[
    {
        "id": 204475,
        "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": 107,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "96\n\n5\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nSee a tablet in the Chow-Wong School at Kam Tin.\n\n* Papers 1899 p. 188.\n\n* Papers 1899 p. 188.\n\n'Lockhart's figures, given in Appendixes 3 and 5 to his Report are not exact, and he has emphasised his sketchy estimate of the land population \"in default of any reliable statistics possessed by the Chinese Government\" and said he had been unable to obtain even an estimate of the boat people Papers 1899 pp. 187,189. Taking areas within my own detailed knowledge I have found that villages established long before 1898 have not been included in the returns or else have been linked with other villages without special mention, The population figures for the Islands, in particular, are not above suspicion and are probably greater than shown in Appendix 5.\n\n* Papers 1899 p. 189.\n\nPapers 1899 p. 189.\n\n10 Universal ownership was clearly shown by the land survey which followed the lease of 1898. This was carried out by surveyors and staff on loan from the Government of India, and was followed by a registration of titles which was enlivened by land courts which sat to determine possession in disputed cases. The survey sheets and the Crown Rent Rolls which form the schedules to them can be found in the District Offices of the New Territories Administration and they are a valuable record of land ownership and land classification at the time of the lease.\n\nAt Shek Pik and Fan Pui in 1958 out of sixty-six families four owned between 3-4 acres, nine between 2-3 acres, nineteen between 1-2 acres, fourteen owned between a half to one acre, twelve owned between a quarter to a half, and eight between 10 to 25 acres. Except a few late arrivals, therefore, every family owned land of its own. The position was much the same as in 1898.\n\nThe same was true of Wei Hai Wei, of which Johnston wrote Lion & Dragon, p. 148, \"Whatever the faults of the Chinese social system may be there is no doubt that in Wei Hai Wei it very largely accounts for the complete absence of pauperism (though no one is rich) for the orderliness of the people (nearly everyone has a stake in the land and has nothing to gain and everything to lose from disorder), for the uninterrupted succession of father and son in the homesteads, and for the long pedigrees attested by family graveyards and ancestral tablets\".\n\n11 See Johnston Lion and Dragon pp. 134-54. I have compared customary deeds of sale and mortgage from the New Territory between the years 1898 and 1958 with those cited by him and find that they invariably follow the same form (see especially Johnston pp. 144-145). These deeds are known as white deeds (as in Ching times) and had not been put through the formal process of registration in the District Office which would turn them into legal documents; or, as formerly in Ching days, in the Magistrate's yamen when they became red deeds (RI #). They were common until the Pacific war and even now are occasionally known to be drawn up in addition to the Memorial registering the conveyance in the Land Office. To select an example at random here is one from Shek Pik on Lantau Island dated the second year of the Republic (1913) which reads",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208716,
        "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": 173,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "146\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nManila, would have made the journey more comfortable. Another early visitor was Father John Smith of Kong Moon mission, just returning from the States. Apparently his stay at home had made him careless and he had not been on the Hong Kong streets very long before he was \"taken\" by several urchins who successfully \"lifted\" his fountain pen while pretending to fight over the privilege of shining his shoes.\n\nEarly in April, Father Tennien returned to Shanghai after a visit to Hong Kong. At this time, Father Brack recovered a goodly number of articles which the Carmelite Sisters had managed to save from looters by storing them in their convent. Among these were books, vestments, an adding machine and some typewriters, together with a lot of stationery. They had also kept in their convent a large wooden crucifix and two large statues, both the beautiful handwork of Brother Albert, to be replaced in the Chapel.\n\nIn addition to the ravages caused by the Japanese on Stanley House, another enemy moved in and inflicted more damage. This enemy was white ants, and they did a rather thorough job on much of the woodwork that had remained otherwise intact.\n\nWe learned that national currency was getting to the point where one \"weighed\" it rather than \"counted\" it. A big shopping spree in Shanghai or Canton required hiring a coolie or ricksha to carry enough bundles of paper currency to pay the bills. At the same time, prices in Hong Kong were outrageous; a cheap white suit costing HK$160—over ten times the pre-war price!\n\nA Korean Dominican priest, Father Ri, stayed at Stanley while working with Japanese political prisoners now detained in the Stanley jail where the British and American internees spent the war years.\n\nIn May, Archbishop Zanin, Apostolic Delegate to China, arrived by plane from Shanghai for a conference with more than a dozen Ordinaries of South China, including our four Ordinaries.\n\nBishop Paschang arrived at Stanley for the conference, with a Van Dyke beard. Only his episcopal rank saved him from the customary Stanley practice of removing beards by force!\n\nOur jeep made five trips into Hong Kong in one day. Sometimes it must carry nine passengers with baggage, but without it, we would be lost.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    }
]