[ { "id": 204746, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "38\n\n10 Linguist purser.\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nSee note 39, (J.L.C-B)\n\n11 Elliot's last day. On 25 March Elliot formally requested the Viceroy that passports should be issued within three days for all the English ships and people at Canton and that if passports were not issued he would consider the men and ships of his country as forcibly detained and act accordingly. Blue Book, Correspondence relating to China, 1840, p. 367. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n12 Edward Elmslie. Secretary and Treasurer to the British Superintendents of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot and the Deputy Superintendent, A. R. Johnston, (J.L.C-B.)\n\n13 Houqua. Known to Westerners at Canton as Howqua 7. His family name was Wu Ch'ung-yüeh (1810-1863). He was the fifth son of the famous Hong merchant Wu Ping-chien whom he succeeded as head of the firm in 1843. For his biography see Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, 867-8. (F.L.C-B.)\n\n14 Nam Hoe. Also written Nam Hoi. This means Nan Hai Hsien #i.e. the Magistrate having jurisdiction over the western part of Canton city and the District lying to the westward of the walls which included the area in which the foreign Factories lay. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n15 Kwang Hup. The author may be referring to the Kwangchou hsieh \"the Canton brigade\", and so to its commander. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n16 The Governor. The Governor of Kwangtung province at this time was I-liang (1791-1867). For his biography see Hummel, op. cit., I, 389. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n17 K'an-ch'o (J.L.C-B.)\n\n18 An-tsou (J.L.C-B)\n\n19 Columbia & John Adams. According to the Chinese Repository Vol. 8, p. 56 the Columbia was a U.S. frigate and the John Adams was classed as a sloop-of-war. The Columbia was commanded by Commodore George C. Read. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n20 Johnston, Alexander Robert Johnston, H.M. Deputy Superintendent of Trade. When the Government of Hong Kong was set up he was deputy first to Elliot and later to Sir Henry Pottinger and in this capacity he administered the Government of the Colony on various occasions from 1841 until 1843. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n21 Pwan Kei Kua. Probably the merchant whose name was also spelt by Westerners at Canton at that time Ponkhequa and Puan Khequa. This was P'an Chengwei (1791-1850). See Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, 605, (J.L.C-B.)\n\n22 Saoqua. His family name was Ma Tso-liang and the name of his Hong was Shun Tai Hong A. (J.L.C-B.)\n\n23 Sturgis. Russell Sturgis (1805-1887) of Boston was first named Nathaniel Russell Sturgis, Jr., but he was always known as Russell Sturgis after his name was changed by decree of the Middlesex County Court. He graduated from Harvard in 1823, married in 1828 but was widowed four months later. After an extended tour of Europe he returned to Boston and for a while practised law. He remarried and in 1833 took his family to the orient where he became a partner of Russell & Sturgis of Manila and Russell, Sturgis & Co. of Canton. Later in 1842 when the latter firm became incorporated with Russell & Co., China, he became a partner in 1842. In May 1844 he retired to Boston, his second wife having died in Manila in 1837. Being far too young to give up work altogether he decided to return to China in 1849 but while passing through London he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204897, "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-1965", "page_number": 5, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPAGE\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1964\n\nHON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1964\n\nTRANSACTIONS OF THE BRANCH, 1964 - 1965:\n\n✓ Archeological Discovery in and around Hong Kong S. G. Davis\n\nNiah Cave, 1947 - 1964 T. HARRISSON\n\nCHINA BRANCH TRANSACTIONS REPRINT:\n\nThe Population of China SIR JOHN BOWRING\n\nARTICLES CONTRIBUTED:\n\nThe Dialects of Hong Kong\n\nBoat People: Kau Sai J. McCoy\n\nThe Southern Sung Stone Engraving at North Fu-t'ang JEN YU-WEN\n\nPiracy on the China Coast A. D. BLUE\n\nThe Hong Kong The Chinese University of S. HUANG\n\nReview Article: Government and People in Hong Kong, by G. B. Endacott C. LUPTON\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nLIST OF Members\n\n1\n\n6\n\n9\n\n20\n\n27\n\n46\n\n65\n\n69\n\n86\n\n95\n\n101\n\n116\n\n127", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205183, "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-1966", "page_number": 139, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "OLD BRITISH KOWLOON\n\n133\n\nNOTES\n\nThe place names are all in Cantonese and can be found in the Hong Kong Government's publication The Place Names of Hong Kong and the New Territories (1960). Where not otherwise stated my authority for information given in the paper comes from the old people mentioned in note 16. The aim of this article is to recover as much of the pre-1899 past of the Hong Kong region as possible, with special reference to the nineteenth century.\n\n1. E. J. Eitel, Europe in China, London: Luzac & Co., 1895, p. 360.\n\n2. The Convention of Peking, 9 June 1898. The text can be found on pp. 198-199 of the Hong Kong Government's Sessional Papers, i.e., papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1899.\n\n3. Report on the Sanitary Condition of Hong Kong and Kowloon for 1864... presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty in 1865 to be found in Parliamentary Papers, China, 1861-66, p. 16.\n\n4. C.O.129/85 in the Public Record Office, London.\n\n5. The Commissioners sent an abstract of these documents to London. These were as follows:\n\n\"No. 1 | List of Red Deeds Owners not belonging to the Teng Family—contains 91 Deeds, comprising an area of 176 acres value computed at $25,865.32\n\nNo. 2 List of Deeds belonging to the Two Branches of the Teng Family contains 78 Deeds comprising an area of 276 acres value computed at $40,561.52\n\nNo. 3 List of squatters showing the number to be 222—spread over 90 acres value computed at $13,226.16*\n\nThe \"Teng\" family mentioned in Nos. 1 and 2 above is the Tang (*) family of Kam Tin, who are Cantonese and are the oldest, richest and best-known of the New Territories landed families. See SUNG Hok-Pang. \"Legends and Stories of the New Territories\" Parts III-IV, Kam Tin, in The Hong Kong Naturalist, Vols. VI and VII.\n\n6. Hong Kong Government Gazette, Government Notification 41 of 1860, dated 24 March 1860. The population at this time contained a preponderance of men; 3356 to 971 women and 778 children (Hong Kong Government Gazette, 22 February 1862).\n\n7. For instance, the genealogies (##) of the Ng (吳) clan of Nga Tsin Wai and Sha Po and the Lam (林) clan of Chuk Yuen and Po Kong show that their settlement dates back to this period.\n\n8. I base this statement on personal knowledge of the fifty or more Hakka villages in the Sai Kung district of the New Territories.\n\n9. Hong Kong Government Blue Book for 1871 p. 148.\n\n10. See G. N. Orme's \"Report on the New Territories 1899-1912\" in Sessional Papers 1912 p. 55 and J. H. Stewart Lockhart in Sessional Papers 1899, p. 189. My second statement is based on conversations with families of Hakka stonecutters at Ngau Tau Kok Village, Kowloon.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205836, "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-1969", "page_number": 142, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "136\n\nJ. T. COOPER\n\nthe Swindon Book Co. in Kowloon. There was a steady public demand for the maps and the more popular sheets were frequently out of stock.\n\nIn 1965 the Directorate of Overseas Surveys agreed to produce a new series of topographic maps at 1/25,000 scale for the Hong Kong Government, to be plotted from the high-level photography taken in December 1964. The specification included contours at 50 ft. vertical interval instead of the 10 metre contours shown on the old military series. (It may be considered that this was a retrograde step in view of the possible adoption in Hong Kong of the metric system of measurement in the future. It must be remembered, however, that the specification of the new maps was agreed in 1965 when the possible adoption of the metric system had not been raised in Hong Kong and was uncertain in Great Britain). There were advantages in having contours and spot heights in feet rather than metres, since all heights above sea-level used in the Colony, as well as the contours on all larger scale plans, are in feet. The new maps are based on the Cassini rectangular grid used for all plans produced by the Hong Kong Government. The UTM grid is printed in black on the face of the new maps, while the Colony grid (in blue) and the geographical latitudes and longitudes (in black) are shown around the margins.\n\nIt was decided that plotting of the new maps would be on the \"dual-scale\" system already used by the Directorate of Overseas Surveys to map other parts of the Commonwealth. This means that the actual plotting is at a larger scale than that of the final map. In this case the plotting is at 1/15,000 scale and an interim series of sheets is produced at 1/10,000 scale.* At this scale 62 sheets will cover the Colony. They are printed in five basic colours (black, grey, brown, blue and red), but by using half tones as well as full tones the range of colours is increased. Each standard sheet is at double-demy size, the map face being 25″ × 21¾″. In addition to the usual footnotes a glossary of romanised Chinese phrases describing topographic features is added. Several sheets are of larger than standard size to accommodate areas or islands outside the normal sheet edges. On each sheet an index diagram in the footnotes shows the relative position of the 1/2400 scale sheets covering the area.\n\n* See Plate 13 for a specimen extract in black and white.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205958, "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-1970", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "LORD ELGIN AND THE TAIPINGS\n\n33\n\nof the river ports is contingent on the suppression of the rebellion.\"40\n\nThus the record of Elgin's own visit through Taiping territory adequately lays to rest any notion that he might have been harboring an alternative policy of dealing with the Taipings. Without question, his angry remark was merely rhetorical, entirely lacking substance. He was frustrated with Manchu behavior, both in his own repeated experiences with them, and with their poor handling of the Taiping resurgence of 1860.41 Yet Elgin had done nothing to cultivate the political alternative that Taiping China posed. Nor would he ever do so.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Elgin referred to a \"Chinese\" government as an alternative to the Manchus. This presumably meant the Taipings who were the only viable such alternative readily at hand. See, for example, Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, China's Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase 1858-1880, Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1960, p. 104.\n\n2 See Stephen Uhalley, Jr., \"A New Look at the Diplomatic Missions of 1853-54 to Taiping-held Nanking,\" The Chung Chi Journal, Volume 6 (May 1967), 171-190. For the best general English-language history of the Taiping movement as a whole, see Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents, Vol. I, Seattle and London; University of Washington Press, 1966. Unfortunately the fine work of Jen Yu-wen, the foremost Chinese authority on the Taipings, is for the most part unavailable in English translation; although a concise English edition of his narrative history of the Taipings is in preparation,\n\n3 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, Shanghai, January 5, 1859, \"Papers Respecting Lord Elgin's Special Mission to China and Japan, 1857-1859,\" 1859, Parliamentary Papers or Blue Book (BB), IX, 444.\n\n4 Ibid.\n\n5 Laurence Oliphant, Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan, London, 1860, Vol. II, 310.\n\n6 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 444.\n\n7 Oliphant, II, 361-362.\n\n8 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 444.\n\n9 Oliphant, II, 314.\n\n10 \"A Cruise up the Yangtze in 1858-59,\" Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (May 1860), 704-705.\n\n11 It was of an event during this exchange that Oliphant later wrote: \"A large crowd had collected outside the gate, chiefly composed of rebel soldiers watching the proceedings. We sent them a ten-inch shell just to give them some idea of our armament.\" Ibid., p. 318.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206275, "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-1971", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "86\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nof substantial Chinese merchants was not realized.\n\nThe Blue Book reports for both 1845 and 1846 noted some signs of a growing stability in the Chinese population. In 1845 it was stated that \"both in numbers and respectability the Chinese are improving, being accompanied in a greater number of instances by their families\", and in 1846, \"the proportion of females increases as a feeling of security induced Chinese settlers to bring over their families\". The settling of families was welcomed because it indicated that the Chinese who did so were willing to consider Hong Kong as a place of permanent residence. Although there had been noted some progress in this area, the report for 1848 indicated that it was not sustained. \"There exists no local attachment, which may be ascribed to the absence of respectable families born on the island, with which the adventurers could contract marriages. The rent of houses and shops is at present low enough to enable any man who has a middling trade to lodge his family, yet very few decent married females reside here. In this respect there has been very little improvement during the past year\". The paucity of Chinese families in Hong Kong is reflected in the annual census of shops and buildings. In 1845 there were as many brothels as families, twenty-five families and twenty-six brothels. Within five years the families had increased to 141, but there were only six more brothels than in 1845. The 1850s saw a substantial influx of Chinese families escaping from the turbulent conditions in Kwang Tung Province created by the Taiping Rebellion.\n\nThis influx changed somewhat the characteristics of Hong Kong's Chinese population. It acquired more stability, responsibility and economic strength. Examination of an emerging élite in this period shows that its members can be divided into five occupational groups: contractors, merchants, compradores, government servants and Christian employees of missionary groups. The biographies of the individuals in each of these groups found on our lists for determining élite status provide the background for élite emergence in the 1850s and 1860s.\n\nTHE CONTRACTORS GROUP\n\nWhen Hong Kong was settled the immediate need of buildings brought many connected with the building trade to Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206557, "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG\n\n99\n\nby the reduction of available accommodation, that privies for common use were contrary to Chinese social habits and that no compensation was offered to property owners.7 The unofficial (appointed) members of the Legislative Council were most vociferous in their objections to the proposed measures and were successful in obtaining numerous amendments which made the Ordinance of very limited use. However, the restriction over the amount of internal living space was retained but only after heated debate and the use of the official majority vote.\n\nTwo years elapsed before the government again attempted to introduce new provisions in the form of a Building Ordinance. The matter of rear yards was included in the Bill but this was once more forced out by the unofficial Legislative Council members and had to be included in the Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance. A clause was proposed whereby mezzanine floors could only be constructed if provision were made for a vertical clearance of 9 ft. above and below. This was modified at the insistence of the unofficial members so that it would apply only in cases where the mezzanine extended over more than two-thirds of a room; otherwise a clearance of 6 ft. was permitted. Another clause relating to the provision of sufficient windows was eliminated whilst the installation of privies was made optional.\n\nStiff resistance continued from property owners against further proposals put forward by the government to help improve the sanitary condition of the Colony which daily became the cause of greater concern. Nevertheless, the administration did achieve a number of major improvements recommended by Chadwick in 1882. Between 1883 and 1900, for example, over HK$2 million was spent on improving water supplies through the completion of a reservoir at Tytam; another HK$1 million was allocated for the reprovisioning of the sewerage system and the redraining of 9,957 houses; a further HK$660,000 was used for the construction of new markets, animal depots, slaughterhouses, latrines, laundries and other miscellaneous works.\n\n7Letter of 18th July 1901 to the Hon. J. Chamberlain, Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies from J. H. Stewart Lockhart, Colonial Secretary, Enclosure No. 2: Measures to Give Effect to Mr. Chadwick's Recommendations of 1882 Legislation, Blue Book Reports on Sanitation and Housing 1900-1907, Hong Kong, 1907.\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206559, "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "# REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG\n\n101\n\npopulated areas which were used for portable purposes should be closed, that all private lanes and streets should be brought under government control and that back-to-back houses should be demolished as soon as possible.\n\nUnder such desperate circumstances, the government was obliged to take strong action and in the same year as the plague struck it passed, on an emergency basis, the Tai Ping Shan Resumption Ordinance. Under this statute the inhabitants from 8.5 acres of land in the worst affected area were evicted, their properties were resumed and demolished, and the area was laid out anew. The various works were completed by 1899 at a total cost of over HK$944,000. Two smaller schemes in the same locality were carried out in 1902 and 1903 at a cost of some HK$271,000; the total area involved in these schemes was about 0.7 acre.\n\nOther measures were introduced in 1894 in the Closed Houses and Insanitary Dwellings Ordinance under which the height of buildings was limited to between 25 ft. and 76 ft. depending on the length and width of the street. The Ordinance also gave powers of inspection to the Sanitary Board to ascertain breaches of the law against overcrowding, the standard of measurement being 30 sq. ft. of floor area and 400 cu. ft. of air space per occupant. Despite the apparent necessity for such measures the unofficial members of Legislative Council pressed for less restrictive clauses.\n\nIn 1895 there was a respite from the plague with only 44 reported cases, but in the following year over 1,200 persons were afflicted. Thereafter, the plague became an annual visitation, mainly in the torrid summer months, and persisted until 1907. Altogether, there were some 13,000 victims between 1894 and 1906 giving an average of over 1,000 a year.\n\nThe continued concern of the government over the insanitary condition of the Colony led to the appointment of a commission to look further into the matter and a report12 was duly submitted in 1898, the year in which the New Territories were leased from China. After a comprehensive survey of 3,095 houses in two health districts,\n\n11 Minute by the Principal Medical Officer on the Report of the Public Health and Building Ordinance Commission, Appendix A. p. 5 in the Blue Book Reports on Sanitation and Housing 1900-1907, Hong Kong, 1907.\n\n12 Report of the Commission to Inquire into the Existence of Insanitary Properties in the Colony, Hong Kong, 1898.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206586, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "128\n\nReferences:\n\n1. Building Reconstruction Advisory Committee Final Report, Hong Kong, 1946.\n\n2. Chadwick O., Report on the Sanitary Condition of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1882.\n\n3. Chadwick O., The Sanitary Condition of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1902.\n\n4. Commissioner of Census Report on the Censuses of the Colony for 1901, 1911, 1921, 1931, 1961 and 1966.\n\n5. Commissioner of Rating & Valuation Property Review 1971, Hong Kong, 1972.\n\n6. Dwyer D. S. (ed) Asian Urbanisation: A Hong Kong Casebook, Hong Kong 1971.\n\n7. Hong Kong Government \"Annual Report of the Colonial Surgeon\", The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 4th April 1874.\n\n8. Hong Kong Government \"Chinese Houses\", The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 27th July 1878.\n\n9. Hong Kong Government Blue Book Reports on Sanitation and Housing, Hong Kong 1907.\n\n10. Hong Kong Government Report of the Commission to inquire into the existence of Insanitary Properties in the Colony, Hong Kong, 1898.\n\n11. Hong Kong Government Report of the Commission Appointed by his Excellency the Governor to Enquire into and Report on the Administration of the Sanitary and Building Regulations Enacted by the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance 1903 and the Existence of Corruption among the officials charged with the Administration of the Aforesaid Regulations, Hong Kong, 1907.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206863, "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-1973", "page_number": 140, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "134\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nof a new building for Queen's College. In January 1877, the Government advertised for sale at public auction the \"materials, bricks, stones, tiles, doors, windows, joists, floors, etc. of buildings on Inland Lots 55, 93, 91 and 91A—known as Rangel's Estate”. Among the properties was \"the Joss House, No. 10 Shing Wong Street\". Soon after, the wreckers moved in and the temple was no more. So passed what was presumably the first community project of the Chinese population of urban Hong Kong.\n\nIt is difficult to establish the exact date for the erection of the Temple from records now available. It is possible that a notice in The Chinese Repository, October 1843, (Vol. XII, p. 549) may refer to the Shing Wong Temple. \"A new Chinese temple is about to be undertaken [in Hong Kong]. Handbills and placards are out, for the purpose of raising money for the erection of the building\".\n\nThe references to Chinese temples in the Hong Kong Blue Books are confusing and difficult to interpret. In 1844 under the heading of Ecclesiastical Establishments there is listed:\n\nBuddhist in Victoria, W.D. [Western District]\n\nBuddhist in Chekchoo [now Stanley]\n\nBuddhist in Shekpaiwan [Aberdeen Harbour]\n\nBuddhist in Sookumpoo\n\nEstablished in 1842 Chinese\n\nIn 1845 it is stated that \"There are 17 Chinese Temples in the colony, dedicated with few exceptions to 'Tee-how-mong-mong' (the Queen of Heaven)\". In 1846 and 1847 it is stated that there are three small Chinese temples in Victoria, and in 1847 it is noted that there is \"a small one in each village\".\n\nUnder the Blue Book schedule of Chinese buildings a Chinese Town Hall is listed in 1845 and 1846. In 1847 two Town Halls are enumerated, with the addition of one Joss House. Was the Shing Wong building listed as a Town Hall? A statement made in a Chinese document entitled \"Information as to the period of the formation of Districts in Hongkong and the alteration of the Character Wan-a bay-to Wan—a circuit” translated and published in The China Review, Vol. I, p. 133 (1872-1873) suggests that the Town Halls were Temples.\n\nThis article also provides a date for the construction of the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road:\n\nIn 1843 one Sz-man-king opened a place for gambling. . Two years later, traders began to come, and two years after that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207303, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "THE GREAT PLAGUE OF HONG KONG\n\n63\n\nfaced with our epidemic of great magnitude. By July, for example, there had been 2442 deaths. Hospitals were quickly established on board the \"Hygeia\", at Kennedy Town Police Station and at the Kennedy Town glass works. The first two hospitals were run by European staff whilst the third was manned by Chinese personnel of the Tung Wah hospital. Official despatches record that \"it was deemed advisable to give the Chinese doctors a free hand at first. In any case, it is difficult to persuade the Chinese to report cases of sickness and their foolish and violent prejudice against Western medical men is quite sufficient to induce them, as they certainly did in the first fortnight or three weeks of the existence of the plague, not only to secrete their sick but often to desert their plague-stricken friends and relations after death.\"*\n\nA house-to-house inspection was carried out by personnel of the garrison and those houses in which plague had occurred were cleansed and disinfected. This action gave rise to numerous complaints from the Chinese community for it was rumoured that the foreigners had sinister and unspeakable desires on the women and children. Indeed, so inflamed did feelings become that a deputation of Chinese petitioned the Governor, Sir William Robinson, to order the cleansing operations to be stopped. However, Sir William made it clear in no uncertain terms that the government was determined to take strong measures. Subsequently, an anti-government poster campaign was launched and this spread to Canton where further rumours were started to the effect that English doctors were accused of cutting open pregnant women and scooping out the eyes of children to make medicines for the treatment of plague-stricken patients.\n\nThe prompt answer of the governor in Hong Kong was to station the gunboat \"Tweed\" off Tai Ping Shan and to offer a reward for information leading to the arrest of persons distributing malicious posters. Additionally, the Chinese Viceroy in Canton was requested to issue proclamations denying the atrocity stories. However, these were not made with any great degree of vigour and feelings in Canton continued to run high to the extent that two women missionary doctors were set upon by a mob.\n\n* \"Further Correspondence Relative to the Outbreak of Bubonic Plague at Hong Kong between Sir William Robinson to the Marquess of Ripon 1894\", p. 2 in Blue Book Reports on Bubonic Plague 1894-1903, Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207308, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "68\n\nE. G. PRYOR\n\nintelligence service to pin-point danger spots and proposed the distribution of 100,000 hand bills publicising the causes and symptoms of plague, the destruction of rats and the addresses of places where sickness could be reported. Another recommendation was the establishment of a plague department with wide powers for the discovery, prevention and cure of plague including inoculation with a highly potent horse antiserum prepared at the Haffkine Institute in India.\n\nA final recommendation made by Simpson was a general improvement of sanitary conditions and stricter control over the design of tenement blocks which he described as follows:\n\n\"The rooms, as a rule, are far too deep, the object of this depth being to subdivide each room into a number of cubicles for the accommodation of families or lodgers. Though there may be windows at each end of the room, the great depth materially obstructs the light to take an example from the better class of buildings, many of the houses that are being erected are eighty feet deep without lateral windows and contain long, narrow rooms of fifty-five feet in depth, by twelve or thirteen feet in width, lighted in front by a window and also in the rear by another window which looks into a backyard of twelve feet. . . .”*\n\nFrom the recommendations made by Simpson arose the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903 which set new standards for the design and occupancy of buildings and which remained in force until 1935.\n\nBy 1904 a considerable amount of deductive evidence had accumulated to link the occurrence of plague to the fleas carried by rats. Dr. J. M. Howie of Changpoo, for example, was of the opinion that the main cause of plague was inoculation through the bite of fleas, lice and mosquitos. Dr. H. Dobson of Yung Kong also noted that the cases he had observed appeared to have been caused by \"the bites of insects (fleas), contamination of open wounds on legs or elsewhere (or) through food containing the germ.\" William Hunter, the Government Bacteriologist of Hong Kong also noted\n\n* Second Memorandum from W. J. Simpson to James Stewart Lockhart Sanitary Board Office, 20th March 1902, p. 15 in Blue Book Reports on Bubonic Plague 1894-1907.\n\n+ W. J. Simpson, Report on the Causes and Continuance of Plague in Hong Kong and Suggestions as to Remedial Measures, London, 1903, p. 31.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207310, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "70\n\nE. G. PRYOR\n\noutbreaks occurred in 1912, 1914 and 1922, predominantly among the Chinese community. Over the period 1894-1929 the total number of cases numbered over 24000 and some 90% of these had a fatal outcome. The disease, however, did not confine itself to Hong Kong and it is somewhat alarming to note that as recently as 1950 it occurred in Pakhoi where from January to September 627 cases were recorded.\n\nOne final comment that needs to be made is that throughout the centuries plague has occurred in cycles commencing abruptly and finishing within a relatively short space of time. No satisfactory explanation has yet been found for this phenomenon and this gives emphasis to a continuing need for vigilance.\n\nREFERENCES\n\nEncyclopaedia Britannica, pp. 989-995.\n\nHong Kong Government, Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1929. Hong Kong Government, Blue Book Reports on Bubonic Plague, 1894-1907.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210188, "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-1984", "page_number": 159, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "138\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n37\n\nCO 129/99, Despatch No. 115 of 28 July 1864.\n\n38 Ibid. The report, by Lieutenant Adams, R.N., dated ‘Woodcock’, Hong Kong, 28 June 1864, is at pp. 37-45.\n\n39 Reports on the Past and Present State of Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions (hereafter Blue Book) 1845, No. 38 Hong Kong, p. 149.\n\n40 Blue Book for 1847, No. 36 Hong Kong, p. 308.\n\n41\n\ne.g. W.F. Mayers, N.B. Dennys and C. King, The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. (London, Trubner and Co., 1867), p. 108, for two very bad piracies there.\n\n42 Harbour Master's Report for 1887 in Sessional Papers (Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong) September 1887-December 1888, p. 258.\n\n43 Blue Book for 1845, No. 38 Hong Kong, p. 151.\n\n44\n\n**科大蘭,陳鴻基,吳倫霓霞, 合品 香港碑銘彙編 p. 98 (D. Faure, B. Luk, A. Ng The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong (Hong Kong Urban Council 1986) p. 98-101, 75-78.\n\n45 Public Record Office, London: CO129/12/9757, para 12.\n\n46 E.J. Eitel Europe in China op. cit. p. 132.\n\n47 J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region op. cit. p.62, (and see also p. 27, n. 11).\n\n48\n\nUnpublished Temple Directory, The Temples Unit, Home Affairs Dept. H.K. Government, 1980, p. 17.\n\n49 Mayers, Dennys and King, op cit, p. 2. Sin Ngan (#) variously romanized herein as San-on, Sun-on and Hsin-an was the county to which Hong Kong Island belonged in 1841. Tungkwan ( ) otherwise Tung-Kwun was the older, larger county from which it was created in 1573. For Hsin-an see Peter Y.L. Ng, prepared for press and with additional material by Hugh D.R. Baker, New Peace County, A Chinese Gazetteer of the Hong Kong Region (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1983).\n\n50 Mayers, Dennys and King, op. cit. p.3\n\n51\n\n52\n\n53\n\nFriend of China, 24 July 1858 (courtesy of Revd. Carl T. Smith),\n\nIbid.\n\nSee J.W. Hayes The Hong Kong Region op. cit. pp. 46-53. See also J.W. Hayes, The Rural Communities of Hong Kong, Studies and Themes (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1983) pp 9-10.\n\n54 Petition dated 8th day of 4th lunar month, Tao Kuang, 21st year, i.e. 28th May 1841, to the District Magistrate of Hsin-an. This and other quoted papers belong to the Tang family of Kam Tin, New Territories. I am grateful to the District Officer, Yuen Long and Mr. J.T. Kamm for the translations that appear here. They have been checked against the originals by my friend Dr. Anthony K.K. Siu. Kwan Tai Lo was a village near the foot of the present Leighton Hill.\n\n55 Copy of an undated instruction to a presumably subordinate office following the above.\n\n56 Petition dated 28th day of 5th lunar month, Tao Kuang 23rd year i.e. 25th June 1843.\n\n57 Undated reply to the petitioners, presumably from the District Magistrate, following receipt of the foregoing petition.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211021, "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-1987", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "58\n\nFurthermore, Mok himself does refer to his participation in the pupil teacher scheme of 1885. This is particularly interesting on a number of grounds. First of all, there must be some doubt about the precise veracity of Mok Man Cheung's 1906 entry in Who's Who in the Far East. His name does not appear in the Hong Kong Government's Blue Book of 1885 as one of the pupil teachers, but it does appear in that year's Blue Book as Third Assistant Chinese Master.26 In the 1884 Blue Book, Mok Man Cheung is recorded as \"Fourth Assistant” in the Central School, appointed on 23rd September, 1884. It appears certain, therefore, that, having completed Class 1 at the Central School in 1884, he was appointed directly to the staff of the school, rather than to the pupil-teacher scheme. He may well have taken a Class 1 examination in Pupil-Teacher's Method and his monitorial duties may have included the supervision of some of the junior classes. The records indicate, however, that he was not formally appointed as a Pupil-Teacher at the Central School at any time between 1880 and 1885 and that the normal length of a Pupil-Teacher course was three years.\n\n27\n\nThe pupil-teacher scheme is itself of considerable interest and an association with it may have been regarded by Mok Man Cheung in 1906 as face-enhancing. A slight diversion from the personal snapshot may, therefore, be justified in order to consider the provisions for teacher education in Hong Kong in the latter part of the nineteenth century.\n\n28\n\nThe first provision of formal teacher education in Hong Kong was similar to the \"Monitorial System\" of Bell and Lancaster in Great Britain. In the early days, however, Frederick Stewart, the first Headmaster of the Central School, who, for many years, doubled as the Inspector of Government Schools, became discouraged by the way pupils who were trained in school to become teachers \"cashed in\" their improved fluency in English by leaving school and taking up employment as interpreters, translators, or other types of middlemen in commercial undertakings or in government service.29 In 1881, an experiment with a discrete teacher education establishment was launched in Hong Kong, thanks to the enthusiasm of the new Inspector of Schools, Dr. E.J. Eitel, and the forceful, but controversial Governor of the time, Sir John", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211024, "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-1987", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "61\n\nthoughts back to the decision to leave the Central School and the teaching profession.\n\nEven before the expiration of any bond period to which he might have agreed, he capitalised on his extra training in English by moving out of the underpaid teaching profession and into the more prestigious, and better paid, government service as a Chinese Clerk and Interpreter. Thus, even if he were an open collaborator with colonial rule, he also made use of it for his own purposes. His first post was with the Registrar General's Department. He joined the Registrar General's Department on 1st April, 1887, not, as his Who's Who in the Far East entry claimed, in 1893. This move raised his annual salary to $660. The experience certainly provided him with evidence about active negotiation at the sharp end of the relations between the colonial government and Chinese social, cultural and political mores.\n\nWhile working in the Registrar General's office, he probably not only improved his facility to translate between Chinese and English, but also made useful connections. He was certainly in good enough standing to be able to secure a brief endorsement of his book by the new Registrar General, A.W. Brewin, over ten years later, in August 1904. Towards the end of his time at the Registrar General's Office, Mok Man Cheung had begun another potentially prestige-making and personally rewarding middleman activity. In 1890, he was translating Chinese wills into English. Indeed, his dual role is recognized in the Government Blue Book of 1890 where his name appears twice — first, substantively, as Chinese Clerk and Interpreter at the Registrar General's Office, but, also, as “Acting Chinese Clerk and Translator at the Supreme Court”, having been appointed to this acting post by the Governor on 7th July, 1890 under C.S.O.1531 of 1890.\n\nIt is not surprising, therefore, that his next career move was to the even more face-giving Supreme Court. This he joined, substantively, as \"Chinese Clerk and Translator”, on 17th September, 1891, under Colonial Standing Order 351 of 1891, not in 1895 as he elsewhere suggests. His salary was now $960 per annum, rising by $10 increments to $1,200. By 1894, however, he had reached the salary level of $1,200. In that year he witnessed a further dete-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211025, "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-1987", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "62\n\ndeterioration in the relations between the Chinese and the British communities as the colonial authorities struggled to contain the first outbreak of the Bubonic Plague. Some of the less educated Chinese rioted because medical and sanitary precautions intruded on their property rights. Others, estimated as at least 80,000, fled Hong Kong. And many panicked because of superstitious rumours similar to those which were beginning to spread in China about the activities of the Western missionaries.38 It would be interesting to discover Mok Man Cheung's attitudes and activities during these tense years. The last time his name appears in the Blue Book as Chinese Clerk and Translator at the Supreme Court is 1898. It seems probable, therefore, that he left Government service at the end of 1898 or early in 1899 and, aided perhaps by family connections, entered the even more profitable undertaking of serving as an assistant compradore for a major European trading company. In January 1899, he made first use of his career experience as an interpreter and translator by publishing a very substantial (2,717 pages) English-Chinese Dictionary, entitled Ta Tsz's Dictionary, a project more notable for its industry than its originality.\n\n40\n\nShortly after he left Government service as a translator at the Supreme Court, the cause célèbre was the assassination of a radically-minded (Sun Yat-sen supporting) school teacher in his own classroom by gunmen hired by the police chief in Canton. Relations between the British, many of whom were shocked at the \"gross and daring violation of British territory” by the Chinese Imperial Government, and the Chinese in Hong Kong did not improve as a result.\n\n41\n\nIn that year (1901), Mok Man Cheung was on the compradorial staff of Butterfield and Swire, one of the leading European Hongs in Hong Kong. Thereafter, he remained in the business of commercial go-betweening, both as a fully-fledged compradore and as a free-lance \"commission agent\". In 1910, he was appointed a non-official Justice of the Peace. His name appears in the Hong Kong Government's Blue Book on the list of JPs from 1910 to 1917. One may, therefore assume that he died at the end of 1917 or very early in the year 1918.42 In 1918, his name also disappears", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211033, "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-1987", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "69 \n\nlished in 1884 by ex-pupils and prominent members of the Chinese community as a mark of respect for Dr. Frederick Stewart who had resigned as headmaster in 1881 after nearly twenty years service to the school; and various special prizes especially for proficiency in Chinese.\n\n26 \n\nHe was appointed under Colonial Standing Order 3248 of 1884, as from 1st January, 1885, at a salary of $300 per year.\n\n27 The authority for his appointment was CSO2202. His starting salary was $240 per annum.\n\n24 For details of the memorial system and the part played in its genesis in England by Andrew Bell (1753-1832) and Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838), see John Lawson and Harold Silver, A Social History of Education in England (London: Methuen, 1973), pp. 241-246.\n\nIn one of Eitel's reports on the short-lived Normal School in Hong Kong, he refers to the \"Madras-born monitorial scheme of Bell and Lancaster\" being adopted at the Central School by Stewart. In Eitel's opinion, this scheme suffered in comparison with the Normal School because it did not include “the special private tuition and instruction”, presumably, in teaching rationale and methods. (CO129/202, p. 532).\n\nIn his Annual Report for the year 1866, for example, Stewart wrote: \"In my last Report I stated that I entertained the hope of being soon able to overcome many difficulties connected with the school by training Chinese assistants for their work. I then anticipated that I should always be able to retain two of the more advanced boys for a period of at least four years, after which they might, if they chose, find employment elsewhere and be succeeded by the two who stood next to them. The project has all but failed. The demand for the services of the more intelligent of the boys is so great that it is, in the meantime, hopeless to expect them to remain for any length of time. The two in whose case the experiment was tried have both left many months ago, just when they were beginning to be of real value to the school. I shall not, however, abandon the scheme. Out of several, it may be possible to retain some; and, as the knowledge of English becomes more general and situations more difficult to be obtained, the greater will be the probability that these Assistants will remain until, at least, others are qualified to take their place.” (Hong Kong Government Blue Book, 1866, pp. 279-280).\n\n30 The dispute was, in some ways, a continuation of the friction which existed between Frederick Stewart and Eitel after the separation of the duties of Headmaster of the Central School from those of the Inspector of Schools in 1878, first as an expedient measure while Dr. Stewart was on long leave in England and subsequently confirmed on Stewart's return to Hong Kong. Bateson Wright succeeded Stewart as Headmaster of the Central School in 1881. He inherited the bitter relations between the two leading education officers in the Government, but his own, quite positive personality, if anything, exacerbated the situation so much so, that the supervision of the Central School was taken away from the responsibilities of the Inspectorate and a “Dual System\" inaugurated whereby the Central School, renamed successively Victoria College and Queen's College, was administered and reported on by its own Headmaster and eventually examined by an independent Board which did not include the Inspector of Schools. The Dual System was kept in being until the retirement of Bateson Wright in 1909, when the Government's educational system was reunited and renamed the Education Department, headed by a Director of Education in place of the Inspector of Schools.11 Stokes (1962), p. 47.\n\n31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211034, "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-1987", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "70\n\n32\n\nFor further details and comments about the establishment and failure of the 1881-1883 Normal School, see CO129/197, p. 326f. In this file, Colonial Office minutes are critical of Hennessy's extravagance, note that \"the scheme is evidently Dr. Eitel's with Governor Hennessy's fiat\" and other correspondence (e.g., Eitel first report on the Normal School, in Eitel to M.S. Tonnochy, Acting Colonial Secretary, 19th January, 1882, and his second report enclosed in his letter to Tonnochy of 19th January, 1882) shows that Eitel, the Inspector of Schools, felt that there would be very unfortunate repercussions if the school were to be closed and that the headmaster, A.J. May was even prepared to take a salary reduction (from the original proposal of $2,400 a year to $1,600) rather than see the Normal School break up. In later reports (contained in CO129/202 p. 532f.), Eitel compared the Normal School, with its \"special private tuition and instruction\" in pedagogy, to the pupil-teacher scheme at the Central School to the disadvantage of the latter, and May, in his letter to Frederick Stewart of 19th July, 1883, mentioned the virtues of being able to utilize simulation techniques for the preparation of teachers at the Normal School. The actual end of the Normal School, which had been dismissed as unnecessary in the Education Commission Report of September 1882, was precipitated by A.J. May's insistence, in September 1883, that the students agreed to a bond to teach for five years at a salary rate of $25 per month on their completion of the course. The immediate result was that four of the ten students left for the Medical College at Tientsin, three joined commercial firms, and one became a government interpreter, leaving only two of the original intake, as mentioned above, to become teachers.\n\n33\n\nIn Singapore, a central training college for men teachers using English as the medium of instruction was proposed in 1904 and again in 1910, but the scheme was aborted because of the lack of applications. In Kuala Lumpur, an experimental teacher training course began in 1905, proved successful, and was followed by a two-year course in Penang in 1907. See Wong Hoy Kee, Francis, and Gwee Yee Hean, Perspectives: The Development of Education in Malaysia and Singapore (Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) Ltd., 1972), pp. 12-14.\n\n34\n\nWhat is certain is that his name does not appear in the Blue Book as one of the Pupil Teachers at the Central School at any time between 1880 and 1885. As noted above, Mok Man Cheung won the Class 1 Mathematics prize in January 1884. He was employed as \"Fourth Chinese Assistant\" at the Central School from September 1884. He did not, therefore, have the time to be enrolled in a pupil teacher's course, which customarily lasted for three years, but he might have taken an examination in \"Pupil-Teacher's Theory\" while studying in Class 1.\n\n35\n\nThe dispute over the opening hours at the City Hall Museum had come to a head in 1880 when the Executive Committee of the City Hall Museum, led by its chairman, William Keswick, attempted to restrict the entry of Chinese to the afternoons. They were opposed by the first Chinese member of the Legislative Council, Ng Choy, and by the Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy. See CO129/189 p. 476-614 for correspondence, largely unsympathetic to the Committee's discriminatory proposal and including an extract from the Hong Kong Hansard for 1880 reporting a speech by Ng Choy, and CO129/192 p. 438-446 for correspondence which includes Keswick's opinion that racial distinctions should not be abolished with regard to admission to the Museum of the City Hall. The call for separate schools for the different races had been made on a number of occasions in the past, most notably in 1845, 1856, and 1870-1872, but the most recent resurgence of interest and argument about the issue had been provoked by a speech made by the Anglican Bishop Hoare at the Prize Distribution of the Diocesan Boys' School in January", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211155, "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-1987", "page_number": 216, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "191\n\nA-king's \"temple\" near the shore of the Lower Bazaar may have been little more than a shrine. It is probable that a man whose power over the community was based on such activities as gambling, prostitution and piracy did not view temples as an integrative institution necessary for his control of community life. However, since they served this function in China they should not be overlooked among his own sphere of interests.\n\nWithin a few years of the establishment of British Hongkong, a temple appears to have become a recognised centre for the Chinese community. This is the conclusion I draw from schedules of Chinese buildings published in the Hongkong Blue Book.\n\nIn 1845 and 1846 a “Town Hall\" is listed.\n\nI chose to identify this with the Shing Wong Temple which was on the hillside south of Gough Street. Shing Wong was the traditional “city god.” The present Shing Wong Street takes its name from the temple.\n\nThe building was pulled down in 1877 when the area in which it was located was cleared in anticipation of the erection of a new building for the Central Government School (Queen's College).\n\nI assume that a notice about Hongkong published in The Chinese Repository of October 1843, refers to this temple: \"A new Chinese temple is about to be undertaken. Handbills and placards are out, for the purpose of raising money for the erection of the building.\"\n\nIn the 1847 schedule of Chinese buildings, two town halls are listed. It was in this year that the temple on Hollywood Road was erected, dedicated to the gods of literature and war (Man and Mo). The category of “town hall” does not appear in subsequent schedules.\n\nThe Government grant for the land on which the Hollywood Road temple was built was given to the Chinese community in 1847 to be used for educational purposes. But instead of being used exclusively as a school, the building served a number of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213059, "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-1993", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "107\n\n74 See LMS Box 18, 1909 No 311 Minutes of the HKDC Annual Meeting, 2-3 February, 1909, Box 18, 1909 No 314 Minutes of the HKDC Meeting, 22 June, 1909, and LMS Box 18, 1909 No 315 Mi Pearce to Rev G Currie Martin, Joint Foreign Secretary It is not clear why Dr Sibree did not resume her position. An amount of $1600 paid to her as Supervisor of Government Midwives was in dispute as to whether it should be deducted from the guarantors' payment at $10,000 (LMS Box 18, 1909 No 313 Mi Wells to Mr Cousins, 27 May, 1909), as well, the guarantors had declined to pay Dr. Sibree's rent (LMS Box 18, 1909 No 312. Mi Wells to Mr Cousins, 17 March, 1909) Thus, paradoxically, material matters may have been the last straw'\n\n75 LMS Box 18, 1909 No 315 Personal letter from Mr Pearce to Mi Currie Martin, 13 September, 1909\n\n76 The final evidence produced by Dr Sibree was the wording of Clause 4 of the 1910 Midwives Ordinance, which legislated his position that is, the Midwives Board was to comprise the Medical Superintendent of the Alice Memorial Hospital and the Lady Doctor attached to it, (plus three others). This indicates that the lady doctor was not the medical superintendent of the hospital of which she had charge See endnote 79\n\n77 LMS Box 18, 1910 No. 319. Dr Sibree to Dr. Thompson, 26 September, 1910\n\n78 LMS Box 18A, 1911 No 320 Dr Gibson to Mr. Martin, 17 December, 1910\n\n79 ibid, Dr. Gibson to Mr Martin. 7 December, 1910\n\n80 The agreement between the Hong Kong Government and the Alice Memorial Maternity Hospital, 31 December, 1904, stated that, on graduation, the midwives trained at the AMMH would be at the disposal of Government for three years, salaried and providing free services to Chinese women in labour under the supervision of the Lady Doctor The Lady Doctor, at that time the only one, was later taken to refer to the AMMH lady doctor Quoted in LMS Box 17, 1908 'Memorandum to Hongkong DC' from Dr. Gibson, attached to Mr. Pearce to Mr Cousins, 17 August, 1908\n\nWith the introduction of the 'Midwives Ordinance' in 1910, the composition of the Midwives Board was specified as 'The Principal Civil Medical Officer, the Superintendent of the Alice Memorial Maternity Hospital and the Lady Doctor attached to the same', plus three persons appointed by the Governor for a three-year term See An Ordinance to secure the better training of Midwives and to regulate their practice' No 22 of 1910, clause 4. Hongkong Government Gazette, September 2, 1910, p 395\n\n81 LMS Box 18A, 1911 No 323 Mr Clayson to Rev Currie Martin, 25 February, 1911\n\n82 The Hong Kong Daily Press, 24 September, 1928\n\n83 Blue Books 1918, 1926 Her title was in 1928 changed to 'Assistant Visiting Medical Officer to Chinese Hospitals and Dispensaries See Blue Book, 1928\n\n84. The China Mail, 22 September, 1928, The Hong Kong Daily Press, 24 September, 1928", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214402, "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-1998", "page_number": 260, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "226\n\n1\n\nNOTES\n\nUndated Minute made available by Mrs Margaret Leeds, formerly Research Officer with the Royal Hong Kong Police.\n\n2 Henry J. Lethbridge, \"The District Watch Committee: The Chinese Executive Council of Hong Kong?\", in Hong Kong: Stability and Change, (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1978).\n\n3 This paper is based on a chapter of the author's PhD thesis, Private Security and Government: A Hong Kong Perspective, 1841-1941, awarded by the University of Hong Kong in 1999. In the interests of space, most of the end notes contained in the thesis have been omitted from this paper.\n\n4\n\n5 Kaifongs were local Chinese welfare associations. As early as 1857 a sworn mutual aid association known as the U-lan-shing is claimed to have united the four smaller kaifongs of the Tai-ping-shan, Sai-ying-pun, Sheung-wan and Chung-wan districts. Henry J. Lethbridge, op. cit., pp. 105-106.\n\n6 China Mail, 8 February 1866; China Mail, 22 February 1866; J.W. Norton-Kyshe, The History of the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong, (Hong Kong, Vetch and Lee Ltd., 1971, first published 1898), 2, p. 86.\n\n7 Annual Report of the Registrar General for 1867, Blue Book 1867, p. 248, §20 - §21.\n\n8 The Baojia or Native Chinese Peace Officers scheme, which was introduced in 1844, was discontinued by 1861.\n\n9 Trevor Bennett and Richard Wright, Burglars on burglary: prevention and the offender, (Aldershot, Gower, 1984), pp. 50-53.\n\n10 Minute by Cecil C. Smith, 22 December 1871: CO129/156, pp. 117-118.\n\n11 Hongkong Government Gazette, 6 January 1872, p. 2. Henceforth HKGG.\n\n12 Report of the Police Commission, 27 June 1872: CO129/164, p. 290 (20, §60).\n\n13 Brenda Yeoh, Contesting Space: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment in Colonial Singapore, (Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 117; Under the heading 'Asian Counter-strategies against Municipal Sanitary", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215279, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "could be nullified only by the use of the crown prerogative of disallowance. The Colonial Office was most reluctant to exercise this power except in extreme circumstances since it might cause the governor public embarrassment. There are only three cases to be found in the files before 1933 where the Colonial Office was consulted about a project and imposed its veto.\n\nThe progress of industrialisation in Hong Kong was completely different from all other British colonies where factories could be established only with the aid of protective tariffs and other government assistance and manufactured goods were sold only in the local market. Hong Kong island was originally occupied because it had the best deep-sea harbour between Shanghai and Indo-China. It served as a base for the British navy and a place where merchants could store their goods and transfer them from ocean-going vessels to smaller ships to trade at ports along the China coast and inland waterways. About 80 per cent of the goods passing through the harbour consisted of re-exports destined for South China from overseas or from North China, or exports from China being transhipped in Hong Kong. Since the principal reason for Hong Kong's existence was to be an entrepôt for trade with China, it has always been a free port with no customs duties on imports or exports. Industries were established early in the colony's history to provide for the needs of the port and to process primary products for local consumption and export to China. Shipbuilding and ship-repairing yards were established soon after Hong Kong island was occupied in 1841, followed by a rope-making factory in 1851, a flour mill in 1859, a sugar refinery in 1870, a distillery in 1871, tobacco and cigarettes in 1880, a cement factory in 1897, and a cotton spinning and weaving company in 1899.\n\nIn 1911 the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce carried out a survey of all European, American, and British Indian firms in the colony engaged in import, export, and manufacturing. The survey listed 38 trading companies which had also set up factories. The 1931 census found that about a quarter of the working population (112,133 out of 470,794) were employed in manufacturing industries. The 1930 Blue Book listed 3,164 factories and workshops under 102 categories ranging from 124 boat builders to 116 tin beaters and 14 weaving factories. Most of these establishments were very small, situated in the back streets and tenements of the urban area. In 1932 only 586 were registered under the new Factories and Workshops Ordinance, which regulated firms that employed at least 20 persons. It is difficult to quantify the size of the manufacturing sector in the absence of detailed statistics of local consumption, but it appears that domestic exports of manufactured goods in 1932 totalled at least HK$36 million (about £2,500,000).1 The main items exported were cement, refined sugar, preserved ginger, lard, knitted singlets and hosiery, and electric torches.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215296, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "21\n\nKenya 33 per cent, Nigeria 58 per cent, Ceylon 52 per cent, Jamaica 60 per cent.\n\n7. For example Nyasaland in 1929 raised the duty on imported soap from 5 shillings to 7 shillings to protect a newly established factory. In 1931 the duty was increased to 8 shillings a cwt. The Colonial Office first heard of these increases in 1932 when Unilever complained. Memo IDC(37)No.7, T160/763/F14811/2.\n\n8. CO137/780. Georgina Waylen, 'Colonial Policy towards industrialisation between the wars: the case of Jamaica', Manchester Papers in Politics (University of Manchester, Nov. 1987, mimeo).\n\n9. In 1931 a local company proposed to establish a cement factory in Kenya which required a protective tariff and a guarantee that a very high anti-dumping duty would be imposed on Japanese cement which dominated the market. The Colonial Office refused the request for protection on the advice of the Board of Trade because the local factory if successful would take over government orders, depriving British cement manufacturers of the last remnant of the market. CO533/417/18. In 1933 the Colonial Office rejected a scheme to erect a cotton spinning and weaving factory in East Africa which required a capital subscription of £500,000 from the governments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. IDC(37)No.8, T160/763/F14811/2. A proposal for a soap factory in the Windward Islands was disallowed because it involved the colony being given a preference over the UK in other colonies from which the copra was to be exported. IDC(37)No.7, T160/763/F14811/2.\n\n10. Hong Kong Blue Book 1846 (PRO, CO133/3), 226, stated ‘A large number of Chinese are employed in their respective shops and houses in the exercise of industrial trades and manufactures and there are scarcely any ordinary wants of the inhabitants which do not meet with a ready supply within the town.'\n\n11. These dates are taken from the Return of Manufactures, Mines and Factories in the Blue Books compiled every year for submission to the Colonial Office. Not all the manufacturing enterprises were successful: the cotton spinning factory closed in 1914 and removed its machinery to Shanghai. But new manufacturing ventures soon took their place. Sir William Robinson (governor 1891-98) in his first address to the legislative council spoke of the advantages that would accrue from a further encouragement of local industries. 'The community may rely upon my aid and assistance in fostering in every legitimate way the development of such enterprises.' Hong Kong Legislative Council Debates, 25 Jan. 1892, 97. This was done by selling public land by private treaty at a discount for industrial development, H.K. LegCo. Deb., 4 Dec. 1893, 1–2.\n\n12. CO129/379, 377-384 and 392-755.\n\n13. Hong Kong Blue Book 1930. Blue Book 1932. The largest factory was that of the Green Island Cement Company which could employ 1,470 men when working at full capacity.\n\n14. Statistics on imports and exports were first collected in 1918. Publication was discontinued in 1925 and resumed in 1931, but no distinction was made between re-exports and domestic exports until 1959. Estimates of gross domestic product were not made by government statisticians until 1961. Domestic exports have been calculated from Hong Kong Trade Returns 1932, compiled by the Imports and Exports Department (Hong Kong, 1933), CO133/103, by identifying all categories where exports exceeded imports, on the assumption that the surplus must represent Hong Kong domestic production. This calculation certainly understates local production since it does not take account of manufactures consumed locally. Also the trade figures do not include the very large volume of goods smuggled into China to avoid payment of customs duty.\n\n15. Memorandum in Clementi to Cunliffe-Lister, 20 Sept. 1933, CO323/1232.\n\n16. Report of the Commission appointed by the Governor to Enquire into the Causes and Effects of the Present Trade Depression in Hong Kong, February 1935 (Hong Kong, 1935), 88-89, CO129/554/5.\n\n17. Trade Depression Report, 75.\n\n18. W.K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs Vol II, Problems of Economic Policy 1918-1939, Part 1 (Oxford, 1940), 87.\n\n19. CO129/344. CO129/370. CO129/392.\n\n20. F. V. Meyer, British Colonies in World Trade (Oxford, 1948), 9–11, 18–19.\n\n21. Hancock, 125. Meyer, 10-11.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215298, "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": 75, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "23\n\n45. Cabinet Minutes, 6 June 1934, 23(34)6, 13 June 1934, 24(34)6, 3 Oct. 1934, 33(34)5, CAB23/79, PRO.\n\n46. Confidential Circular Despatch, June 1934, CO323/1298/10 and CO854/175.\n\n47. Colonial Office to Governor Hong Kong, 6 April 1934, CO323/1298/11.\n\n48. Information from R.R. Todd, an administrative officer in Hong Kong 1924-56, interviewed in 1986.\n\n49. CO323/1298/11. CO852/16/10.\n\n50. CO852/219/13.\n\n51. Circular Despatches, 13 April 1934, and 15 May 1934, CO854/175.\n\n52. Havinden and Meredith, 188-90. Governor Hong Kong to Colonial Office, 2 May 1934, CO323/1290/6.\n\n53. Circular Despatch, 19 Sept. 1936, CO854/170.\n\n54. Governor Jamaica to Colonial Office, 6 July 1936 and 11 Aug, 1936, CO852/51/9. Governor Jamaica to Colonial Office, 3 June 1937, CO852/106/19.\n\n55. An Economic Survey of the Colonial Empire, HMSO Colonial No 95 (London, 1934), 137. Economic Survey Col. 109, 170; Economic Survey Col. 126, 170. Hong Kong Trade Statistics 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935.\n\n56. Circular Despatch, 13 March 1933, CO323/1230/11.\n\n57. Letters and Memorandum from Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce in Caldecott to Colonial Office, 25 July and 4 Aug. 1936, CO852/51/9. McKenzie (Custom House) to Eastwood (Colonial Office), 18 Sept 1936. Rydderch (Custom House) to Colonial Office, 26 Feb. 1937, CO852/107/1.\n\n58. In 1936 exports of electric flashlight torches totalled HK$2,930,000, including India HK$595,000, Netherlands East Indies HK$379,000, and Britain HK$167,000. Hong Kong Trade Returns 1936.\n\n59. Minutes on Caldecott to Clauson, 15 Oct. 1936, CO852/51/9. Clauson commented: 'It is all too seldom we get from a colonial governor so thoughtful and comprehensive a review of the future of the colony he governs.'\n\n60. Officer Administering Government, Hong Kong to Colonial Office, 30 Sept. 1937, with enclosures, CO853/109/5. King (Board of Trade) to Eastwood (Colonial Office), 13 Nov, 1937, CO852/109/5.\n\n61. Circular Despatch, 2 June 1937, CO854/176.\n\n62. Memorandum by Hamilton (Superintendent of Imports and Exports Hong Kong), 22 April 1937 CO852/106/19. Hong Kong Trade Returns 1937.\n\n63. Circular Despatch, 24 Feb. 1938, CO854/177.\n\n64. Minute by Caine (Financial Secretary Hong Kong 1937-39), 24 Jan. 1940, CO852/215/3. Gas masks, CO129/580/9. Aircraft assembly, CO129/571/15 and CO129/580/4.\n\n65. Hong Kong Blue Book 1936, 1938, 1939, 1940.\n\n66. Calculations made as in note 5 from Hong Kong Trade Returns 1938 omitting all raw materials, unprocessed agricultural products and exports of banknotes (valued at HK$36,000,000).\n\n67. Clausen described the policy of the Colonial Office in these words when speaking at a meeting of the Overseas Trade Development Council, 31 July 1935, CO852/16/7.\n\n68. Colonial Office to Neville Chamberlain, 15 Jan. 1936. Federation of British Industries to Warren Fisher, 14 Feb. 1936. Minutes in Treasury file T160/763/F14811/1.\n\n69. Minutes of the second meeting of the committee, 23 April 1937, T160/763/F14811/1.\n\n70. CO852/16/13, The inventor approached the Colonial Office directly and officials referred the project to the governor of Trinidad. The governor appointed a committee which doubted if the project was feasible. The Colonial Office received a number of similar proposals in the 1930s. Often the entrepreneur was eager to set up a factory provided that he was granted a high protective tariff, an exclusive license, part of the capital costs, subsidised freight rates and other financial privileges. In effect the businessman was asking the colonial government to bear all the risks while he would enjoy the profits if the project was successful. See for example CO852/16/9, a proposal to set up a factory in Nyasaland to process sisal into binder twine. An official commented that this was a last desperate attempt by a bankrupt farmer to keep his own sisal estates going.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215539, "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": 316, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "266\n\nNovember 1889.\n\n18 Ibid.\n\n19 The China Mail, 23rd November 1865.\n\n20 Although the Colonial Cemetery was referred to as 'the Protestant Cemetery' in most 19th century government notifications (starting from HKGG Notification 120 of 15th November 1856) and maps, the ordinance to set apart certain section of the cemetery to be used as a burial ground for persons professing the Christian religion only had its first reading in the Legislative Council in November 1909. See Smith (1985), NOTES FOR A VISIT TO THE GOVERNMENT CEMETERY AT HAPPY VALLEY, The Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol.25, pp. 17-26. The earliest Chinese name of the cemetery that could be traced is, see HKGG Notification 92 of 6th October 1859. In some 19th century tourist guides, the cemetery was simply called 'the Anglican cemetery,' e.g., A HAND-BOOK TO HONGKONG BEING A POPULAR GUIDE TO THE VARIOUS PLACES OF INTEREST IN THE COLONY, FOR THE USE OF TOURISTS (1893), Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh, p. 94. The cemetery was renamed 'Hong Kong Cemetery' in the 1970s.\n\n21 Levien, Michael (ed) (1982), NAVEL SURGEON: The Voyages of Dr. Edward H. Cree, Royal Navy, as Related in His Private Journals, 1837-1856, New York: E.P. Dutton, p. 89. Dr. Cree had also made a water-colour sketch of the funeral of Brodie which is shown on p. 90 in the same book. Both the graves of Brodie and Wilson are still lying in the Hong Kong Cemetery.\n\n22 This burial ground in Wan Chai had been referred to as 'the old Colonial Cemetery, see HKGG Notification 447 of 2nd November 1889. A list of the tombstones removed from the burial ground in Wan Chai to the Colonial Cemetery can be found in the same notification.\n\n23 Eitel,\nP. 246.\n\n24 See Blue Book, 1845, p. 40, or HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL ABSTRACT OF THE COLONY OF HONG KONG 1841 - 1930 (1932), Hong Kong: Government Printer, p. 4. However, one source suggests the cemetery was opened on 1 February 1844, see Hayes (1970), COACH TOUR OF EASTERN HONG KONG ISLAND 19TH OCTOBER, 1969, The Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol.10, p. 190.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216512, "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-2003", "page_number": 271, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "223\n\nphotograph in Ting's volume of a fifteenth century grave in Tanzania which features Ming Dynasty blue and white dishes set into the tomb's pillar. I would like to know more about the surviving archaeological evidence of this trade and its influence on the art and craft of the countries involved en route.\n\nMy other reservations relate to editing details. The sheer vastness of Tucker's canvas means that he frequently backtracks. I suspect he didn't write each chapter in the order in which they appear in the book. Although some cross-references are supplied, more are needed. Some clumsy editing has removed entire paragraphs from the text into Figure captions without amending the flow of remaining paragraphs. There are innumerable errors of the typo variety that a proofreader should have picked up. Although there are many maps, these leave much to be desired. There are no scales or north points: blue is used for frontiers as well as rivers; place names on the maps are not always in the text and vice versa; names of archaeological sites feature as prominently as modern settlements. There are no scale objects on the photographs.\n\nI need to make a cautionary note, too. Comparing some of Tucker's historical details with similar details provided by Ebrey, I found some differences. For example, how had the silk that reached Rome got there? As a result of Wudi's mission to the Yuezhi, as Tucker suggests? Or via silk acquired by the Xiongnu as gifts from the Chinese government in exchange for receiving their tribute, as Ebrey suggests?\n\nReservations aside, my final point is that this is a book to fascinate not only those interested in the past, but also those keen to understand the present. Every region through which the Silk Road passed is today socially and politically unstable, primarily because of the very clash of cultures and associated value systems that the Road made possible and that underlay the flourishing creative output of places along it. Frontiers imposed or negotiated in the interests of defining twentieth century nation-states rarely enclose regions that are ethically or culturally distinctive, or reflect loyalties that are limited to the area they define. Hence, these boundaries are often in dispute, and issues that nation states need to address (such as water usage and conservation) are not confined within them. In addition, Central Asia remains militarily highly strategic even in the era of long range ballistic missiles, while its resources - oil and, increasingly, water - remain as coveted as the silk,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]