[ { "id": 204474, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n95\n\n2 Extracts from the Report are given between pages 181-209 of Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 1899, (Hong Kong, Government Printer, 1900). For this quotation see p. 198. Lockhart was referring specifically to development which was noticeably lacking. The same cannot be said of the population during this period. The evacuation of the coastal areas (1662-69) caused a great disruption to the villages at the time. For a brief mention in English, based on Chinese authorities, see S. F. Balfour, \"Hong Kong before the British\", an article in T'ien Hsia, Vol. XI, No. 4, 1941, p. 334. In any case there has been a continuous inward flow of both Cantonese and Hakka since then, more especially of Hakka in the 19th century, from which time many of the hill villages in the Colony take their origin.\n\nIt is interesting to compare this report with a book on Wei Hai Wei, Lion and Dragon in North China (London, John Murray, 1910) which was written by a junior colleague from Hong Kong, R. F. Johnston (1874-1938) who went to Wei Hai Wei as Magistrate and Secretary to Government in 1904, probably at Lockhart's request. Johnston, later knighted and Professor of Chinese in the University of London was a man of great application and erudition who became tutor to the deposed boy emperor, P'u Yi, (1919-25) and wrote the well-known book Twilight in the Forbidden City, (London, Gollancz, 1934). He was himself Commissioner of Wei Hai Wei 1927-30. His detailed description of Wei Hai Wei, its people and their customs leaves an impression of the striking similarity of life and thought between that remote part of Shantung and this small corner of Kwangtung. The means of government was of course the same, but so also are the ways of doing and thinking which seem, in my own experience, hardly to differ at all despite the different agricultural background. To anyone interested in the Chinese peasant Johnston's book is a mine of information. The annual reports on Wei Hai Wei presented to both Houses of Parliament are, too, an interesting commentary on life in this northern leased territory.\n\nThe market towns of the New Territories in 1898 were Tai Po, Yuen Long, Tai O, Cheung Chau, Sai Kung and Tsuen Wan. A despatch of 1905 in connection with the Kowloon-Canton Railway No. 59 dated 11th January 1905 from Governor Sir Matthew Nathan to the then Secretary of State, Mr. Lyttelton gives some figures. Yuen Long had \"seventy-four shops of which twenty-five are large and deal in rice, oil, samshu etc. The remainder belong to barbers, doctors, jewellers, vegetable sellers, piece goods dealers etc.\" Tai Po Market consisted of twenty-three large shops and fifteen smaller ones, Tsuen Wan had a few shops supplying the local needs\". No figures are given for Cheung Chau or Tai O with which the railway was not concerned, but an inscription of 1878 inside the grounds of the Fong Pin Hospital at Cheung Chau states that there \"used to be over two hundred shops trading here\". Lockhart Papers 1899, p. 207 gave Cheung Chau a population of 5,000, whilst Tai O with its fisheries and salt pans was reported to have about 3,000. These were larger towns than Yuen Long (no figure given), Tai Po (280), Sai Kung Market (800) and Tsuen Wan (900). The present New Territories towns were not the largest in the San On district. Pride of place went to Sham Chun, now on the Chinese side of the border, with sixty-one large shops and three hundred and twenty-three medium sized shops, and to Kun Lan Hui, also north of the border which was the cattle centre of the whole district with fifteen large and one hundred and thirty-six medium sized shops. (Enclosure C to No. 59). See Eastern No. 88 Correspondence relating to the Kowloon-Canton Railway (London, Colonial Office, 1907).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204751, "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": 54, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE\n\n43\n\nas a humble amateur I appeal humbly to the professionals for assistance; and, much less humbly, to other amateurs to take over the gathering of data on Hong Kong before the Chinese.*\n\nBy Hong Kong, I mean that southern part of the district now known as Po On,1 previously known as San On,122 and still earlier included within Tung Kwun,31 or partly within Tung Kwun and partly within Kwai Shin,60 which today comprises the Colony and leased territory of Hong Kong. By Chinese, I mean such of the inhabitants (and ancestors of the inhabitants) of that territory as would not have been described in a contemporary official document by one of the terms used for non-Chinese, i.e. I Ti Jung Man.67 If this definition appears negative it cannot be helped, since Chinese literature itself does not, until modern times, contain any word which corresponds to our word \"Chinese\", but has always had several terms for what might be called \"Non-Chinese\". Although one Chinese-type grave, said to date from the Han151 Dynasty, has been found in New Kowloon, and although one small Buddhist temple has behind it the foundation of a previous structure said to date from the Tsin158 Dynasty, there is no evidence of Chinese settlement before the end of the Tang.139 Up to and including the Tang Dynasty all the inhabitants, and up to the Yuan Dynasty most of the inhabitants of what is now the Colony and leased territory of Hong Kong are described, if described at all, as Man.88 The two Chinese clans with the longest records of continuous local residence (the Tang44 of Kam Tin,56 Lung Yeuk Tau7 and Ping Shan; and the Man of San Tin125 and Cha Hang11) go back indisputably to early Sung;132 and their traditions, to which I shall be referring again, speak of two other clans (Mo5 and Chan17) having been before them. The oldest building, except the temple previously mentioned, of which there is evidence, is the fort of Tuen Mun141 built in the Nan Han99 (Canton) Dynasty in A.D. 958. Another document refers to the appointment of a military commander of Tuen Mun in A.D. 954. I cannot be assailed if I say \"Anything before A.D. 900 is, for this territory, before the Chinese.\"\n\nThe Frame. The natural question to be asked is \"Before the Chinese, who?\" Before I attempt to answer this question, there\n\n*All local place names are given in the Cantonese pronunciation. Notes giving Chinese characters and romanization in the Barnett-Chao system are given at the end of the article.—Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205346, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 101\n\nLockhart calls them in his 1898 report on the New Territories.18 He states that the council for the Eastern Tung embraced most of the leased territory and sat in the market town of Sham Chun just north of the 1898 boundary. One imagines that men such as the three who form the subject of this paper might have been members. Here I have had the benefit of conversations with a former mandarin, now deceased, who served as a Chou and then as a Fu magistrate in Hupeh for some years before the Revolution of 1911. He told me that the councils of the poorer districts were augmented by prominent non-literati of the type to be found on Lantau, the normal restrictions on scholar membership being waived in order to secure the presence of persons who carried weight in their localities. If practised in San On this realistic approach, in part occasioned by the need to obtain their help in chasing in and securing the payment of the land tax, would probably have brought in local leaders like Chan, Cheung and Kung.\n\nI must record that this is conjecture since no information on their participation in the council, their work there, and their relations with the district magistrate and the true gentry of the District has yet turned up though I am by no means sure, given local conditions, that it ever will. However an account of these men would be lacking unless one hinted at the possibility of their participation in local councils, especially as it is probable that the rural gentry of Lantau and similar fringe areas in South China and elsewhere in the Ching period were similar in origins to these three men.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 The New Territories were ceded by the Convention of Peking signed on 9th June 1898; for the text see The Hong Kong Government Gazette for 8 April 1899, pp. 552-553—but were not occupied until the following year. The boundaries were not discussed until March 1899, and some hostilities took place in March and April of that year when the Hong Kong Government took possession of the New Territory. See Sessional Papers 1899, No. 32 \"Dispatches and Other Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong\" and No. 35 \"Further Papers relating to Military Operations in Connection with the Disturbances On The Taking Over of the New Territory\".\n\nThe Romanisation used in this article is in the Cantonese form. For place names see A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories. (Hong Kong Government Printer, 1960).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206526, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "68\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\nLondon. His official rank corresponded with that of a Lieutenant-Governor, so that he received a salute of only fifteen guns compared with the seventeen of first-class Crown-Colony Governors, such as that of Hong Kong. But, as R.F. Johnston pointed out: 'his actual powers, though exercised in a more limited sphere, are greater than those of most Crown-Colony Governors, for he is not controlled by a (Legislative) Council.'33 Lockhart's official duties, which of course kept him extremely busy, were nevertheless limited in nature, and the tempo of life in the Territory did not change dramatically during his tenure of office, for after the lease was signed, little was done with the Territory. At first, it was thought that the port could be transformed into a fortified naval base like Hong Kong, but to do so would have been extremely costly and would have involved the construction of a long breakwater and extensive dredging work in the harbour. In fact, the port was never utilised as a strategic naval base; it became merely a naval rest centre and a place where the British China Squadron lay at anchor when it paid its annual summer visit to North China. A few visitors also arrived from time to time and stayed at its European-style hotel, and an English school34 attracted boys from China, Japan, and Hong Kong.\n\nLockhart was administering a mainly agricultural region, equivalent in area to a small-sized Chinese district magistracy (hsien). The leased Territory, with its population composed principally of fairly well-to-do peasant farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, and artisans, was in composition like that of the New Territories which he had left. Lockhart did not feel called upon to alter drastically the life of this old, settled community, nor indeed was it the intention of the Colonial Office that he should. The Order-in-Council under which British rule in Weihaiwei was inaugurated stated: 'In civil cases between natives, the Court should be guided by Chinese or other native law and custom, so far as any such law or custom is not repugnant to justice and morality.'\n\nLockhart attempted, then, to preserve as much of the fabric of Chinese society as was possible. In his report for 1902, he wrote: \"With the policing of the territory at Hong Kong as a guide, it might have been thought that this question (the maintenance of peace and good order) was one easy of solution; but it required no long residence here to reveal that the conditions existing in the new territory of Hong Kong and those of Wei-Hai-Wei are widely different. In the former case, the natives had lived for about half a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206527, "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": 75, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n69\n\ncentury in close proximity to Hong-Kong, and were acquainted with its methods of administration and system of law and police, many of them, indeed being engaged in trade or working as labourers in that Colony. In the latter case, the Chinese of Wei-Hai-Wei had never had any experience of British administration until the territory was leased in 1898, and were, therefore, quite ignorant of the principles underlying that administration. Again the Chinese of the new territory of Hong Kong did not enjoy a good reputation for orderly behaviour, whereas the natives here have shown themselves law-abiding, docile, and orderly. After due deliberation I came to the conclusion that the most effective and economic plan would be to continue the system of policing the territory through the headmen of the villages and to retain it so long as it continued to work satisfactorily, instead of dotting Police Stations throughout the territory in charge of Inspectors, who would be unable to communicate with the people except through interpreters, a system which almost invariably results in corruption and malpractices. That system, which is suitable to the whole of the territory, except the town of Port Edward and the island of Liu Kung, is based on the fact that the unit of society is the family or village and not the individual as in the west. Headmen are appointed for each village or group of villages and are held responsible for the maintenance of peace and good order in their villages. If any trouble arises, the headman reports the matter and aids in making any arrests that may be necessary.\n\nThe principal source of revenue, as in the New Territories, was at first the land tax. In Weihaiwei this was based on the old land registers handed over by the Chinese magistrates. For many years past, R.F. Johnston wrote, 'every village had paid through the headman or committee of headmen a certain sum of money which by courtesy is called a land-tax. How that amount is assessed among the various families is a matter which the people decide for themselves on the general understanding that no one should be called upon to pay more than his ancestors paid before him unless the family property has been considerably increased.'35 The Territory under Lockhart's administration prospered, for in four years the Imperial Grant-in-Aid was reduced to less than one-third of its amount at the time when he first took office; however, owing to the reduction of the British Fleet in China in 1906 and the less frequent visit of men-of-war to Weihaiwei, the business of Port Edward was\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206539, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n81\n\n21 'Despatches and Other Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong', Sessional Papers, no. 32 of 1899, p. 13.\n\n22 Ibid., p. 36.\n\n23 Ibid., p. 65.\n\n24 Ibid., p. 69.\n\n25 'Report on the New Territory during the first year of British Administration', Sessional Papers, no. 15 of 1900, p. 252.\n\n26 'Report on the New Territory for the Year 1901', Sessional Papers, no. 22 of 1902, p. 4.\n\n27 Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1921.\n\n28 Alfred Hancock and his brother Sydney were partners in the firm of A. and S. Hancock of Queen's Road, Hong Kong. In 1906 Alfred Hancock had resided for over fifty years in Amoy and Hong Kong. In the 1920s the firm had moved to Des Voeux Road and the chief partner was H. R. B. Hancock, Lockhart's brother-in-law. The firm was still active in 1940.\n\n29 The walled city of Weihaiwei, captured by the Japanese in 1894, by the terms of the 1898 Convention was not under British jurisdiction but nominally under a Chinese sub-district deputy magistrate. The British sphere of influence extended for an area of 1,500 square miles east of the Leased Territory.\n\n30 On the Chinese Regiment see: Captain A. A. S. Barnes, On Active Service with the Chinese Regiment, London, 1902; C. E. Bruce-Mitford, The Territory of Wei-Hai-Wei, Shanghai, 1902, pp. 22-24; R. F. Johnston, Lion and Dragon in Northern China, London, 1910, pp. 82-3; and Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1906. The only servicemen left in Weihaiwei after 1906 were the small body of Royal Marines of the Island Guard,\n\n31 Johnston, op. cit., p. 82.\n\n32 L. K. Young, British Policy in China 1895-1902, London, 1970, p. 73.\n\n33 Johnston, op. cit., p. 80.\n\n34 The Weihaiwei School was opened with only four pupils in 1901 by a Mr. H. J. L. Beer. In 1903 a new school house was built near Port Edward, partly with the aid of a debenture loan subscribed by British subjects in Shanghai. The new school had dormitories for forty boys. The school, which took boys between ages of 8 to 14, was mainly for the sons of British expatriates. Pupils came from places as far apart as Mukden, Canton, Kobe, and Chungking. The school closed in 1925 when it became apparent that the rendition of Weihaiwei was close at hand. Weihaiwei's fine climate contributed to the school's success with expatriate parents.\n\n35 Johnston, op. cit., p. 96.\n\n36 Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston, K.C.M.G. (1874-1938). Johnston was educated at Edinburgh University and Oxford. He arrived in Hong Kong as an Eastern Cadet, fresh from Magdalen, on Christmas Day, 1898. In 1904, Robert Walter, Secretary to Government and Magistrate at Weihaiwei, was seconded for service as Emigration Agent at Ch'iu-wang-tao for the Transvaal Government and Johnston was appointed to take his place. In 1906 he was appointed District Officer and Magistrate and resided in the heart of the Territory. In 1919 when he took up his appointment as tutor he was Senior District Officer. In 1927 he returned to Weihaiwei as Commissioner. After the rendition of Weihaiwei in 1930 he became Professor of Chinese, University of London, and Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Far East, School of Oriental Studies, 1931-37.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207073, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "138 \n\nK. M. A. BARNETT \n\never attempted to solve... who lived in what is now the Colony and Leased Territory of Hong Kong 600 years ago and what language did they speak?' \n\nI had then just written an article for Mr. J. M. Braga's Hong Kong Symposium in which I summarized evidence from various historical sources. A little new evidence has come to light since that article was written in 1956, and it will not be amiss to mention the chief facts. \n\nThree of the existing Punti160 clans, and one Hakka137, claim continuous residence since the eleventh century A.D. The Punti clans appear to have been connected with the military posts set up in the Southern Han135 dynasty (A.D. 917-971) and wherever Punti160 and Hakka11 are found in the same area the Hakkas always have the inferior foot-hill land--the typical pattern of a partial conquest by later arrivals, pushing the earlier inhabitants up into the hills. \n\nAt this time Lantao141 and other islands, Hong Kong harbour itself and the peninsulas that jut into Mirs Bay153 were controlled by boat-people. It can be shown that both of the present kinds of boat-people (Tanka175 and Hoklo138) were represented. They were still unassimilated, and independent enough to require strong garrisons to keep them quiet, at the beginning of the Yüan182 dynasty. The suppression of the pearl fishing A.D. 1319-(the late Mr. Sung Hok Pang169 said 1324) was intended to conciliate them. \n\nThe assimilation of the hill-tribes was not begun till the Yuan dynasty at the earliest. The petition of Chang Wei-yen134 of Taipo170 in 1318 mentions two tribes, named Yao179 and Shan-lao-165. The 1819 edition of the Hsin-an-chih139 mentions only Yao. All the present hill cultivators claim Chinese descent and all speak Hakka137. Some, however, claim continuous occupation since the Ming152 dynasty, so that if they are really of Chinese descent they must have lived side by side with aboriginal tribes for two centuries. Again, some of those who claim to be Chinese claim also to have been there from time immemorial, and some still preserve the cult of the creator-god P'an-ku159, which is said to indicate a Yao origin. The truth is probably that in some places the aborigines were killed off or driven away, in a few others they adopted the Chinese language and 'passed' as Chinese, while in others there was intermarriage and the offspring were accepted as Chinese. \n\nIn circumstances such as these it is usual for something of the original languages to survive: in the everyday terms used in fishing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208001, "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-1977", "page_number": 40, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "24\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nof Hong Kong (1866) and who acted on occasion as legal representative of Dent and Company in that Colony.14\n\nThe Colonial Office by 1879 was favourably disposed toward Sarawak's expansionist plan in Brunei. A compromise was eventually achieved between the Colonial and Foreign Offices whereby Brooke was allowed a further cession of Brunei territory, the Baram River district, while North Borneo was confirmed to the company and it was allowed to acquire several territories on the north and east of Brunei Bay.\n\nAs to the attitude of Brunei toward the carving-up of its territory, few of the rajas of Brunei Town objected, for they were paid handsome cession monies from both Sarawak and North Borneo. In general, the temptation of a considerable monetary payment in hand overrode any desire to retain nominal title to territories over which Brunei sultans had long since ceased to rule and from which little, if any, revenue was obtained. That the presence of the British and the monetary payments tended to bolster a declining court and infuse it with vigour, if but superficially, was not lost upon the sultan and his rajas.\n\nThe keen competition which arose between Sarawak and North Borneo over the charter issue and the cession of Baram created a strong and bitter rivalry between the two states. Their attention was soon drawn to the remaining territory of Brunei. It seems clear that both Raja Brooke and the Company fully expected the demise of the sultanate, and each was determined to obtain as large a share of the remaining territory as possible. Raja Brooke had, for example, as early as 1874, offered to take over the administration of Brunei.\n\nIn 1890, Raja Brooke did annex the Limbang River district at the invitation of its Kayan chiefs, who had carried on a long rebellion against the extractions of corrupt Brunei rajas. After some on-site investigations, Britain reluctantly agreed to the acquisition. The raja was on firm legal ground, for he had obtained the chop of the sultan to the cession. But the loss of the Limbang was bitterly objected to by the rajas, who at almost the eleventh-hour began to realize that their individual selfishness and rivalry was bringing about the gradual extinction of the sultanate. The Limbang issue remains to this day a point of controversy between Brunei and Sarawak.15 No one at the time seemed to notice that Sarawak's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208704, "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-1979", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "134\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nCamp only on the actual day of departure, and had to go direct to the steamer.\n\nAs to the actual departure from Hong Kong, we had heard many conflicting reports of the strict search of person and inspection of baggage at the wharf, and we were not a little concerned, though we did not have much of this world's goods to be worried about, but it was all we had to our name. We had heard that many departing passengers, Chinese and foreign, had been subjected to a very strict search, and in some cases, all one's belongings had been confiscated, or thrown out on the floor. We also were told that we could take with us only what we could carry; that we were allowed to take only $200.00 in yen out of the Colony; that no foreign currency could be taken out; and that we could take only a few books, without a special permit. Also, that anything that looked new and that might be offered for sale, would be liable to confiscation, as many people were thus taking out new goods with the intention of selling them in Kwangchauwan or in China at fabulous prices. So, we packed our few suitcases and duffel bags accordingly, packing them also with a view to transportation conditions in the interior. Ostensibly, of course, we were going only to Kwangchauwan but our missions in the interior were our real goal, and we hoped that there would be no difficulty in crossing the border to Kwangchauwan. Kwangchauwan, be it noted, was then a leased territory under the flag of France.\n\nIn the service to Kwangchauwan, the Japanese had a couple of very small cargo boats and one, a larger and finer coasting steamer, formerly belonging to the Moelier Line, and which the Japanese had salvaged after its crew had scuttled it. We were booked for this boat, but as the service was not very regular, our departure was delayed a couple of days, the first group leaving on the 13th of January. The rest of us went to the dock to see them off, and to watch them go through the mill of inspection. This did not seem too severe, and after waiting in line for a couple of hours, the boat pulled away from its berth at noon, and we returned to Bethany to await our turn.\n\nSister Paul and some of her Sisters had already gone ahead as far as Macao and Kwangchauwan, and we were to pick them up there. On the 19th of the month, the second group got away, and with not too much difficulty in the way of baggage. The Bishop and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213439, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "The New Territories were leased from China for 99 years from 1st July 1898. Then followed the New Territories Order in Council of 20th October 1898, by clause 1 of which those territories were declared to be\n\n\"part and parcel of the Colony of Hong Kong in like manner and for all intents and purposes as if they had originally formed part of the said Colony.\n\nBy Clause 3 of the same Order-in-Council it was ordered that, from a date to be fixed by the Proclamation of the Governor, all laws and Ordinances which should on that date be in force in the Colony should take effect also in the New Territories. The laws in force in the Colony of Hong Kong at that date were such of the laws of England as existed on the 5th April 1843,\n\n\"except so far as the said laws are inapplicable to the local circumstances of the Colony or of its inhabitants.\n\n718\n\nand local Ordinances modifying the laws of England in force on 5th April 1843.\" The Secretary of State instructed the Governor in a despatch dated 6th January 1899-\n\n\"On the principle that the new territory shall be taken to be and so far as possible be treated as an integral part of the Colony, it is desirable that as many of the existing laws of Hongkong as are applicable to its circumstances should be at once applied, the administration of the laws being carried out with tact, discretion, and sympathy with native custom and prejudice\n\n+++\n\nA week before the British flag was hoisted at Taipo and the territories were taken over from the Chinese authorities the Governor, Sir Henry A. Blake, issued a Proclamation which included this passage:-\n\n\"I would also impress upon you that this territory having been leased by His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China to Her Britannic Majesty the Queen, as subjects of Her Majesty's Empire, your commercial and landed interests will be safeguarded, and that your usages and good customs will not in any way be interfered with.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 } ]