[
    {
        "id": 205710,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1969",
        "page_number": 16,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "10\n\nT. C. CHENG\n\nWhile he was Legislative Councillor in Hong Kong, Ng Choy was known to oppose the office of the Registrar-General (established 1844), also known as Protector of Chinese and later renamed in 1913 Secretary for Chinese Affairs, on the ground that it was race discrimination to force Chinese and Europeans to deal with the Government through different departments.8 During his term of office, he was a member of a very important Education Commission, appointed by the Governor Sir John Hennessy in August 1880, to study the question of raising the Government Central School into a collegiate institution, giving a higher education in English and Science. What Sir John had in mind was that Hong Kong would render a great service to China by starting a collegiate institution so that young Chinese boys could come to Hong Kong for a higher western education instead of going to distant countries like America and England. However, the Commission as a whole disagreed with the Governor. It dismissed the idea of a Collegiate Institution on the ground of cost, and pointed out that the great need of the majority of the local population was a sound elementary education. Thus it was not the province of the Government to establish, at the cost of the ratepayers, an institution that would be mainly for the advantage of a small number of wealthy members of the community.\n\nNg Choy's achievements as a Legislative Councillor in Hong Kong were by no means great as compared with some of his successors, as he held office for less than three years; but he had the distinction of being the first Chinese to serve on that Council, and since his time both the Colonial Office and the Governors of Hong Kong have agreed on the principle of Chinese membership of the Legislative Council.\n\nWhen Sir George Bowen arrived in April 1883 as Governor, he was in favour of having a Chinese member on the Legislative Council but realized that it would not be easy to find a successor to Ng Choy from \"among those qualified as British subjects, a native gentleman combining in his own person the proper social position, independent means and education\". In conjunction with the question of a permanent Chinese member on the Legislative Council, Sir George Bowen also took the opportunity of re-constituting the Council. The main differences between the old and the new Council were that a Chinese member was appointed and that the Chamber of Commerce was invited to elect a member.",
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    {
        "id": 205970,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1970",
        "page_number": 50,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "J\n\nHONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n45\n\nThe recruitment of cadets changed the nature of administration in early colonial Hong Kong. The cadets were professionals, unlike the earlier officials who were a mixed lot from variegated backgrounds. They spent their working lives—20 to 30 years on average—in one or other of the Eastern colonies, for some of course transferred from, or to, Hong Kong. Since their profession was administration, and the government of Hong Kong was mainly a matter in those days of running a municipality—between 1886 and 1939 only four new departments were established, the District Office New Territories after 1899, the Kowloon-Canton Railway in 1906, and air services and broadcasting in 1929—they soon introduced routines and procedures, organised the files, and set the administrative machine into grooves, along which it ran, on the whole, smoothly and uneventfully for many years. Several governors evinced surprise at the little work they were called upon to do, for ways of doing things had soon become fixed and immutable, and colonial officials were reluctant to change well-tried methods. Sir George Bowen, Governor 1883-1885, declared that the routine and absolutely necessary work of Hong Kong administration \"seemed to me from the first to be much lighter than that of any Crown Colony which I had previously governed\";40 and Sir Frederick Lugard, Governor 1907-1912, of the same opinion, was amused by the bland efficiency and meticulousness of his able Colonial Secretary, Francis May. In Lugard's day, as Margery Perham writes, the officials \"were certainly efficient; the place was small and administration was conducted according to a system which had been seventy years in the making\". Of course, before 1941, most of the problems dealt with by administrators in Hong Kong tended to be workaday ones, and dramatic solutions were hardly called for until the post-1945 period, when massive immigration changed the face of things.\n\nWith regard to administration, then, Sir Hercules Robinson's scheme had worked. It also produced results in another respect, interpretation. Eitel wrote in 1878: \"There are now very few departments where there is not someone who can read a Chinese petition for himself and efficiently check the oral interpretation of the native clerks acting as interpreter. The Coroner's Courts, the Registration Office, and Chinese Protectorate, even the Colonial Secretary's Office, are well provided with a sufficient check on...",
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    {
        "id": 205980,
        "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": 60,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941 \n\n55 \n\n19 Kenneth Myer Arthur Barnett (born 1911). Educated at Mill Hill School, London, and King's College, Cambridge, Hong Kong Civil Service 1934. Retired as Director of Census and Statistics 1970. \n\n40 Quoted in James Hope Hennessy's Verandah, London, 1964, p. 186. Hennessy is quoting, presumably, from Sir George Bowen's Thirty Years of Colonial Government, London, 1889, which I have not seen. \n\n41 Margery Perham, op. cit., p. 302. Lugard also liked and trusted A. W. Brewin, the Registrar General: \"if he once said, he was very 'pro-Chinese' this was really a compliment. He would allow Brewin to forbid his own delivery of a speech to a Chinese gathering. He could not always understand the reason ‘but I trust implicitly in him'.\" \n\n42 E. J. Eitel \"Chinese Studies and Official Interpretation\", p. 8. \n\n43 Alleyne Ireland, Far Eastern Tropics, London, 1905, p. 34. In 1901 Ireland was appointed Colonial Commissioner of the University of Chicago for the purpose of visiting the Far East. \n\n44 Ibid., p. 32. \n\n45 Norman Gilbert Mitchell-Innes (1860-1947). Educated at Repton and Edinburgh Academy, Hong Kong Civil Service 1881; Treasurer 1891; left Hong Kong Service in 1896 and transferred to the Home Prison Service. Des Voeux thought highly of Mitchell-Innes. See G. B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong 1841-1962, Hong Kong, 1964, p. 112. \n\n46 Report on Defalcations in the Treasury, Sessional Papers, Hong Kong, 1893, p. 546. \n\n47 Ibid., p. 546. \n\n48 Norton-Kyshe, vol. 2, p. 447. \n\n49 Ibid., p. 447. \n\n50 Sir Arthur George Murchison Fletcher (1878-1954). Educated at Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1901; transferred to Ceylon 1927; Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, 1926-9; Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for Western Pacific 1929-36; Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Trinidad and Tobago, 1936-38. \n\n51 Geoffrey Norman Orme (1879-1966). Educated at Cheltenham College and Hertford College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1902. Director of Education 1924-26. Left Hong Kong Service in 1926. \n\n52 The Report on the Land Court, 1900-1905, Sessional Papers, 1905, gives a list of the presidents and members of the Land Court in order of their appointment, most of whom were cadets. H. H. J. Gompertz was appointed in 1900 and resigned in 1904; Cecil Clementi in 1903; and C. M. Messer and J. R. Wood in 1904. The Registrars in order of appointment - all cadets were: J. H. Kemp, E. D. C. Wolfe, and S. B. C. Ross. The Land Court in 1905 consisted of three members: C. M. Messer, Cecil Clementi, and J. R. Wood. The New Territories became popular with cadets as a place to walk or shoot in on week-ends. Robert Oliphant Hutchison (1880-1920), the Superintendent of Imports and Exports, on his way to shoot snipe at Saikung fell off a launch in a squall and drowned. His body was never found. With him at the time was D. W. Tratman, the Colonial Treasurer. One imagines from the evidence that both had \"tiffined\" rather too well. \n\n53 \"At first British officials were limited in principle to two, dealing with police and land. In 1899 a police magistrate was appointed and also an assistant land officer to deal with land cases, and the police were placed \n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61",
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    {
        "id": 209460,
        "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": 117,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "95\n\n\"Kaifongs were self-appointed district leaders, people who showed interest in district activities.\n\n40 Marsh to Derby, 6th October, 1884, Despatch No. 340: CO129/217.\n\n\"Marsh to Derby, 11th October, 1884, Despatch No. 342: CO129/217. A police report enclosed in this despatch describes 1,000 women leaving on one ship on the 10th October alone.\n\n42 Daily Press, 9th October, 1884, China Mail, 8th October, 1884. Police Inspector D. Thomson's \"Morning Report\" enclosed in Marsh to Derby, 11th October, 1884, Despatch No. 342: CO129/217,\n\n48 \"Report on Ordinance No. 22 of 1884,\" enclosed in Marsh to Derby, 11th October, 1884, Despatch No. 342: CO129/217.\n\n\"Marsh to Derby, 11th October, 1884, Despatch No. 342: CO129/217.\n\n**Daily Press, 11th October, 1884. Ho Kai (Ho Ch'i) is another colourful personality in Hong Kong's history. His biography has been written by Gerald Choa, The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1981) and his intellectual biography by Dr. Chiu Ling-yeong, \"The Life and Thought of Sir Kai Ho Kai\" (Ph.D. thesis, University of Sydney, 1968) and Ts'ai Jung-fang, \"Compradore Ideologists in Modern China: Ho Kai (Ho Ch'i) (1859-1914) and Hu Li-yüan (1847-1916)\" (Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1975) and \"Syncretism in the Reformist Thought of Ho Kai and Hu Li-yüan”, Asian Profile, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1978).\n\n40 Bowen to Derby, 1st November, 1884, Despatch No. 358: CO129/217. Daily Press, 1st November, 1884. Shu-pao, 10th November, 1884.\n\n**Chang Chih-tung to Tsungli Yamen, 4th October, 1884, telegram in Chang Chih-tung, Chang Wen-hsiang kung ch'üan-chi (The Complete Collection of Chang Chih-tung's Works), 228 chuan, 6 vols. (Photographic reprint, Taipei, 1963) chuan 73:6b-7a.\n\nChang Chih-tung to Tsungli Yamen, 9th October, 1884, telegram in Chang Chih-tung, chuan 73:7a-7b.\n\n\"Governor-General Chang to H.M. Acting Consul Hance, 12th October, 1884, enclosed in Marsh to Derby, 20th October, 1884, Despatch No. 350: CO129/217.\n\n50 Chang Chih-tung to Tsungli Yamen, 9th October, 1884, Chang Chih-tung, chuan 73:7b.\n\n1 Daily Press, 1st October, 1884.\n\n* China Mail, 23rd September, 1884.\n\n63 Bowen to Derby, 25th August, 1884, Despatch No. 298: CO129/217. Marsh to Derby, 25th September, 1884, Despatch No. 336: ibid. China Mail, 2nd October, 1884.\n\n4 Marsh to Derby, 21st September, 1883, Despatch No. 240: CO129/211.\n\n65 (Draft) F.O. to C.O., 7th November, 1884: CO129/219.\n\n5 House of Commons to C.O., 27th October, 1884: CO129/218. 67 Bowen to Derby, 23rd February, 1885 in Stanley Lane-Poole, (ed.), Thirty Years of Colonial Government. Selections from the Despatches and Letters of the Right Honourable Sir George Ferguson Bowen G.C.M.G. 2 volumes (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1887) Vol. 2, 350.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210156,
        "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": 127,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "106\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nNor did he mince his words. “You have disobeyed and neglected your instructions” he told Elliot. \"You seem to have considered that my instructions were waste paper which you might treat with entire disregard, and that you were at full liberty to deal with the interests of your country according to your own fancy.\" The Foreign Secretary accused Elliot of having settled with the Chinese for much less than he had been told to demand “without the full employment of that force which was sent to you expressly for the purpose of enabling you to use compulsion, if persuasion should fail”. He was not impressed by the cession of Hong Kong “a barren island with hardly a house on it” and clogged by conditions which made it doubtful if it was a cession in full sovereignty.\"\n\n196\n\nThis myth, for myth it was, has died hard. Indeed, I fear it is not yet dead. It has always been more striking to compare the glowing present with such an insignificant past, and this has been the case at all times in Hong Kong's later history. Over forty years after the British occupation of Hong Kong, Governor Sir G.F. Bowen, addressing the Legislative Council at the opening of the 1884-85 Session, stated that \"... the Island of Hong Kong... when annexed to the British Empire in 1843 (sic) was merely a barren rock, inhabited only by a few fishermen and pirates.” This view was expressed another forty years on by the American Consul-General, George E. Anderson, writing on the Hong Kong Consular District in an official publication of the American Department of Commerce. \"The island of Hong Kong consists of a broken ridge of lofty hills, the highest, Victoria Peak, being approximately 1,800 feet in height. There are few valleys of any extent and scarcely any ground for cultivation... In general, the hills and mountains are bare and the soil is poor.\" He added usefully, \"The island of Hong Kong, 28 square miles in extent, is about 11 miles long and from 2 to 5 miles broad; its circumference is 27 miles\".*\n\nIs this a justifiable description? Was Hong Kong ‘a barren island with hardly a house on it\"? Were its people, such as they were, \"a handful of fishermen and pirates\"? The answer is NO, on both counts. There were several villages of some size, as well as hamlets, and a few larger coastal villages which served as market towns for the villages and as home ports for a permanent boat population and visiting craft. The land people were settled, and as we shall",
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    {
        "id": 210338,
        "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": 309,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "288\n\nJULIAN TENISON WOODS IN HONG KONG\n\nRODERICK O'BRIEN S. J.\n\nA century ago, the government and scientific elite of Hong Kong welcomed an unusual visitor; an Australian Catholic priest and scientist, Julian Edmund Tenison Woods, who passed through Hong Kong as part of an extensive scientific tour of south-east and east Asia. Woods is probably best known outside church circles for his scientific work, and despite limited formal training, he became an active scientist, publishing extensively in natural sciences, especially marine biology, botany, geology and paleontology.\n\nIn 1883, Woods was commissioned by the then Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir Frederick Weld, to explore and report on the mineral prospects of some areas of the Malayan peninsula. During this time, he was elected an honorary member of our sister branch, the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and two of his nearly two hundred publications are to be found in its journal. This expedition widened in scope, as he took advantage of opportunities to travel more widely, especially on the naval hydrographic ship HMS Flying Fish. Woods eventually returned to Australia in July 1886, after nearly three years research.\n\nDuring this time, he seems to have made four stops in Hong Kong:\n\nJanuary 1885: Hong Kong and Canton\n\nIn mid-January 1885, Woods arrived on the P & O steamer Hydastes from Singapore. He stayed first with the Governor, Sir George Bowen and then with Judge Russell.\n\nSir George arranged for him to lecture on The Mines and Minerals of the Malay Peninsula on 3 February 1885. During his introduction, Sir George expressed surprise at finding a priest involved in scientific pursuits, and his rather tactless remarks have been preserved in the full report which he sent the next day to the Earl of Derby at the Colonial Office:",
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    {
        "id": 210734,
        "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-1986",
        "page_number": 85,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "68\n\nthereon.\" \n\nD.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU \n\nBy this time Ford's time had to be divided between running the Botanic Gardens, establishing the herbarium and collecting specimens for both of these undertakings. Realising his own limitation he asked for the appointment of an assistant and a Mr. Westland arrived in the colony in May 1883. Earlier in February of that year Ford, anticipating the arrival of an assistant and the possible rapid expansion of the herbarium, sent the following letter to Kew:\n\n\"Could you also please send me sample of cartridge paper which you use for herbarium sheets, 16” × 10½”, together with prices and name of supplier? The Crown Agents sometimes disappoint me by sending paper unfit for our use and not according to samples sent with order.\"\n\nFord met with a constant barrage of difficulties from Government officials particularly from the Surveyor-General, Mr. Price and from members of the finance committee. Fortunately the Governor, Sir George F. Bowen, supported Ford and a letter by Ford written on 9/5/83 confirms this:\n\n\"H.E. was very pleased with what he saw and he has been very good to my dept. since he came. He offered to let me have at once another $1,000 for the completion of our New Gardens.\n\n\"(He [Mr. Price] wrote to the Governor before the Governor had been a fortnight in the Colony and asked him to reverse Sir J. Hennessy's policy (which had, as you know, been confirmed by the Sec. of State) in reference to my and his departments. The Governor told him that he did not see any reason to disturb the arrangement which his predecessor had made. Sir George told me he had visited the Gardens and that they did me very great credit.)\"\n\nLater in the same year Ford again met official opposition, this",
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    {
        "id": 211167,
        "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": 228,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "203\n\nThe Daily Press publicly launched the discussion of this prickly topic by suggesting that Hongkong make a contribution to the Imperial and Colonial Institute to be set up in London.\n\nHis Highness the Prince of Wales had intimated that Her Majesty, his mother, looked with favour on this project as an expression of her subjects' gratitude and loyalty.\n\nIt was felt that there ought to be a local memorial. Especially, as the paper reminded its readers, \"Hongkong was the first colony acquired by the British Crown after Her Majesty's ascension though Natal runs it rather close and the whole of its history is included in that of Her Majesty's reign, and it seems only reasonable that the present generation of colonists should transmit to their successors some permanent memorial of the jubilee of a sovereign who has endeared herself to her subjects in all parts of the world and in whose reign the Colony was settled and has grown to the state of prosperity it at present enjoys.”\n\nThe paper then anticipated the suggestion Mr. Chater was to make to the Government, that of a public park.\n\nSeveral years earlier Governor Bowen had turned the sod for a park in Wongneichong Valley. It was intended to bear his name.\n\nBut as far as the paper was concerned there was little likelihood of the Government carrying out the scheme for a quarter of a century.\n\nHence, the paper suggested that \"the community might take the matter in hand and change the name to Queen's Park.\" The public was assured that “there would be no discourtesy to Sir George Bowen in changing the name under the circumstances, seeing he was unable to carry out his intention of having the park made during his government and that the work is practically uncommenced.\"\n\nAnother suggestion put forth was that inasmuch as Hongkong had done little to provide education for girls it \"establish and",
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    },
    {
        "id": 211170,
        "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": 231,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "206\n\nMr. Chater proceeded to introduce a project he felt worthy of the occasion.\n\nWhat stimulated his imagination were the possibilities for “our picturesque little valley of Wongneichong, so admirably adapted by nature for a park.”\n\nHe knew the valley well, for he was perhaps Hongkong's most enthusiastic and successful racehorse owner. Between his first appearance at the Happy Valley track in 1865 until his death in 1925, he never missed a meeting.\n\nAs for the park, it was true that the Government had appropriated $25,000 for the construction of a park to be named Bowen Park several years earlier, but little had been done.\n\nMr. Chater asked: “Do you not think this is a fitting opportunity for pushing on this much needed park and of naming it after Her Most Gracious Majesty, Victoria Park?”\n\nHe was sure that it would be a project of which the good Queen would approve as it would be \"so beneficial to all the residents of her densely populated little Colony of Hongkong.”\n\nAfter this long introduction, Mr. Chater put the question: “As there is a general desire on the part of the community of Hongkong to celebrate Her Majesty's jubilee year in a fit and appropriate manner, I wish to ask whether the Government would co-operate in any movement made by the public for the purpose?”\n\nThe presiding officer Sir George Phillippo, the Chief Justice, replied on behalf of the Acting Governor who was ill and not able to attend the meeting of the council: \"In answer to the question, I am requested by His Excellency the Acting Governor... to say that the Government is prepared to co-operate with the public of Hongkong in celebrating Her Majesty's jubilee year in a manner befitting the occasion, and is ready to take into consideration any definite proposal on the subject that may be made to it in accordance with the wishes of the community.”",
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    {
        "id": 211187,
        "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": 248,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "223\n\nnity; at least he was the only Chinese to speak at length at the meeting.\n\nHe proposed to amend Mr. Chater's resolution by striking out the reference to a park and in its place substitute the words “a charitable institution of some kind be established and named after Her Majesty, the exact nature of such institution to be left to the decision of Her Majesty herself.\"\n\nHe hoped this would block a decision on a park, and open the way for a project that might have the support of the Chinese. He stated his objections to the park, giving three reasons why it was not acceptable.\n\nHis first objection was that the Government had already stated its intention of creating such a park. It had been on the agenda of the Legislative Council several times, and as he pointed out, \"the money has been voted for it and revoted.”\n\nIf the Government was going to do it, let it carry it through. It was not appropriate that, \"when the Government undertakes to do a certain work for the community to come in and take credit for it and say 'We have done this.'\n\nIntroducing a bit of irony into his remarks, Dr. Ho Kai said: “If it is the general desire of this community to adopt as a memorial to Her Majesty's Jubilee any work which has been undertaken by the Government, then I say, let us dedicate to her our grandest and costliest and greatest one, and that is the Tytam Water Works.” (Applause).\n\nNo, it would not do to foist off a second-hand project as a memorial from the public. As Dr. Ho told his audience: \"What we want, gentlemen, is something quite new, something which the community will carry out without the assistance of Government and something more in harmony with the occasion.\"\n\nThe next objection was of a delicate personal nature. It concerned the late Governor's connection with the proposed park. Two years previous at an official ceremony Sir George Bowen had",
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    {
        "id": 211205,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1987",
        "page_number": 266,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "241\n\nOnly one letter was received. It was from Dr. Patrick Manson who proposed building a sanitarium at the Peak for the sick and convalescent.\n\nThe meeting started inauspiciously. It had been called for 4.30pm at the City Hall. When the hour arrived there were only four or five people present. Obviously they could not proceed. Half an hour later there were sufficient present to begin. The attendance, however, was far below that of the first meeting.\n\nOn looking around it was noted that high-ranking government officials had decided not to attend the meeting. They had become somewhat wary of public meetings. They found themselves in an embarrassing position due to their presence at the previous meeting when a plan had been adopted which reflected badly on Hongkong's regard for Governor Sir George Bowen.\n\nThe Governor was on leave and it was not expected his appointment would be renewed. Rumours, however, reached Hongkong after the meeting that he was to sail for the East. It was not clear whether he was returning as Governor of Hongkong or for some other purpose. As it turned out, his term was not renewed. At any rate, prudence dictated that Government officers should avoid meetings which reflected the local animosity towards Sir George.\n\nAfter the opening formalities, the letter of Dr. Manson was read. The chairman then asked for an expression of opinion on the sanitarium scheme. No one responded, instead Mr. W. E. Crow, a government pharmacist, introduced the idea of a public library and reading room,\n\nFollowing Mr. D. R. Crawford's seconding of his proposal, Mr. Crow asked for clarification on a point of procedure. Would Dr. Manson's project be voted on before his own, or would his be voted on as an amendment to Dr. Manson's? The chairman ruled that as Dr. Manson's proposal had not been seconded and Mr. Crow's had, it was the latter which should be voted on.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522",
        "rank": 0
    }
]