[ { "id": 204646, "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-1963", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "114 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nwith Howqua, the great Canton hong merchant, until 1861 and were also associated with Baring Brothers, the London bankers, shows that the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company was far from being a purely American concern. The initiative in its formation and its success, however, was almost entirely due to the determination and ability of the Shanghai heads of Russell and Company, and in particular to Edward Cunningham, the firm's managing partner in Shanghai in the vital years of 1862, 63, and '64.\n\nBecause of American influence in the early days, and the similarity between navigational problems on the Mississippi and on the Yangtse, the luxurious river steamers which plied on the Lower and Middle Yangtse during the heyday of foreign trade were very similar to the Mississippi steamers of Mark Twain's day. They had the same tall, narrow funnel, and the long promenade deck extending almost the whole length of the ship, which Hollywood has made so familiar. At the forward end of this deck was the dining saloon, and at the after end the lounge. Both of these were elegantly, and even ornately furnished, the entrance to the lounge being flanked with potted shrubs leading to a wide stairway down to the lower deck. The best cabins were on the promenade deck. Unfortunately no one with Mark Twain's genius has written a ‘Life on the Yangtse' to match his Life on the Mississippi, an omission now very unlikely to be repaired.\n\nIn his journey up the Yangtse and overland to Burma in 1874, which was to end in his tragic murder, A. R. Margary travelled from Shanghai to Hankow by the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company's Hirado.\" Margary described his cabin as large and airy, and the Hirado as a wonderful structure and not like a ship at all. She had a tall narrow funnel in front of each paddle box, tier upon tier of cabins built on the smallest possible hull, and the general appearance of a gaudy palace of pleasure full of windows and terraces floating upon the water. Margary continued by mandarin boat10 to Yochow, and then across the Tungting Lake and by the Yuan River to the border of Kweichow, and then completed his\n\n10\n\n\"The Hirado was one of the largest steamers on the river at this time, being of 1,294 gross tons. She had been built in America for Dent and Company in 1866, and sold by them to the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company in 1867.\n\n10 A long, narrow junk divided into 5 or 6 compartments.\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204718, "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": 21, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "12\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nThe Hunter Journal was presented to the Boston Athenaeum by Dr. Robert W. Hooper on March 27, 1858. Hooper was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1810, graduated from Harvard College in 1830, received a medical degree from the same institution six years later, and thereafter became a prominent surgeon in Boston. Hooper was also a bibliophile and a trustee of the Boston Athenaeum who added substantially to its holdings by gifts. It is impossible to establish definitely how he obtained the Hunter Journal, but it seems probable that it came from his wife's family. In 1837 he married Ellen Sturgis, daughter of William Sturgis who was active in the Orient trade. Many Massachusetts men engaged in the China trade were related. In 1788 Thomas Handasyd Perkins went to China on the Astraea and launched a commercial venture with the aid of his elder brother James. 1803 their nephew J. P. Cushing also travelled there and managed the business until 1828. Other nephews of T. H. Perkins, James Sturgis, and Charles Bennet Forbes also prospered in the China trade. In 1833 the third generation of the family left Boston for the Orient and for the next decade divided his time between Manila and Canton. William Hunter was a business associate of both R. B. Forbes and Russell Sturgis and mentioned the latter in his Journal, Julian Sturgis, son of Russell had vivid memories of Hunter.\n\nIn\n\nI remember Mr. Hunter visiting my parents at Walton (England) when I was a boy, a handsome, courteous man with a brown face and white moustache, like a fine type of Anglo-Indian, and speaking Chinese for our amusement with so soft a voice that I have often wondered how much of that soft musical quality was due to him and how much inherent in that unknown tongue.2\n\nHunter finally left Canton and closed Russell and Company in May 1841. This move was recorded in the letters of William Henry Low, a young man in his twenties who arrived in Canton in September 1839 and joined his brother A. A. Low in Russell and Company.\n\n1 Russell Sturgis joined Baring Brothers and Co. of London after he ended his commercial ventures in China about 1849. He became senior partner of the English firm in 1873.\n\n2 Julian Sturgis, From Books and Papers of Russell Sturgis (Oxford, 1893), p. 206.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204723, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n17\n\nand Bengal, except the Turkey which belongs to Baring Brothers and Company, London.\n\nAt night the linguists took me on board their boat stationed in the creek opposite the Factories and gave me supper, after which I was returning home to turn in when two of Houqua's13 coolies on guard at the gate contrived to slip inside the gate a small bag containing two boiled capons, a boiled ham, three loaves of bread and some crackers tied up in leaves. I paid them half a dollar. The articles were brought by order of Houqua.\n\n29th\n\nTwo sheep, four pigs, sixteen hams, ten fowls, sixteen geese, and six bags of rice were brought today for distribution amongst the American residents. The linguists say they are from the Commissioner* and deputy Governor* and a mark of Imperial favor for having consented to deliver up the opium.\n\nOur situation is one of great mystery. Although the Chinese say that having promised to deliver up the opium we have risen in the Commissioner's esteem yet today no foreigner is allowed to pass up China Street which we were allowed to do till this morning, and a strong guard has been posted there of about fifty men with pikes, staves, shields and so on.\n\n30th 10 p.m.\n\nHouqua's head man came in just now in a great fright and told me that our cook and coolie, who have been in our Factory since last evening and who contrived to get in over the roof of the rear Factory, must immediately leave as the Commissioner had just issued another edict threatening with death any native who sold a particle of food to, or who served a foreigner in any way inside his Factory.\n\nI communicated this to the cook and coolie who consent to remain till morning.\n\n31 March, Sunday\n\nThis morning at 9 a linguist from Old Tom's establishment brought us a basket of bread and eggs.\n\nEvery night the force stationed to guard the Factories consists of about 500 men drafted from the different Hongs and armed principally with pikes or lances and long heavy staves.\n\nWord illegible.\n\nEach", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204747, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n39\n\nwas persuaded to join the firm of Baring Brothers & Co. In 1873 he became senior partner of the house, finally retiring in 1882. (L.T.R.)\n\n24 Lin Tse-hsü's fate. Hunter long survived Commissioner Lin. Lin Tse-hsü was dismissed from office in 1840 and later sentenced to exile in Ili in Chinese Turkistan, where he remained for three years. He was allowed to return to Peking in 1845. He later served as Governor-General of Yunnan and Kweichow, and retired from office in 1849. He died in 1850 at the age of sixty-seven. (J.L.C.B.)\n\n25 Heang-shan (Heungshan). Former name of the District in which Macao lies. Re-named Chung-shan in honour of Sun Yat-sen. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n26 Morrison. John Robert Morrison (1814-1843) was born in Macao, the second son of Dr. Robert Morrison and his first wife Mary (née Morton). He had some schooling in England but at the age of twelve he came back to Canton with his father in 1826. He became a fluent Cantonese speaker as well as a Chinese scholar, and on the death of his father in 1834 was appointed Chinese Secretary to H.M.'s Commission in China. In 1838 he became, in addition, Interpreter, and in 1841 succeeded Elmslie as Secretary and Treasurer to the Superintendent of British Trade in China. In 1843 he was appointed Chinese Secretary and member of the Executive Council of the newly founded Colony of Hong Kong and was recommended for appointment, by the Governor, as Colonial Secretary. Before the appointment was approved, however, he died in Macao in August 1843, and was buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery there. (L.T.R.)\n\n27 Kwang Chow Foo. Kuang-chou fu The Prefect of the Prefecture of which Canton was the chief city. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n28 Kam Hay Hue. No such title. But I suspect Hunter intended to indicate the Namhoi Hien which title was sometimes written Nam Hoy Hien. See note 14. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n29 Pwan Yu Hue. Also written Punyu Hien. The magistrate having jurisdiction over the eastern part of Canton city and the District lying to the westward of the walls which included Whampoa and the foreign shipping there. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n30 Fearon, Samuel Turner Fearon was the second son of Christopher Fearon and Elizabeth Noad who were married on 14 May 1818 at the Streatham Parish Church. His father served as a midshipman at the Battle of Trafalgar and after being discharged from the Royal Navy he joined the Honourable East India Company's marine service. In this service he made a number of voyages to Canton and when he decided to take a shore posting there he brought his wife and family out with him. Samuel became a fluent Cantonese speaker and in 1838 was appointed Interpreter to the Canton General Chamber of Commerce. After the cession of Hong Kong he was appointed interpreter and clerk of the Chief Magistrate's Court and a couple of months later were added the duties of Notary Public and Coroner. Three years later he was appointed Assistant Magistrate of Police and on 1st January 1845 he became Registrar General and Collector of Revenue. In July 1845 he was granted a year's sick leave and while in England he was appointed Professor of Chinese at King's College, London, an appointment which he held from December 1846 until December 1852. (L.T.R.)\n\n31 Van Basel. Magdalenus Jacobus Senn van Basel, born in Groningen, Holland on 27 September 1808, was appointed clerk in the Dutch Consulate at Canton in 1826, and Vice-Consul in November 1831. He was later in partnership with G. M. Toe Laer and P. Tiedenan in the firm of Senn van Basel & Toe Laer & Co. In 1848 he became Collector General of Taxes", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 } ]