[ { "id": 213218, "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": 40, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "19\n\nReichmann's application for the Grand Hotel was not granted as he was a German national. He applied again in 1915 but to no avail. Though he was unsuccessful, the application suggests he was not interned with his fellow countrymen. After peace returned, he again sought a decision on his application for naturalisation (CO129/455, p37, 11 July 1919).\n\nI have presented this material in what some might consider excessive detail because it relates a connected history of accommodation for travelling and resident Germans from 1859, when Petersen's German Tavern was opened, to 1931, when his daughter retired from the management of the Station Hotel in Kowloon and closed its doors.\n\nCafe Weissmann\n\nThe Cafe Weissmann opened in 1904. In 1914/15 the name was changed to Wiseman, a less Germanic spelling. Lane, Crawford and Co. had acquired a controlling interest in Weissmann Ltd, so its Cafe was not considered to be alien enemy property. The licence for spirits was transferred from Rembold Ekhardt, who had held it from 1909, to Ellen H.K. King,\n\nAccording to Jarrett, the author of the column \"Old Hong Kong\" in the South China Morning Post (23 Sept. 1933), Hans Weissmann was a ship's baker who began business near the Bowrington Canal. If this is accurate, he must have begun his Hong Kong career at the Hong Kong and China Bakery Co. It was a limited company with the controlling interest being held by Lane, Crawford and Co. Mr. Weissmann opened a restaurant in a small room in the Beaconsfield Arcade in 1904, but he soon moved to the south-east corner of Queen's Road and Wyndham Street. Here, in addition to his \"Refreshment Room\", he had a \"Tiffin Room\" at No. 1 Wyndham Street. At the same time, the business became a limited company (DP20, 27 Apr 1905). The management of the restaurant was taken over by Carl Fiedler in 1908. A year later, the business was moved to No. 14 Des Voeux Road Central. Mr. Fiedler was not long after replaced by Rembold Ekhardt, who conducted the business under various names until 1914.\n\nCafe Weissman became Cafe Wiseman in 1914. No. 14 Queen's Road was redeveloped in 1926 as the Exchange Building. Lane, Crawford and Co. had its store there and for several years Cafe Wiseman became the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214056, "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-1997", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "91\n\nKong village in 1936, thus providing access to the proposed second airfield site at Pat Heung. In the following year the first roadworks on the outlying islands were undertaken at Muk Wo (Mui Wo) on Lantau, primarily to provide access to the ferry pier.\n\nDrainage\n\nIn 1843, a particularly bad year for disease, some essential drainage was begun and, by 1847, 740 metres of city drains had been laid in Victoria. At Happy Valley the muddy waters discharging from the surrounding hills via Wong Nei Chong (literally yellow mud stream) created swamp and healthwise lethal conditions, in particular following heavy rain. By 1846 the rice and sweet potato farmers at Happy Valley were bought out and the flat land drained, thus making the area less unhealthy than before. In spite of drainage improvements in and around the city, the mortality rate amongst European troops remained exceptionally high, for instance in 1851 it reached 24% compared with 10% for the civilian population, this latter percentage being swollen by the deaths of seamen. In the early days, to avoid flooding in low-lying areas, main drainage nullahs (large open channels) were constructed, the earliest in the central district probably being the Murray Barracks Nullah, which ran through the naval dockyard area, and the winding Victoria Barracks Nullah. At East Point, an impressive 6m-wide and 3.6m-deep nullah, the Bowrington Canal (now decked and located under Canal Road) which carried the run-off from the Happy Valley catchment area was planned as early as 1842. In Wan Chai, Stone Nullah Lane was located above a stream which ran below Hospital Hill (to the east of Morrison Hill).\n\nThe quality of design/workmanship in the original drainage system clearly left a lot to be desired as, in 1860, a very heavy rain storm is reported to have burst most of the drains and also caused the collapse of some houses in Canton Bazaar (off Queen's Road opposite to the naval dockyard). During the violent typhoon in 1874, mounds of soil were again thrown up by bursting drains. The sewers also had other uses, for instance in 1863 twenty-two prisoners were known to have escaped from the old gaol in Hollywood Road by way of the monsoon drains whilst, in the next two years, the ingenuity and engineering skill displayed by “drain gangs\" was such that a godown, jewellery store and even the vaults of a bank were entered by using storm-water drains.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214085, "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-1997", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "47\n\n1\n\nBowrington Canal leading from Happy Valley, c1905 HK Museum of History, provisional Urban Council\n\n121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 } ]