[ { "id": 207337, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 105, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n97\n\ntrouble with police) had embarked for the Far East. But a significant proportion were always local recruits; they were simply lower-class women forced into prostitution because of poverty. The case of Bridget Montague, convicted in 1873, at the age of 23, of running a clandestine brothel is illustrative. Bridget, a Californian, had married a Portuguese storekeeper in San Francisco. Her husband took her to Hong Kong where he abandoned her. She went to live with an Irish barman from the Crown and Anchor, a tavern in Queen's Road. A year later her bibulous Irishman was sentenced to two months' imprisonment for public drunkenness. Homeless and penniless yet again, she took lodgings with a young Portuguese widow from Macau, who had been formerly kept by a policeman. The two women, now lacking male protectors, went into business as full-time prostitutes. Convicted, together with the Portuguese widow, Maria Roza, of running a clandestine brothel, Bridget was fined $50, or one month's imprisonment, and compelled to undergo medical examination for a period of six months.15\n\nA life of prostitution was the common destiny of many European women deserted, abandoned or widowed, whose husbands or protectors were, or had been, policemen, turnkeys, inspectors, overseers, or employed in similar occupations. Prostitution was the only occupation that allowed a destitute European woman, if reasonably young or attractive, to support herself, for there were no jobs available in Hong Kong for uneducated European women, and precious few, apart from work in mission schools, for the educated. Bridget Montague, for example, after conviction and payment of fine, went back to work as an independent prostitute, took a beachcomber as a lover for a time, and then disappeared from Hong Kong.\n\nIn 1877 there were about 17 European prostitutes known to the police, but probably many more operated covertly as occasional or part-time prostitutes. There were also working transients, mainly French women, on their way to Shanghai or Yokohama. In the 1870s the number of prostitutes increased, mainly from a great influx of such women from San Francisco. At the turn of the century with the growing respectability of the European population in Hong Kong and a growing feeling that Europeans had to prove their moral worth as missionaries of Western civilisation in the East, the government took steps to reduce by deportation their numbers.\n\nApart from prostitutes, Hong Kong always had a small number of seedy adventurers, gamblers, swindlers, impostors, petty criminals\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211511, "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": 228, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "204\n\nCanton three days later. Rev. Mr. Kollecker informed the German Consul. After investigation no evidence was found to confirm the report.\n\n\"The Christians in Canton were to celebrate the wedding of one of the most respected Christians of Canton. Deacon Wong* of the Barmen Mission in Tung Kun was also there. There appeared the Christian Dr. Sun, recently of the College of Medicine. He was very excited and told the Christians they would not be able to celebrate the wedding that day. The surprised questions of the guests caused him gradually to convey the news that in the evening a revolution was planned and he was one of the leaders. The revolutionaries planned to overwhelm Canton and make it a stronghold. Later they would march to the north and overthrow the ruling dynasty. After that Sun left the wedding party. The guests had not caught their breath before a court servant appeared and asked for Dr. Sun. Some four hundred vagabonds had arrived from Hong Kong who would be the core of the army of the Reform party. On the same boat were weapons and gunpowder packed in boxes. The government received news of it and immediately made enquiries. After a short while they found traces of the revolutionaries. They rounded up those they could get hold of. After a few days the authorities discovered hidden weapons of the Reform party. These were found in a house where a German and an Englishman had lived recently. Nothing could be found out about the German, but the Englishman, known as Mr. Quick, had been involved in a recent revolution in Honolulu and had to leave there for that reason. Both foreigners were able to escape. The enquiry which followed uncovered several Christian members of the American Mission who were implicated in the plot. Sixty involved persons were beheaded, among them were two Christians. The American Consul intervened on behalf of a third Christian because a missionary had pledged himself for his good conduct, but he was quite embarrassed by it, because the suspect escaped and could not be found. Governor Ma, one of the highest officials of Canton, died. It was suggested that he himself had been one\n\n* Deacon Wong must have been Wong Him-ue:1(1847-1907), who after establishing and serving a congregation at Tung Kun City, came to Hong Kong in 1898 and established the Rhenish Mission congregation (Lai Yuen Ui) now located on Bonham Road. He was the son of Wong Yun (1817-1914) a member of Gutzlaff's Chinese Union and later assistant in the Rhenish (Barmen) Mission, Wong Him-ue was the younger brother of the Rev. Wong Yuk-cho (1843-1903), pastor of the To Tsai congregation, Hong Kong. He was well-acquainted with Sun Yat-sen and a supporter of the revolutionary cause.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213206, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 28, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "7\n\nGutzlaff was not unaware that his Union needed closer supervision. He appealed to German missionary societies to send out agents to assist him in his project. In response the Rhenish Missionary Society at Barmen and the Basel Missionary Society each sent two men in 1847. After a brief orientation period in Hong Kong, they were sent into China where they worked severally in areas where Cantonese, Hakka and Tiu-chau speakers lived. During the second Sino-British war they weathered out the war in Hong Kong and Macao. It was also the time when some took home leave. On the return of Rev. Rudolph Lechler of the Basel Missionary Society in 1861, he built a mission house, school and chapel at Sai Ying Pun. The church and school served the Hakka speaking community in Hong Kong. The congregation is now the present Kau Yan Church on High Street.\n\nThe Rev Heinrich Cocking, also a medical doctor, arrived in Hong Kong in 1855 as an agent of the Berlin Missionary Society. He opened a small dispensary and hospital in 1858 at the foot of Morrison Hill in Wanchai. It was principally for Chinese but German sailors were also treated there.\n\nAgents of the Berlin Ladies Mission for China opened a home for foundling children on the top of Morrison Hill. The Berliner Frauenverein für China had been organised in response to the Rev. Charles Gutzlaff's appeal for support for his vision of the speedy conversion of the Chinese nation. The home was moved to No. 1 High Street in 1861 where it had built a large building, which was named Bethesda. It was not far from the mission house and chapel of the Basel Missionary Society.\n\nBefore the removal to High Street of the Berlin foundling home, German speaking services were held on Sundays at their establishment on Morrison Hill. At an earlier time these services were held in a tavern on Queen's Road East operated by a German. The Rev. Philip Winnes, of the Basel Mission, reported in 1858: “In this manner, I preached until the sailors had enough, and that they had quite soon\". The Hong Kong Blue Books in their ecclesiastical returns list a place of worship for Europeans from 1871 at the chapel of the Berlin Mission House on High Street. A small chapel was built beside the foundling home in 1881. Its entrance was off Bonham Road. The services were moved to the hall of Union Church on Kennedy Road in 1902. They remained there until 1904 when they were moved back to the Bethesda Chapel where services were held.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 } ]