[ { "id": 209592, "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-1982", "page_number": 249, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "227\n\nwas commendable that the A.D.C. had departed from farce and burlesque, its venture into something more serious was not altogether successful; but the fault may have been not in the type of drama but in the type of characters of the particular play. It was the opinion of the reviewer that \"In selecting plays they should have no out-of-the-way characters. A success at home may not be suited to Amateurs, such as these in Hong Kong. Some dramas are written for special actors\". He suggested that \"perhaps the amateurs could give a selection, perhaps one or two scenes, or an act from a standard play, for example, the scene between Wolsey and Cromwell in Henry VIII.\" This had been done by the Hon. Mr. York at the inauguration of the City Hall's Theatre Royal in 1869 during the visit of His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh.\n\nThe suggestion was not taken up, and the Company attempted another serious piece, the popular play \"The Caste\". In this, the amateurs had to compete against the standard set by performances given a short time before by two different travelling professional companies in which actresses played the female parts. The comparison was not kind to the amateurs. As usual, the reviewer was reluctant to criticize, but he did venture to say that the performance might tend to lessen subscriptions for the next season. He thought too much had been spent on the costumes, when, in fact, in his view, \"people go to see acting, not wardrobe\".\n\nThe A.D.C. returned to something lighter, and in 1876 put on a very successful burlesque, \"The Field of the Cloth of Gold,\" by William Brough. The opening scene in the London production had been the harbour of Calais; in Hong Kong, it was the Praya between City Hall and the Bath House of the Victoria Recreation Club. The field of the cloth of gold was East Point. Though it was agreed that there was not much scope for dramatic talent in the piece, it was pronounced \"an undoubted success, and far surpasses, in splendour of the get-up, number of performers, and brilliancy of the scenes, anything hitherto placed on the boards of this colony\". Unfortunately, its lavishness had to be paid for, and it took several seasons before the A.D.C. had a balance.\n\nOne of the perennial favourites was the burlesque \"Aladdin the Wonderful Scamp\". It was given in 1863, 1867, 1875", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210599, "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-1985", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "ANTHONY FARRINGTON\n\n187\n\nA NEW SOURCE FOR CHINESE TRADE TO JAPAN IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY\n\nANTHONY FARRINGTON*\n\nI must confess that the word 'new' in my title is a slight exaggeration; 'neglected' might be more accurate, because the source which forms the basis of this paper has been known from at least the beginning of the twentieth century.1 But my contention is that one of its more interesting features has been overlooked and the general context has been partly misinterpreted.\n\nIndia Office Records: G/12/17 comprises the diary and consultations of the English East India Company's factors in Tongking from 25 June 1672 to 30 November 1697. The volume is a composite one, made up in the nineteenth century from ten separate 'books' representing the sequence of transmissions back to London, and it contains some 500 folios of varying size. Neither a calendar nor a transcript of the text has been published, and I can claim to be one of the few to have read through it.\n\nCromwell's charter of 1657, broadly confirmed by Charles II in 1661, rescued the East India Company from a period of financial confusion and commercial difficulties.2 The 1660s then saw the growth of serious interest in the possibility of reviving trade to Japan. The subject was discussed by the Company's Directors at the end of 1658, a report was compiled for the Deputy-Governor in 1661,3 and in 1664 a plan was put forward. A ship would leave London in September with a cargo of English manufactures, take in pepper and Indian piece goods at Bantam, call at Cambodia for any suitable commodities, sail on to Japan and finally, leaving there in November 1665, return to England via Bantam.4 The plan had to be shelved with the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665, while in any case the Agent at Bantam pointed out that a base in Tongking, not Cambodia, to secure raw and finished silks for the Japanese market, would be\n\n* Mr. Farrington is Curator, India Office Records, London.\n\nI\n\ni", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215645, "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-2001", "page_number": 422, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "374\n\nthe tale the guide told us. A troop of Cromwell's Roundhead cavalry had entered the Minster determined on the destruction of all 'popish monuments,' but St John of Beverley, the local saint, canonised in 1037 had been so incensed at the desecration of the Minster by the Roundheads riding their horses into the building, that he had \"caused\" the leading horse to stumble, and its rider in falling off had struck his head on the flagstone floor and been killed, whereupon the rest of the troop had left vowing not to incur further wrath and disaster by destroying the Minster's interior.\n\nHow true these two tales are I could not say as both came from oral traditions which do not seem to have been recorded, but I found it quite curious that two such similar tales of divine intervention could occur in two small and relatively unknown places at opposite ends of the world.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]