[ { "id": 204475, "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-1962", "page_number": 107, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "96\n\n5\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nSee a tablet in the Chow-Wong School at Kam Tin.\n\n* Papers 1899 p. 188.\n\n* Papers 1899 p. 188.\n\n'Lockhart's figures, given in Appendixes 3 and 5 to his Report are not exact, and he has emphasised his sketchy estimate of the land population \"in default of any reliable statistics possessed by the Chinese Government\" and said he had been unable to obtain even an estimate of the boat people Papers 1899 pp. 187,189. Taking areas within my own detailed knowledge I have found that villages established long before 1898 have not been included in the returns or else have been linked with other villages without special mention, The population figures for the Islands, in particular, are not above suspicion and are probably greater than shown in Appendix 5.\n\n* Papers 1899 p. 189.\n\nPapers 1899 p. 189.\n\n10 Universal ownership was clearly shown by the land survey which followed the lease of 1898. This was carried out by surveyors and staff on loan from the Government of India, and was followed by a registration of titles which was enlivened by land courts which sat to determine possession in disputed cases. The survey sheets and the Crown Rent Rolls which form the schedules to them can be found in the District Offices of the New Territories Administration and they are a valuable record of land ownership and land classification at the time of the lease.\n\nAt Shek Pik and Fan Pui in 1958 out of sixty-six families four owned between 3-4 acres, nine between 2-3 acres, nineteen between 1-2 acres, fourteen owned between a half to one acre, twelve owned between a quarter to a half, and eight between 10 to 25 acres. Except a few late arrivals, therefore, every family owned land of its own. The position was much the same as in 1898.\n\nThe same was true of Wei Hai Wei, of which Johnston wrote Lion & Dragon, p. 148, \"Whatever the faults of the Chinese social system may be there is no doubt that in Wei Hai Wei it very largely accounts for the complete absence of pauperism (though no one is rich) for the orderliness of the people (nearly everyone has a stake in the land and has nothing to gain and everything to lose from disorder), for the uninterrupted succession of father and son in the homesteads, and for the long pedigrees attested by family graveyards and ancestral tablets\".\n\n11 See Johnston Lion and Dragon pp. 134-54. I have compared customary deeds of sale and mortgage from the New Territory between the years 1898 and 1958 with those cited by him and find that they invariably follow the same form (see especially Johnston pp. 144-145). These deeds are known as white deeds (as in Ching times) and had not been put through the formal process of registration in the District Office which would turn them into legal documents; or, as formerly in Ching days, in the Magistrate's yamen when they became red deeds (RI #). They were common until the Pacific war and even now are occasionally known to be drawn up in addition to the Memorial registering the conveyance in the Land Office. To select an example at random here is one from Shek Pik on Lantau Island dated the second year of the Republic (1913) which reads", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204790, "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-1964", "page_number": 93, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "PENG CHAU\n\n81\n\nThe first ancestor came from Po Kat in Po On, then San On, district. He settled not far from the anchorage and the shops nearby, and the family flourished there for several generations, farming most of the cultivable land and planting an extensive forestry lot.29 But the position had changed for the worse by 1899. At the land settlement which followed the British lease, though the LUIs were credited with owning house land, four and a half acres of paddy fields, and nine and a half acres of dry cultivation and vegetable land on Peng Chau, all except their houses were mortgaged to different persons without hope of return.30 When my informant was a boy, the LUI houses were in a broken-down condition. They also owned a lot of land on the Lantau coast opposite Peng Chau, but much of this too was mortgaged by the end of the century.31\n\nThe CHUNG family are said to have been the next arrivals. According to old Mr. CHUNG, his great-grandfather, who was the family's first ancestor to live on the island, came together with his son, a boy of ten. Consultation of the grave tablet, which is dated 1834,32 shows that he probably arrived in Peng Chau in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, not long after the LUIs. He came from his parent village of Tin Liu Ha in the Lam Tsuen Valley near Tai Po in the present New Territories. In 1899, the family still owned very little land of its own on Peng Chau, having, besides houses, only one-third of an acre of dry cultivation, but they held the mortgages of nearly nine acres of the LUI land, including most of their paddy fields.33 The family farmed their own and the mortgaged land, but, as I have said above, fishing was their chief concern about ten years before the British lease, another seeming \"irregularity\" which warns against the assumption that our local communities have separate characteristics and perform distinct functions which do not overlap. It was very likely Mr. CHUNG's grandfather's success at sea which enabled him to loan money to the LUI family and so gradually obtain their land; and the lack of land which made this family concentrate on the sea in the first place.\n\nAnother family of Hakka settlers are the LAM ✯ clan who came in the mid-nineteenth century. According to family tradition, three brothers who were operating a pawn-shop in Shum Chun Market were \"squeezed\" by yamen runners when a murder...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204878, "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-1964", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "156\n\nBENHAM, Miss M. E. M. - Harcourt Health Centre, Morrison Hill Rd.,\n\nBERTOVICH, Miss R. C.\n\nBIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D.\n\nBLACK, D.\n\nBLACK, Mrs. W. A.\n\nBLACKMORE, M.\n\nBLATCHFORD, C. H.\n\nBLUNDEN, Prof. E. C.\n\nBOAK, C. D.\n\nBOARD, D. B. M.*\n\nBOLLMEYER, Mrs. H.\n\nBONSALL, G. W.\n\nBORGEEST, G.\n\nBOXER, B.\n\nBOYD, J. D. I.\n\nBRAGA, J. M.\n\nBREUIL, Mrs. N. du\n\nBROMHALL, J. D.\n\nBROOKS, D. E.\n\nBROWNE, H. J. C.\n\nBRUNN, F.\n\nBUCKNELL, P.\n\nBYRNE, D. J.\n\nH.K.\n\nR.D. No. 1, Box 220, Masontown, Pa. U.S.A.\n\n7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon.\n\nLong Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland.\n\n10-A, Stanley Beach Road, Stanley, H.K.\n\nDept. of History, H.K. University, H.K.\n\nNew Asia College, 6 Farm Road, Kowloon.\n\nH.K. University, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\nDept. of Modern Languages, H.K. University, H.K.\n\nc/o Education Dept., Battery Path, H.K.\n\n408/9 Yu To Sang Building, 37 Queen's Road, C., H.K.\n\nH.K. University Library, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 1058, H.K.\n\n2, Percival Street, 3rd floor, H.K.\n\nc/o Political Adviser, Colonial Secretariat, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 951, H.K.\n\n86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K.\n\nFisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K.\n\nRadio Hong Kong, Mercury House, H.K.\n\nc/o Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K.\n\n908 Takshing House, H.K.\n\nLegal Dept. Central Govt. Offices, H.K.\n\nBURKHARDT, Col. V. R. 86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K.\n\nCALCINA, P. G.*\n\nCAMERON, N.\n\nCASHMORE, Miss M.\n\nCHAN, Fook-Lam\n\nCHAN, Dr. Hee Chi\n\nP. O. Box 15118, H.K\n\nCommercial Investment Co., Ltd., Union House, 12th floor, H.K.\n\n75, Deepwater Bay Road, H.K.\n\n9A, Cameron House, 40 Magazine Gap Road, H.K.\n\n77 Chun Yeung Street, 10th floor, H.K.\n\nBank of Canton Building, H.K.\n\n* Life Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon Secretary of any inaccuracy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205029, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "128\n\nBENHAM, Miss M. E. M. Harcourt Health Centre, Morrison Hill Rd.,\n\nBERTOVICH, Miss R. C.\n\nBERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.\n\nBEVERIDGE, R. J.\n\nBIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D.\n\n+\n\nBLACK, D.\n\nBLACKMORE, M.\n\nBLAKER, D. J. R. -\n\nBLATCHFORD, C. H,\n\nBLUE, A. D. -\n\nT\n\nBLUNDEN, Prof. E. C.\n\nBOAK, C. D.\n\nBOARD, D. B. M.*\n\nBODILLY, Mrs. M.\n\nBOLLMEYER, Mrs. H.\n\nBONSALL, G. W.\n\nBORDWELL, J. H.\n\nBORGEEST, G.\n\nBOXER, B.\n\nBOYD, J. D. I.\n\nBRAGA, J. M.\n\nBRAUN, F.\n\n7\n\nד\n\nBREUIL, Mrs. N. du\n\n-\n\nBRITTON, Mrs. N. M.\n\nBROMHALL. J. D.\n\nBROOKS, D. E.\n\nBROWN, Miss B.\n\nBROWN, Mrs. D. L.\n\n+\n\n-\n\n-\n\n+\n\n+\n\n+\n\nH.K.\n\nR.D. No. 1, Box 220, Masontown, Pa. U.S.A.\n\nItalian Embassy, Tokyo, Japan.\n\nUniversity Press, Hong Kong University, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\n7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon,\n\nLong Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland,\n\nDept. of History, H.K. University, H.K.\n\nc/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K.\n\nNew Asia College, 6 Farm Road, Kowloon.\n\nc/o World Wide Shipping, Cornes & Co., C. P. O. Box 158, Tokyo, Japan.\n\nMerton College, Oxford University, England.\n\nDept. of Modern Languages, H.K. University, H.K.\n\nc/o Education Dept., Battery Path, H.K.\n\n12A Mt. Nicholson Road, H.K.\n\nc/o W. F. Bollmeyer & Co. (H.K.) Ltd., Rooms 408-9 Yu To Sang Building, H.K.\n\nFlat 4-B, 3 University Drive, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 25, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 1058, H.K.\n\nDept. of Geography, Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, Michigan 48824, U.S.A.\n\nc/o Political Adviser, Colonial Secretariat, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 951, H.K,\n\n8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K.\n\n86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K.\n\n6 Peel Rise, The Peak, H.K.\n\nFisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K.\n\nRadio Hong Kong, Mercury House, H.K.\n\nMedical Rehabilitation Centre, L. 254 Kun Tong, Kowloon,\n\nChatham Galleries, 103 Chatham Road, Kowloon.\n\n*\n\nLife Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205216, "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-1966", "page_number": 172, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "166\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\ncase at Compensation Board hearings, following upon such resumptions.\n\nRods, acres and chains are unknown measurements in Hong Kong insofar as the Chinese farmer is concerned. He uses such measurements as mau (mou), tau chung (tou chung) and tam shui (tan shui) which besides being different words are also very different in area. A mau = 4.8 of an acre. This measurement is still used in mainland China but has been out of general use in the Colony of Hong Kong since at least the early 1900's. Here in Hong Kong the tau chung and the tam shui are the local measures.1\n\nEach Chinese village in Hong Kong has its own tau. Usually it is a wooden tub or boat-shaped container which holds approximately ten catties of rice seed. A catty is a Chinese weight of 1¼ pounds. The tau is therefore about 13.333 lbs., but could be more or less as there is no standard tau in use among the villages. Turning from the tau to the tau chung, the latter measure is the area of land required to grow one tau of rice seed.\n\nAgricultural land in Hong Kong is rated as first class, second class or third class, dependent on its water supply. First class land is well-watered land that will grow two crops of rice and a catch-crop in the off season, generally sweet potato. Second class land relies generally on rainfall for its water supply and is rated as medium grade land. Third class land is generally located on hillsides, is usually dry, and is used as orchard land or for growing ground nuts, millet and upland rice.2\n\nJust prior to the rice growing season which coincides with the southeast monsoon, padi nurseries are prepared here and there in the fields and the seed is scattered in a small nursery plot which grows very green and very thick. At the same time, the farmer gets out his buffalo and ploughs the padi fields in preparation for the planting. Each padi field is constructed so that it is at a slightly higher level than the one below it, which accounts for the terracing effect one associates with padi fields. The size and location of a padi field is governed by its ability to receive a gravity feed of water from its source. Each padi is surrounded by an earth bund in which outlets are made so that water flowing in from the top level feeds directly to the lowest level. With sufficient water in the lowest field the farmer plugs the bund outlet and allows the next level to fill until all the padis have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205217, "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-1966", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n167 \n\nsufficient water. The bottom of a padi field has an impervious layer of clay with a loamy layer of earth above it.\n\nNone of this work is done without first consulting a book called the Tung Shing(a) or Tung Shu(b), the “Universal Book\". This is the Chinese \"Old Moore's Almanack\", except that the Tung Shing does not prophesy world events but merely lists the day-to-day signs which indicate when a field should be ploughed, which are good days to wash hair, or when to conclude a contract, dig a well or plant fields. The book also lists the lucky hours of each day during which these events should be performed.\n\nThe lucky day and hour having arrived, the village womenfolk turn out with flat hoes and baskets. With the hoe, clumps of padi sprouts six to eight inches long are lifted from the nursery, placed in the baskets and carried to the padi field. If the field is first-grade land, then the clumps of padi seedlings are planted by pressing them into the mud in fairly thick clumps, about eight inches between clumps and in nearly straight lines. Should the land be rated as second-class, then the clumps are not so thick, although the spacing is about the same. In consequence, if one tau of seed was planted in the nursery, then by transplanting the sprouts into first-class padi land, a lesser area is required to grow that tau of seed than if it was transplanted into second-class padi land. However, in each case, the area of land required to grow the tau of seed is still called a tau chung. To the European mind, this method of land measurement is confusing, but regardless of these differing factors, the tau chung is the area on which tenant rentals are fixed, agreed, and paid.\n\nTo standardise these variants and to arrive at a reasonable basis on which to fix statistical information in the Colony, the Director of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry related the tau chung to the acre by declaring (about 1950) that in future, six tau chung would be considered as one acre. For most areas of the New Territories, this is accepted as a fair rate, being generally in line with old custom. Under this calculation, the tau chung becomes equivalent to 7,260 square feet.\n\nIt was then found that on the southeastern portion of the New Territories, a different type of measure was used, which reduced the tau chung from 7,260 square feet to 4,365 square feet. The various villages and areas which used this smaller", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205218, "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-1966", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "168\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nmeasure were then recorded and the tau chung for these districts was calculated at ten to the acre. With tenant farmers in these villages paying about the same tenant rentals as the rest of the New Territories the enhanced value of agricultural land to the owners in this section was considerable.\n\nA curious method of land measurement called tam shui, which can be related to the tau chung in the manner described below, is conducted at Cheung Chau, an island about four miles by ferry from Hong Kong. Tam shui means \"carry water\". Here, the farmer measures his land by the amount of water needed to water his crops morning and evening. The island is dry and wells are dug which yield a good supply of water for cultivation purposes. This prevents padi being grown but allows general vegetable crops. The method used by the farmer is to have two wooden buckets suspended on a yoke across his shoulders. Each bucket holds about five gallons of water and has a rose at the end of the spout similar to the English watering can. He trots to his pool, presses the buckets into the water until full, trots out to his vegetable patch and waters his vegetables as he walks along. By the time he has completed thirty trips backwards and forwards, using sixty buckets of water he has then completed watering one tau chung of land. Tenant rentals are fixed on this basis.3\n\nKuk (穀)\n\nKuk is the Cantonese word for unhusked rice. It is also the medium through which tenant rentals are fixed.\n\nLandowners and tenants usually agree to conclude a contract at Chinese New Year when most of the fields are lying fallow. Land leases or short contracts are then entered into which are operative after Chinese New Year. The rent is tied to kuk (unhusked rice) and the price it fetches in the open market after harvesting. The rate usually quoted is about half the annual production of the field, so that the tenant gets half the value. For example, if a field of one tau chung can produce four piculs of rice per crop twice a year then the rent payable is the value of two piculs of rice of the first crop and the value of two piculs of rice of the second crop, as calculated at the open market price after harvesting.\n\nBotanically, rice is considered to be a tropical or subtropical", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205223, "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-1966", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "173\n\nBENHAM, Miss M. E. M. Harcourt Health Centre, Morrison Hill Rd.,\n\nBENT, Miss Dora\n\nBERTOVICH, Miss R. C.\n\nBERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.\n\nBEVERIDGE, R. J.\n\nBIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D.\n\nBLACK, D.\n\nBLACKMORE, M.\n\nBLAKER, D. J. R.\n\nBLUE, A. D.\n\nBOAK, C. D.\n\nBOARD, D. B. M.*\n\nBONSALL, G. W.\n\nBORDWELL, J. H.\n\nBORGEEST, G.\n\nNethersole Hospital, Bonham Road, H.K.\n\nR.D. No. 1, Box 220, Masontown, Pa., U.S.A.\n\nItalian Embassy, Tokyo, Japan.\n\nUniversity Press, Hong Kong University, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\n7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon,\n\nLong Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland,\n\nDept. of History, H.K. University, H.K.\n\nc/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K.\n\nChief Engineer, M.V. \"World Yuri\", World Wide (Shipping) Ltd., c/o Cornes & Co., C.P.O. Box 158, Tokyo, Japan,\n\nDept. of Modern Languages, H.K. University, H.K.\n\nc/o Education Dept., Battery Path, H.K.\n\nFlat 4-B, 3 University Drive, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 25, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 1058, H.K.\n\nBORRELL, Rev. Bro. O. W. St. Francis Xavier's College, 45 Sycamore Street, Kowloon.\n\nBOXER, Prof. B.\n\nBRAGA, J. M.\n\nBRAUN, F.\n\nBREUIL, Mrs. N. du\n\nBRITTON, Mrs. N. M.\n\nBROMHALL, J. D.\n\nBROOKS, D. E.\n\nBROWN, Miss B.\n\nBROWNE, H. J. C.\n\nBRUCE, Robert\n\nBRUUN, F.\n\nBUNGER, Dr. Karl\n\nDept. of Geography, Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, Michigan 48824, U.S.A.\n\nP. O. Box 951, H.K.\n\n8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K.\n\n86, Main Street, Stanley, H.K.\n\n6 Peel Rise, The Peak, H.K.\n\nFisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K.\n\nRadio Hong Kong, Mercury House, H.K.\n\nMedical Rehabilitation Centre, L254 Kwun Tong, Kowloon.\n\nc/o Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K.\n\nThe British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K.\n\n908 Takshing House, H.K.\n\nConsul General, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1, Duddell Street, H.K.\n\n* Life Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205247, "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-1967", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "and ethnographical interest that relate to the Hong Kong region of South China, we are fortunate in having an item dealing with the fall of the Sung dynasty and local relics relating to that dramatic and pathetic time; a note on the recovery in 1956 and 1966 of two cannon dating from the end of the Ming period; an article on Hong Kong mammals; and a study of a group of Hakka mountain villages in the New Territories by a Swedish anthropologist from Stockholm University who spent eleven months in Hong Kong in 1964-65. The 1966 Journal contained an account of the Five Great Clans of the New Territories by a British scholar, Dr. Hugh Baker, who spent several years in the New Territories recently, and an article ‘A Plea for a Regional Approach to Chinese History: the Case of the South China Coast' by Professor John Nolde, of the University of Maine, then a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong.\n\nThe Branch may therefore claim to have been making its contribution towards the elucidation of the little-studied history and sociology of the Hong Kong region. However, it is now time to study the urban area more intensively. Whilst the South China village has been examined by a number of scholars, in both the pre and post war periods, urban studies have received scant attention from scholars. In Hong Kong we have had an urban population for a hundred years. It is well to recall Governor Des Voeux's report of 1889 in which, describing the City of Victoria, he wrote:\n\n\"Going ashore our visitor would see..... in the Chinese quarters houses, constructed after a pattern peculiar to China, of almost equally solid materials, but packed so closely together and thronged so densely as to be in this respect probably without parallel in the world..... It is believed that over 100,000 people live within a certain district of the City of Victoria not exceeding one square mile in area. It is known that 1,600 people live in the space of a single acre.\n\nThese words serve to remind us that Hong Kong has an urban history and that the city has always been one in which over-crowding, housing and social problems and concern for public health have for long exercised the authorities. The records of the Hong Kong Government are available in considerable quantity and quality, both here in the Colonial Secretariat Library", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205341, "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-1967", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "96\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nthe Pui O group in South Lantau. Unlike Chan, who had been a newcomer, Cheung's family had been settled in the area for upwards of two centuries before his birth and his father possessed a small number of fields which had descended from his ancestors. The Cheung clan, too, was the most powerful in the sub-district. Its members were settled in five of the nine small villages of the group and included one or two degree holders by purchase among its immediate forebears.\n\nHowever, like Chan, Cheung went into business, but not in the market town and not as an errand-boy, but locally and on his own account. He opened a shop in a small house situated outside the main village of the group and stocked it with goods which he brought over by sampan from the nearby island of Cheung Chau, the local market centre and a fishing port. Again like Chan, Cheung had a good head for business and used whatever money he obtained from his shop to loan sums to other villagers. As usual the loans were made for interest at high rates or in return for mortgages of land. The deeds relating to about a dozen of his mortgages have survived in an old account book. One of them, relating to the year 1898, shows that he was capable of lending what was then, to a farmer, the considerable sum of 120 dollars, the equivalent of 90 ounces of silver in one single transaction. As happened more often than not in deals of this sort, this land, consisting of an acre and a quarter of good paddy fields, was sold to him seven years later.\n\nCheung's career developed along much the same lines as that of Chan Fu-shing. He settled disputes over a considerable area, including villages outside his own group, and helped to arrange various public services, including a regular ferry to the nearby market town of Cheung Chau. Again, he also took the lead in managing the affairs of the local temples and in repairing them when this became necessary.10 It is not certain whether he purchased a degree, but he may well have done so because, as has been said, this was the normal thing for a prospering villager to do at this period.\n\nKUNG FONG-CHAI (***)\n\nThe third member of the trio, Kung Fong-chai (c. 1850-1922) was a Hakka from a village a few miles from the market town of Tai O. Like the Cheungs, the Kung family had been settled on", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205383, "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-1967", "page_number": 145, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "138\n\nSALT MANUFACTURE IN HONG KONG\n\nS. Y. LIN\n\nEditor's Note. This article, which is of considerable ethnographic and nearly thirty years after-historical interest, first appeared in the pre-war publication The Hong Kong Naturalist (1930-41), Volume X, No. 1, January 1940. The editor of this interesting series, Dr. G. A. C. Herklots, Reader in Biology at the University of Hong Kong 1928-45 and Principal and Director of Research at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad 1953-60, has kindly given permission to reproduce it here. It is hoped that the article will be of interest to present-day residents of Hong Kong as well as providing for scholars a record of salt-production on the South China coast by both the leaching (percolation) and solar (evaporation) processes, now practically defunct in Tai O where the salt pans have been almost deserted for several years past. The author, Dr. Shu-yen Lin, who is now with the Fisheries Division, Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction Taipei, Taiwan (Formosa) has also expressed his agreement to the article being reproduced. I have added a few notes which, it is hoped, will be of some interest and may encourage others to take up this interesting subject in more detail.\n\nIn three places only is salt prepared from sea-water in the Colony namely at Tai O, a fishing village on Lantau island, Sha-taukok on the frontier in Starling Inlet and San Hui in Castle Peak Bay. Of these the first is the most important.\n\nThe salt marsh at Tai O, which occupies an area of about 70 acres and is enclosed by high dykes to prevent flooding at high tide or by storms, is owned by three companies, two of which are slightly bigger than the third. The annual production in 1938 amounted to about 25,000 piculs (1,488 tons) valued at about $27,500. A small portion is consumed locally, chiefly by the fishermen in the salting of fish, and all the rest is exported.\n\nThe companies lease the salines from Government and sub-let to individual salt-makers or hire them on a piece-wage basis in the form of shares in the profits. In the former case each salt-farmer leases a small saline of about 1/10 acre from the company, paying a rental of $2.00 per month, and endeavours to produce as much salt as possible from this limited area of land. The salt produced, however, must be sold to the company from which the saline has been leased. The company should be able to pay the farmer at a fixed price (50 cents per picul for 1938-1939), immediately on receiving the salt. On the average,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205384, "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-1967", "page_number": 146, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "SALT MANUFACTURE IN HONG KONG\n\n139\n\na single farmer can harvest about 500 piculs of salt within a year. Most of the salt farmers of this type are natives of Lantau island and leaching is the only method inherited from their remote ancestors.\n\nSalt-farmers of the other type are mostly natives of Swabue, Haifong district, who, being not quite familiar with the leaching method, employ the ordinary solar process exactly as they used to practice it in their native land. With a man as their head, a group of 18 to 20 salt-farmers is engaged by the company, or by the capitalist. These men receive no wages but a share of the harvest and do not receive the money until all the salt manufactured within a year is completely sold and the value collected. The company, as a general rule, pays each farmer engaged $9.00 each month for board and sometimes advances him some money when needed; but all these monies are placed on his account and will be subtracted from his share of the harvest. Whilst the share of one-third of the total harvest of the year must be divided equally among all the farmers, the head-man usually receives 10% extra. San Hui has only two unit-salines in which salt is prepared by the leaching method.\n\nIn Shataukok, about 20 acres of low-lying land are available for salt preparation; the leaching method is used. The salt company leases the land from Government and then engages workers to make the salt, which is divided equally between the company and the workers. The workers receive no pay but are free to sell their own shares of salt. The rental of one unit saline, consisting of a vat, six concentrating fields, storage tanks, and crystallization ponds, paid to Government varies between 18 and 25 dollars per year, depending on the size of the saline.\n\nThe two simple local methods are described as follows:\n\nI. THE LEACHING METHOD.\n\nThis is the oldest method practiced in Tai O, Shataukok, San Hui, and perhaps in most salt-producing districts of China as well. At Tai O, there are thirty-three salines, built side by side on the low-lying flat land adjoining the bay, which are enclosed by high dykes to prevent flooding at high tide or by storms. Each unit saline occupies one acre; around each are constructed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205393, "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-1967", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "148\n\nLIN SHU-YEN\n\n1939 “A slight (unspecified) fall in the output compared with 1938\" A very successful year as a result of a large increase in price.\n\nSome general figures for the New Territories salt-industry before 1912, not specifically related to Tai O, are given in G. N. Orme's \"Report on the New Territories 1899-1912\" (para. 71) to be found in the H.K. Government's printed Sessional Papers for 1912. They are as follows:\n\n1900 30 cents a picul.\n\n1908 $1.20 a picul: \"salt makers came in for large profits\".\n\n1912 70 cents a picul: decrease \"chiefly owing to imports from the Northern Coasts\".\n\nOrme lists 37 acres of salt pans at Tai O, 32 at Castle Peak, 12 at Shun Wan near Tai Po and less than one acre at Sha Tau Kok. However, at Tai O at least, the area under production at that time was not the total acreage laid out for the purpose. At the survey and land settlement conducted a few years after 1899 a total of 107.07 acres was recorded as salt-pans. These were then (1903-04) five pans, the largest 37.39 acres and the smallest 5.66 acres. The area under production was, it appears, usually less than the total and would vary according to the demand for salt, and the market price. These details are taken from the Block Crown Lease and Survey Sheets in the District Office South.\n\nThere is an interesting passage on the manufacture of salt in the New Territories and the uses to which both it and imported salt was put at that time in Colonial Reports Annual, No. 314 Hong Kong, Report for 1899 (London, HMSO, 1901);\n\n\"Salt is manufactured at four places in the New Territory, the yearly output being about 4,466 tons, worth some $16,000, which in part supplies the local demands of the population, the fishing junks which keep the fish they catch while at sea in brine, and the various fishing stations where fish is salted and dried. A much larger quantity is, however, imported at certain places for the use of the fleets of fishing junks. The imported salt is also largely used for the salting and drying of fish, for which purpose it seems to be preferred to the locally manufactured salt. The manufacture of salt is an industry which is likely to increase and develop in the New Territory, and which is worthy of being", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205435, "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-1967", "page_number": 197, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "190\n\nBENHAM, Miss M. E. M. - Harcourt Health Centre, Morrison Hill Rd., H.K.\n\nBENIANS, S. M.\n\nBENNETT, Frank C., Jr. -\n\nBENT, Miss Dora\n\nBERNADETTE, Sister Maura\n\nBERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.*\n\nBIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D.\n\nBLACK, D.\n\nBLACKMORE, M.\n\nBLAKER, D. J. R.\n\nBLUE, A. D.\n\nBOARD, D. B. M.*\n\nBONSALL, G. W.\n\nBORDWELL, J. H.\n\nBORGEEST, G.\n\nBOXER, Prof. B.\n\nBRAGA, J. M.\n\nBRAUN, F.\n\n+\n\nBREGMAN, R. U.\n\nBRIGGS, G. G.\n\n-\n\n+\n\n+\n\n+\n\n-\n\n+\n\nBRITTON, Mrs. N. M.\n\nBROMHALL, J. D.\n\nBROOKS, D. E. BROWN, Miss B.\n\nBROWNE, H. J. C.\n\nBRUCE, Robert\n\nBUNGER, Dr. Karl\n\n+\n\n+\n\n-\n\n-\n\n-\n\nc/o Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., Jardine House, H.K.\n\nc/o United States Consulate General, Garden Road, H.K.\n\nNethersole Hospital, Bonham Road, H.K.\n\nThe Maryknoll Sisters, Waterloo Road, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon.\n\nLungotevere delle navi 30, Roma, Italy.\n\n7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon,\n\nLong Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland.\n\nDept. of History, H.K. University, H.K.\n\nc/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K.\n\nChief Engineer, M.V. \"World Yuri\", World Wide (Shipping) Ltd., c/o Cornes & Co., C.P.O. Box 158, Tokyo, Japan,\n\nc/o Education Dept., Battery Path, H.K.\n\nFlat 4-B, 3 University Drive, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 25, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 1058, H.K.\n\nDept. of Geography, Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, Michigan 48824, U.S.A.\n\nP. O. Box 951, H.K.\n\n8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K.\n\nUniversity Surgical Unit, Queen Mary Hospital, H.K.\n\nThe Supreme Court, H.K.\n\n6 Peel Rise, The Peak, H.K.\n\nFisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K.\n\nRadio Hong Kong, Mercury House, H.K.\n\nMedical Rehabilitation Centre, L254 Kwun Tong, Kowloon.\n\nc/o Butterfield & Swire, Union House, H.K.\n\nThe British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K.\n\nConsul General, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1, Duddell Street, H.K.\n\n* Life Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205544, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "ON FENGSHUI IN SOUTHEASTERN CHINA\n\n9 See Groves 1965a and 1965b.\n\n81\n\n10 In an attempt to recover an even earlier period we may assume that at one time all house-units were inhabited by one household each and that the land at the same period had the same acreage as in 1906. If we disregard the possibility of outsiders as landowners we will find that one average household in Big Stream Village owned 0.33 acre whereas the corresponding figure for Plum Grove Village is 0.70, which is more than twice as much as in the former place.*\n\nREFERENCES\n\nAijmer, G.\n\n1967 'Expansion and Extension in Hakka Society', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 7.\n\nBaker, H.\n\n1965 'Burial, Geomancy and Ancestor Worship', in Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories, Hong Kong. Brochure of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, n.d.\n\nCensus 1911\n\n1911 'Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911', Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 1911, Hong Kong.\n\nFreedman, M.\n\n1966 Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung, London, The Athlone Press,\n\n1967 'Ancestor Worship: Two Facets of the Chinese Case', in Social Organization, Essays Presented to Raymond Firth, M. Freedman (ed.), London, Frank Cass and Co., Ltd.\n\nGazetteer\n\n1960 A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories. Hong Kong, Government Printer, n.d.\n\nGroves, R.G.\n\n1965a 'The Origins of Two Market Towns in the New Territories* in Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories Hong Kong, n.d.\n\n1965b Report of Field Work in Hong Kong, London-Cornell Project, mimeographed.\n\nHayes, J.W.\n\n1963 'Movement of Villages on Lantau Island for Fengshui Reasons', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 3.\n\n1967 'Geomancy and the Village' in Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today, M. Topley (ed), Hong Kong, Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.\n\n* It is hoped to include in the 1969 Journal a note on the occupancy level of village houses in the Hong Kong region in the early 20th Century. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205664, "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": 206, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "201\n\nBENANZIO, Dr. Mario\n\nBELL, G. J.\n\nBENHAM, Miss M. E. M.\n\nBENIANS, S. M.\n\nBENNETT, Frank C., Jr.\n\nBENT, Miss Dora\n\nBERKOWITZ, Dr. Morris\n\nBERNADETTE,\n\nSister Maura\n\nBERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.*\n\nBEVERIDGE, R. J.\n\nBEYENS, Baron F.\n\nBIRCH, Dr. Alan\n\nBIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D.\n\nBLACK, D.\n\nBLACKMORE, M.\n\nBLAKER, D. J. R.\n\nBLUE, A. D.\n\nBLUNDELL, Grahame S.\n\nBOARD, D. B. M.*\n\nBONSALL, G. W.\n\nBORDWELL, J. H.\n\nBORGEEST, G.\n\nBOXER, Prof. B.\n\nBRAGA, J. M.\n\nBRAUN, F.\n\nBREGMAN, R. U.\n\n189 Ampang Road, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.\n\nc/o The Royal Observatory, H.K.\n\nc/o Feldy, The Lane, West Mersee,\n\nColchester, Essex, England.\n\nc/o Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd.\n\n(Import Dept.) Jardine House, H.K.\n\nc/o United States Consulate General, Garden\n\nRoad, H.K.\n\nNethersole Hospital, Bonham Road, H.K.\n\nChung Chi College, Chinese University of\n\nH.K., Shatin, N.T.\n\nThe Maryknoll Sisters, Waterloo Road,\n\nKowloon Tong, Kowloon.\n\nLungotevere delle navi 30, Roma, Italy.\n\nc/o 4A, Horsburgh Grove, Armadale,\n\nMelbourne, S.E. 3, Victoria, Australia.\n\n38C, MacDonnell Road, 2nd floor, H.K.\n\nDept. of History, University of Hong Kong,\n\nH.K.\n\n7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon.\n\nLong Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland.\n\nDept. of History, H.K. University, H.K.\n\nc/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K.\n\nChief Engineer, M.V. \"World Soya\", World Wide (Shipping) Ltd., c/o Cornes & Co., C.P.O. Box 158, Tokyo, Japan.\n\nD-4 Silverstrand, 94 Mile Clearwater Bay\n\nRoad, Kowloon,\n\nc/o Education Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan\n\nAvenue, H.K.\n\nFlat 4-B, 3 University Drive, Pokfulum, H.K\n\nP. O. Box 25, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 1058, H.K.\n\nDept. of Geography, Michigan State Univ.,\n\nEast Lansing, Michigan 48824, U.S.A.\n\nP. O. Box 951, H.K.\n\n8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K.\n\nUniversity Surgical Unit, Queen Mary\n\nHospital, H.K.\n\n* Life Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205839, "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-1969", "page_number": 145, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "# THE MAPPING OF HONG KONG\n\nA. HONG KONG ISLAND & KOWLOON\n\n(i) Not listed\n\n(ii) 1/2400 scale (200 ft. to 1 inch) with\n\n20 ft. contours\n\n(iii) 8\" to 1 mile (old series) no contours (4 sheets of Hong Kong Island, 3 sheets Kowloon/New Kowloon)\n\n(iv) 4\" to 1 mile (photo-reduction of (iii) above) (1 sheet Hong Kong Island, 1 sheet Kowloon/New Kowloon)\n\nB. NEW TERRITORIES\n\n(i) 1/1200 scale (100 ft. to 1 inch) with 10 ft. contours*\n\n(ii) 1/4800 (400 ft. to 1 inch) with 50 ft. contours (25 ft. contours below 150 ft.)\n\n60\n\n7\n\n2\n\n139\n\n1200 (approx) about 900 now available\n\n(iii) 1/9600 (800 ft. to 1 inch) (photo-reductions of (ii) above)\n\nC. WHOLE COLONY\n\n(The maps listed below can be obtained from Messrs. Kelly & Walsh Ltd., Hong Kong or the Swindon Book Co., Ltd., Kowloon, or from Messrs. Edward Stanford Ltd., Long Acre, London, W.C.2.)\n\nNew Topographic maps:—\n\n(1) 1/10,000 scale (series L884) (contour interval 50 ft)†\n\n(2) 1/25,000 scale (series L882)\n\n(contour interval 50 ft.)\n\n100 (approx)\n\nabout 40 now available\n\n10\n\n62\n\n22 sheets published at 28th February, 1969\n\n20\n\n(First sheets should be available in 1969)\n\n* See Plate 12. † See Plate 13.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205884, "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-1969", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "184\n\nBELL, G. J.\n\nBENANZIO, Dr. Mario\n\nBERKOWITZ, Dr. M. I,\n\nBERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.*\n\nBEVERIDGE, R. J.\n\nBEYENS, Baron F.\n\nBIRCH, Dr. A.\n\nBIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D.\n\nBLACK, D.\n\nBLACKMORE, M.\n\nBLAKER, D. J. R.\n\nBLUE, A. D.\n\nBLUNDELL, G. S.\n\nBOARD, D. B. M.*\n\nBONSALL, G. W.\n\nBORDWELL, H. H.\n\nBORGEEST, G.\n\nBOXER, Prof. B.\n\nBRAGA, J. M.\n\nBRAUN, F.\n\nBRIDGES, G. A.\n\nBRIGGS, G. G.\n\nBRIM, J. A.\n\nBROMHALL, J. D.\n\nBROOKS, D. E.\n\nRoyal Observatory, H.K.\n\n189 Ampang Road, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.\n\nc/o Dept. of Sociology, University of Pittsburg, Pa., USA.\n\nLungotevere delle navi 30, Roma, Italy.\n\nc/o 4A, Horsburgh Grove, Armadale, Melbourne, S.E. 3, Victoria, Australia.\n\nRoom 145, Alexandra House, H.K.\n\nDept. of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K.\n\n7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon,\n\nLong Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland.\n\nDept. of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K.\n\nc/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K.\n\n\"Upper Woodburn\", 19 Millig Street, Helensburgh, Scotland.\n\nD-4 Silverstrand, 94 Mile Clearwater Bay Road, Kowloon.\n\nc/o Education Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan Avenue, H.K.\n\nc/o The University Library, University of Hong Kong, HK.\n\nP. O. Box 25, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 1058, H.K.\n\nDept. of Geography, Michigan State Univ. East Lansing, Michigan 48823, U.S.A.\n\nP. O. Box 951, H.K.\n\n8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K.\n\nc/o The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K.\n\nThe Supreme Court, H.K.\n\nc/o Universities Service Centre, 155 Argyle Street, Kowloon.\n\nc/o Fisheries Research Station, The Fish Market, Island Road, Aberdeen, H.K.\n\nRadio Hong Kong, Broadcasting House, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon.\n\n* Life Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206120, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n193\n\nThe barracks are at present occupied by the 1st Battalion, The Duke of Wellington's Regiment, the old 33rd or 1st Yorkshire West Riding Regiment of Foot, raised in 1702 for the War of the Spanish Succession. It is one of the last surviving regiments of British Infantry to retain its individual identity. The Commanding Officer, Lt.-Col. D. W. Shuttleworth, the well-known Army and England Rugger International, has very kindly allowed us to take tea in the Officers' Mess where the Colours and some of the Regimental Silver will be on display. Some officers of the Regiment will be on hand in civilian clothes to act as hosts, to explain the Silver and to answer visitors' questions.\n\nStanley Military Cemetery\n\nThere are 663 graves in this 2.5 acre cemetery,* some of them dating from the 1840s and 1860s when there was a permanent garrison at Stanley (on the site of the present St. Stephen's Boys School) and others from the 1939-1945 War and the period of civilian internment at Stanley Prison. The cemetery pre-dates even the Colonial Cemetery, having been opened on 21st July, 1843. Note the large grave stones to some soldiers killed by Chinese Pirates in Stanley Bay in the 1840s.\n\nHong Kong, October 1969,\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nTHE SAN ON MAP OF MGR. VOLONTIERI\n\nIn last year's Journal (pp. 141-148) Dr. Ronald C. Y. Ng contributed an interesting article on this subject, reprinted by kind permission from the Geographical Journal Vol. 135, Part 2 (June) 1969.*\n\nNoting the bilingual nature of the map which used English and Chinese characters for place names Dr. Ng concluded that the document 'was intended primarily for English-speaking users' and described it as 'simultaneously a map and a gazetteer of the District'.\n\n* Readers may be interested to learn that the Australian National Library at Canberra has made available for sale Xerox copies of this interesting map from an original copy in their collection. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206144, "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": 224, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "217\n\nBARR, Miss E.\n\n80 Robinson Road, H.K.\n\nBARRETT, Rev. Cyril, S. J. c/o Wah Yan College, Queen's Road, East,\n\nBARRY, Cmdr. R. S. -\n\nBASHALL, Mrs. C. G. BEDLINGTON, Mrs. M.\n\nBELL, G. J.\n\n-\n\nBENANZIO, Dr. M.\n\nL\n\nBERKOWITZ, Dr. M. I. ·\n\nBERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.*\n\nBEVERIDGE, R. J.\n\nBIRCH, Dr. A.\n\nBIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D. ·\n\n+\n\nBLACK, D.\n\nBLACKMORE, M.\n\n+\n\nBLAKER, D. J. R. -\n\nBLUE, A. D.\n\nBOARD, D. B. M.*\n\nBONSALL, G. W.\n\nBORDWELL, H. H.\n\nBORGEEST, G.\n\nBOXER, Prof. B.\n\nBRAGA, J. M.\n\nBRAUN, F.\n\nBRIDGES, G. A.\n\nBRIGGS, G. G.\n\nBRIM, J. A.\n\nT\n\n·\n\n-\n\n·\n\n+\n\nH.K.\n\nc/o Hong Kong Club, H.K.\n\nc/o H.M. Prison, Stanley, H.K.\n\nUnknown.\n\nc/o Royal Observatory, H.K.\n\nUnknown.\n\nc/o Dept. of Sociology, University of Pittsburg, Pa., U.S.A.\n\nLungotevere delle navi 30, Roma, Italy.\n\nc/o 4A, Horsburgh Grove, Armadale, Melbourne, S.E. 3, Victoria, Australia.\n\nc/o Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K.\n\n7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon,\n\nLong Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland.\n\nc/o Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K.\n\nc/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K.\n\nChief Engineer, M.V. “World Soya\", World Wide (Shipping) Ltd., c/o Cornes & Co., G.P.O. Box 158, Tokyo, Japan.\n\nc/o Education Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan Avenue, H.K.\n\nc/o Hong Kong University Press, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 25, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 1058, H.K.\n\nc/o Dept. of Geography, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48823, U.S.A.\n\nc/o National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia.\n\n8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K.\n\nc/o The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K.\n\nc/o The Supreme Court, H.K.\n\nc/o Dept. of Anthropology, Stanford Univ., Stanford, California, U.S.A.\n\n+ Life Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206436, "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": 253, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "227\n\nBARD, Dr. S. M.\n\nBARNES, Mrs. A. M.\n\nBARR, Miss E.\n\nc/o University Health Service, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\nMercantile Bank Ltd., Bombay 1, India.\n\n80 Robinson Road, H.K.\n\nBARRETT, Rev. Cyril, S. J.\n\nc/o Wah Yan College, Queen's Road, East, H.K.\n\nBARRY, Cmdr. R. S.\n\nBASHALL, Mrs. C. G.\n\nBEDLINGTON, Mrs. M.\n\nBELL, G. J.\n\nBERKOWITZ, Dr. M. I.\n\nBERTUCCIOLI, Dr. G.*\n\nBEVERIDGE, R. J.\n\nBIRCH, Dr. A.\n\nBIRNBAUM, Mrs. S. D.\n\nBLACK, D.\n\nBLACKMORE, M.\n\nBLAKER, D. J. R.\n\nBLUE, A. D.\n\nBOARD, D. B. M.*\n\nBOEHMKE, Mrs. A. Karl\n\nBONSALL, G. W.\n\nBORGEEST, G.\n\nBOXER, Prof. B.\n\nBRAGA, J. M.\n\nBRAUN, F.\n\nBRIDGES, G. A.\n\nBRIGGS, G. G.\n\nBROOKS, D. E.\n\nc/o Hong Kong Club, H.K.\n\nc/o H.M. Prison, Stanley, H.K.\n\nUnknown.\n\nc/o Royal Observatory, H.K.\n\nUnknown.\n\nLungotevere delle navi 30, Roma, Italy.\n\nc/o 4A, Horsburgh Grove, Armadale, Melbourne, S.E. 3, Victoria, Australia.\n\nc/o Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, H.K.\n\n7, Braga Circuit, Kowloon.\n\nLong Acre, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland.\n\nUnknown.\n\nc/o Gilman & Co., Ltd., P. O. Box 56, H.K.\n\n15, Lansdowne Crescent, Edinburgh, Scotland.\n\nc/o Education Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan Avenue, H.K.\n\n4, Shouson Hill Road, A-2, H.K.\n\nc/o Hong Kong University Press, Pokfulum, H.K.\n\nP. O. Box 1058, H.K.\n\n167 Laurel Circle, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, U.S.A.\n\nc/o National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia.\n\n8 Kotewall Road, 4th floor, H.K.\n\nc/o The British Council, Gloucester Building, H.K.\n\nc/o The Supreme Court, H.K.\n\nc/o Radio Hong Kong, Broadcasting House, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon.\n\nLife Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206559, "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "# REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG\n\n101\n\npopulated areas which were used for portable purposes should be closed, that all private lanes and streets should be brought under government control and that back-to-back houses should be demolished as soon as possible.\n\nUnder such desperate circumstances, the government was obliged to take strong action and in the same year as the plague struck it passed, on an emergency basis, the Tai Ping Shan Resumption Ordinance. Under this statute the inhabitants from 8.5 acres of land in the worst affected area were evicted, their properties were resumed and demolished, and the area was laid out anew. The various works were completed by 1899 at a total cost of over HK$944,000. Two smaller schemes in the same locality were carried out in 1902 and 1903 at a cost of some HK$271,000; the total area involved in these schemes was about 0.7 acre.\n\nOther measures were introduced in 1894 in the Closed Houses and Insanitary Dwellings Ordinance under which the height of buildings was limited to between 25 ft. and 76 ft. depending on the length and width of the street. The Ordinance also gave powers of inspection to the Sanitary Board to ascertain breaches of the law against overcrowding, the standard of measurement being 30 sq. ft. of floor area and 400 cu. ft. of air space per occupant. Despite the apparent necessity for such measures the unofficial members of Legislative Council pressed for less restrictive clauses.\n\nIn 1895 there was a respite from the plague with only 44 reported cases, but in the following year over 1,200 persons were afflicted. Thereafter, the plague became an annual visitation, mainly in the torrid summer months, and persisted until 1907. Altogether, there were some 13,000 victims between 1894 and 1906 giving an average of over 1,000 a year.\n\nThe continued concern of the government over the insanitary condition of the Colony led to the appointment of a commission to look further into the matter and a report12 was duly submitted in 1898, the year in which the New Territories were leased from China. After a comprehensive survey of 3,095 houses in two health districts,\n\n11 Minute by the Principal Medical Officer on the Report of the Public Health and Building Ordinance Commission, Appendix A. p. 5 in the Blue Book Reports on Sanitation and Housing 1900-1907, Hong Kong, 1907.\n\n12 Report of the Commission to Inquire into the Existence of Insanitary Properties in the Colony, Hong Kong, 1898.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206564, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "106\n\nE. G. PRYOR\n\nbuilders, the development of low-cost housing schemes by Government, the imposition of penalties on unused private land, the conversion of godowns (warehouses) into tenements by adding on further storeys, the publication of standard house designs, the use of labour-saving machinery, the provision of large supply depots at convenient locations for building materials, the setting up of local industries in the New Territories for the manufacture of building materials, the establishment of bamboo and fir tree plantations for scaffolding and the continuation of rent controls.\n\nWhilst development in the Kowloon Peninsula gathered momentum, little became of the recommendations made by the Housing Commission and with the further growth of the population to almost 841,000 persons by 1931, of whom 79% lived in the urban areas, the housing situation reached serious proportions. Some indication of the congested living conditions is given by the densities which prevailed in the Western district where, on average, there were 917 persons per acre.20\n\nThe economic \"depression\" of the 1930s greatly reduced the prospects for effective action to help meet the Colony's pressing housing requirements. The situation was further aggravated by the continued arrival of people from China, which resulted in an increase of the population from 841,000 in 1931 to 988,000 by 1936.\n\nHowever, in 1935 new legislation was introduced whereby the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903 was split into a separate Buildings Ordinance and a series of Public Health Ordinances. One of the changes brought about by the new Building Ordinance was that the maximum depth of domestic buildings was reduced from 40 ft. to 35 ft. although this could be exceeded if every storey were provided with windows to ensure that the whole storey was adequately lit. The provisions of the 1903 Ordinance regarding the height of buildings were also modified, but differential controls continued to apply in favour of property owners who had leased land before 1903. In short, the height of buildings was still governed by the width of the street but, within this limitation, buildings could not exceed 3 storeys unless built of fire-resistant materials; in order to exceed 5 storeys the consent of the Governor-in-Council was required.\n\n20 Commissioner of Census, \"Report on the Census for the Colony for 1931\" Sessional Papers. Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1928-1932, Hong Kong 1932, pp. 108-109.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206568, "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": 116, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "E. G. PRYOR\n\nthat 79% of households shared accommodation. Household incomes were generally low, with 79% of families earning less than HK$600 per month and 56% less than HK$300. The amount of money which could be spared for rent was also low, with 79% of households spending less than HK$100 per month and 66% less than HK$60, although it must not be overlooked that in relative terms rentals took up a significant proportion of household incomes.\n\nA number of far-sighted recommendations were made by the committee to increase the supply of low-cost housing and also to initiate a programme for the clearance and redevelopment of both underdeveloped and congested areas where conditions constituted a hazard to public health and safety. Many of these recommendations have since materialised in the form of expanded programmes for the provision of government housing and the commencement of urban renewal projects.\n\nWhilst the results of the Housing survey carried out by the University of Hong Kong showed that the housing situation in 1957 was of critical proportions, the 1961 census gave an even more alarming picture of the problem.\n\nTo begin with, the census showed that the population of the colony had increased by over 30% from 2.4 million in 1956 to 3.13 million in 1961. Over 83% of the population in 1961 lived in the main urban areas of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and New Kowloon, where the average density of population in the most congested area, namely the West census district, came to 963 persons per acre (616,320 persons per square mile), which finds few parallels in other Asian or \"Western\" cities. The census also showed that in the main urban areas, some 391,000 households (1.55 million persons) lived in buildings constructed of \"permanent\" materials but in which the accommodation comprised rooms, cocklofts, cubicles, bedspaces, basements, verandahs, and other such substandard living space in which common use had to be made of basic household facilities. It should be noted that this type of accommodation included the early types of resettlement blocks built by the Government as well as new tenement floors built by private developers. A further 93,000 households (421,000 persons) in the main urban areas lived in squatter huts and other types of makeshift accommodation. Altogether, there were 484,000 households comprising 1.97 million persons in the main urban areas that were inadequately housed. In", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207127, "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": 198, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "192\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nwas about 0.1 acre and it has been estimated that the area of land occupied per capita was 0.45 acre. By that time intensive farming techniques had been developed on cultivation of vegetables, but only on a small scale.\n\nAn attempt has been made to trace the influence of farming techniques of the ancient tribes on the present agriculture. The discovery of prehistoric stone implements, prehistoric village sites and disused rice fields indicates early inhabitancy of farming people. It was found that at least half of the implements were made of stone which could not be found locally in the New Territories. Probably the makers of these tools came from other parts and brought the materials with them.2 Finn suggests that the Hong Kong finds belong to the middle of the Second Millennium B.C.3\n\nAccording to the Chinese history, this region was occupied by the tribes of the Nam Viet group in 2,000 B.C. Their farming practice was known as \"knife cultivation and fire weeding” (刀耕火種), that is to clear the natural vegetation with knife and to burn the weeds with fire. Some villagers still believe that burning the vegetation on the hill will help increase the fertility of their fields. Continuation over centuries of clearing vegetation on the hills has resulted in disappearance of primary forests in this territory.\n\nThe early Chinese settlers paid much attention to the control of soil erosion. Most of the fields left by them on slopes are terraced and nearly all the fields are surrounded by bunds for the purpose of conserving soil, water and plant nutrients. It was estimated that not less than 75% of these fields were well irrigated for planting rice and the rest for dryland field crops, vegetables and fruit trees.\n\nOwing to allocation of the major portion of the cultivated land to rice growing, the early settlers built a large number of weirs and irrigation channels to divert water from streams through channels into the fields. Fields situated on an upper course usually have the first priority on use of the water. The water seeping from the fields is re-diverted by the second weir and so on. Thus, the water can be used again and again, i.e. the longer the stream, the fuller the use of water.\n\nVegetables grown on well-drained land were irrigated by the manual method. The grower carried the water in wooden buckets fitted with a tube and a rose head to sprinkle water on vegetables.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207128, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n193 \n\nIn areas where the land was poorly-drained, vegetables were grown on raised soil beds 4 to 6 feet wide with ditches of about 2 feet deep on all sides and 1 foot of water was kept in the ditches. The beds were raised for the purpose of drainage. The ditches between served also as a reservoir for regular irrigation. This flood furrow system provides a constant supply of water to the crop, a well-drained soil condition for root growth and a good storage of water for every bed in the field. This saved labour from carrying water to and fro the water sumps to the crops.\n\nA wooden water lifting machine with a chain carrying wooden plates and running on two wheels to force water up a trough by turning one of the wheels was used to lift water from a stream or a pond. Several machines of this type were used for lifting water to a higher level, usually by no more than a few feet. Because of the high cost of labour, these machines were replaced by water pumps introduced in the early Nineteen-fifties.\n\nDependence on locally available organic manures is the characteristic of the traditional farming. Cattle manure was used mainly for growing rice. Droppings of animals were collected and piled up in a yard. For convenience of application, the well-rotted manure was sun-dried and stored for future use. Compost made of household refuse, crop residues, weeds, and other waste vegetative materials, and pond mud were used for manuring fruit trees. Night-soil, pig and poultry manures, bone meal, duck and chicken feather, wood and grass ash, and oil seed cake were used for growing vegetables. Lime was frequently applied to neutralize the predominant acid soil.\n\nIn general, the soils in Hong Kong are poor in plant nutrient. It is of interest to note how the local rice growers, with a limited application of animal manure, can maintain the fertility of their fields to produce continuously from 800 lb. to 1,600 lb. of paddy per acre per crop or from 1,600 lb. to 3,200 lb. reaped from two crops planted in a year. A possible explanation is that the growth of some species of blue-green algae on the wet paddy land can fix atmospheric nitrogen and subsequently release the nutrient to the crop after they are ploughed or tramped into the soil.\n\nRice was chosen and planted over large areas of land because it is the most reliable food crop and gives reasonable yields of grain year after year from the same field without rotation. Two groups", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207156, "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": 227, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n221 \n\n(4) Diocesan BOYS SCHOOL AND LA SALLE College, KOWLOON \n\nSATURDAY, 4 May, 1974 \n\nThe purpose of this visit is to see and enjoy the grounds and buildings of these two major Hong Kong schools and thereby to learn something of the history of education in the Colony. The visits are entirely due to the courtesy and cooperation of their Head-masters. \n\nThe sites are extensive (23 and 10 acres respectively) and the buildings are of interest. \n\n'DBS', as it is familiarly known, originated in 1869 with the Diocesan Home & Orphanage for English, Eurasian, Chinese and other scholars (male and female) which links with an earlier body, the Diocesan Native Female Training School of 1860-68. (From 1880 no more girls were received as boarders, though they still remained as day scholars. All girls left when Fairlea Girls School was opened in 1892. In 1900 a Diocesan Girls School was opened.) Located for many years at Bonham Road, the school moved to its present site in 1926. It may be truly said that its history is that of Hong Kong itself. \n\nThe La Salle College is much newer, opening in 1932. However, its connection with Catholic education in the Colony is much longer. The La Salle Brothers had a record of 42 years' work in St. Joseph's College in Hong Kong when they opened their Kowloon Branch in 1917, and after two of the Fathers had 'gone together over the hills and lowlands of Kowloon' (as they then were) they found and purchased a 10-acre site by auction in 1928. \n\nIts premises are architecturally striking. As the then Roman Catholic Bishop said at the time, “Great though my hopes and expectations of the Christian Brothers were, I never dared to expect from them such a magnificent building as La Salle College.\"* \n\nAmong the points to be specially noted on the visit are the following: \n\nDBS \n\n1. the extensive grounds and playing fields (also made available to primary schools from resettlement estates). \n\n*Thomas F. Ryan, The Story of a Hundred Years: the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (P.I.M.E.) in Hong Kong 1858-1958. (Hong Kong, Catholic Truth Society, 1959) p. 199.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207169, "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": 240, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "234\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nhouses were built later at the back when they had more descendants. That is the entire village even to this day.\n\nThere are 42 dwelling houses within the village, divided by 5 lanes and ten gates; measuring 162'-3\" in width and 125'9” in depth. The idea of this layout would seem to have been to protect themselves from pirates, when the whole family stayed inside. The Chi Tong is located in the centre with three roofs and two light wells (#). There is a village school 150 feet from the southern corner for primary education of their children, and a Tin Hau Temple within 500 feet to the northeast for worship.\n\nLand Registration took place in 1906 in Tsuen Wan after the Lease of the New Territories. The village was recorded from Lot No. 1528 to 1559 (Lot No. 1546 excluded) in Demarcation District No. 449 in the Block Crown Lease, totalling 0.43 acre of house land and 0.03 acre of waste land, all belonging to the Chan family. It is a pity that 0.135 acre of house land were sold to outsiders since 1937 otherwise the village would still remain solely in the hands of the descendants of the founder.\n\nChan Kin Sheung, the founder of Sam Tung Uk, was awarded a portrait by Chien Lung of Ch'ing Dynasty, worded \"Heung Yam Tai Bun” (means Honourable Guest in Village Parties). To everyone's sorrow and great loss it disappeared during the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong.\n\nThere have been very many big changes in the area surround-ing the village since re-development of Tsuen Wan. Fung shui trees at the back were felled, village type houses were built around, roads were constructed in front, multi-storeyed buildings were erected with obstruction of the front view. Ngau Kwu Tun, the small hill by the left, was removed to make way for a school building, and the hill at the back was partly cut off for construction of the Rapid Gravity Filter. Even the grave of the village founder was affected as it was in the same line and over-looking the village. The name in fung shui was called \"Lion over-looking the village platform\" (獅子瑩樓台)\n\nIt is to be hoped that the Walled Village can be retained as a historical relic in Tsuen Wan, even if the whole area is to be re-developed. God has blessed it for over two centuries and it is hoped will continue to do so.\n\nText and visits are organized and prepared by Mak Kai Yim, A. H. Mackreth, Brian Liu and Helga Werle.\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209311, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "200\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThus, even with a large family in a poor upland village, 1 acre would suffice to keep the family alive assuming no run of bad harvests. Where steady opportunities for casual labouring or cash enterprises (eg fishings, woodcutting) existed, the family could get by on even less; perhaps in most circumstances families could survive with 25% less than these figures, since some opportunities for cash income clearly existed at most times.\n\nCrown Rent\n\nWas charged at the rate $3 per 0.01 acre for 1st class, $2 per 0.01 acre for 2nd class and $1 for 0.01 acre 3rd class. 1st class was most land in valley villages (eg. best and average land in Tai Wai) and best land in upland villages. 2nd class was used for definitely poor land in valley villages and average land in upland villages, 3rd class was poor land anywhere. 1st class land therefore Crown Rent = $52.5 for 1 tau, for 2nd class land $35. for 3rd class land $17.5 assuming 0.175 acres per tau. Given purchase rice price of $2 per catty, this implies, (1st class land), Crown Rent equivalent to purchase price of 26¼ catties. If sale price of hulled white rice is taken, at $1, this is equivalent to 52.5 catties. Average land at Tai Wai would be first class for Crown Rent, yield 5 piculs per year, reduced to 3.75 piculs after hulling etc. Thus Crown Rent 14% of total crop. For best land, 52.5 catty equivalent, Crown Rent against total crop of 5.38 piculs = 10%. 2nd class land, Crown Rent at sale price of price = 35 catty per tau. If average land at Wong Chuk Yeung is assumed to be 2nd class, then 35 catty Crown Rent for total crop of 2.33 piculs = 15% of total crop.\n\nHowever, in addition to the Crown Rent for the agricultural lands, the fields had to bear the Crown Rent of houses each house paid $50.\n\nFor a basic family requirement viz.\n\nTai Wai good average land, small family 2.5 tau plus one house, each tau would have to bear $20 of house Crown Rent, making total Crown Rent per tau 52.5 + 20 = 72.5 = sale price 72.5 catty which equals 19% of total crop sale value. Tai Wai best land, small family 1.6 tau plus one house, each tau would have to bear $31.25 of house Crown Rent, making total Crown Rent per 1 tau 52.5 + 31.25 = 83.75 = sale price of 83.75 catty which equals 12% of total crop sale value. Wong Chuk Yeung good average land small family 3.6 tau plus one house each tau would have to bear $14 of house Crown Rent, making total Crown Rent per tau $35 + 14 = 49 sale price of 49 catty which equals 20% of total crop sale value. Thus the burden of Crown Rent", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209429, "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-1982", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "64\n\n1862 (April) -- 1863 (April) ›\n\n(31.3.1862)\n\nHenry Turner (Chairman) x\n\nJ. H. HAAN\n\nAgra & United Service Bank\n\nBritish\n\nJames Cock (Treasurer) x\n\nWatson & Co.\n\nBritish\n\nAndrew Brand\n\nSmith, Kennedy & Co.\n\nBritish\n\nHenry Sturgis Grew\n\nRussell & Co.\n\nAmerican\n\nAlexander Michie x\n\nLindsay & Co.\n\nBritish\n\nNote: In April 1863 only those members marked \"x\" were still in office (A. Brand had died).\n\n1863 (April)- 1864 (April)\n\n(4.4.1863)\n\nHenry William Dent (Chairman)\n\nJames Cock (Treasurer)\n\nRobert Brand\n\nDavid Reid\n\nJ. Kearney Rodgers\n\nAugust Wieters\n\nGeorge Fairley Heard\n\n1864 (April) — 1865 (April)\n\n(16.4.1864)\n\nHenry William Dent\n\n(Chairman) x\n\nRobert Crawfurd Antrobus x\n\nJames Cock\n\nFrank Blackwell Forbes x\n\nRudolph Heinssen x\n\nJulius Kahn\n\nG. W. Talbot\n\n \n Dent & Co.\n British\n \n \n Lindsay & Co.\n British\n \n \n Watson & Co.\n British\n \n \n Russell & Co.\n American\n \n \n Siemssen & Co.\n German\n \n \n Reid & Co. (per 1.1.1864)\n British\n \n \n ?\n German\n \n \n Aug. Heard & Co.\n American\n \n \n Harkort & Co.\n ?\n \n \n Dent & Co.\n British\n \n \n Reiss & Co.\n British\n \n \n ?\n ?\n \n\nNote: In April 1865 only those members marked \"x\" were still in office,\n\n1865 (April) — 1866 (March)\n\nWilliam Keswick (Chairman)\n\nJ. C. Coutts\n\nThomas Hanbury\n\nJames Hogg\n\nNichol Latimer\n\nClement D. Nye\n\nW. Probst\n\n \n Jardine, Matheson & Co.\n British\n ?\n \n \n ?\n ?\n ?\n \n \n Bower, Hanbury & Co.\n British\n \n \n \n Hogg Brothers\n British\n \n \n \n N. Latimer & Co.\n British\n \n \n \n Bull, Nye & Co (?).\n ?\n German\n \n\nNote: N. Latimer died during his term of office.\n\nAs from April 1865 a different mode of electing a Municipal Council was followed (cf. main text).\n\nSource: North China Herald 1850-1866.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209898, "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-1983", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "135\n\n14.8.1897, all three Ap Lei Chau residents belonging to the old Luk Hing, Sau Hing, and Fuk Hing Tongs respectively. Their evidence enlarges and confirms the information obtained from the record of the Squatter Board's proceedings.\n\n\"Hayes 1977, pp. 99-101. The Tai O information is more explicit on this point, but the Cheung Chau practice was the same.\n\n** See E.G. Pryor, Housing in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1983) pp. 15-17. These new urban districts were very susceptible to contagious disease. It is well to recall Governor Des Voeux's report of 1889 in which, describing the City of Victoria, he wrote: \"Going ashore our visitor would see in the Chinese quarters houses, constructed after a pattern peculiar to China, of almost equally solid materials, but packed so closely together and thronged so densely as to be in this respect probably without parallel in the world.. It is believed that over 100,000 people live within a certain district of the City of Victoria not exceeding 1⁄2 square mile in area. It is known that 1,600 people live in the space of a single acre.\" (Sessional Papers 1889, pp. 303-304).\n\n15\n\n** Victoria had seven officially-approved sub-districts in 1857, as listed and described in the Hong Kong Government Gazette for 9 May 1857, GN No. 69. They included \"No. 1, or SEI-YING-POON — From the small village westward, called Cowee-wan, to the end of Circular Buildings, including all the houses on Bonham Strand, west of No. 1 Police Boat Station. The historical development of this area is given by Revd. Carl T. Smith's note at pp. 211-218 of JHKBRAS 14(1974) in \"Programme Notes for Visits to Older Parts of Hong Kong Island (Urban Areas....)\n\nSee also Chapter 3, Sheung Wan, of Frank Leeming's Street Studies in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1977) pp. 45-66.\n\n24\n\nSheung Fung Lane itself is situated between Second and Third Streets in that section bounded by Centre Street to the East and Western Street to the West.\n\n** An account of pao wui at the Tam Kung festival in Shau Kei Wan from a Secretariat for Chinese Affairs' file of 1958 is typical: \"There were about 15 Kaifong elders in the Tam Kung temple who were enrolling pao wui (K), there were about 18 pao wu's from the sea and about 10 from the land. The wul's who brought their own roast-pigs with them had to pay \"oil money\" and \"worshipping fees\" from $10 to $30 to the elders before entering the temple. It is learned that the worshippers have no objection to pay these fees. In addition the temple keeper also charged $5 or $10 for each roast-pig brought into the temple plus $5 to $10 \"oil money\".\n\n20 A recent account of the proceedings at Sheung Fung Lane is given in the article \"Everyone's festival\" in The Asia Magazine issued weekly by Asia Magazines Ltd., Hong Kong, Vol. 21, Number V7, 4th January 1981, pp. 3-6.\n\n3-6. For a very well illustrated account of a similar old neighbourhood in Singapore, and its community festivals, see \"Singapore's Vanishing Chinatown\" by Joan Ogden in The Asia Magazine 25th July 1976.\n\n* \"No. 3, or TAI-PING-SHAN From the end of Hollywood Road near Circular Buildings, to Gough Street steps, including all the houses on the south side of the Queen's Road between these two points.\" See the plan opposite p. 124 of Marjorie Topley (ed) Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today (Hong Kong, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch 1967). This was drawn in 1882 (ibid, pp. 123-124).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210013, "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-1983", "page_number": 271, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "Aquilaria Sinensis is by no means rare in Hong Kong. In Dunn and Tutcher's Flora of Kwangtung and Hong Kong which was published in 1912, it was stated that in a one-acre plot of fung shui woodland in the lower ground of Hong Kong, 31 out of 125 trees enumerated were Aquilaria sinensis (then known as Aquilaria grandiflora). Even today it would not be difficult to find this tree in various parts of Hong Kong. They usually occur in natural woodland on lower hill slopes and in fung shui woods behind villages. There are good specimens in Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve, Ng Tung Chai in Lam Tsuen, and Pak Tam Chung, Sai Kung.\n\nThe publication of Professor Lo's book generated some local interest in the Incense Tree. In the 1960's and 1970's, both the Urban Services and Agriculture & Fisheries Departments planted a number of these trees in public gardens and on hill slopes. Seed supply is in abundance and there is no difficulty in raising young trees in the nursery. However, when planted out in open sites, the survival rate is disappointingly low. Moreover, the tree is quite slow-growing and is rather susceptible to wind damage. A seedling of half a metre high planted in Kowloon Tsai Park in 1974 reached a height of only 3.2 metre in 10 years. Even when planted in mixture with other tree species in plantation conditions the species fared little better. On this basis, A. sinensis is unlikely ever to rival the more robust and fast growing species which now commonly occur in our parks and countryside.\n\nNotwithstanding its growth habits, the local historical significance of the Incense Tree has been well recognised. As a matter of interest, the cultivation of the Incense Tree has been used as the main theme in the information displays in the Aberdeen Country Park Visitor Centre. Visitors to the centre, in addition to learning of the interesting historical events concerning this tree, can take the opportunity to have a close look at several live specimens growing by the side of the entrance.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210271, "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-1984", "page_number": 242, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "Trustee British Episcopal Church 1852-1853,199\n\nTALBOT, G.W. 1864-1865\n\nIn 1874 he was a partner in Olyphant & Co., Hong Kong. Member of the NCBRAS 1864.201\n\n200\n\n221\n\nActive in amateur dramatics and in March 1864 he participated in performances of the Shanghai Volunteer Theatrical.\n\nTATE, Joseph Priestley 1861-1862\n\nAuthorized to sign for Jas. Bowman & Co. April 23, 1858,203 later partner in Blain, Tate & Co.204\n\nMember Committee Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society 1858,205 member NCBRAS till 1873,206 member Recreation Fund Committee 1866.207\n\nMember Committee I.\n\nTHORBURN, William 1855-1856\n\nLived in Shanghai from 1847;208 partner in Hargreaves & Co. till May 17, 1856,209 in Blenkin, Rawson & Co. from August 4, 1856,210 later (1863, 1864) partner in Jarvie, Thorburn & Co.211 Member Committee IV.\n\nPossibly Thorburn Road was named after him.\n\nTHORNE, John 1858-1859\n\nCame to China as agent of Wells Fargo & Co.;212 later he acted as a broker.\n\nFrom its foundation in October 1867 till December 1871 he was editor of \"The Shanghai News-Letter for California and the Atlantic States\".213\n\nMember Committee Society for the Relief of Distressed Foreigners of All Nationalities, 1865;214 member Committee NCBRAS 1865.215\n\nTURNER, Henry 1862-1863\n\nManager Agra and United Service Bank 1862.216", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210359, "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-1984", "page_number": 330, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "309\n\nFirst hand information after this lapse of time is naturally scarce. The above merely serves to indicate that this was a term formerly in use in the Hong Kong region, but one which, as usual, could be applied with variation.\n\n1\n\nNOTES\n\nSee Hayes 1977, pp. 116-119 and 226-7. An overview of leadership and its occasions is given in Section IV of the Introductory chapter of Hayes 1983.\n\nThe tau chung is the normal local unit of land measurement and represents the land requiring one bushel of seeds to sow properly (一斗種). While the amount of land represented by the tau chung varied according to the type of soil, fertility, etc. It was often close to one-sixth of an acre.\n\nPage 330\n\nPage 331", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211184, "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-1987", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "220\n\nThe Government faced the vexing problem of compensation to the owners of the fields. This problem still troubles the Government. The compensation to people whose ancestral lands are resumed is a thorny issue.\n\nIn 1844 a three-member commission was formed to consider claims and recommend suitable payment for the land given up. It was composed of the Land Officer, Mr. Gordon, the Chief Magistrate, Major William Caine, and the Chinese Secretary, the Rev. Mr. Charles Gutzlaff.\n\nMr. Gutzlaff did most of the work interviewing the villagers and attempting to ascertain current land values.\n\nThe Colonial Office inquired of the Governor under what circumstances it had been necessary to purchase the land when, with the cession of the island to Britain, all land automatically had become the property of the Crown.\n\nThe Governor explained: “That Rule laid down since the occupation of the island has been that the property of those Chinese who were possessed previous to the cession of the colony should be respected, but none other.\n\n“The land in question is among the oldest under cultivation in the island, being a rich alluvial soil adapted to the growing of rice. It therefore came strictly under this rule.”\n\nThe committee determined to its satisfaction that the price of the second-class paddy land was between $20 and $40 a mow (a Chinese land measure). It recommended the average of $30.\n\nThrough a mistake by the committee in stating the number of mow in an acre, the Government almost blundered into paying three times as much for the land. Fortunately for the Government treasury, but not the villagers, the error was discovered before a settlement was made.\n\nIt took a year to complete the project. The land was surveyed. The owners were compensated and the drainage and undertaken.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211185, "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-1987", "page_number": 246, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "221\n\nBy the summer of 1845, the work was almost finished.\n\nFor each acre the villagers received a sum which amounted to the profit they would have made from ten years' labour on it. In many cases the cash in hand resulted in idleness and eventual impoverishment. Their traditional occupation and source of income was gone forever.\n\nWhat proved to be a disaster for the village was a boon to the expatriate sportsman.\n\nThe foreign community in China had a tradition of avid interest in racing. When the centre of trade was Canton and Macau was the place to go during the off-trade period, a race course had been set up in the Portuguese settlement, not, however, without strong protest from the Chinese who objected to graves being removed or desecrated when the track was laid out.\n\nFor the first few years after the British moved to Hong Kong, the merchants went annually to the Macau races. Though it was a pleasant excursion, it had many drawbacks and there was increasing pressure for Hong Kong to have its own track.\n\nWhere else but the Wong Nei Chong Valley? Here, alone, there was sufficient level open space.\n\nFrom a notice to be quoted, it appears that the community took advantage of the improvements to the valley to hold a meeting in the autumn of 1845.\n\nThe following announcement which appears in the China Mail in October 1846, suggests conditions were not entirely satisfactory and additional improvements needed to be made: \"Meeting of members of the Hong Kong Club and of Naval and Military Gentlemen at the Hong Kong Club to make arrangements for Races to come off about a month hence at Wong Nei Chung Valley, for which, no doubt, permission will be at once obtained.\n\n\"In order to render the course safer and better than on the previous occasion, it is proposed, besides constructing drains, to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211705, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Weights and Measures \n\nLength \n\n1 fen \n\n1 ts'un (Chinese inch) \n\n1 ch'ih (1 Chinese foot) \n\n1 li (1 Chinese Mile) \n\nWeight \n\n1 chin (1 Chinese catty) \n\n1 tan (100 Chinese catties) \n\nArea \n\n1 mu \n\n \n\nMetric \n\n3.725 mm \n\n3.715 cm \n\n37.15 cm \n\n648-681 m \n\n604.8 g \n\n60.48 kg \n\n1/6 acre \n\n95 \n\nIncense Cultivation \n\nJoss stick manufacture is a branch of the incense industry, which is a traditional activity in Hong Kong dating back at least 400 years. It was first developed as a primary industry concentrating on the cultivation of and trade in incense trees. Then the industry gradually expanded into the manufacturing sector as incense wood was ground into incense powder before being exported. After the exhaustion of the incense trees, the industry expanded completely into the industrial secondary sector, making joss sticks from imported incense powder. \n\nAquilaria sinensis, the fragrant incense tree, was once cultivated in Hong Kong. In the late Ming period, the county of Tung-kuan was renowned for the quality of its incense. Until 1572, Tung-kuan county included the area subsequently forming the county of Hsin-an (including the present day New Territories area). Tung-kuan incense was famous throughout China, but was particularly favoured in the lower Yangtze area around Su-chou. In Kuang-tung hsin-yü, it is noted that many Tung-kuan people made their fortune from Kuan-hsiang (meaning incense from Tung-kuan) which was so popular that the annual sales values amounted to tens of thousands of taels. The business boomed, especially during the mid-autumn festival when people around Su-chou and Sung-chiang burnt incense overnight to \"fumigate the moon\". As a result, the stock of Kuan-hsiang was sold out in as short a period as one night.' \n\nPage 1\n\n \n\n \n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211707, "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": 122, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "97\n\nHowever, to export the heavy and bulky incense logs must have caused a lot of trouble and lead to high transport costs. Yet, to assume that incense wood milling developed directly out of this trade seems, perhaps, premature. The incense industry received a very serious blow during the first eight years of the reign of K’ang-hsi (1662-1669), when the Manchus, under the excuse of the expulsion of the pirates and the necessity of protecting the population against them, ordered the people to evacuate the coastal areas, and move inland to places more than 50 li from the coast, so as to suppress the revolt of the Ming remnants. This not only led to the death of many, but also adversely affected the cultivation of and trade in incense trees. The most prosperous incense producing area, Sha Lo Wan on Lantau and Lik Yuen (nowadays known as Sha Tin), were within the evacuation area. Kuang-tung hsin-yü summaries the effects of this evacuation on the industry, noting that,\n\nthere were very few people left after the evacuation, and less than one-tenth of the incense tree growers were left. Most serious of all, old trees had been cut down, and those which were left were only those ten to twenty years old.*\n\nThose who survived this evacuation experienced another disaster in the reign of Yung-Chêng (1723-1735) when a magistrate, obsessed with a love for high grade incense, killed a number of incense growers.\" As a result, the remaining incense growers destroyed the rest of the trees and fled. Thus, the once prosperous incense tree cultivation industry was seriously harmed.\" However, Aquilaria sinensis is by no means rare in Hong Kong. Dunn and Tutcher stated that in 1912, in a one-acre plot of fungshui woodland on lower ground in Hong Kong, 31 out of the 125 trees examined were Aquilaria sinensis (then known as A. Grandiflora).\" Today, incense trees can still commonly be seen in natural woodland on lower hill slopes and in fungshui woods behind villages.\" It seems likely that while trade in incense logs did not survive beyond the early eighteenth century, local milling of incense and manufacture of joss sticks for the local trade did. It was certainly a significant feature of local life in the nineteenth century.\n\nIncense Wood Milling\n\nAfter 1842, the trade in incense wood expanded. Hong Kong's famous deep harbour and geographically sheltered position suited trading vessels. Having become a member of the British Empire, Hong Kong became", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211745, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "135\n\nbeen only too pleased to have the buildings back in operation, and the daily prayers re-started. Kuk Shan Kit, however, died after being at the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz for only a few years. His disciples dispersed to other monasteries. Only one disciple, a lady of over 40 when she arrived from Lo Fau Shan, stayed at the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz, where she lived until she died early in 1991. It is because of Kuk Shan Kit's early death, and the dispersal of his disciples, that the nunnery escaped being rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s.\n\nBefore the War, the nunnery seems to have been dependent on donations from villagers and on offerings made by wayfarers, despite the fact that, at least on paper, it owned a considerable amount of land. At the Block Crown Lease Survey (1905) it was registered as the owner of 2.49 acres of First Quality, 1.8 acres of Second Quality, and 0.23 acres of Third Quality riceland in the Ping Shan area (DD79), 3.79 acres, 0.42 acres and 0.26 acres in the Ping Che area (DD77), 0.87 acres of First Quality riceland in the Wo Hang Au area (DD38), and 1.22 acres of First Quality riceland in the Man Uk Pin area (DD37), totalling 8.37 acres of First Quality, 2.22 acres of Second Quality, and 0.49 of Third Quality riceland; 11.08 acres overall. The only houseland owned was the nunnery itself. Unfortunately, the title deeds for this land have been lost, and it is impossible to be sure when they were donated to the nunnery. The tiny plots near the nunnery were also owned by the nuns, but the value of these plots was so low that they were left unregistered.\n\nIt should be noted that the average holding of an average New Territories family actually farming their own land in the early part of this century was about one acre. Land rented out was usually rented at 50% of its crop, so that the 11.08 acres of the nunnery's holdings should have produced enough, if all rented out, to provide for the subsistence needs of five families, and hence should have been more than sufficient for the needs of a couple of elderly nuns, even if they did have to provide free tea to all wayfarers. However, it seems likely that only a small percentage of the income from this land actually reached the nunnery. This point is considered more fully below.\n\nThe Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz and the Ping Yuen Hap Heung\n\nPolitically, the nunnery stood at a nodal point in the tangled web of local politics. The area near the nunnery was certainly settled in the Ming period. The Punti Ho (I), Tang ( ), Man (A), To (#), and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212306, "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-1990", "page_number": 248, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "The Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company\n\n735\n\nAnother important associate company of Jardine's until the mid-1980s was 'Wharf, which was a pioneer in the development of Kowloon. The firm was established in 1886 by Paul Chater and Kerfoot Hughes. About the same time Jardine's started a wharf at West Point, but largely because of labour difficulties with Chinese lightermen Kowloon Wharf and Jardine's Wharf amalgamated. In 1887, they acquired the P&O (Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company) wharf at West Point although this was later sold,\n\nSir Paul Chater\n\nIt is appropriate here to say something about Anglophile Catchick Paul Chater, born of Armenian parents in 1846, who came to Hong Kong from Calcutta at the age of 18. He started work as a clerk in the Bank of Hindustan, China and Japan, but soon branched out on his own as an exchange and bullion broker. Chater later became a business associate of the Sassoons, who were Jewish merchants. Chater's interests were many and varied. In addition to Hong Kong Land and Kowloon Wharf they included substantial real estate holdings. Hong Kong Bank, Dairy Farm, Star Ferry, Hong Kong Tramways, and Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels. Chater was also a pioneer in the 57 acre Praya reclamation scheme, in Central District, which included Des Voeux and Connaught Roads, and is now one of the most valuable areas of land on earth.\n\nAlthough he was sometimes accused of showing indecent regard for Royalty and all things British, including cricket, others believed, \"Where Chater goes today Jardine's follow tomorrow\". Venturesome in business, few men have contributed so much to Hong Kong as he did, and he worked closely with the British for several decades. One of the busiest roads in Central, as well as Chater Garden and Catchick Street, is named after him. As a self-made man with considerable foresight he was generous, and he became a public benefactor and patron of the arts. Unfortunately, the Chater collection of paintings was lost during World War II. Sir Paul, who served on both the Legislative and Executive Councils, died in 1926 an honoured and respected man.\n\nButterfield and Swire\n\nAnother of the great Hongs, Swire's, is Jardine's competitor, even", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212335, "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-1990", "page_number": 277, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "254\n\nsons, John, Lancelot and Wilkinson, were running the firm from Canton and Macau, in the 1820s, it was very successful, and, later, it was Jardine's main rival.\n\nThe company continued to do well for a number of years but it failed in 1867 at the time of an economic recession. Some believe that Swire's, with their ruthless trading tactics, helped to destroy Dent's although it is not known how much truth there is in this. Another firm that failed about the same time was the Agra and Masterman Bank.\n\nThere are many other once successful organisations that fell by the wayside. Names like Burd; Holliday and Wise; Humphreys; Lyall and Still; Murrow; and Turner; are no longer with us. Bard, in his 1988 report, lists 37 enterprises with English sounding names (some could have been American) of which, although listed in directories between 1845 and 1900, little is known.\n\nBOOKS AND JOURNALS\n\nSOURCES\n\nUnless stated otherwise the following books, journals, brochures, leaflets, magazines, reports, newspapers, supplements, periodicals and letters were published or drafted in Hong Kong,\n\nAdventures and Perils, The First Hundred and Fifty Years of Union Insurance Society of Canton Ltd\n\nBard, Solomon, In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong (1988)\n\nBoulnois, L., The Silk Road (London, 1966)\n\nBraga, J.M., Hong Kong Business Symposium (1957)\n\nBriggs, Tom and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: the Vanishing City (1977)\n\nBriggs, Tom and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: the Vanishing City, Vol. II (1978)\n\nBurgoyne, J., Far Eastern Commercial and Industrial Activities (1924)\n\nCameron, Nigel, Power (1982)\n\nCameron, Nigel, The Milky Way: The History of Dairy Farm (1986)\n\nChambers, Gillian, Super Traders, The Story of Trade Development in Hong Kong (1989)\n\nCoates, Austin, A Mountain of Light (1977)\n\nCoates, Austin, Quick Tidings of Hong Kong (1990)\n\nCoates, Austin, Whampoa: Ships on the Shore (1980)\n\nCollis, Maurice, Wayfoong (London, 1965)\n\nCrisswell, Colin N., The Taipans, Hong Kong's Merchant Princes (1981).\n\nEndacott, G.B., A History of Hong Kong (1958)\n\nGillingham, Paul. At the Peak, Hong Kong between the Wars (1983)\n\nGraham, John, The Lowe Bingham Story (1920-1977)\n\nHistorical and Statistical Abstracts of Hong Kong 1841-1940\n\nHong Kong Going and Gone, Western Victoria (Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch) (1980)\n\nHong Kong (Government year books, various)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212859, "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-1992", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "153 \n\nwrote to Marshall, asking him to intervene on behalf of these Jews. Marshall spoke to Zhou Enlai and Zhou was able to release the Jews as a gesture to the Russians.\" In 1983, only one Jew, a 75-year old woman by the name of Agre, who was born in Russia but was officially listed as stateless, remained in China. The last Jewish resident in Shanghai, a Max Lieberman, died in 1982.\n\n12 \n\nSome Prominent Sephardic Jews in Shanghai \n\nThe first Sephardic Jews came to Shanghai to work for the Sassoon interests, then left to establish enterprises of their own. A number of them prospered and founded dynasties of their own, but I can only give account for a handful of them here.\n\n13 \n\nThe Sassoons \n\nDavid Sassoon was the first Jewish trader in China. The Old Chronicle of Hong Kong recorded Sassoon as 'the first Jewish merchant that set his foot at Canton.\" The Sassoons were Sephardic Jews who had been in Baghdad for several generations by the time David Sassoon was born in 1793. David left Baghdad in 1825 for Bombay where he organized a company to export raw cotton to China and Great Britain. At that time, the East India Company still maintained a monopoly on tea, but had adopted the practice of permitting their employees deck space on Company ships to carry private goods between India and China. People like Jardine and Matheson had used their allotted space to ship opium, which had been grown specifically in India for cash sale in China, despite the fact that opium was considered contraband by Chinese authorities. When the Company's monopoly ended in 1833, private traders began to trade on their own. Jardine, Matheson and Company dominated the opium trade until the 1870s.\n\ne moved from place to place, the responsible", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213100, "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-1993", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "150\n\nIt is scarcely surprising, therefore, that the Hakka villages of this area combined into a number of village self-defence and support alliance groups in the eighteenth century, and under the leadership of the wealthier villages, formed a district association in the early nineteenth, the Shap Yeuk (+) or \"Alliance of Ten\" (so called from the ten or eleven village alliance groups of which it was formed). The Shap Yeuk's prime aim was local self-government. They sought, therefore, to remove from the area the political dominance of the older Punti clans from the west, which had been a feature of the area in the earlier period: this was successfully achieved in the early nineteenth century. The area had previously marketed at Sham Chun, which was a market dominated by the old Punti clans. The population of the Mirs Bay area, which had been very low in the early eighteenth century, had risen sharply, and, by the early nineteenth century, had reached the point where it could support a market of its own. The Shap Yeuk accordingly founded a market, probably in the period 1825-1835, at Sha Tau Kok, partly on reclaimed land. The successful foundation of this market was a clear public statement of the success of the Shap Yeuk in ridding themselves of the influence of the Punti clans of the Sham Chun area.\n\nIn the genealogy of the Chan clan of Nam Chung village it states that Chan Hip-tsun (B) (1792-1864) of that clan was the leader in the market project: \"The foundation of Tung Wo Market was undertaken at his initiative. He got all the people of various Yeuk together, and secured unanimity.\"\n\nImmediately west of the new town, various wealthy local villagers also joined forces to reclaim a 21 acre island of salt-pans, connected with the new town by tidal fords passable at low water. This reclamation may have been undertaken a little after the foundation of the market. Salt production remained an important part of the town's economy until the 1920s. 10\n\nIn the early nineteenth century there were three temples in the area near the new town. One was the Tin Hau Temple at Am King (Anjing, ), which was the community temple of the Luk Heung (Luxiang, A), the area immediately east of the new town. This temple was of early Ch'ing date the latest.\" Only half a mile from the new market was the Kwan Tai Temple at Shan Tsui, the community temple of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213450, "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-1995", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "13\n\nwithin 30 years, perpetual leases at low rentals and leases for short terms of 5 to 10 years. Red deeds are the only deeds of which the Government takes cognisance and the Crown Rent is collected on these deeds only.'\n\nWe need not consider further the details of the Chinese deeds and their system of registration since Lockhart reported-\n\n\"Although the system of land registration adopted by the Chinese is apparently simple, the difficulties that have been experienced in connection with it show it to be of the most unsatisfactory nature, especially as not much reliance can be placed upon the accuracy of any title deeds registered under it.\n\n15\n\nThe expedient adopted by the Hong Kong Government to resolve these difficulties is well-known, a Land Court was set up to hear claims to tenure of land and those established were confirmed by the Government and recorded as Block Crown Leases, commonly known as \"Old Schedule Plots.'\n\n11\n\nLockhart in his Report described the Chinese method of Land measurement:-\n\n\"Owners or occupiers report their land in mau or Chinese acres, but as it has not been the general custom in the districts to calculate the area of land by mau, but rather by the amount of grain required to sow a field, they also report the area of their land in this manner, two and a half tau of grain being equivalent to one mau (0.1515 English acre)\n\nBut even this tau varies in different localities. The Kun Tau or Chinese official standard measure of 10 shing, is adopted at Taipo, in Sheung Shui District and at Sha Tau Kok. The Ts'ong Tau or grain measure of 11 shing, is used throughout the Fanling District. The Tsin Tau of 8 shing is employed in the Tsuen Wan and some other Districts..\n\nAs to hill and waste land the Memorandum reads:-\n\n\"All hills and waste lands are claimed by the nearest villages or most powerful clans in the neighbourhood or even at a distance.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213582, "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-1995", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "148\n\nalthough the woodcutters have left but few trees there and at Wong-nei-chung, yet formerly it grew abundant there. In the time of the Hon Dynasty, this wood, it is said, was highly valued, and formed an article of tribute\" (HKDP, 1873).\n\nThe incense industry received a severe blow from which it never recovered during the coastal evacuation ordered by the emperor K'ang-hsi from 1662-1669. The Kuang-tung hsin-yu notes that, \"there were very few people left after the evacuation, and less than one tenth of the incense growers were left. Most serious of all, old trees had been cut down, and those which were left were only ten to twenty years old”. Those who survived this evacuation experienced another disaster during the reign of Yung-Cheng (1723-1735) when a magistrate, obsessed with a love of high grade incense, killed a number of incense growers. The remaining growers then cut down the rest of their trees and fled (Chang, 1963). The trade in incense wood, however, continued with supplies of sandalwood from New South Wales imported during the nineteenth century and milled into powder by water-powered mills in the Tsuen Wan area. A detailed account of the history of this trade and the manufacture of incense is given in Chan (1989).\n\nThe statement that Aquilaria sinensis is not native but was introduced from North Vietnam is questioned by Iu (1983), as the species appears to be indigenous to Hong Kong and is commonly found in fung shui woods where it freely regenerates to form a component of the subcanopy layer. Dunn and Tutcher (1912) stated that in 1912, in a one-acre plot of fung shui woodland on lower ground in Hong Kong, 31 out of 125 trees examined were Aquilaria sinensis (then known as A. Grandiflora). A report by Nichols (1978) found that at Uk Tau on the Sai Kung peninsula, a third of the trees in the fung shun wood were incense trees, ten times as many as in neighbouring natural woodland, and that an old man in the village said that heung trees were cultivated there in living memory for the incense trade.\n\nBecause a tree was once grown in plantations, of course, has no bearing as to whether or not it is native. Whether or not the present-day incense trees are remnants of former plantations or whether incense trees were ever cultivated in fung shui woods may never be known, but none of the village representatives questioned during a study carried out by the author into fung shui woods between 1990 and 1995 ever", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213583, "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-1995", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "149\n\nmentioned that incense trees in fung shui woods were ever harvested. Iu (1983) claims that the misunderstanding may have been caused by the reference to another incense producing species Aquilaria agallocha which was commonly grown in north Vietnam.\n\nAnother resource, long since exhausted, were the forest trees used for charcoal burning, once a flourishing local industry all over the New Territories. The memory of this occupation remains in one of the place names at Shing Mun, known as Tan Chong or \"charcoal factory”, in which some houses were already abandoned by the early years of this century (Hayes, 1983). An account of the charcoal industry, which was carried out by outsiders for trade, is given by Shen (1971).\n\nThe village hill areas were the main suppliers of fuel, usually in the form of grass cut in autumn, but also as pine and brushwood gathered to augment a villager's income. Firewood was taken to market as it was one of the three basic staples, including rice and vegetables, that was required by the rapidly growing urban population. Firewood from Shatin was brought on foot to Kowloon (Sessional Papers 1903, p209) which list 66,521 loads of firewood, each of 90lbs. The Kowloon Lok Sin Tong levied a small weighing charge on each load of firewood sold in Kowloon City market, for charitable works. The annual output of one acre (0.4ha) was 11 piculs (640kg), (Hong Kong Annual Report 1938 p59). Gathering firewood was the main occupation of the village women. A typical headload would be in region of 90-100lbs (45kg) and would be collected twice a week, (Hayes, 1983).\n\nFirewood was used in earthenware stoves, known as \"feng-lu\", for cooking family meals and special food at festival times. Grass gathered from the hill side in autumn and the stalks from the first crop of rice were the universal fuel used for heating water and pigswill. Firewood was still being used up until 1964 in the urban encroached village of So Uk in west Kowloon for cooking at Chinese New Year, as it was better for baking (Hayes, 1983).\n\nWhen a bride came to live in her husband's village, the older women would show her those areas from which fuel could be gathered and those areas, usually the fung shui woods, where it could not be gathered. This information was often learned by means of a 12 line poem or song to name those areas where the young wife should not gather fuel.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214440, "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": 298, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "265\n\nTHE STORY OF GUN CLUB HILL BARRACKS\n\nR.G. HORSNELL\n\nAnyone who walks or drives along Austin Road, Kowloon, past the Kowloon Bowling Club towards Chatham Road, cannot fail to notice the imposing entrance to Gun Club Hill Barracks.\n\nThe old cannon on its granite base at one side of the iron gates guarded by a sentry, and the massive granite retaining wall resembling the wall of an unassailable fortress, make a fitting entrance to the barracks. Yet it did not always look like this. The granite retaining wall was built when the cutting for Austin Road was made, and the main entrance to the barracks originally was from Chatham Road. In the old photograph one can see what the entrance looked like at the turn of the century. Colonnaded buildings stand on the site of the present WOS and Sergeants' Mess, a building in the centre stands on the site of the present Record Office and Training Centre, and a building on the right is where the present Officers' Mess now stands. This building is still there although somewhat remodelled with a front entrance wing added in 1935.\n\nIt is not known for certain when the barracks were established, but in early 1860, before Kowloon was ceded to Britain after the China Wars, several areas had already been mapped out as possible sites for military barracks. A memorandum from the Secretary of War, dated 1860, stated \"The necessity for increased accommodation for the garrison has long been apparent to the military authorities, and the acquisition of a healthy site like that of Kowloon, points at once in the direction in which accommodation must be found.\" One of the sites which was mapped out was Whitfield Barracks, named after Maj. Gen. H.W. Whitfield, Maj. Gen. China, Hong Kong and Straits Settlements (1869-1874) to the west of Nathan Road in Tsimshatsui. Another site was Gun Club Hill, probably one of the nine hills which gave Kowloon its name. The site then encompassed the Kowloon Cricket Club ground, but the present 25 acre site is bounded by Chatham Road, Austin Road, Jordan Path, Jordan Road and Gascoigne Road, this last road named after another CBF - Maj. Gen. Sir W.J. Gascoigne KCMG, Maj. Gen. China and Hong Kong (1898-1903).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214651, "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-1999", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "30\n\nvillagers jointly owning property, but where one of the group also individually owned a house in Nga Tsin Wai. Eight of these seventeen house-owners owning premises only outside the village comprised groups of joint-owners. Sixteen of the 72 owners owning houses within the village consisted of joint-ownership groups of two or more villagers. Villagers of Nga Tsin Wai (including the village trusts) owned rather more than 83 acres of arable land. Villagers of Nga Tsin Wai as defined here also owned 47 house-lots in Sha Po, and 30 house-lots in Kowloon Market. In Sha Po and Kowloon City, many of these house-lots covered several adjacent shops, or else comprised large walled compounds with many workshops (one consisted of no less than fifteen small buildings set in a large courtyard). The standard shop or house occupied about one-hundredth of an acre: some of these compound lots in Kowloon City and Sha Po were as large as nine, or even eleven standard buildings. The villagers thus owned the equivalent of 95 standard buildings in Kowloon City, and 99 in Sha Po. Nga Tsin Wai village must have had a total population of about 400 people, although, even in 1902, a percentage were living away from the village, working as seamen or in the City.\n\nAccording to the Sha Tin villagers, the bare subsistence requirement for an adult in this area is about one-sixth of an acre of medium-good arable land. Between half an acre and three-quarters of an acre is the bare minimum for the subsistence of an ordinary family, although the villagers traditionally talk of an acre as desirable. The arable land near Nga Tsin Wai was all of average or good quality, with little poor quality land. Any village with above three-quarters of an acre of average or good arable land per household should definitely be seen as prosperous above the average. Villagers also say that three houses per household are desirable (allowing one for a barn, and one for a married son); villages in the New Territories range from barely one house per household to a little over two per household (“house” in this context means the small single-storey brick traditional structures, often of about 436 square feet). On both counts, Nga Tsin Wai was prosperous in 1902; it had well over two houses per house-owning household, and over an acre of reasonably good arable land per household. If the village had a total population of 400, that would imply a population equivalent to about 300 adults: that would have given every adult villager access to over a quarter of an acre of agricultural land, again, a sign of prosperity.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214652, "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-1999", "page_number": 67, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "31\n\nOne of the things which stands out most clearly from the Block Crown Lease at Nga Tsin Wai is that the Chans were already only a remnant in the village in 1902. Eight Chan clan households are recorded owning houses in the village, but five of these are recorded as owning only houses (four of the five only owning a single house, within the walls). Yet another Chan is recorded as owning nothing except one one-hundredth of an acre of arable land. A seventh household consisted of no less than five adult men as joint heads of household, owning jointly a single house within the walls, and a small amount of arable land (one-fifth of an acre). These seven households are clearly relics of an earlier period when their ancestors were villagers in reality. Most of these families had sold out, and kept back just the one house, possibly for ritual reasons, disposing of their arable land, and, probably going into business in the City.\n\nand the one-fifth of an acre of arable land, however, was almost certainly a Tso Uk (祖屋, \"Ancestral House\"), owned by all the Chans from all the various scattered places where they then (and now) live. This house was doubtless put into joint ownership when the Chans started to desert Nga Tsin Wai, so that the clan would retain their links with their place of origin. The house still functions in this way today, with the Village Headmen of all the various Chan villages being the joint owners. The house is used for various rituals at the Ta Tsiu and elsewhen. Only two Chan households remained in 1902 as genuine villager households - Chan Ying-kam, who owned five houses in the village and one in the Market, and 0.43 acres of arable land; and Chan Fu, who owned three houses within the walls, one outside, and one in the Market, and 0.86 acres of arable land. Chan Ying-kam was also the Trustee of the only Nga Tsin Wai Chan clan trust to survive as a functioning Nga Tsin Wai body to 1902: the Chan Shuk Ching Tso, which owned 0.16 acres of arable land (the Chan Chiu In Tso functioned insofar as it was one of the three joint owners of the Tin Hau Temple and the Village Office, but this trust, in 1902, retained no other property in the Nga Tsin Wai area).\n\nThe Yung clan, which had bought into the village, probably only a few years before the 1902 Survey, consisted of just two brothers, Yung Wing-kwong and Yung Wing-fai. They owned only the two houses they lived in, and no arable land - the houses were owned jointly. These brothers had doubtless bought the houses as a place to live in: they were very probably merchants working in the Market.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214653, "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-1999", "page_number": 68, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "32\n\nThe Tse clan had clearly bought into the village at a slightly earlier period - probably the grandfather of the household-heads recorded in 1902 had been the first to settle here. The family owned a complete subsistence estate - three houses within the walls, and one outside, and a total of 4.21 acres of arable land. They had probably bought out one or more of the Chan households. The Tse households had their landholdings arranged in a very closely interlinked fashion - the family was still, in 1902, clearly functioning very much as a single economic unit. There seem to have been four households, but only two were recorded as owning houses (in total, they owned four houses). 3.49 acres of the family agricultural land, however, were recorded as being owned by those two households not recorded as owning houses.\n\nOf the households recorded from the Ng clan in 1902 there were, as is to be expected, considerable variations in wealth. Of those household heads who owned their property without any other joint owner, the arable land owned varied from 0.41 acres (Ng Un-po), 0.56 acres (Ng Kun-po) and then through 0.83 acres (Ng Yuk-sing), 0.90 acres (Ng Kwong-ip), 1.23 acres (Ng Man-hi), 1.49 acres (Ng Shui) to 1.58 acres (Ng Kwai-cheung), and 1.61 acres (Ng Tak-tat). Of the joint owners, Ng Cheung-sing and Ng Lam-yau (probably uncle and nephew jointly inheriting from the younger man's grandfather) held 0.68 acres, Ng Fo-sang and Ng Tin-yau (probably another uncle and nephew joint inheritance) held 1.05 acres, Ng Hing-tak and Ng Loi-fat held 0.47 acres, Ng Hop and Ng Tak-lap held 1.20 acres, Ng Kit-san and Ng Yuk-chan held 0.81 acres, Ng Shing-fu and Ng Shui-fat held 1.37 acres, while Ng Tseuk-hin and Ng Tso-fuk held no less than 4.93 acres. In many of these cases one or other of the joint owners are also recorded as owning small areas of land as individuals in addition to their joint estates, but in each case the joint estate provided the great bulk of the property owned.\n\nAll the estates listed above would have been enough for subsistence. Farms in this area of less than an acre (if used for rice cultivation) did not need more than a single adult's labour, except at the peak harvest periods. Most families, however, had more than one single pair of adult hands (there would be both a husband and a wife, and often teenage or married children, and frequently a married sibling). It was normal in the area for one person to work the farm, or perhaps two, while others would go off to earn cash income as labourers or", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214654, "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-1999", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "33\n\nartisans. In many of the uncle-and-nephew joint ownerships, the older man would work the farm, while the younger went off as a seaman - when the older man died or got too old to work the land, the younger would return to work the farm and marry, while the uncle's son in turn would go off as a seaman. In others, one of the owners would work a shop in the Market, with his brother or cousin working the farm. In all these cases the subsistence income from the farm, and the cash income from the shop or ship were regarded as the joint property of the whole family. These joint ownerships, therefore, tended to allow more flexibility in management of the economic opportunities available than the single-ownership properties.\n\nOf course, where, as at Nga Tsin Wai after the foundation of the City at Hong Kong in 1841, a good deal of the land was devoted to market gardening, then a household could subsist on less land than was needed for rice subsistence, so long as the village had good access to a vigorous market. Market gardening, however, required considerably more labour than a rice farm, perhaps three or four adults to the acre.\n\nNga Tsin Wai was, therefore, not seriously short of arable land. The villagers could, in normal years, feed themselves, especially since a good deal of the land was devoted to market gardening, even in the nineteenth century. Indeed, even as late as the Japanese Occupation, the village could subsist on its own land: Nga Tsin Wai is one of the few New Territories villages where no-one died of starvation under the Japanese - the village fields (by then entirely given over to market gardening) could still feed the village, even when a third or more had been confiscated by the Japanese for the construction of the Airport Extension and the new nullah.\n\nvery\n\nThe Ng clan comprised 58.8% of the recorded 1902 Nga Tsin Wai house-owning households (including those households only owning land in Sha Po or Kowloon City), but owned 68.59% of the arable land (including land held by Ng clan trusts). If the Chan and Yung households who held only houses are ignored, then the Ngs represent 63.09% of the recorded house-owning households. At the same time, the Ngs owned 20 of the 30 premises owned by villagers within the Market at Kowloon, (66%), and their premises were equivalent to 73 standard shop-sites (76.84%). The Ng clan was thus a little wealthier than the rest of the village.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214655, "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-1999", "page_number": 70, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "34\n\nThe 1902 Lease does record a number of apparently very poor households, as for instance Ng Fuk and Ng Ki-san, who held between them a mere 0.05 acre of arable land, Ng Shing-po who held just 0.04 acres, plus a further 0.08 held jointly with Ng Loi, Ng Tso-kwai who held 0.04 acre, Ng Ying-shan who held 0.06 acre, Li Yung-wun who held 0.04 acre, and Ng Ping-fuk with 0.04 acres. Ng Chan Shi, Ng A Hing, Ng Lam-hing jointly with Ng Tso-hing, and Ng Tsun-ming are all recorded as owning only houses, with no agricultural land, although there can be no question that these were genuinely resident villagers in every respect. These areas of agricultural land are far too low to support a household. In these instances, however, we are probably seeing men whose fathers were still alive, and where the bulk of the family land was recorded under the father's name. In such circumstances, where an adult son had himself bought a piece of land with money he had saved from his own labour, then this small piece of land was often regarded as the son's alone, and would have been so recorded. This cannot be proved at Nga Tsin Wai, since the Tsuk Po in most cases records the posthumous Tong names rather than the names recorded in the Lease, but it is extremely likely for Li Kam-tak, for instance. This man held 0.1 acres, of which 0.06 acres were held jointly with two others - but Kam-tak was an important Ng clan elder in 1902, the trustee of the moderately significant Ting Fuk Tso, with its holdings of a house in Sha Po and 0.37 acres. Similarly, Ng Loi, with his 0.08 acres, was nonetheless a significant elder, the trustee of two trusts, including the important Chiu Pak Tso. Ng Ping-fuk, too, may have had only 0.04 acres of agricultural land, but he also owned two very large houses outside the village, as large between them as six standard houses, and was one of the trustees of the small King Tai Tso.\n\nAnother reason for these tiny estates may have been that families were unsure whether it would later on prove to be advantageous to have a name entered on the Lease (as was definitely the case with the Ch'ing Imperial Land Registers), and so some families allowed adult sons to enter themselves as the owner of some small plot in case this later proved of value. In none of these cases should the small estates recorded be taken as the household's sole economic resource. Few households in Nga Tsin Wai (other than the remnant Chans, and the Yungs) seem to have held less than 0.4 acres of arable land.\n\nIn many cases, households would have extended their land holdings", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214656, "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-1999", "page_number": 71, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "35\n\nby renting arable from the ancestral trusts of which they were members. 28.91% of the total arable land owned by the Ngs of Nga Tsin Wai was held by ancestral trusts. As usual in the New Territories, these trusts ranged from the very tiny to the very large. Thus, the Ching Yam Tso (in the name of the pivotal ancestor of the twelfth and most junior of the descent lines of the Ngs) owned only a single house within the walls, and 0.13 acres of arable land. There were only three descendants alive at the time of the Block Crown Lease. There can be little doubt that this house was a Tso Uk, used by the descendants to hold their ancestral tablets and to perform family funeral and other rituals (this was a common practice at Tai Wai in Sha Tin, where, as at Nga Tsin Wai, the houses within the walls were just too small to cope with rituals). The arable land was doubtless rented out to provide income for maintenance of the family graves. Similarly, the 0.14 acres of the Man Hing Tso, the 0.12 acres of the Shing Pak Tso, the 0.07 acres of the Tsak Tai Tso, and also the 0.1 acres owned by the Li Yung Fat Tso - all of these probably reflect small areas rented out for the maintenance of graves.\n\nAnother reason for these tiny trust estates which is quite likely in some circumstances (and which would reflect similar practices in Sha Tin) would be trusts set up by brothers on the division of their father's estate on his death, when some part of the estate was found to be difficult to divide, and so was put into a trust, so as to be held by the brothers jointly - examples in Sha Tin include small orchards, rice-drying grounds, buffalo wallows, and so forth. This is almost certainly the case with the King Tai Tso, where the trustees and sole beneficiaries in 1902 were the King Tai Ancestor's younger son and the son of his already deceased elder son - this trust owned only 0.04 acres of land.\n\nOther trusts, however, were devices for holding family property. The Chiu Pak Tso owned a large house in Kowloon Market, and 0.99 acres of arable land. The two trustees, Ng Shing-po and Ng Loi, were the only members of this trust: individually, the two owned only houses (Shing-po owned two houses within the walls and one without, and Loi owned one within and two without), and one small plot of arable each (probably the family vegetable garden - 0.04 acre in the case of Shing-po, and 0.03 in the case of Loi). This trust was probably set up in the name of the ancestor who was the grandfather of Loi and the great-grandfather of Shing-po: this was effectively another uncle-and-nephew land-holding, but where the family preferred to hold the joint estate more formally, as a trust. Other similar situations are likely to lie", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215477, "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-2001", "page_number": 254, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "203\n\nthought of some time in 1962. Better late than never.\n\nThe road continued past fresh rushing rivers and terraced fields. These were either brilliant green or bright yellow, the latter being mustard. Prayer flags flapping on every promontory completed the picturesque scene. Not quite so pretty was the state of the road. This had become very muddy with much evidence of landslides. Coming from Hong Kong we felt a bit uneasy not to see every slope covered in concrete and with a number on it. Perhaps we can teach these Bhutanese a thing or two after all.\n\nAt one of our stops some youths were playing the local version of darts. They were using lethal looking missiles almost a foot long which were thrown either at the ground or at a convenient tree or piece of wood. The object seemed to be to get yours as close as possible to the other chap's, and so this necessitated the other chap to stand close to where his had landed. Either they are all very good shots, or they have lightning reactions, or they are very trustful of each other, or perhaps all three - but it looked jolly dangerous to me.\n\nFurther up there was a splendid view of snow-capped Jomolhari, last seen in Paro. We came to our own peak at Pele-la pass (11,200 feet), from where there was a two-hour cruise downhill to Trongsa. About half way from the pass to Trongsa, at Chendebji Chorten, we saw a familiar sight. Right next to this magnificent Nepalese-style stupa, complete with eyes painted at the top, was a long table and 30 garden chairs. Lunch had been prepared. What a privilege to be catered for in what is presumably a sacred site. It felt for all the world like a scene from E.M. Forster when Dr Aziz organised a picnic for Miss Quested at the Malabar Caves. Can you imagine similar treatment for a group of foreigners at, say, Stonehenge? Ha! (or as they say in Bhutan Haa!).\n\nInto The Hundred Acre Wood\n\nThe stunning Trongsa Dzong looked quite close when we first saw it, occupying a commanding position on the opposite side of the valley. However, it was another half-hour before we could find our way round the valley and see it at close quarters. Tea and bickies at Trongsa Norling Hotel were very welcome before setting out on the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215478, "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-2001", "page_number": 255, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "204\n\nlast leg of the day's journey, to Bumthang.\n\nWe were now passing into Central Bhutan. The country gets more remote and primitive the further east one goes. The road by now resembled a quarry, thanks to the ambitious road-widening project that has been under way since late 2000. Until then, road vehicles were required to cross into Indian Assam in order to get to the east of Bhutan. This route became less favoured when some Indian militants shot a Bhutanese bus driver in order to prove a point. (Brian did not mention that in the briefing notes!) To compensate for the road, the trees had become particularly impressive. We were now driving through gigantic pine trees, just like in the Hundred Acre Wood. I could easily imagine Pooh Bear falling out of one, had he been there.\n\nAbout half-an-hour short of Jakar, the capital of Bumthang province, two or three woollen goods shops formed the nucleus of a knitting and weaving industry, so of course we had to stop and boost the local economy. I saw a scarf I particularly liked. The young lady in the shop told me it was 300 ngultrum (about HK$50), I have never really learned the art of bargaining, and so I offered her 250 and a large hopeful smile. She smiled back, but the smile quickly faded. 'Excuse me' she said, 'there's 50 missing.' I was so flustered that I tried to pretend that it was all my fault and I quickly gave her the missing note. I hung around a bit to listen to how the hardened shoppers managed to bring the price down, but I had to bow out in the face of such expertise and experience.\n\nWe reached the hotel at dusk and found it to be rather like a ski lodge - fresh and inviting on the outside and warm and toasty on the inside, with pine-clad walls. Welcoming tea and bickies were laid out in the communal sitting area of the dining room. The bedroom was also toasty, almost a sauna. The source of the heat was a wood-burning stove. This gave off a terrific amount of heat, but burnt through its contents very quickly. When I returned to the bedroom after dinner it was like stepping into a fridge, so quickly had the heat disappeared. As the electricity supply was rather intermittent, each room was provided with a candle. ‘Ah-ha' I thought, ‘salvation.' I lit the candle and held it against a thinnish piece of pine for no less than fifteen shivering minutes, but the blighter wouldn't light. So I had to climb into bed, wondering about such news headlines as: ‘Careless cigarette\n\nPage 205\n\nPage 255\n\nPage 256", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215525, "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-2001", "page_number": 302, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "252\n\nhas not only survived, but was actually extended in 1947,87 despite the vigorous developments that Kowloon would have to experience in the 20th century.88 This cemetery was renamed as New Kowloon Cemetery No.1’ in 1925.89\n\nIn 1904, ‘Sham Shui Po Cemetery’ was also appointed ‘at Shum Shui Po in the New Territory, the Eastern boundary thereof being about 270 feet West of the Tai Po Road and the Southern boundary being about 520 feet North of the old boundary of Kowloon and containing 4.75 acres or thereabouts.’90 The cemetery was close to the old Sham Shui Po Village and other settlements in the area. Similar to Po Kong Po Cemetery, the cemetery might have been an extension of an early villagers' burial ground. In some later government notices, the names of ‘Kowloon Tong Cemetery’ and ‘Christian Chinese Cemetery, Kowloon Tong, known as New Kowloon Inland Lot No.16’92 also appeared. Further clarification is needed in regard to the location of these two cemeteries, though in a 1924 map,93 three cemeteries can be found in the present Tai Hang Tung area, which may be related to the two cemeteries. Kowloon Tong Cemetery was closed in 1921, but removal of all graves and urns were not ordered until 1949;95 while the removal of all graves and urns in the Chinese Christian Cemetery, Kowloon Tong, was ordered in 1950.96\n\n93\n\n94\n\nIn January 1907, two cemeteries were authorized, one on the island:\n\nA plot of land at Kai Lung Wan (A) having an area of about 12 acres and the following boundaries:- North: Farm Lots 14 and 15 and the Jubilee” and Pokfulam Roads; South: the present Kai Lung Wan Cemetery; East: the Pokfulam Road; West: Farm Lot 15.100\n\nThe other was described as:\n\nA plot of land at Tseung Loong Tin11 (✯✯), situated at Cha Kwo Ling in the New Territories, having a total area of about 1 acre.\n\n102\n\n•\n\nLater in the year, ‘Kai Lung Wan East Cemetery,104 which was “situated on the East side of the Pokfulam Road at No. 10 Bridge, and containing about 53.50 acres’ was also appointed.\n\n.* 105\n\nIn 1908, Cheung Chau Cemetery which was situated on the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]