[
    {
        "id": 206757,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1973",
        "page_number": 34,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "YAUMATEI TYPHOON SHELTER, HONG KONG, \n\n1903-1915* \n\nA. J. S. LACK \n\nThere are many things in the port of Hong Kong which are taken for granted. One example which is quite remarkable in its own right is the typhoon shelter at Yaumatei, Kowloon. This shelter has provided refuge for local craft in any number of typhoons since it was completed; but it is not its present use on which I intend to speak to you today, but rather to give an account of the events which led to its construction as these are to be traced in the records of the proceedings of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong†.\n\nThe story goes back to 1900 when a very severe typhoon caused a great deal of damage in the Colony. Following that storm and in the years 1901 and 1902, many demands were made that the Government should do something to afford greater protection to the boat people in Hong Kong during the typhoon season. There were then none of the sophisticated means whereby the course of a typhoon could be accurately plotted several days before striking the Colony. Indeed the nature of these storms was simply not understood at that time, and in the early days of the century and before typhoons would strike without warning and frequently caused extensive damage and loss of life. There were, however, within the harbour some relatively sheltered anchorages and unreclaimed bays in which the fishing people and the boat population in general could take refuge during storms. But there was only one artificial typhoon shelter at that time. This was a small shelter at Causeway Bay, constructed in 1883.\n\n* An Address given to Kowloon Rotary Club on 26th December, 1972. * Mr. Lack is the Principal Marine Officer in the Marine Department, Hong Kong Government, and has lived and worked in Hong Kong since 1953.\n\n† In 1913 when a new edition of the Laws of Hong Kong was published, the Legislative Council of the Colony consisted of the Governor, the Senior Military Officer, the Colonial Secretary, Attorney General and Treasurer, plus up to three other Official Members and up to six Unofficial Members. The work and proceedings of the Council are set out in Instructions (1888) and Additional Instructions (1896) contained in pp. 14-23 of Vol. 3 of the Alabaster Edition of the Laws of Hong Kong, 1913. An up to date account of the work of the Legislative Council and its senior partner, the Executive Council, is given in Hong Kong 1973, Report for the Year 1972, (H.K. Govt. Press, 1973), pp. 200-201. Ed.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207046,
        "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": 117,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "THE HONG KONG REGION\n\n111\n\nOctober 1860, and again by the lease of the New Territories by the Convention of Peking in June 18981.\n\nThe population of the region was probably around 100,000 in 1898, including boat people. These persons inhabited — in round figures — a thousand villages and a number of market centres. Seven hundred of these settlements were located within the present New Territories of Hong Kong, with many others around Sham Chun and in Hong Kong island and Kowloon. The Punti or Cantonese-speaking element accounted for rather more than half the land population, with Hakka speakers comprising most of the remainder. The boat population, mainly Tanka, lived afloat in the main.2\n\nDescriptions of the geography and climate of the present British Crown Colony are generally applicable to the Hong Kong region. They have long been given in the Hong Kong annual reports. The most recent is supplied in the opening sections of chapter 18 of the report for 1974.3\n\n1. The Hong Kong Region in the wider scene: some historical and geographical considerations\n\nIn Ch'ing times Hsin-an was one of the 14 hsien of the Kuang-chou prefecture. The designation fu or 'prefecture' was adopted only at the start of the Ming dynasty but the area of Canton and the Delta had long been administered under various designations that changed through the centuries and with dynastic change. The oldest of its hsien, Nan-hai, was established in the Sui dynasty in the year 590-591; the next, P'an-yu in 703-704 during the Tang; with the rest becoming separate districts at various times until the first year of Wan Li of the Ming (1573-1574) when, finally, Hsin-an was created from one of the former commanderies of Tung-kuan district (a hsien of 973-974) established in the 27th year of the first Ming ruler (1394-1395).\n\n1 The relevant documents are given in Alabaster, III, pp. 2-4 and 6-8. 2 See Baker 1968: 3-4. Also the Colony Census for 1911 in SP1911: 103(27-36) and (37-38), though it does not list all the villages of the Southern District of the New Territories or of New Kowloon.\n\n3 CR1974, pp. 176-178.\n\n4 See e.g. TCITC 41/1 and KCFC 6/10.\n\n5 KCFC 6/1-10 and YCKC 4/1-9.\n\n6 KTTC 2/93 and KTKKCY 1/1. The administrative areas to which the Hsin-an district belonged from the Ch'in dynasty (221-207 B.C.) onwards are shown in KCFC 6/24 and in HNHC 1/1. The date of the establishment of the commandery is given as Hung Wu 27 in HNHC 1/3, KTKKCY 1/1, TCITC 41/3 and KTTC 2/93, but as Hung Wu 14 in KCFC 6/24.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207067,
        "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": 138,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "132\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nIn English\n\nAlabaster, Chaloner Grenville, The Laws of Hong Kong, 3 vols., Hong Kong, Noronha and Co., Government Printers, 1913.\n\nArlington, L. C., Through the Dragon's Eyes, Fifty Years' Experiences of a Foreigner in the Chinese Government Service, London, Constable, 1931.\n\nBaker, H. D. R., 'The Five Great Clans of the New Territories', in JHKBRAS, 5, 1965: 25-47.\n\nA Chinese Lineage Village, Sheung Shui, London, Frank Cass, 1968.\n\nBalfour, S. F., 'Hong Kong before the British being a local history before the British occupation', Shanghai, T'ien Hsia Monthly, Vols. 11-12, 1940-41; 330-352, 440-464. Reprinted in JHKBRAS, 10, 1970: 134-179.\n\nBarnett, K. M. A., 'The Peoples of the New Territories' in J. M. Braga (compiler), Hong Kong Business Symposium, Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, Ltd., 1957, pp. 261-265.\n\n'Hong Kong before the Chinese', 'Technical Revolution in 900 AD' and 'The Riddle of the Hakka', Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, 24-26th April, 1967.\n\nCollingwood, Cuthbert, Rambles of a Naturalist on the Shores and Waters of the China Sea, London, John Murray, 1868.\n\nCooper, J. T., 'The Mapping of Hong Kong' in JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 131-140.\n\nDes Voeux, Sir G. William, My Colonial Service in British Guiana, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Fiji, Australia, Newfoundland and Hong Kong, London, John Murray, 1903, 2 vols.\n\nEitel, E. J., (revised and enlarged by Immanuel Gottlieb Genähr), A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, 2 vols., Hong Kong, Kelly and Walsh, 1910-1911.\n\nFox, Grace, British Admirals and Chinese Pirates 1832-1869, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1940.\n\nFranke, Wolfgang, An Introduction to the Sources of Ming History, Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaysia Press, Singapore 1968.\n\nFu, Lo-shu (Compiler), A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations (1644-1820), 2 vols., Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1966.\n\nGiles, H. A., A Chinese English Dictionary, Second Edition, revised and Enlarged. Shanghai, Hong Kong, etc., Kelly and Walsh, 1912.\n\nGroves, R. G., 'Militia, Market and Lineage: Chinese Resistance to the Occupation of Hong Kong's New Territories in 1899', JHKBRAS, 9, 1969: 31-64.\n\nHay, Sir John C. Dalrymple, The Suppression of Piracy in the China Sea, 1849, London, Edward Stanford, 1889.\n\nHayes, J. W., 'Cheung Chau 1850-1898: Information from Commemorative Tablets', JHKBRAS 3, 1963: 88-99.\n\n'The San On Map of Mgr. Volontieri' in JHKBRAS 10, 1970: 193-196.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208411,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 135,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\nfrom the right to own property.\n\n119\n\nA recognition of these evils by modern, educated Chinese has led to a vigorous and disruptive attack upon the whole traditional system. Sun Yat-sen recognized these evils, and the new civil code of the Republic aims to break the grip of the family system by altering its legal basis.1\n\nII\n\nAn interesting outcome of this family unity is the theory of mutual responsibility. This theory is of the utmost importance both in family life and in village government, of which it is a cornerstone in legal theory and in practice. The family is collectively and directly responsible for the crimes of each member. Indeed, one of the postulates of Chinese law seems to have been this principle.2 Under the Ch'ing dynasty punishment for the crimes committed by an individual might sometimes be visited upon any or all the members of his family, even to the extent of death for the whole group in serious cases.3\n\nIn customary practice this phenomenon of mutual responsibility is very active. The deeds of each member of the family are the intimate concern of all. Strong pressure will be brought to bear upon an individual to prevent or to correct breaches which might impair the reputation of the family or entangle it in quarrels and law suits. Kulp, in his study of Familism in South China, finds that all offenses except failure to pay taxes are in reality against the family, and are subject to judgment in the first place by the family and its leaders. The extreme inquisitiveness of the typical Chinese villager is but one aspect of this feeling of responsibility for all that\n\n1 China. National Government; The Civil Code of the Republic of China. Vol. II, p. vii. For particular examples see below p. 14, 15.\n\n2 On this point see: Alabaster, Ernest; Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law, p. lxx-lxxii, 151, 152, 193-196. On the evils of mutual responsibility, from the legal point of view, ibid., p. lxxi-lxxii,\n\n3 Ta Ch'ing Lu Li, (****), (Sixth Division: Criminal Law, Book I, Sec. 254) translated by Staunton, George T.; Ta Tsing Leu Lee, Being the Fundamental Laws, and a Selection from the Supplementary Statutes of the Penal Code of China, p. 269-270. See also: Alabaster; op. cit., p. lxvi, 466-467; Boulais, Guy; Manuel du Code Chinois, p. 464-466.\n\n4 Kulp, Daniel Harrison; Country Life in South China, Vol. I: Phenix Village, p. XXVIII. (This work will hereafter be referred to as Phenix Village.)\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208413,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 137,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\n121\n\nThe new civil code, while it gives no such specific order for succession, does not vary greatly from the traditional system. The Chia-chang is supposed to be elected from among the body of relatives living in the common household. But if there is no such election, the position \"shall fall upon the person who is highest in rank (of relationship) or where ranks are equal, on the person who is senior in age.\" Except in providing for an election there is nothing new here.\n\nThe Chia-chang is the general manager of the family. His authority is of several sorts: administrative and financial, moral, ethical and religious. In the first field his responsibilities cover funds brought in by all members of the group, for it is a distinctive feature of familism in China that incomes are pooled and expenditures made with reference to the needs of the entire family. Lands and properties are owned in his name, but this is only a matter of legal convenience. The property belongs to the family as long as the group holds together, and the Chia-chang's possession is merely a stewardship. He has received the property from his forefathers, and after his death it will remain with the family under a succession of managers.\n\nIn the disciplinary field the Chia-chang enjoys great powers, both by law and by custom, over the members of his direct family.2 This seems to have extended, in practice, to the right of taking the life of a disobedient child.3 At least in some circumstances such a crime would pass unpunished. Certainly in the fields of correction and discipline the law accords him great authority, as does customary practice. The new civil code of the Republic attempts to decrease the disciplinary authority of parents over their children, but does so only negatively by referring only to the \"right and duty of parents to protect, educate and maintain their children.”4\n\n1 China. National Government; op. cit., p. 43, art. 1124.\n\n2 On the legal aspects see Alabaster; op. cit., p. 153-158, 186, 243-244. It should be noted that the rights of a husband over his wife are by no means as great as those over his children. Ibid., p. 186-189.\n\n3 Su disputes the legality of this, and quotes sources from law as proof. Op. cit., p. 77. On the other hand, for circumstances in which it seems to be allowed, see Staunton; op. cit., (Ta Ch'ing Li Li, Sixth Division, Book III, sec. 319.) p. 348-349; Alabaster; op. cit., p. 155-157.\n\n4 China. National Government; op. cit., p. 27-32, articles 1059-1090. Specifically, p. 31, art. 1084.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208415,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 139,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\nIV\n\n123\n\nThe most important of these cultural agents responsible for the customary authority both of the Chia-chang and of the village elder is the filial piety-ancestor worship complex. The two are closely interwoven now, and have been for many centuries. Ancestor worship seems to have been the contribution of the earliest Bronze Age peoples,1 and the concept of filial piety to have originated from it. In the new religion developed by the Confucianists, ancestral worship became really secondary to filial piety, though a corollary of it.2 As a moral force it is very strong, having behind it for sanction the dead weight of thousands of years of social approval in literature and legend, in history and in law.3\n\nHsiao (#), imperfectly translated as Filial Piety, is the basic moral and ethical code of the Chinese. It emphasizes primarily the proper relationship between children and parents; but it extends to regulate the behavior between members of the whole family and clan, and even to certain relationships between individuals in the world at large. Proper behavior in all such situations is highly stereotyped and highly formalized: there is a proper way to act towards each of one's relatives with reference to his age, his rank and the degree of consanguinity.\n\nAlthough the behavior between members of a kin group is, theoretically at least, very formalized, there are two other facts which need to be emphasized in this connection. In the first place, this formalism, which is a part of the ethics of filial piety, is not a matter of external etiquette alone. On the contrary, these attitudes are, psychologically speaking, at the very core of an individual's character. They are his most fundamental reflexes, and are the very framework of his social consciousness. Secondly, as a result of this thorough conditioning, the individual has a constant feeling of reverence for age in general. He learns to respect the opinions of those older than himself, and to conform to their judgment and arbitration. In village government the remarkable authority of the\n\n1 Bishop, C. W.; \"Prefatory Note on the Worship of Earth in Ancient China.\" p. 4.\n\n2 Hu, Shih; \"Religion and Philosophy in Chinese History\", p. 33.\n\n3 The concept of filial piety has, for example, literally permeated the criminal code of the nation. See: Alabaster, G.; op. cit., passim, especially section on relationship, p. 143-216.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208437,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 161,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\n145\n\nsuch as a broken bridge or a bandit raid. Even such judicial duties as settling disputes between private individuals, spoken of above as the particular duty of the elders, is mentioned by that author as a function of the Ti-pao. Officially he has no such right, and unless he happens to be a village elder he would lack the customary authority which accrues to the accepted leaders of the sib and village group.\n\nVillage government would be able to get on quite well without the Ti-pao, for it has an adequate machinery for almost any internal governmental circumstance. What he does in village affairs, therefore, mostly replaces a function which some one else would do if he did not. It is his position as a link between the village and the state that makes the Ti-pao significant. This will be discussed in the next chapter.\n\n(Chapter 4) THE VILLAGE EXTERNALLY\n\nNo village is completely an isolated unit. On the one hand there are contacts and relations with outsiders and with neighboring villages; on the other, the village is forced to have relations with the Central Government. These external contacts and how they are fitted into or provided for by the scheme of village government are the subject of the present chapter.\n\nI\n\nRelations with outsiders or with other villages are carried on in a thoroughly customary manner, chiefly through the agency of the village temple. It is one of the duties of the temple to form inter-village alliances and treaties, a whole network of which will radiate out from one to many similar temples in other villages.3 Often these treaties are in a true sense alliances, especially in the South, where there have occurred inter-village wars, based upon hereditary feuds. In the main, however, the treaties are economic, relating\n\n1 Jamieson; op. cit., p. 72.\n\n2 Ibid.\n\n3 Leong and Tao; Village and Town Life in China, p. 33.\n\n4 These clan fights are frequently mentioned in the Peking Gazette, and are accorded special treatment in the law. See: Alabaster, Ernest; Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law, p. 451, 459-462. For specific examples see ibid., p. 461-462, and Chinese Repository, vol. IV, 1836, p. 411-415. Smith also gives accounts of sporadic \"wars\" in Shantung as late as the end of the last century, though these were not blood feuds, Smith, Arthur H.; Village Life in China, p. 176-178.",
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    {
        "id": 208457,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 181,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\n165\n\nany contingency of administration which faced the small and self-contained villages of the rural districts in which the great mass of the Chinese people dwelt.\n\nAuthor's note: On rereading this effort of an aspiring young Sinologue in Peking some 45 years ago, the author realizes how quaint it must seem today for the \"state of the art\" is far advanced since then, with a proliferation of on-the-ground studies of Chinese rural life done by sociologists and social anthropologists in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. They provide concrete information on village governance richer than all one could find in 1933, C.M.W., 15 October 1979.\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nI. WORKS CITED IN THIS PAPER.\n\nAddison, James T.; Chinese Ancestor Worship: a Study of its Meaning and its Relations with Christianity. No place, Chung Hua Shen Kung Hui, 1925.\n\nAlabaster, Ernest; Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law and Cognate Topics, London, Luzac, 1899,\n\nBazin; \"Recherches sur les Institutions Administratives et Municipales de la Chine\" (Journal Asiatique. 5th Series, vol. 3, 1854, p. 6-66; vol. 4, 1854, p. 249-348), (The two papers are differentiated by the Roman numerals I and II.)\n\nBishop, Carl W. Man from the Farthest Past. New York Smithsonian Institution, 1930. (Smithsonian Scientific Series, vol. 7.)\n\nBishop, C. W.; \"Prefatory Note on the Worship of Earth in Ancient China.\" (Excavation of a West Han Site. Shanghai, no pub., 1932, p. 1-20.)\n\nBishop, Carl W.; \"The Rise of Civilization in China with Reference to its Geographical Aspects\" (Geographical Review, Oct. 1932, p. 617-631.)\n\nBoulais, Guy; Manuel du Code Chinois. Shanghai, Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique, 1924. (Variétés Sinologiques 55.)\n\nBuck, John L.; Chinese Farm Economy; a Study of 2866 Farms in Seventeen Localities and Seven Provinces in China. Shanghai, Commercial Press, 1930.\n\nChen Huan-chang; The Economic Principles of Confucius and His School, 2 vols. New York, Columbia, 1911.\n\nChina National Government. The Civil Code of the Republic of China. Translated into English by Hsia, Ching-lin: Chow, James L. E.; Chang, Yukon, 2 vols. Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1930-31. vol. 2.\n\nChina Year Book 1932. (Woodhead, H. G. W. Ed.) Shanghai, North-China, 1932.\n\nChinese Repository. See: \"Clanship Among the Chinese.\"",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208505,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 229,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTWO BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES\n\n213\n\nI have come across two interesting references in my reading that others may wish to know of.\n\nSybille Van Der Sprenkel, Legal Institutions in Manchu China (University of London, The Athlone Press, 1962) with reference to E. Alabaster's Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law and cognate topics... London 1899, mentions additional notation on \"the author's copy (now in Cambridge University Library) intended no doubt for publication in a revised edition\" (fn p. 72).\n\nHenry Lethbridge, Hong Kong: Stability & Change (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1978) mentions \"Lockhart's personal copy of Johnston's Lion and Dragon in Northern China [London, John Murray, 1910] which is now in my possession\", and observes that it \"testifies to Lockhart's painstaking scholarly interest in Chinese society, for the book is heavily annotated and commented upon and clearly much read and pondered over\" (p. 7).\n\nHong Kong, 1980\n\nJAMES HAYES",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209204,
        "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": 107,
        "title": "RAS-1981",
        "content_text": "THE CHINESE CHURCH, LABOUR AND ELITES AND THE MUI TSAI QUESTION IN THE 1930'S 93\n\nposition and their work often depended on the social and economic status of the person who had bought them.\n\nIn the nature of the case, some were sexually exploited by the male members of the family. Some were treated very cruelly by their mistresses. If they were attractive, they were often taken by the head of the family as a concubine.\n\nEveryone acknowledged that, like all social institutions, there were abuses in the system, but the traditional view was that its advantages outweighed its negative side. There were several arguments to support this view.\n\nOnly the poor sold their children. If they could not sell them, many would be killed off as infants. Their lot in a foster home was much better than it would have been in their natural home. They were fed, clothed, and when of proper age, a marriage was arranged for them with a suitable partner. Everyone benefited by the system: the child who escaped death or starvation, the natural parent who was lifted out of poverty, at least for the moment, and the purchaser who acquired a servant.\n\nIn Chinese society, it had long been an unquestioned aspect of the social order. The buying and selling of human beings did not sit well with the English conscience of the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, most colonists felt it was best to leave undisturbed the modus vivendi which had been established in Hong Kong between British law and moral standards and Chinese social practice.\n\nAfter some eighteen years on the bench in Hong Kong, Chief Justice John Smale, not long before his retirement in 1881, openly stated that, in his opinion, the practice of buying and selling children for domestic servitude was a form of slavery, and hence its continued toleration in a British colony was a blot on the honour of England. He received support from anti-slavery groups in England, but his views were not generally welcomed in Hong Kong, either by the Chinese or expatriates. There was some stir over the question for a short time, and then interest in it died away, not to be re-aroused until the question again came to public attention in 1917.\n\n1917 - The Question Raised\n\nMr. C. G. Alabaster, in defending a client charged with kidnapping, raised a legal point regarding the status of children purchased as servants. The report of the case focused the attention of the English",
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    {
        "id": 209205,
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        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1981",
        "page_number": 108,
        "title": "RAS-1981",
        "content_text": "94\n\nCARL T SMITH\n\ncommunity in Hong Kong on the long established Chinese custom of buying children as domestic servants. This attention led to concern, discussion, agitation, the formation of societies and finally in 1923 an Ordinance in the Hong Kong Legislature to abolish the system.\n\nThe case concerned a man who had met two girls aged ten and thirteen on a street in Wanchai. They had gone out to buy sweets and had become lost. The stranger took them on a tram to the Yaumati ferry. They crossed to Kowloon and then returned. He left them for a few minutes to buy something in Wing On Store on Connaught Road Central. The girls came to the notice of the police and the man was arrested when he returned to where he had left them.\n\nMr. Alabaster claimed the two women who owned the girls did not have lawful care of them because they were bought to serve, and they were sold as slaves and slavery has been abolished (in Britain and its colonies) and it is not lawful”.\n\nOn being examined by the Chief Justice one of the mistresses gave evidence that one of the girls had been sold by her elder brother as she had no parents. The Chief Justice asked, \"Then as put by the learned Counsel for the defence, she is your slave?”\n\nThe witness replied, \"I do not know what you mean by slave. Once the girl is sold to me she is my property. It is the custom among the Chinese to buy servants.\"\n\nMr. Alabaster thanked the Chief Justice that the answer to his question had made it so clear the girl was a slave.\n\nHis Lordship then asked Mr. Alabaster, \"What is a slave?\"\n\nHe replied, \"I contend that a person who is bought by a master and may be sold by a master, who receives no wages, except clothes and food in exchange for work is a slave.\"\n\nMr. Alabaster admitted that sale of a child might be legal in China, but once it was brought to the Colony, it had the right to freedom.\n\nThe Chief Justice referred to the Proclamation of Captain Eliot to the Chinese of Hong Kong in 1841 that stated Britain would respect the religious rites, ceremonies and social customs of the Chinese. The Supreme Court usually took into account the question of Chinese custom. If the point in law raised by Mr. Alabaster were to be sustained by a Full Court it would have most serious consequences.\n\nThe question was not settled by the court but it provoked public",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt",
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    {
        "id": 211361,
        "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-1988",
        "page_number": 77,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "53\n\nas could be expected under present conditions.\n\nThe Board felt it could propose, however, that children should not be employed in factories and workshops after 6 p.m. except when special permission had been obtained from the Board, for such employment must be injurious to the health of young children who would certainly be better in bed than working by artificial light in stuffy rooms. As the returns obtained by the committee on working conditions showed that most factories stopped work at 6 p.m., the prohibition of children working after this hour would not interfere to any appreciable extent in \"the better managed factories and workshops”.\n\nMr. Bowley admitted that the fixing of the age limit at fourteen was a compromise. In England a ten hour day was the maximum for women and children of any age. For Hong Kong he would have wished an age limit much higher than fourteen, but the Chinese members of the committee had not agreed and “for the sake of unanimity I accepted the age proposed by them\". The Chinese also urged the lowering of the English statutory age of fourteen for children engaged in dangerous occupations to the age of thirteen. They claimed that Chinese children developed more rapidly than European children.\n\nThere would be another difference between the factory legislation in Britain and in Hong Kong: both had a limit of ten hours, but in Britain there was to be no work on Saturday afternoon or Sunday, thus there was a work week of fifty-five hours, while in Hong Kong, where there were only two holidays every lunar month, the weekly average would be sixty-five hours.\n\nAll in all, Mr. Bowley regarded the recommendation before the meeting as reasonable and moderate and should “commend itself to every fair-minded person”.\n\nMr. Alabaster, the Chairman of the Board, put in a cautionary note. He conceded that everyone would be in sympathy with the proposed regulations, but how were they to be administered? The burden of the Sanitary Department would be greatly increased. One problem for the Inspectors would be to determine the age of Chinese children and it would be difficult for them to state what would be injurious to a child. The",
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    {
        "id": 211362,
        "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-1988",
        "page_number": 78,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "54\n\npassing of the regulations would probably mean that the qualifications of the Inspectors would need to be upgraded. To be really effective they would need to possess medical knowledge.\n\nThe Chairman commented that while all agreed it was distressing to see small children struggling with loads up to the Peak, to prohibit them from doing so would deprive their families of needed income so the children would not have enough to eat and in the end would be worse off. He did point out that in the area around Bridges Street there were places set apart where children from the age of about eighteen months to six years were cared for by old, invalided women, but older children would not remain under the charge of such old women willingly and would wander the streets instead, thus running the risk of getting killed or encountering some other danger. Would it not be better for them to be engaged in some work?\n\nIn view of all these considerations he moved that the last clause in the resolution be deleted. It was not that he had no sympathy with the object of the resolution, he said, but there would be too many difficulties in carrying it out. Mr. Chatham suggested that Mr. Bowley would probably agree to this deletion, but if not, he would second the amendment made by Mr. Alabaster.\n\nMr. Bowley, for his part, was not willing to agree. If the number of inspectors were increased, their duties and tasks under the new regulations should not be excessive. It was merely a matter of money. As to determining the age of a child, the regulations might be changed so that a Magistrate or some other responsible person might estimate the age. He was not willing to support a deletion of the latter part of the resolution. He would be willing, however, to have it amended to the following, and prohibiting the employment of children and young persons under the age of thirteen in factories and workshops likely to be injurious to his or her life, limb or health, regard being had to his or her physical condition\". A list of such trades could be drawn up by medical and other experts for the guidance of the Sanitary Department in implementing the regulations. He was not asking the Board to legislate on the matter, but only to endorse certain principles which would then be forwarded to the Government for consideration. The amendment as changed by Mr. Bowley was then accepted and carried unanimously.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
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    {
        "id": 211363,
        "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-1988",
        "page_number": 79,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "55\n\nDr. Hickling suggested that the space required for each worker should be put at twenty square feet floor area. This suggestion was accepted. Another minor change was made by eliminating the word \"overtime\" in reference to work after 6 p.m.\n\n6\n\nThe editor of the Daily Press, in commenting on the proposals of the Sanitary Board, reviewed some of the steps which had led up to them: Miss Pitts' talk, followed by Mr. Bowley's statements at the meeting of the Church of England Men's Society. Their efforts were seen as examples of the good results \"that may flow from the discussion of matters of public concern by private individuals, and should encourage interest in local affairs\". The editor was confident the proposal would appeal to British pride, \"For every Briton in Hong Kong whose pride of race is based upon his country's efforts on behalf of humanity must hope that the resolutions passed by the Sanitary Board will be endorsed by the Legislative Council\". He believed that the enlightened members of the Chinese community would have no objections to them, as, in his opinion, they were extremely modest and were submitted in the interests of public health.\n\nThe editor recognised that the root of the problem lay in the Colony's educational efforts, but he contended that no matter how many schools were provided, there would not be enough “unless we are willing to educate the whole of South China\". A policy of unrestricted immigration made it impossible to make school attendance either compulsory or free.\n\nThe editor restated the views of Mr. Alabaster that it was better for the children to accompany their parents to work, so long as their little bodies are not strained beyond their endurance, as they would thus be both physically and morally better off than left to their own devices, and their earnings provided them with more food than they otherwise would have. He did advocate that some restriction be placed on the load they carried, as this responsibility could not be left to the parents' discretion.\n\nCase of Child Labour before the Magistrate\n\nApril 1920\n\nThe principles in the agitation for child labour laws had been a missionary and a solicitor, but in April 1920 a doctor publicly took up",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 211689,
        "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": 104,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "79\n\nCommandant of the near-by Gendarmerie post promised us protection, he took no steps to implement his promise, and we had a number of invasions from parties of Japanese soldiers, on and off duty, sometimes searching for arms, sometimes frankly looting watches, jewellery and other small valuables. My wife had a polite but firm way of dealing with these intruders, and in the end they got nothing from us but some cigarettes.\n\nOn January 3rd Mr. Gimson (the Colonial Secretary) and Mr. Alabaster (the Attorney-General) came up the hill to find out what had happened to us. They told me that they had spoken to Mr. Yano (who had come back to Hongkong temporarily as Consul-General) and the Gendarmerie people about us and the other Embassy and Consular personnel who were in Hongkong (Mr. and Mrs. Martin, Mr. and Mrs. Rich, Evans, Herrett and Miss Howkins) and we were to be given special consideration. This was comforting but in the event did not mean very much as there was the usual confusion between the different Japanese authorities, none of whom seemed to pay the slightest attention to the others.\n\nThen on January 5th notices were posted up in different places instructing all enemy aliens to report at the Murray Parade Ground between 10 a.m. and noon for internment. The notice said they could take what luggage they could carry in their hands and that they must leave the rest of their property in charge of some responsible person. This notice only came to our knowledge on the Peak at 9 a.m. People didn't know what on earth to do. If they started off immediately, walking down the Peak, they could get to the Murray Parade Ground in time. But there were old people, babies and invalids. Most people thought it would be dangerous to disobey a peremptory order like that, and they struggled down the hill as best they could, taking a suitcase or pushing a pram and abandoning everything else to the looters.\n\nFor my wife and myself there was no problem as we couldn't walk, so we decided to stay and hope for the best, and a good number of others followed our example. As it happened, things turned out all right, as Sir Arthur Macgregor called later in the day to say that he had arranged with the Gendarmerie that the people still on the Peak might remain temporarily but must be ready to move at a minute's notice. However, the Police post had gone, we were in difficulties about food and water (we had eaten the last crust of three-weeks-old bread that morning), and we had had an unpleasant visit from a party of Japanese soldiers at 2 a.m. We were completely alone in the flat, other flats in the building had already been looted, and generally the situation was unpromising. So we asked Sir Atholl to try",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 211702,
        "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": 117,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "92\n\nrecent concession) to the limited extent of replying to a message which must originate with a neutral. No communication with the various prisoners-of-war camps or hospitals in other parts of Hongkong was permitted, so that wives in the camp could neither send messages to, nor receive them from, their prisoner-of-war husbands. Some were unable to find out whether their husbands were prisoners or not. This seems a quite unnecessary cruelty.\n\nDr. Selwyn-Clarke. I have made a passing reference to Dr. Selwyn-Clarke (Director of Medical Services in the Hongkong Government), but he deserves more than that. The Japanese found it worth their while to allow him and his wife and a small group of British relief workers under him to remain outside the camp and they were primarily engaged on relief work in the Colony. But he had secured the confidence of the Japanese Military Authorities and was allowed to visit the camp frequently on the strict understanding that he gave no news and discussed nothing but medical and relief matters. He visited the camp once or twice a week, talked to the doctors and the Welfare Committee's representative, found out what wanted doing and then in Hongkong tried to get it done. Everyone in the camp knew that almost all the improvements in diet and other matters were the result of untiring efforts on his part, but not so many knew that he had been equally untiring in his efforts to relieve distress among the Chinese population of Hongkong whose plight was immeasurably worse than anything the Stanley internees had to endure.\n\nL\n\nCamp management, discipline, etc. When the camp was first opened, the Japanese put in a number of English-speaking Chinese as block supervisors. Their duties were never clearly defined, but they formed the only channel of communication between the Japanese and the internees. Then the internees elected Communal Councils (one for each of the three communities British, American and Dutch) and these Councils, working in cooperation, ran the camp and were recognised by the Japanese as the spokesmen of their national groups. Later a Japanese Superintendent was appointed (Mr. Nakazawa). He lived in a separate house in the camp and had two or three Japanese satellites. About the same time Mr. Gimson (Colonial Secretary) and Mr. Alabaster (Attorney General), who had hitherto been allowed to remain outside and to act as liaison officers with the Japanese, came into the camp. This brought to a head a conflict which had been going on subterraneously between the Hongkong Government officials and the rest of the community. For reasons which I need not go into here, the community",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 211842,
        "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": 257,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "232\n\nnot heard before and of which the best that can be said is that they are decidedly original. They seemed an imitation of the noise of braying of donkeys, but still they elicited great applause from the gallery [which was generally not regarded as very complimentary JH] perhaps from a certain feeling of sympathy. An amateur played Weber's \"Aufforderung zum Tanz\" with a \"perfect feeling\". To conclude the evening Mme SIMONSEN sung the \"Valse de concert\" (composer unmentioned) in which \"she displayed her powers more than in any other piece she has sung\" (SCR 22.5.1865).\n\n24.5.1865 (Wedn)\n\nH. MAYHEW: \"The Wandering Minstrel“ (1834)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ.P. PLANCHE: \"The Knights of the Round Table” (1854)\n\nT: Drama (5 acts)\n\nC: Amateurs of the Shanghai Mounted Rangers\n\nF: Music by the Band of the 67th Regiment; prologue read by Capt. Markham\n\nTh: Lyceum Theatre (1)\n\n―\n\nR: In lieu of the old time favourites, Messrs Brushwood, Pickwick, Newcome and Mrs. Nesbit had come new faces. Most foreigners had not yet made Shanghai their permanent place of residence, so turnover in the theatre too was rather high. Tonight could be admired Mr. SMALLWEED who, in the Knights of the Round Table, as \"the blameless king shewed a keen appreciation of his part and while he delivered the burlesque passages with much humour, proved by the taste with which he pronounced the prophetic eulogium on the Queen of England that he need not necessarily confine himself to broad burlesque in order to gain well-merited applause\"; Mr. Edmund (also a member of the Amateur Burlesque Company) won golden opinions as Launcelot, whereas Mr. PEEKT as Merlin \"displayed much cleverness in personating feeble old men\". In The Wandering Minstrel \"Mr. R.T. Larff, better known to the theatrical world as Mr. Wynnge (did this mean that he had two stage names? JH) sustained the reputation he has already gained as a low comedian and makes us the less deplore the absence of the well known and inimitable Brushwood” (last recorded performance 10.5.1860). Of course the female roles were taken by men, which led, as it always does, to some ridiculous scenes: \"The company possesses great strength in the important particular of lady performers. The only drawback which, however, is immaterial in burlesque, lies in the great height and muscular development of the fair ones\". Yet Miss Mary MIDDLESEX \"bore away the palm for natural feminine get-up\" and \"nothing could excel the dash which Kate COVENTRY threw into the part of the vivandière\", (NCH 27.5.1865). That not all patrons were equally pleased became evident from the Shanghai Commercial Record (5.6.1865) when it wrote: \"an allusion which was considered too personal led to a corresponding in our columns\" (i.e. the \"Shanghai Recorder\" which to the great regret of all historians treating the history of foreign Shanghai can no longer be found). At the end of the evening a number of toasts were proposed, among others to \"Alabaster, to whose exertions much of the success of the company was due\". This was a reference to Chaloner Alabaster (1831-1890), the British vice-consul who was also active in the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. In conclusion the Herald reported that \"the arrangements were excellent and notwithstanding the warmth of the evening and the crowded state of the theatre, the air within the walls did not become oppressively hot. Punkahs were slung over the front seats and during the temporary pauses kept up a current of air\",\n\n27.5.1865 (Sat)\n\nPerformance by Mr. Benjamin Seare. Programme unknown (reading, etc)\n\nTh: Lyceum Theatre (1)\n\nR: Both the Herald and the Record agreed that Mr. SEARE \"is possessed of great talent\"",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213477,
        "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": 73,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "40\n\n146 literally \"to fill up the bedchamber\" tea wife married when one of parties was previously widowed or divorced, to take the place of a \"kit tat\" wife\n\n147 vide infra\n\nWilson's Notes, e.g. Russell J's Report on Chinese (18th July 1883), Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1886-87, pp 187-189 (part of which is reprinted as Appendix 8 to Committee Report, 1953, at p 194), E Alabaster, Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law, London, 1899, pp 168-170, Jamieson, op cit, p 13, and Van der Valk, op cit, pp 133-134\n\n1517\n\nvide Dyer Ball, op cit p 632 et seq\n\nReport on the New Territories 1899-1912, Appendix E (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1912, at p 62)\n\n142\n\nWilson's Notes\n\nViz, CHOW CHAM vs YUET SEEM (1910) 5 HKLR 233, UN YAN SING AND OTHERS vs FONG LUN SAN (1913) 8 HKLR 89, CHAN KA LAM AND OTHERS vs CHEUNG CHUN KONG AND ANOTHER (1915) 10 HKLR 157, CHAN TU SANG vs TAM WAI SANG (1927) 22 HKLR 129 AND FAN NGOI NAM AND OTHERS vs ASIA CAFÉ (1929) 24 HKLR\n\nibid. (This subject is included since, as already noted, resort has occasionally been made in recent years to Chinese customary oaths in judicial proceedings, however, as long ago as 1912, the infallibility of this test was beginning to be doubted as the morality of the villager changed under foreign influence vide Report on the New Territories 1889-1912 para 87, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1912, p 56)\n\nAs already indicated, the main source for this part has been the material collected by Mr W Duncan of the Co-operative Development and Fisheries Department. Burkhardt also describes the \"Boat People\", op cit Vol II p 177, as does Barbara E Ward in her article “A Hong Kong Fishing Village\" JOS Vol I No 1 (January 1954) p 195\n\nY\n\nvide 1961 Census figures supra and also the figures for the 1911 census which were respectively - Land Population 94,246, Floating Population 9,855 (Report on the New Territories 1899-1912, para 6 Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1912, p 43)\n\n15% ibid para 53 at p 53\n\n157 For a description of a Boat People's Wedding see Burkhardt, op cit, vol 1 p 80",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g",
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