspension the Government had combined his post with another. He proceeded to petition the Secretary of State, Earl Grey but he was hampered by lack of evidence.22\n\nIt is at this point that we return to the account of transactions in the Central Market. On 23 November 1847, Hwei's interest in the Central Market ceased when it was sold by the Sheriff to Le Kip-tye, an interpreter in the Government's employ, in execution of a writ of fi. fa.23 in the suit McSwyney v. Hwei Afoon.24 His interest was said to amount to 5/13 of the whole and this must have been his interest under the deed of 28 June of the same year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206614, "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "156\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS EVANS\n\nThis had the effect of substituting Le Kip-tye for Hwei Afoon in that arrangement.\n\nAt about the same time as the charges against Tarrant were dismissed, in the December of 1847, Tarrant purchased at public auction the equity of redemption25 of the Market lot. This sale went unrecorded in the Land Office, possibly for sinister reasons but more likely because Tarrant desired to keep it quiet for the time being.26 He probably bought the equity of redemption at the same sale as that at which Le Kip-tye purchased an interest, Tarrant buying the redemption and Le that right to receive $100 per month which Hwei had had. It must have been that Tarrant's purpose was to buy himself an interest in the Market so that he could obtain positive evidence about corruption to back up his petition to Earl Grey but he was not yet in a position to be able to call to see the accounts which would tell what he needed. However, about two months later, on 24 February 1848, Le Kip-tye assigned his 5/13 interest to Ong Chok27 in consideration of a monthly payment of $10028 and, on the same date, we find the second complicated transaction involving several parties. Chow Aoan, Le Quong-chong and Hwei Afoon (whatever interest he had remaining) assigned their respective interests to Tarrant (in consideration of a payment of $130 to Hwei Afoon, the sum which Tarrant is stated to have paid at public auction for the equity of redemption) and to Ong Chok (in consideration of a payment of $2,400 to Le Quong-chong and $1,300 to Chow Aoan, both sums being the sums still outstanding as principal under the arrangement of 28 June).29\n\nTarrant was now in strange company, being a part-owner of what was otherwise a wholly Chinese concern. But he still could not get his evidence and, the following February, he arrived at an arrangement with Ong Chok whereby he released his equity of redemption in favour of Ong in return for a quarter share of the surplus rents, etc.30 Now, whilst he could undoubtedly use the money since he was unemployed and would have had little coming in from the few properties he owned, he very significantly secured the right to inspect the books on the first of every Chinese month.31\n\nWhatever evidence he did uncover, if any at all, certainly did not reach the public but he was able to receive limited redress from Earl Grey who vindicated him to the extent of allowing him his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 } ]