[ { "id": 204454, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "75\n\nTHE PATTERN OF LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES IN 1898\n\nJ. W. HAYES, M.A.*\n\nIn 1898 Great Britain signed the Peking Convention which gave her the lease of the New Territories for 99 years. The world has made such material progress since that time and urban Hong Kong has itself seen so many changes that it is difficult for us to-day to imagine the rural part of the Colony as it then was, without roads or wheeled transport other than the wheel-barrow, with inhabitants who knew nothing of cars, aeroplanes, or weapons of mass destruction. But having made this effort, we must think back further still if we wish to obtain a proper appreciation of the situation, as James Stewart Lockhart told the Hong Kong Government in 1898. At the end of his report on the New Territory, as he styled it, he said \"Under Chinese rule enterprise has been at a discount, and progress has been at a standstill for centuries. The San On district of to-day must be much the same as it was four or five hundred years ago\".\n\nThe report is a valuable first-hand account of the area as it was in the year of its acquisition and covers the points in which Government would be most interested such as topography, communications, trade and natural products, population, industries and the existing civil government. It also gave its author's recommendations as to how the New Territory should be governed and looked after in future. This article, whilst making use of Lockhart's report, tries to give the background which he, of course, would take for granted. It does not pretend to deal with every part of the backcloth but only touches on those parts which seem worth mentioning for their share in fixing life in its accustomed mould: the village, the people themselves and their history, the clan system, ancestral worship, education, the district government, the background of affairs elsewhere in the province, the prevalence of disturbance and epidemic, popular religion: all factors which made for integration or disruption in a life that could never have been easy.\n\n* Mr. Hayes has been an administrative officer with the Hong Kong Government since 1956.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206000, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "THE BEGINNINGS OF TAIPINGSHAN\n\n75\n\nevery piece of ground and every house in the island downwards, morally speaking, were they to do so, they would be little better than robbers.\" But whatever the morals of the removal of the bazaar lot-holders, the Notification of 25 July produced the desired result for, by the beginning of September, there had already been a movement to the west to the area designated. The Hong Kong Register on 3 September 1844 somewhat uncharitably, and ignorantly since they were at this time still the official Government organ, expressed dissatisfaction with the \"Chinese village rising to the westward of Victoria\", but modified their opinion on discovering that many of the houses belonged to the 'squatters' dislodged from the Upper Bazaar who were allowed to find temporary sites until they could rebuild on land allotted to them for the purpose by Government. The area referred to was being built up fast during the month of September and opposite it, on the northern side of Queen's Road, a Government Market was erected, 18\n\nEventually, Davis's expenditure on levelling the site and providing compensation was approved at home.19 But before even the reply had left the Colonial Office, Davis received a petition from the Upper Bazaar lot-holders, praying for monetary compensation in addition to the 'rent holiday' proposed. On consideration of this petition whilst Davis was absent inspecting the new consulates in the northern ports, the Executive Council decided that the rent payable on the new allotments in Taipingshan should commence in January 1849, and not in January 1848 and that the registered holders of \"decent Chinese houses\", 81 in number, should receive $40 dollars each. Two English lot-holders in the area, Oswald and Porter, were allowed compensation on a rather more liberal scale, having refused to move. In communicating this arrangement to the Colonial Office, Davis commented that if the question of the Upper Bazaar Lots had first come up during his tenure of office, he would have allowed the tenants to retain possession, not only because to do otherwise involved a violation of rights, with a consequent heavy expense for Government in compensations, but also because of the obloquy to which Government had been subjected in the Press20\n\nThat is how Taipingshan originated. Its subsequent history is interesting for, between this time and the great Plague epidemic in the 1890's, it seems to the writer that the ability of the Government", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206260, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS AND KAIFONGS\n\n71\n\nthey really lack the funds to employ professionally qualified staff. Therefore, many Kaifongs ran into financial problems soon after their establishment. Their activities are therefore not only conducted on a charitable basis. Some have organized recreational and educational classes, charging participation fees for them, and others run large-scale fee-paying schools.\n\nOn the other hand, the work of the Kaifongs is very much under the influence of Government policy, although theoretically the Kaifongs are independent associations. In the 1950s the Hong Kong Government was relying a great deal on the voluntary organizations for providing social welfare, because the Government itself had limited financial resources during the post-war years. However, when a Social Welfare Department was established in 1958, it seemed that the Government was ready to extend its own hand over many branches of welfare work. A special section for Community Organization was formed within the new Department, the specific purpose of which was to organize and assist residents in community development projects. Thus, again with Government encouragement, the Kaifongs began to change their emphasis to community organization in the early 1960s. Both the Government and the Kaifongs' attention was caught by the so-called youth problem, considered to have reached threatening proportions after the 1966 Riots. Earlier the 1961 Census had shown that 50% of Hong Kong's population was below 21 years of age and that 40% were under 15 years of age. The youth programme has thus claimed a good deal of both the Government's and the Kaifongs' effort in the present decade.\n\nIn addition, the Kaifongs have increasingly made representations to the Government. Such representations cover mainly social and economic policies, particularly those concerning local Kaifong districts, such as involving urban renewal, public health and sanitation, and business control. Although the Kaifongs have always claimed to be representatives of public opinion, before the 1960s the Kaifongs mainly transmitted Government policies to the general public. They also helped the Government departments in organizing community drives such as Road Safety, Keep Your City Clean campaigns, Anti-epidemic campaigns etc. But they had seldom exerted any pressure over Government decision-making. But since the mid-60s, particularly since the 1966 and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206325, "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": 142, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "136 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\ncensus 13 of the 76 Chinese enumerators were district watchmen; in the 1901 census 5 out of 107 were. In the 1906 census the 120 enumerators were shown round the blocks (census sub-divisions) by district watchmen. They also gave help in the 1911 census, and in the 1921 one the bulk of the force was placed at the disposal of the commissioner of census, who wrote 'each Chinese watchman engaged was in charge of two sections; they helped clear up misunderstandings and kept a check on enumerators'. The Committee was thanked on many occasions by government for its public service; it was praised for the help it rendered to the police during the riots which occurred in 1894 during the great epidemic of plague. The Committee did all it could to help its sister organizations the Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk. Thus district watchmen were always employed on special duties at the Tung Wah Hospital during outbreaks of plague and the Chinese Public Dispensary Committee used Watchmen to prevent the dumping of bodies in the streets. The Po Leung Kuk's two principal detectives were serving district watchmen at the turn of the century. Co-operation was easy because most members of the District Watch Committee had served or were serving on the committees of the Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk. In 1895 head district watchmen were paid $240 a year, assistant head district watchmen $180 and watchmen from $84 to $96. \n\n18 For examples of police corruption in nineteenth century Hong Kong see numerous references in Norton-Kyshe, op. cit. \n\n19 After a distinguished academic career at Edinburgh University, J. H. Stewart Lockhart became a Hong Kong Cadet in 1878; Registrar General in 1887; Colonial Secretary in 1895. In 1902 he was appointed first Civil Commissioner of Weihaiwei and retired from this post in 1921. Among his numerous publications there are several of sinological value. See particularly: 'Contributions to the Folklore of China', China Review, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 352-353 and vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 37-39; also 'Some Chinese Folk-lore', Folk-lore, vol. 14, 1903, pp. 292-298. Lockhart was local secretary in Hong Kong of the International Folk-lore Society. \n\n20 In 1892 new rules were drawn up under Ordinance No. 13 of 1888, with the advice of the Committee, for the regulation and guidance of the watchmen. 'Copies of these rules have been distributed among the contributors of the District Watchmen's Fund, by whom more interest seems to be evinced in and more assistance asked from the force than formerly': See Report of the Registrar General for 1892. Lockhart also persuaded two Chinese newspapers—the Tsun Wan Yat Po and the Wai San Yat Po—to publish weekly lists of cases brought before the magistrate by the District watchmen for the information of subscribers to the District Watchmen's Fund. Lockhart realised that publicity was good for the Committee: he saw that they got it. The report of the Registrar General/Secretary for Chinese Affairs always contained a section on the District Watch and news about members was given: deaths, resignations, appointments, etc. \n\n21 Wei Yuk (1849-1921) was the son of Wei Kwong, compradore to the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China. He was educated at the Government Central School in Hong Kong and in 1867, at the age of 18, became a pupil at the Leicester Stoneygate School and in 1868 of the Dollar Institution, Scotland. He returned to Hong Kong in 1872 to become assistant compradore in the Chartered Mercantile Bank. He succeeded his father on the latter's death in 1879. Wei Yuk married the eldest daughter of Wong Shing (Huang Shêng). He was the fourth Chinese to be appointed to the Legislative Council, the other three being Ng Choy (Wu Ting-fang), Wong Shing and Ho Kai. He was knighted in 1919. During his public career he served on all the commissions appointed by government to inquire into matters affecting the Chinese. Ho Fook (1863-1926) was the younger half-brother of Sir Robert Ho Tung, reputed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206551, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG\n\n93\n\nhealth and in his first annual report went so far as to predict the eventual outbreak of an epidemic of \"unenviable renown\".2 He found houses commonly occupied by three to eight families per room which were in a filthy state and were constructed without any regard to basic sanitary requirements. Such properties were owned both by Europeans and wealthy Chinese who exacted high rents secure in the knowledge that, because of the critical shortage of accommodation, the tenants were in no position to seek more equitable terms or improvements.\n\nEfforts by the government to improve standards of construction and health met with determined resistance from property owners. To take but one example, in early 1878 the Surveyor General, J. M. Price rejected some plans of Chinese tenement houses on the grounds that they would be unhealthy; to help improve the situation he made certain recommendations for better ventilation by widening the alley at the rear of the premises. This action met with a storm of protest and culminated in a petition to the Governor, Pope-Hennessy, to the effect that the buildings were designed in accordance with the requirements and habits of Chinese people. The petitioners further claimed that:\n\n• these habits, although condemned by the more recent rules of western science are, as a matter of fact, the outcome of a lengthened experience among the Chinese living in large and crowded cities, and are as deep rooted as most of their social customs, so it is quite certain that the tenants, as they would not understand the reason, would in no way avail themselves of the facilities for the free access of light and air. The windows looking out into the proposed alleys would be kept closed and the alleys themselves would be made receptacles for the deposit of refuse... Chinese tenants are, as a rule,... unable or unwilling to pay high rents, and it is only by so dividing the houses that many families can reside in each division that Chinese property is made profitable and at the same time the necessary lowness of rent attained\n\n2 \"Annual Report of the Colonial Surgeon\", The Hongkong Government Gazette, 4th April 1874, p. 157.\n\n3 \"Chinese Houses\", The Hongkong Government Gazette, 27th July, 1878, pp. 370-371.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206556, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "98\n\nE. G. PRYOR\n\nment should carry out improvements to existing properties financed from an improvement fund set up by contributions from the license fees on gambling houses; and that for buildings not capable of improvement the Government should acquire, demolish, rebuild and sell the properties concerned.\n\nChadwick's report was a landmark in the history of Hong Kong, and as with Dr. Ayres in 1873 he drew attention to the serious consequences that would arise if nothing were done to alleviate the bad sanitary condition of the Colony. On this point Chadwick reported that:\n\nIt is stated that, hitherto, Hong Kong has escaped the epidemics which have afflicted other places in the neighbourhood. The settlement is but 40 years old and the subsoil beneath the city may not yet be sufficiently saturated with filth to make it a hot bed for disease and a breeding ground of filth poison. It is somewhat premature to assume that this happy immunity will always continue for the process of saturation is slowly but surely going on and if unchecked cannot fail to bring forth abundant fruit, in the form of misery and disease.\n\nAnother twelve years elapsed before Chadwick's warning took the form he predicted.\n\nPrelude to Disaster 1882-1894\n\nChadwick's report prompted the government into action and, as a first step towards meeting the problem, a Sanitary Board was set up in 1883 under a draft Order and Health Amendment Ordinance which gave the Board wide powers to deal with insanitary houses, the inspection of premises, compulsory disinfection and the removal of persons who were a source of disease. However, strong opposition from property owners caused these provisions to be withdrawn although the Board remained in existence.\n\nFurther attempts were made in 1887 to introduce a Public Health Ordinance which, among other things, provided for the reservation of open spaces at the rear of buildings, the provision of privies and the fixing of a minimum standard of 300 cu. ft. of internal living space per adult. Great opposition against these proposals was voiced in the local press on the basis that the poorer classes would suffer\n\n8 Ibid., p. 22.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206558, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "100\n\nE. G. PRYOR\n\nSuch improvements, however, were inadequate to overcome 50 years of neglect and insensitivity to the basic requirements for good public health and in 1894 the bubonic plague descended upon Hong Kong with a vengeance.\n\nThe Great Plague of 1894 and Remedial Action\n\nLengthy accounts have been written about the bubonic plague of 1894 including case histories of the agonies suffered by its victims. Suffice it to say that of the 2,679 persons treated in government hospitals, 2,485 died in great misery giving a mortality rate of almost 93%. Of the victims, the vast majority was Chinese. The worst afflicted area was the Western district and particularly the Tai Ping Shan locality.\n\nIn seeking an answer to the outbreak, Dr. J. A. Lowson reported that:\n\nPredisposing causes are, speaking generally, insanitary conditions, and of these filth and overcrowding must be ... two of the most important factors. The district of Tai Ping Shan supplied these factors in a marked degree at the beginning of the outbreak, the majority of houses being in a most filthy condition, as owing to the uncleanly habits of the people, the amount of ... rubbish accumulates in a Chinese house ... to an extent beyond the imagination of most civilised people. When to a mixture of dust, old rags, broken crockery, moist soil etc. is added faecal matter, and the decomposing urine of animals and human beings, a terribly insanitary condition of affairs prevails; and that this is no overdrawn picture of what was to be met with in Tai Ping Shan, many Europeans know to their cost. ...10\n\nDr. Lowson made a number of strong recommendations as to the measures which should be enforced to prevent further outbreaks of bubonic plague. Among other things, he urged that existing regulations should be strictly applied regarding the design and construction of house drains, the closure of insanitary buildings and the provision of adequate lighting and ventilation of premises. He further recommended that the use of basements as domestic accommodation should be prohibited, that all wells situated in densely\n\n10 Lowson J. A., \"The Epidemic of Bubonic Plague in Hong Kong, 1894\", Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 1895, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong, 1895, p. 182.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206587, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG\n\n12. Hong Kong Government\n\n13. Hong Kong Government\n\n14. Lowson J. A.,\n\n15. Maunder W. F. & Szczepanik E. F.,\n\n16. Pryor E. G.\n\n17. Wellington A. R.,\n\n129\n\nReport of the Housing Commission, Hong Kong 1923.\n\nReport of the Housing Commission 1935, Hong Kong 1938.\n\n\"The Epidemic of Bubonic Plague in Hong Kong 1894\", Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1895, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong 1895.\n\nHong Kong Housing Survey 1957, University of Hong Kong in the Final Report of the Special Committees on Housing 1956-1958, Hong Kong, 1958.\n\n“An Assessment of the Need and Scope for Urban Renewal in Hong Kong\", Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Hong Kong, 1971.\n\nPublic Health in Hong Kong, Hong Kong 1930.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206669, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n211 \n\nWe shall then walk to the Cemetery, five minutes walk through the grounds. I have not been able to re-visit recently, and you must look for yourselves. Father Caminondo states that there is persistent vandalism against the crosses on the headstones. From 1875 up to now, he writes, four bishops and 94 priests have been buried here.\n\nPokfulam Village. There is nothing attractive about the present village, which mostly consists of small single-storey stone or wooden structures erected in haphazard fashion round the single row of old village houses that constituted the original village. The village is listed in the Chinese district gazetteer of San On (1819 edition) and thus pre-dates the British occupation of Hong Kong in 1841. The Chan (1) clan of Pokfulam, which probably settled the area in the 18th century, is still there today. They are Puntis, from Po On district. The Chans owned most of the agricultural land in the area, and fished by line and stakenet from suitable points on the coast. One of their stakenets is still in use today. Many of the fields above the Hong Kong Waterfall (see below) still belong to them, and up till 1941 were used to cultivate rice. (This was prohibited after the war on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, as part of a government campaign against malaria).\n\nWe shall not enter the village which has now little of interest, but will walk to the point indicated on the sketch map* from which we can see the Red Brick Pagoda erected, according to the date on it, in 1916. Three old residents, born in 1897-1900, say that it was erected by decision of the village leaders with subscriptions from all residents. It was built to counteract the bad influences of a then new culvert constructed under the Aberdeen Road, near the point from which we shall observe. Its wide black mouth faced onto the village, and made the villagers uneasy. An epidemic in which many residents became ill, and a supernatural event in which a goddess appeared to one of the villagers in a dream, decided the issue, and the pagoda was built. It is named Ling Tap (). The image inside it is of the goddess, known as Li Ling Shin Che (4). She is said to be of local origin, but I have not yet been able to check this thoroughly.\n\nWe then walk into Tai Ku Lau. This was the building occupied by Nazareth House between 1885-1891. It was a European house\n\n* Not printed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207302, "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": 70, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "62\n\nE. G. PRYOR\n\nmucous and epithelium frequently appeared in the stools.* Additionally, painful swellings or buboes commonly developed in the groin, neck or armpits usually by the second day.\n\nEven though by the turn of the nineteenth century medical science had made significant progress, little was still then known of the manner in which the disease was transmitted. It was not until 1905 that it was finally established in Bombay by the Plague Research Commission of India that the bacillus, pasteurella pestis, commonly gained entry into the blood stream by inoculation through the bite of fleas which, in turn, were carried by rats. Scientific research into the causes of the plague in Hong Kong came close to finding this answer but the plethora of other more plausible-looking theories detracted attention away from the apparently harmless flea.\n\nThe Origin of the Plague in Hong Kong\n\nBubonic plague in China was thought to have first spread from Yunnan which, itself, is likely to have been infected by transmissions over the trade routes from India.\n\nAs a prelude to the outbreak of the disease in Hong Kong in 1894, it appears that it occurred in Canton in January of that year. By June, it had reached epidemic proportions and had accounted for some 80,000 deaths. At the outbreak of the disease in Canton, many persons (particularly the well-to-do) moved into the countryside and thereby created new foci for its dissemination. Simpson thus records that it is \"not surprising that whatever affects Canton is not long in making itself felt in Hong Kong. This year when cholera broke out in Canton there was only an interval of a few weeks before the disease appeared in 1894.\" Indeed, the spread of the disease to Hong Kong was accelerated by the unrestricted entry from Kwantung Province of many thousands of workers and also junks and river boats that formed an integral part of the colony's role as an entrepot.\n\nOn the 10th May 1894, Hong Kong was declared an infected port and within the space of a few weeks the administration was\n\n* Quoted in William Hunter, A Research into Epidemic & Epizootic Plague Hong Kong, 1904, p. 6.\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. 22.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "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": 207309, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "THE GREAT PLAGUE OF HONG KONG\n\n69\n\nthat \"Simond...... has given a great deal of attention to this subject (and) came to the conclusion that Indian rat fleas bite man and that rat fleas spread plague from one rat to another and also to the human species.\"* However, Hunter himself was not convinced of this theory and subscribed to the view that cockroaches picked up the bacillus and transferred the disease to food stuffs. Others shared his scepticism.\n\nFinally, studies undertaken in 1905-06 by the Indian Plague Commission in Bombay conclusively established that fleas were the principal agents of transmission. Of the 1500 species of fleas about 100 can transmit plague; the most widely disseminated is Xenopsylla cheopis which is equally at home on rats or homo sapiens. At one feeding on a rat, the blood of which contains 100 million organisms per millilitre, a flea will ingest about 5000 organisms which then multiply in the flea's digestive tract. Later, its proventriculus becomes plugged by gelatinous masses of bacilli and, as a result, the valvular action becomes impaired. Because of this obstruction, blood cannot be sucked into the stomach. The esophagus becomes distended and the elastic recoil of the walls of both pharynx and gullet when the flea stops sucking may drive back into the bite wound highly infective blood. An infected flea may regurgitate as many as 10,000 to 24,000 organisms at one biting. Many species of fleas, however, may become infected without incurring blockages and these may never become pestiferous unless they have fed on severely infected rodents.\n\nOnce a rat has become infected and subsequently dies the fleas carried thereon migrate to another host when the corpse loses its body heat. When the rat population has become decimated the fleas transfer their attention to human beings. This sequence of events thus explains the commonly observed phenomenon that plague in rats precedes plague among the inhabitants of infected premises.\n\nEven though the discovery of how plague was transferred from rats to man enabled more effective preventive measures to be taken to eradicate the disease in Hong Kong, it continued to afflict the colony until as late as 1929 when two cases were recorded. Virulent\n\n*W. Hunter, A Research into Epidemic and Epizootic Plague, Hong Kong, 1904, p. 32.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207385, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "PACIFIC OYSTER INDUSTRY IN HONG KONG\n\n145\n\nrestaurants remained unshucked. This method of transportation is, however, wasteful since the shell has to be returned to Lau Fau Shan to be reused as shell cultch or taken to lime-kilns (†) for conversion into lime (✯). In addition, the stored oyster shells are unhygienic because they smell and attract flies. As a consequence, the oysters are normally now shucked in Lau Fau Shan before they are transported. The shucked oysters are kept alive and fresh in a small amount of sea water. All the fresh oysters sold are consumed in Hong Kong. Transportation from the area of production to the market is rapid; there is thus no storage problem.\n\nThe oysters are usually cooked before being eaten. However, they are normally only half-cooked to retain the flavour and the tenderness of the muscle. It has been reported that the oyster beds at Deep Bay are faecally polluted all year round and that the oysters themselves are grossly contaminated (Leung et al., 1975; Morton, 1975; Morton and Shortridge, 1976), particularly in summer. It is thus safer to cook the oysters thoroughly. A direct solution to this problem would seem to be the establishment of purification facilities within Lau Fau Shan so that all the harvested oysters could be cleansed prior to resale. In this context, the British or American ultra-violet methods of cleansing (Wood, 1969; Morton, 1975) might well be utilised.\n\nIn Hong Kong, the oyster industry, though small, is an important primary producer. It is one of the most productive sources of protein and, in addition, serves as a tourist attraction. The annual production is not sufficient to meet local demand, so that during times when the oysters are of poor quality, other oysters are imported from the beds across the bay, in China. Although there is a good demand for oysters and the bay itself is suitable for oyster culture, with comparatively few pests and predators and with no epidemic disease hitherto described, the oyster industry in Deep Bay is reported to be dying. Production figures appear to be declining (Fig. 2), whilst the value of the oysters remains stable.\n\nVarious factors are possibly responsible for this decline. Long-term fluctuations in the environment or the existence of unknown pests or predators may hamper the production of oysters. But from recent studies on the community associated with the oyster (Wong, 1975), this seems to be unlikely. Sedimentation has gradually reduced the area available for oyster culture, and beds closer to the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207415, "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": 183, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n175\n\nat the corners of the mouth and scrotal oedema. During August 1942 only 17 cases of deficiency diseases were admitted as such, but the same signs were common among the dysentery and diphtheria admissions. We began an investigation into all the various manifestations and intensive treatment was started. These patients with deficiency diseases were to form a nearly immovable block in our patient population for a long time because improvement came about extremely slowly. An outstanding symptom was burning pain in the feet which sometimes required morphine for its relief. Many sought to ease the pain by plunging their feet into cold water and one patient had to be confined in a place where water was not available in order to avoid maceration of the skin. Some who had had deficiency diseases improved enough to return to P.O.W. camps. Others remained in hospital up to our release in 1945. These last had balancing problems, numbness of limbs and visual defects.\n\nThe hospital had admitted 1225 patients during 1942 and this figure included all patients transferred to us from all the other civil and service hospitals in the Colony. Of the total, 443 were admitted during the five-month period August-December and at 31 December 341 patients remained. Pressure on our accommodation had been severe, and repeated changes in the usage of wards were needed to isolate infectious patients and provide room for all who needed our care. The Canadian P.O.W. camp at North Point closed in October and the troops moved to Kowloon. Perhaps because of the rearrangements required by this move, but almost certainly reinforced by the well-known Japanese fear of infectious disease, we were not allowed to discharge patients whom we considered would suffer by a move to a camp. The pressure on our space and feeding arrangements was therefore intense and this did not begin to ease until April 1943. By the end of 1942, however, the heaviest burden of the infections had become lighter, though the long haul to cope with the deficiencies as the main load had already begun.\n\nThe year 1942 had weighed heavily on the spirits and energies of patients and staff. The departure of the women nurses cast a gloom over the hospital. The future seemed uncertain, the rations were poor, patients flooded in, deaths were frequent, but food gifts to the hospital from friends in Hong Kong and the arrival of a Red Cross parcel per head, to which I shall refer later, together with a natural resilience as the acute epidemics subsided towards the end of the year brought about some lightening of the clouds.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207432, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "192\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\ndical Services of the Japanese Army of Occupation. Selwyn-Clarke represented to Eguchi that it was essential to take precautions to avoid outbreaks of epidemic diseases in the chaotic conditions following our surrender and he, with his wife and daughter and a handful of his staff, were spared internment for a while in order to organise the necessary work. Certain other categories of people, for example senior bankers, were likewise not interned at the beginning though the movements of all these men were always restricted within narrow limits. Selwyn-Clarke's mind turned at once to ways in which he could help those who were in P.O.W. or Internment camps. He knew exactly what would happen and how health would suffer and he set about getting food and drugs to combat the infectious and deficiency diseases he saw to be inevitable.\n\nI do not know how these relief operations were financed nor do I know many details. He visited the camps and though not allowed to see the prisoners he did get guides as to what was needed e.g., food, fuel, meat, cooking oil and at the same time he got the names of many prisoners. He had found out that the Japanese would allow entry to parcels of food etc. addressed to individuals but would not accept bulk supplies for delivery. He then recruited a number of women helpers; some of these had husbands, relatives or friends in the camps and hospital. Before hostilities Selwyn-Clarke was at all times completely absorbed in the task he had in hand. In a community where alcohol and tobacco were cheap and widely used he did not drink and he did not smoke and I think found it difficult to interest himself in the small talk usual in the kind of society in which Hong Kong took pleasure at that time. His wife was an electrifying woman, full of energy, vastly intelligent and widely informed, with great warmth, firmly held opinions and completely devoted to the welfare of the Chinese citizens of the Colony. She unfortunately has since died, but she always played a leading part in organising the parties delivering food to the hospital.\n\nOne of her main helpers was Miss Helen Ho. Miss Ho was arrested three times by the Japanese, the first being shortly after Selwyn-Clarke's own arrest. She was imprisoned once below the Supreme Court; another time she was confined in a house above Queen's Road, but being allowed to open a window for air she attracted the attention of a passing friend by flashing a reflected ray of sun in her eyes using a hand mirror. She then dropped a pre-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207517, "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": 285, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n277\n\nleft to rely almost wholly upon the stores we possessed. Knowing the Japanese fear of infectious disease I am still surprised that they did not take decisive action to curb the outbreaks of epidemic diseases by supplying, for example, antidiphtheritic serum and drugs with specific therapeutic action in sufficient quantities. Maybe by then, however, these stores had been shipped to Japan.\n\nSo far as the deficiency diseases are concerned, my account shows that bulk supplies of foodstuffs of special value to us began to be supplied by the Red Cross after the effects of the deficient diets became evident and a little before the spate of visits we had from Japanese inspecting officers and medical men. I cannot tell whether pressure was put upon the Japanese by the Red Cross to get permission to send in foodstuffs they surely knew were badly needed, or whether the threat of unmanageable numbers of men suffering from deficiencies caused Japanese uneasiness which was communicated to the Red Cross. Whatever the immediate cause, the resulting improvement for us was undoubted. It must, however, be placed on record that the scale of Japanese rations and the type of foodstuffs supplied by them did not change at all. All the benefits, therefore, came from the Red Cross supplies.\n\nI always found the Japanese attitude to gifts brought by our Hong Kong friends to be hard to understand. Though they kept a strict general control of the system, they were not stupid, and I always thought that they turned a blind eye to a possible method of communication between relatives and friends in and out of hospital, which they must have known or at least suspected to exist. No understanding of any kind ever existed between us and the Japanese over this system.\n\nThe standard of technical medical and nursing care of our wounded in the hospital was high, but I believe that because we were left in Bowen Road, we were shorn of some of our ability to contribute to the treatment of sick prisoners, especially during the epidemics. In order to reach hospital from any camp, a patient had a lorry journey in Kowloon and another on the Island, with a cross-harbour journey by lighter in between. This involved at least four disturbances and handling of patients. Since neither I nor any other hospital doctor was allowed to discuss or try to coordinate a proper allocation of the resources that we could muster with our medical colleagues in the camps, transfer of patients to hospital depended upon the whims of the unpredictable Japanese doctor.\n\nPage 285\n\nPage 286", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209884, "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-1983", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "121\n\ntemple repairs. Ap Lei Chau was a fishing port and its temples were very popular with the boat people in the anchorage. They thronged to them at the festivals and to the performance of opera and puppets organized by the chik lei, but it seems that they were not allowed to share in the management of these events. My informants recalled that at one time, even, because of a dispute over seating arrangements at an opera performance, it was decided not to seek donations from boat people in future at festival times. This happened before the Pacific war, and from that time on, the decision has been followed. On the other hand, the boat people's contributions have been sought for temple repairs whenever these have become necessary.\" The tablets in both temples on the island show that, as at Tai O and Cheung Chau, other large centres of boat and land populations, both communities have combined on these occasions, no doubt because the high cost of the work made it necessary to get contributions from every possible source.\n\nThe Earth God Shrines at Sai Ying Pun and Tai Ping Shan\n\n(1) Sheung Fung Lane (4)\n\nAt Sheung Fung Lane in the Sai Ying Pun district of Hong Kong Island there is an old shrine to the Fuk Tak Kung, the earth god of that locality. It has a large granite altar, carved with figures at each end, which has corners cut to simulate bamboo trunks and is inscribed with Chinese characters. These give the names of the persons (listed by their shop names) styled tai chik lei who contributed the costs of erection in the year 1910-1911, together with the name of the overall organiser, styled chung lei (1) dated the year before. However, this was a reconstruction, as the present managers have in their possession, dated from the year 1905-1906, a large banner, a hanging cloth and an umbrella, all well-preserved and made for use in processions round the area in time of need of spiritual protection*. Local tradition supports an earlier origin of the shrine, and traces its beginnings to a great epidemic that caused many deaths in the district at \"an earlier time\". This might have been the great\n\n* Plates 1 to 5 illustrate this section.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209886, "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-1983", "page_number": 145, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "123\n\nwhenever there is an outbreak of plague or other serious epidemic; but within the fifty years' collective memory of the mid 1960s managers this had only happened once, about 1915. The committee of managers does not run money loan or funeral benefit schemes, nor does it undertake general welfare or community work. It is, and was, it seems, concerned only with ensuring the continued protection of the area through the faithful and regular performance of religious rites and their accompanying entertainment. The god's image was always brought to the place where the puppets were being shown, and to the restaurant where the annual dinner was held at which the leaders were selected.\n\nIt will be seen from this account of their duties that these managers did not have the wider general functions performed by the leaders of the three Fong on Ap Lei Chau. They were kaifongs, but they were not the Kaifong, a role played by the predecessors of the postwar Western Kaifong Association, Ltd., whose premises are located at Possession Point.\n\nThe method of selecting the managers has differed little over the period 1910-1965, although it was apparently more protracted and complicated in pre-war years. This was because there were more interested parties than there have been since the war, when redevelopment of old properties has gradually taken large numbers of former residents away from the area, and so beyond the immediate area of the god's protection.\n\nIn pre-war times there might be up to 100 interested parties who wished to become chik lei, but as stated, only 40-50 were required. The selection was left to the god. It was the practice for all persons wishing to serve on the committee to go to the shrine at an appointed time on the god's birthday. Lots were drawn in front of the altar. The number of tickets matched the number of aspirants. Only, say, 40 of the papers were marked chik lei, the rest being marked with the characters tai kat (1/2) or 'great fortune'. Only those securing the first went forward to the second stage in the selection of managers. This was the filling of the three senior posts of chung (#4), fu (§]) and hip chik lei (£), or principal, deputy and assistant (senior) manager, This event was conducted in a restaurant at the annual dinner held in the first moon. Again, the selection was made in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209972, "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-1983", "page_number": 231, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "209\n\nCHUE MO PENG (#Ł), A FEVER REPORTED FROM VILLAGES IN THE HONG KONG REGION, AND ITS CURE, TOGETHER WITH OTHER VILLAGE REMEDIES FOR EXCESS HEAT\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nThis note deals with chue mō pêng (Meyer-Wempe Cantonese but variously romanized below) the subject of a disease often complained of by local villagers, in my experience.\n\nEitel's Dictionary* mentions it under mo; ‘Chu mo ping or chut chu teng, a common disease in South China. It begins with high fever and after vigourously rubbing the chest, bristles an inch long appear through the skin, after their removal the fever goes down' (vol. 1, p. 619).\n\nA similar account, under \"Chu Mo Teng\", appears at pp. 171-2 of S.H. Peplow's Hong Kong Around and About, published in 1930 by the Commercial Press, Hong Kong. The author was a Land Bailiff with the District Office South, New Territories of Hong Kong and would have been well acquainted with village life.\n\n\"A common disease in South China. The translation is: chu—a pig. Mo—hair. Teng—nail. A disease where hairs, like pig's bristles or nails issue forth. It is purely a native fever.\"\n\nBy chance, I came across a dramatic instance of this disease in my early years as a government officer when engaged in compensating and rehousing villagers who were to be displaced for the Shek Pik reservoir on Lantau Island, 1957-60. The village people attributed a major epidemic that caused many deaths about the year 1936 to this disease (100 persons were said to have died, though this is probably an exaggeration).\n\n* A Chinese-English Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect by Dr. Ernest John Eitel, revised and enlarged by Immanuel Gottlieb Genähr of the Rhenish Missionary Society (Hong Kong, Kelly and Walsh, 2 vols., 1911 and 1912).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210341, "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": 312, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "Page 31\n\n2\n\n291\n\n1886: Returning Home\n\nHis work in Singapore concluded, Woods returned on the Flying Fish to Japan in September 1885 for a second, longer visit. (There is no mention of his passing through Hong Kong on the way.) Woods' stay in Japan was extended by epidemics and the resulting quarantine, and it was February 1886 before he could leave Japan and proceed to Hong Kong.\n\nThere are no available details of his last stay. He rejoined the Flying Fish, which left Hong Kong on 19 March 1886, and travelled on her, via Manila and the Celebes, reaching Port Darwin in Australia on 23 June 1886. Immediately he resumed his Australian researches.\n\nWoods seems to have used every voyage as an opportunity for research, and some sixteen of his scientific publications are based on his work in Asia. In one of these, we find his description of Hong Kong. It is obviously a composite, based on his various visits:\n\nI first visited the south Chinese coast in 1885, arriving at Hong Kong in the middle of January, or, as I may call it, the depth of winter. It was piercingly cold at the time. All the inhabitants who could afford them were wrapped up in winter furs. The air was cloudy, damp, gloomy and raw to an extent which recalled to my mind the melancholy fogs of London. Having come straight from the fervid temperature of Singapore, the change can be imagined. Three days after leaving the Straits, all our Chinese passengers came on deck swathed to the eyes in quilted silks or cottons. It was evident that we were in a new region. We were passing many fishing junks of the unmistakable Chinese pattern: the sails of palm canvas, with bamboo laths across them like Venetian blinds. These junks, with thin radiating ribbed sails, apparently lop-sided and conspicuously down by the head, are characteristic sights to be seen nowhere but in China. In their marine architecture, as in everything else, the Chinese keep distinct from all the world.\n\nAmid the fog and mist which came thickly down upon us,\n\nPage 31\n\n2\n\n291", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210703, "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": 54, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "37\n\nlegal ability and acumen in drafting regulations for dealing with the plague and its effects. A thoughtful touch by Francis was to offer coffee and cigars to the men of the Shropshire Light Infantry who helped with plague relief. The Hong Kong Telegraph in its obituary said that he directed and controlled everything and allowed his practice to suffer in the public interest. However, in September when the emergency was over, the Daily Press attacked the Sanitary Board, saying that its springtime of promise had drifted into a moribund condition of age, and the Permanent Committee saying that it was as absolute as practically to remove all control from the executive and demonstrated the difference between representative government and amateur despotism. In October, the Colonial Surgeon, giving evidence before a Retrenchment Committee that had been set up, alleged that the Board had done very little worth doing during the last six years. So far as the unofficial members of the Board were concerned, matters continued to deteriorate, and the last straw was the proposal early in 1895 to appoint another official member, the Medical Officer of Health, to it. Francis went so far as to say that he would be a Government spy. He and two other members threatened to resign. A Chinese member, Ho Kai, expressed the hope that they would not do so because that would be playing into the hands of enemies who wished to get rid of them. Francis and another member did resign and wrote to the newspapers to explain their reasons to the ratepayers. Their resignations were followed by others. At the next meeting of the Board, the Chairman said that they had all, especially Francis, who had devoted several months of his time absolutely to the work of coping with the epidemic, rendered valuable services to the colony, and it was resolved that the thanks of the Board be conveyed to them for the assistance they had rendered during their membership, especially to Francis for his untiring zeal and energy in coping with the plague epidemic in 1894. By this time, the Governor favoured the abolition of the Board. Despite that, he held a plebiscite in 1896 to ascertain whether the community wanted an official or unofficial majority on the Board. Francis took part in the plebiscite, and by 331 votes to 31 votes, the community indicated that it wanted an unofficial majority. However, the new Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, was not prepared to countenance that or to agree to the abolition of the Board, and it was reconstituted. Elections continued to be held.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210704, "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": 55, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "38\n\nWALTER GREENWOOD\n\nThe members elected in 1899 resigned in April 1901 on the ground that the Board could do nothing effective until it received adequate and independent powers, a view that Francis always held. Hong Kong had to wait until 1936 and the creation of the Urban Council for any further advance toward democratic local government.\n\nThe passing of the plague was followed not only by a post-mortem but also by a consideration of who should be rewarded, and how, for services rendered during the plague. The two outstanding candidates were F.H. May, the Captain Superintendent of Police, who served on the Permanent Committee, and Francis. In September 1894 at a public meeting a committee was appointed, with Edward Ackroyd as chairman, to decide on awards to be made on behalf of the community. In December Ackroyd wrote to the Governor \"The Committee consider that to Mr. Francis their best thanks are due for all his exertions and the time he devoted to the wants of the Colony for so many weeks. As Chairman of the Permanent Committee Mr. Francis had a heavy, troublesome and laborious task to perform, and throughout the duration of the epidemic he was unremitting in his devotion to his duties and gave up a great portion of his time, no doubt to the detriment of his extensive practice, to carry on the work he had voluntarily undertaken. Your Excellency is too well acquainted with his services for any need of further mention. Our Committee decided that his actions are deserving of the fullest recognition, that the best thanks of the community, with a good medal, should be tendered to him, and that his valuable services and useful work should be brought, through Your Excellency, to the special notice of the Secretary of State\". Meanwhile the Government was considering what recommendations it should make. It was chiefly concerned with officials but also considered non-officials including Francis. In September the Governor in writing to the Secretary of State expressed the hope that the latter had not failed to notice the untiring and energetic effects on behalf of the public weal of the medical staff and of Francis. However he seems to have been lukewarm to the suggestion, apparently favoured by May, that Francis should have the C.M.G. saying that he had no objection but \"it was easily earned\". He appears to have suggested that silver inkstands be given to the Colonial Surgeon and Francis but to no", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210705, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "39\n\none else. The general expectation was that May and Francis would be treated in the same way. However, whereas May was awarded the C.M.G., Francis was merely offered an inkstand. The discrepancy was made all the more apparent by the fact that inkstands were also awarded to a number of junior officials.\n\nOn 22 May 1895 the Governor wrote to Francis \"By the direction of the Marquess of Ripon I have great pleasure in forwarding to you the accompanying handsome inkstand. You will find engraved on it the following inscription: 'Presented by the Hong Kong Government with the approval of Her Majesty's Government to J.J. Francis Esq., Q.C., Chairman of the Permanent Committee of the Sanitary Board, in recognition of services rendered during the epidemic of bubonic plague at Hong Kong in 1894'. For those services you have already been thanked by me, and also by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. In again expressing my appreciation of the work which you then performed so willingly and so ably it only remains for me now to ask you to accept this inkstand from the Government of Hong Kong as a slight recognition of your disinterested and valuable labours during the epidemic of 1894\". Francis replied in a letter dated 27th May which he made public. After reviewing the work of the Permanent Committee and his part in it he said that the Public Committee felt that a medal or piece of plate, however valuable, was no sufficient acknowledgement for his services and in the circumstances it was impossible for him to accept the inkstand. He was perfectly satisfied with the thanks of the community and the Governor and Secretary of State and would have sufficient memorial of the plague year in the gold medal to be presented by his fellow citizens and in the state of his fee book. He would have been highly gratified if he had been honoured in the same way as May but the gift of an inkstand was so ludicrously inadequate to the services he had rendered that he could only conclude that the Secretary of State was under a false impression as to their nature. It was usual in England, or at least always had been, to award the honours of the campaign to the leader. He had done his work freely and voluntarily and without a thought, at the time, of anything beyond serving the colony but he now had a duty to speak out in justice to the Public Committee.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211669, "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-1989", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "59\n\ndeities are not pestilence deities. The confusion has been compounded by the Fukienese themselves when over the years they unconsciously accepted all deities bearing the honorific Wang Yeh as protectors from epidemics.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe term Wang Yeh is best translated perhaps as 'The Excellencies'. It was a title given to imperial princes or lords, and interestingly it was also a term used by robbers for their brigand chief. See Plates 9-14 for illustrations to this article.\n\n2 There has long been controversy whether the Pestilence Wang Yeh are shen (Supernatural beings, spirits or deities) or kuei (shades of the human dead and pejoratively used for ghosts, spectres and demons). One god carver in Singapore explained that Pestilence Wang Yeh are \"half-deities\", (pan shen) that is half-shen and half-kuei. However, whilst a number of Pestilence Wang Yeh have ferocious faces, the great majority are portrayed as standard deities with no indication of demonic characteristics. An elderly and authoritative Fukienese god carver in Singapore explained in hushed tones that the Pestilence Wang Yeh are neither gods nor demons, are feared but not revered, and not only protect against plague but also cause it. They are, he repeated, semi-deities from the lower echelons of the bureaucracy of the Afterworld who do not like the human world and therefore cause trouble and bring calamity and misfortune. However, if prayed to they are quite prepared to care for devotees who seek protection. For this reason, more often than not the scale of devotion and offerings to the Pestilence Wang Yeh is greater than that provided to more powerful but orthodox gods.\n\nE\n\nDoolittle J. Social Life of the Chinese 2 Vols: New York: (1865).\n\nA god carver in Singapore suggested that Pestilence Wang Yeh have been given surnames so that no particular surname group is left without a specific deity to worship.\n\nThe only time that all images can be guaranteed to be on their altar in their temple is during the temple's annual festival.\n\nThe altar of Chu Wang Yeh in a temple in Lukang, Taiwan was destroyed by a flood some fifteen years ago. Of the three Wang Yeh images in the temple at that time (Chu, Ting and Nieh) only one image, that of Chu, was recovered. Although a new temple has been built for the three but only containing one image, the one of Chu recovered from the flood, devotees have largely stopped away. They seem to have lost confidence in deities who were unable to protect themselves against disaster.\n\n7\n\n**At Cheung Chau Island in Hong Kong in the afternoon of the third day (of the chiao festival of ritual purification held every ten years) a ('paper boat') ritual to chase away the Demon of Pestilence is performed. A Taoist issues orders to a Heavenly Envoy to carry off the boat and puts the Demon of Plague on a boat and leaves it in the outer seas. The Heavenly Envoy, like the King of Ghosts (Yenlo Wang), has a fierce-looking face. It is an image of about one metre high and the boat is a small one of about one and a half metres long. A Taoist lifts the Heavenly Envoy to a stage in the matshed theatre and chants a question-and-answer song which instructs the Heavenly Envoy. Having finished that, the villagers then put the Heavenly Envoy into the boat loaded with offerings. The boat is taken to the sea shore and left on the waters.\" Tanaka Issei: \"The Jiao festival in Hong Kong and the New Territories\", The Turning of the Tide Religion in China Today: Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, and Oxford University Press (Hong Kong); (1989), p. 287.\n\n8 There is a K'ang Yuanshuai, ie Marshal K'ang, on several Taiwanese altars where he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212318, "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-1990", "page_number": 260, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "237\n\nwould not usually condescend to undertake manual work the dairy created quite a stir by employing milkmaids from England. However when the Scottish parasitologist, Dr. (later Sir) Patrick Manson, arrived in Hong Kong he was appalled by the unsanitary living conditions and took a special interest in the local milk supply. This led to the founding of the Dairy Farm (well known today for its chain of 'Wellcome' supermarkets), in 1886, in spite of the fact that the Chinese had no place for dairy produce in their cuisine and many found the taste offensive.\n\nIn addition to Dr. Manson, W.H. Ray, J.B. Coughtrie, Granville Sharp, Phineas Ryrie and Sir Paul Chater were directors. The aim was to provide a hygienic supply of milk from cows kept on about 300 acres of good land in the neighbourhood of where the Wah Fu housing estate now stands, on Hong Kong Island. Although the site is exposed to the south-westerly breezes in the hot summer, which helped to keep the cows in better condition, all food-stuffs and building materials had, in those times, to be shouldered from the sea shore to the top of the hill by coolies. The subtropical climate affected the imported animals and the bulls were not keen to perform their duties during hot weather. After a disappointing first year of trading, nonetheless, in spite of disease among cattle and plague among citizens, a profit was recorded.\n\nMeanwhile Dr Manson returned to England, in 1889, to help found the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.\n\nA bad outbreak of plague struck the Colony in 1894 when Dairy Farm was brought to a standstill. This was followed by a rinderpest epidemic which affected most of its herd. Cheuk Yau, a cowman, had the initiative to drive 30 animals away from the infected area, and he brought them back later when the danger had passed. Ah Cheuk died soon afterwards but his widow received a special allowance from the company, and his two sons were given jobs with the firm.\n\nThe herd was later replenished with Frisians from Scotland, and a farmer, James Walker (also Scottish), was sent out by Dr. Manson in 1890 to be the first manager of the farm. He remained in the post until 1920 (some records say 1919).\n\nBy 1918 (some records say 1916), the original Hong Kong Ice", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212882, "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-1992", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "176\n\nfrom other places [to Shek Lei Tau].\n\nIt is now clear that we have come to the end of [the available] burial ground and that there is nowhere to which we can effect removal [of the graves]. We therefore appeal to you in grief and resentment for your understanding and support in this matter. We shall be most grateful if you will advise the concerned authority to rescind the order and cease development in the area.\n\n15\n\nNo further action was taken by the Lands Department at the time, and during my three years as Regional Secretary, New Territories, I was concerned to retain the grave area and wrote to the department on their behalf. So far as I am aware, the rights of the Kau Wah Keng people to this remaining part of their traditional burial area are still being respected.\n\nCharitable Graves\n\nAnother kind of grave should also be mentioned. This is the yi chung or 'charitable grave' which was built to contain the remains of persons without descendants. Sometimes it was provided by a charitable society or a conscientious local organization, or at times by worthy individuals, after or during an epidemic which had killed numbers of people. This action was taken by the Tung Wah Hospital of Hong Kong and by the Lok Sin Tong of New Kowloon after the Plague of 1894. It has also been taken by rural committees in the postwar New Territories, and by temples and other religious bodies, for the remains of persons who were killed or died during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong between 1941-1945. Several such graves were provisioned by the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee.\n\nA grave of this kind had to be moved and reprovisioned at Sai Cho Wan on Tsing Yi Island when that part of the Island was being developed for industry in 1977. The Tsing Yi Rural Committee took up this responsibility, writing to the District Office to explain the position and ask for money to effect the removal and reconstruction in another place. The letter is not without charm and interest:\n\nBefore the War, Tsing Yi Island was a well-wooded spot, with lots of birds and wild-life. Magpies, partridges,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212940, "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": 8, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT\n\nHON AUDITOR'S REPORT\n\nARTICLES:\n\nKarina Lam Wai-Ling - The Concern of a Nation's Face: Evidence in the Chinese Press Coverage of Sports. ............................ 1\n\nJanet George - The Lady Doctor's 'Warm Welcome': Dr Alice Sibree and the Early Years of Hong Kong's Maternity Service 1903-1909 .. 81\n\nKeith Stevens - Three Fukienese [Min-nan] Cults: Pao-sheng Ta-ti, Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih and San P'ing Tsu-shih ....................... 111\n\nGerald Choa - The Lowson Diary: A Record of the Early Phases of the Bubonic Plague Epidemic in Hong Kong 1894 ................ 129\n\nPatrick Hase - Eastern Peace: Sha Tau Kok Market in 1925 ............ 147\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nMary Pang - Reflexivity in Research and a Question of Culture ..... 203\n\nDan Waters - Tales of a Venerable Chinese Gentleman ................. 211\n\nDan Waters - Taking a Godson ............................................... 215\n\nGeoffrey Roper - Visits to the Swire Institute of Marine Science at Cape D'Aguilar 1993 and 1994 ............................................... 217\n\nBOOK REVIEWS ....................................................................... 221\n\nvii\n\nix\n\nxvi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213080, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "The Lowson Diary: \n\nA Record of the Early Phase \n\nof the \n\nHong Kong Bubonic Plague* \n\n1894 \n\nG.H. Choa \n\n129 \n\nOne hundred years ago, a Bubonic Plague Epidemic broke out in Hong Kong. It originated from Yunnan where the disease was first detected probably in 1850. After an epidemic which occurred in 1860, it became endemic and in 1893, it spread across Guangxi to reach Guangdong early in 1894. Cases began to appear in Guangzhou in March and Hong Kong was hit in May.\n\nBriefly, plague is an infection of rats by the plague bacillus which is transmitted to human beings by the bite of fleas infesting the infected rats. Crowded and insanitary conditions in which people and rats co-exist are therefore breeding grounds for the disease. Spreading is by infected rats carried in any kind of transport from one place to another, infecting the local rat population. The most common form, bubonic plague, is so called because of the appearance of swollen glands in the arm-pits or groins of the patients; 'bubo' means swollen glands. The condition was almost invariably fatal, but can now be treated by antibiotics such as streptomycin and tetracycline. It was during this last world-wide epidemic that the two causes of the disease, the plague bacillus and the flea as a vector carrying it, were discovered in Hong Kong and India respectively.\n\nThe Hong Kong Epidemic went on for thirty years, from 1894 to 1923. During the period, 21,867 cases were reported with 20,489 deaths, a mortality rate of 93.7%. The first cases of the disease were discovered among residents in the Tai Ping Shan District in West Point. There, the poorer class Chinese lived in appallingly overcrowded and squalid conditions without proper ventilation, sanitary services, drainage, and water supply. As soon as it was realised that plague had broken out, the place was immediately disinfected, but the disease continued to be prevalent.\n\n* A talk given to the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society on October 5th, 1994.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213081, "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": 149, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "130\n\nTo eradicate this focus of infection, it was resumed by the Government the following year. In the subsequent re-development, the old houses were demolished and replaced by new ones provided with windows, privies and space in front and behind as required by newly enacted legislation. Many other actions were taken to deal with the situation. The whole of Hong Kong was subjected to a thorough cleaning up. The laws related to public health were amended to impose strict measures against the Epidemic, including compulsory reporting and removal of patients. To enforce this, house-to-house search was conducted by British soldiers, against the violent objection of the Chinese community who regarded it as unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of their homes. Additional hospital facilities for the isolation of patients were hastily made and as the epidemic progressed, more had to be opened up from time to time.\n\nWithin the administration, responsibility for the health of Hong Kong was divided between the Sanitary Board and the Colonial Surgeon at that time. The membership of the Sanitary Board was as follows: the Registrar General, the equivalent of a Secretary for Chinese Affairs, as Chairman, the Surveyor General, the equivalent of a Director of Public Works, the Captain Superintendent of Police, the Colonial Surgeon, and five other members. After the Epidemic broke out, a Permanent Committee was appointed to recommend necessary legislation and bye-laws for taking vigorous action. In the post of Colonial Surgeon, the equivalent of the present-day Director of Health, was Dr. P.B.C. Ayres who had held it since 1872. Under him was Dr. J.A. Lowson, whose diary we are going to look into.\n\nJames Alfred Lowson was born in 1866. He graduated from Edinburgh University in medicine in 1888 at the age of 22. He came to Hong Kong, probably in or before 1892, because in October that year he represented Hong Kong at interport cricket in Shanghai. On the return trip, his ship, the S.S. Bokhara, was sunk off the Pescadores in a typhoon. He and one other member of the cricket team were among only twenty-five survivors out of about 150 passengers and crew on board. In 1894, at the age of 28, his posting was medical superintendent of the Government Civil Hospital, at the onset of the Epidemic. At that time, in the medical and health service, there were only three full-time medical officers, Dr. Ayres, Dr. J.M. Atkinson and Dr. Lowson, in that order of seniority, assisted by some private practitioners on a part-time basis. In the March 1st entry of his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213082, "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": 150, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "131\n\ndiary, Lowson recorded that Dr. Atkinson, who succeeded Dr. Ayres as Colonial Surgeon later, went on leave on that day, leaving him with an address in England. It was because of Atkinson's absence that Lowson found himself in Atkinson's position as second-in-command in the early phase of the Epidemic.\n\nIt is not known until recently that Dr. Lowson had kept a diary. To tell you how the diary was brought to light, I have to take you up to Caine Lane which is below Caine Road on the mid-level of Hong Kong Island. There stands an old building of typical neo-classical design which was built in 1905. Used by the Department of Health as a storage depot in recent years, it was formerly the Government Pathological Institute. Having decided to declare it as a historic building for preservation in 1990, the Government further agreed to turn it over to the Hong Kong College of Pathologists to convert it into the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences. By this transformation, to quote from the Introduction in a brochure prepared by the architects, the idea that 'matching history with the appropriateness of building function lends relevance and a sense of continuity,' is realised. To launch an appeal for donations, Professor Faith Ho of the Department of Pathology, University of Hong Kong and President of the Hong Kong College of Pathologists, gave an interview to the South China Morning Post. The article, which appeared on February 13th, 1993, came to the notice of Mrs. Frances Ashburner, a grand-daughter of Dr. Lowson, now living in Australia. She then had the diary photographed in microfiche and sent it to Professor Ho, who kindly gave me a copy. I have to thank both Professor Ho and Mrs. Ashburner for permission to present and publish this paper.\n\nBefore we open the diary, we should take a look at the book itself which is also of historic interest. It was printed and published by Kelly and Walsh, the oldest bookshop in Hong Kong, now still in business in Prince's Building. The title on the cover reads: \"The Imperial English and Chinese Almanac for 1894, being the 57th and 58th year of the Reign of H.M. Queen Victoria and the 20th and 21st years of the Kuang-Hsu Reign. No. 1, Price One Dollar, Interleaved with Blotting Paper.\"\n\nThe first thing that struck me when I turned the pages of the diary was the handwriting which was bad, uneven and untidy. Some words, written in bold and large letters were undecipherable. The impression I got was that most of the entries were made by Lowson at the end of a long day.\n\nPage 150\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213083, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "132\n\nwhen he was tired out or feeling angry and frustrated. However, he made some annotations at a later date, 1933, on some of the entries and these were written in very clear, tidy, and easily legible handwriting. He was then sixty-seven, two years before he died. The diary must have meant a lot to him that he should review it forty years after the events. Maybe it was then that he decided to bequeath it to posterity with the hope that it might see the light of day, one day. Lowson began his diary in January 1894 and stopped writing after July. It was in the three-month period from May to July that he recorded the day-to-day happenings in connection with the Epidemic. He put down some statistical and clinical data in the first few days but, afterwards, he wrote mainly about the development of the situation, the measures taken to handle it, and of even greater interest, his clashes with the authorities. By editing the diary's contents, it is possible to write a coherent account of the early phase of the Epidemic, and this is what I have attempted to do. Lowson had also kept several pages of the Hong Kong Weekly Press dated May, June, and July 1894, on which weekly summaries of the events related to the Epidemic were reported. Besides, I am most grateful to Dr. John Nicholls of the Department of Pathology, Hong Kong University, for giving me a copy of a Report Lowson submitted to the Governor dated May 16th. Incidentally, the handwriting in this Report was as good and clear as the annotations. From these other sources, I have been able to obtain further data and information to elaborate on some of the entries I have chosen to present.\n\nTo us, the diary came to life on May 4th. Lowson wrote that he went to Canton by night boat and mentioned seven names. It would seem that they were going there to play some match, for the next day, the 5th, he wrote 'Murray and Potts licked hollow.' However, in his Report to the Governor, he stated that his main purpose was to see for himself the state of affairs as there had been reports that bubonic plague had broken out there.\n\nMay 6th\n\nWent into town to see plague and saw a large number of cases\n\nMay 7th\n\nBack to Hong Kong. In Club 6 pm. Rumour of plague. Saw Ram who said not so and described what had occurred\n\nRam was E.A. Ram, who was acting sanitary superintendent, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213084, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "133\n\nsecretary of the Sanitary Board. He turned out to be wrong.\n\nMay 8th\n\nI am diagnosed A. Hung as suffering from plague and isolated him\n\nThe identity of A. Hung was revealed in the Report to the Governor. He was a ward boy in presumably the Government Civil Hospital. He was admitted during Lowson's absence in Canton with the diagnosis of remittent fever but having seen him Lowson diagnosed it as plague. This then was the first case he saw in the Hong Kong Epidemic. Action had now to be taken as described in the following entry:\n\nMay 10th\n\nOrder from HE OAG for report on plague in Canton in morning Order an four Taler to visit Tung Wah where I found about 20 cases of bubonic plague Visited Tung Wah again with Ayres at 2:30 pm Sanitary Board at 4:00 pm Long Meeting Gave order to have Hygeia over in morning and prepare for epidemic Government proclaimed Colony suffering from plague\n\nThe Governor then was Sir William Robinson. He must have been away and the person acting for him, known as the Officer Administrating the Government, could be the General Officer Commanding. The Hygeia was a hospital ship moored in the harbour for the isolation of patients suffering from infectious diseases such as small-pox and cholera. The Tung Wah was the same hospital which still stands on its original site, on Po Yan Street in Sai Ying Pun District.\n\nWe will now follow the situation as it developed from the entries of the next few days:\n\nMay 11th\n\nHygeia over Sanitary Board in pm passing bye-laws 13 deaths from plague\n\nMay 12th\n\nSome difficulty with moving patients but got them all over before 4 pm Saw all settled Rabbit and Guinea pig injected from A Hung 26 deaths reported from plague", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213086, "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "135\n\nBoard but both the Governor and the Colonial Secretary intervened. Consequently the Glass-works hospital was operated as a branch of the Tung Wah. It should be noted that the tradition at the Tung Wah Hospital was broken later during the Epidemic. Western medicine was introduced and a graduate of the Hong Kong College of Medicine was appointed as its superintendent.\n\nMeanwhile the situation took a different turn. At first it was thought that Europeans would escape from the infection because of their better living conditions and cleaner habits. The belief was shattered soon, Lowson recorded on May 29th: 'the first Shropshire case.' The Shropshire Regiment was stationed in Hong Kong at the time. Three hundred troops under eight officers were brought in to help in the cleaning up operation, including house to house search. Some soldiers caught the disease. One of the victims was an officer, Captain Vesey. 'Vesey got it,' wrote Lowson on May 31st. On June 2nd he went to see Vesey, on the 3rd Vesey was said to be better but he died at 9:45 p.m. on the 4th. In an annotation, Lowson wrote:\n\nMay 31st\n\nCaptain Vesey's attack was a serious business as up to this time we had everyone thinking Europeans would not get it and there was much consternation. The flight from the Colony to Japan and home was now almost a panic.\n\nOn June 7th he wrote that he offered to take sole charge of the sick at a meeting of the Sanitary Board but the offer was turned down. On June 10th there was some talk about the doctors refusing to work. In annotation on the entry on the 11th, he explained why.\n\nJune 11th\n\nThe trouble on last page regarding refusal to work arose from not one of the Permanent Committee knowing the state of affairs in town - May knew something but others did not but complained and made idiotic suggestions. The doctors were led up to having all the dangerous work to do and never one minute off duty, hence rebellion.\n\nMay was F.H. May, the Captain Superintendent of Police, who was a member of the Sanitary Board. In the diary, three names appeared a few times: Dr Penny, a naval surgeon, Dr. James, a major in the Army Medical", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213087, "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "136\n\nService, and Dr. Molyneux, who came from Ningpo. There might be others helping out but these three evidently were doing more work, especially James who, Lowson recorded, was later appointed to the Sanitary Board. Though under strain and feeling frustrated, no one actually went on strike. So hard pressed were Ayres and Lowson that they had been sick but fortunately they did not contract plague as reported by the Hong Kong Weekly Press. Lowson was offered help from a probably unexpected source but it turned out to be no help at all. He wrote on May 22nd that 'the Alice Memorial students volunteered to help. But on May 31st: 'the Alice Memorial fellows scooted. Frightened to death.' However on June 8th they returned and were assigned to 'run the new pig sty.' These were students of the Hong Kong College of Medicine, which was established in 1887. The teaching hospital was known as the Alice Memorial.\n\nAs the disease continued to spread more facilities had to be made. Another make-shift hospital was opened in a pig and cattle depot, referred to as the new pig sty just now. This was to replace the Glass-works hospital which had to be closed because of its appalling conditions. On the 22nd Lowson mentioned that patients were diverted to the Alice Memorial Hospital. This however was not the teaching hospital of the Hong Kong College of Medicine but a matshed situated in the Kennedy Town Hospital compound. Also, at the request of the Chinese Community, operations were mounted to send patients back to Canton by junks. After waiting for junks to be ready on June 11th and 12th, on the 13th, Lowson wrote: 'loaded 45 patients for Canton in junk. 3 died.' and on the 15th: 'loaded junk for Canton, 36.' On June 26th there was 'news of the establishment of a hospital in Laichikok.' This was not ready until July 13th when Lowson wrote:\n\nJuly 13th\n\nGot ready to transfer to Laichukok Not one went All refused Went down myself\n\nIn an annotation, he explained: \"The Chinese refused to go to Laichikok Hospital because they thought they were sure to die.'\n\nAnd now to the discovery of the plague bacillus in the Hong Kong Epidemic, an event which earned for Hong Kong a place in medical history. Dr. Shibasaburo Kitasato, an eminent Japanese bacteriologist who was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213088, "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": 156, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "137\n\ndirector of the Institute of Infectious Diseases in Japan, arrived in Hong Kong with two assistants, Drs. Aoyama and Ishiyumi on June 12th. They were taken around the next day. On June 14th, Lowson wrote 'Kitasato discovered bacillus.' The following is quoted from a report in the Hong Kong Weekly Press dated July 15th on an address given by Kitasato: 'In the first day he was able to discover the bacillus in the bubo, lungs, liver and spleen of dead patients and he immediately made a culture in agar agar. On the same day he took with all due precaution some blood from the finger tips of patients suffering from the disease in a severe form and again found the bacillus. He then inoculated mice, guinea pigs and rabbits with the virus and in every instance the animals so inoculated displayed the symptoms of the disease and died.' Kitasato worked in a matshed within the Kennedy Town Hospital compound and made his discovery there. Following the discovery a telegram was sent immediately to the medical journal, the Lancet; later a full-length report was dispatched on July 10th. Both Aoyama and Ishiyumi contracted the disease, the former from nicking his finger while doing an autopsy. He survived to write a paper entitled “On the Plague Epidemic in Hong Kong in the years 1894 to 1895”.\n\nThe bacillus was also discovered by the French bacteriologist, Dr. Alexandre Yersin of Saigon's Pasteur Institute, who arrived in Hong Kong on June 15th. A few days later, he too found the bacillus. Lowson wrote on June 23rd: 'Got microscopes again out. Yersin got his bacillus.' Lowson later added that Yersin refused to work in the same matshed with Kitasato and it took a few days to erect another for him. Yersin reported and sent material back to the Pasteur Institute in Paris. After close scrutiny of the findings of both Kitasato and Yersin in their published papers by independent observers, doubt was cast on Kitasato's bacillus. The difference in the characteristics between his and Yersin's bacillus is highly technical and need not concern us. In the end, Yersin's was regarded as the real discovery, and the generic name given to the plague and allied organisms is subsequently Yersinia in his honour. To complete the story, although both of them knew that dead rats found in infected areas died of plague, they were unaware of the part played by fleas, which was discovered later by the Indian Plague Investigation Committee and others in the Indian Epidemic, about 1906-1908.\n\nThis then is an account of the situation as it developed in the first few months of the Epidemic as related in Lowson's diary. In several entries", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213089, "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": 157, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "138\n\nin the diary there were comments and criticisms of people Lowson had to deal with during the Epidemic, all being his superiors in the Government service. I will now read out the relevant entries in chronological order, with added comments, and you will hear another story which has not been told before.\n\nMay 25th\n\nLockhart angry because he could not get himself in the limelight He was of no assistance with the Chinese who distrusted him as the British distrusted him He was simply pushed aside by Francis and the rest His spite therefore landed on Ayres and me\n\nLockhart was J.H. (later Sir James) Stewart Lockhart who was Registrar General and acting Colonial Secretary at the time, also chairman of the Sanitary Board. Francis was J.J. Francis a Queen's Counsel, who was one of the five non-official members and chairman of the Permanent Committee.\n\nMay 26th\n\nSaw Governor anent Lockhart's idiotic interference\n\nMay 29th\n\nFrancis would listen to nobody Never went to infected areas therefore did not know the difficulties and what was happening Later on he went to some hospitals where there was no danger\n\nJune 30th\n\nBoth above (Aoyama and Ishiyumi) bad Brought up Kitasato and crowd here to stay They had been fired out of the hotel so I took them all up to house and got them in a matshed Lockhart afterwards tried to curry favour by saying that he had this done but he knew nothing about it for a week and actually prepared to censure me for doing it\n\nThis needs explaining. Kitasato and his two assistants were staying at the Hong Kong Hotel. Aoyama and Ishiyumi took ill on the 28th and were removed to the Hygeia. Lowson put Kitasato up in a matshed near his house. Apparently he did not ask for Lockhart's permission and Lockhart was not pleased, but one wonders why he should for such an obvious decision and move under the circumstances.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213091, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "140\n\nnot see the graves. About the use of lime as a disinfectant it appeared that this was being understood by the public, for Lowson added in an annotation to the July 16th entry that 'the lime which had been supplied to Laichikok and graveyard was brought over to Hong Kong and sold at high price to the Chinese in the streets. Or, was he talking about corruption and a black market?\n\nThe relationship between Lowson and Cantlie would seem to be strained at this stage. Cantlie made himself look ridiculous by writing to the Sanitary Board that the insanitary conditions in Victoria Town had nothing to do with the Epidemic. He was openly challenged by Major James in a letter to the Hong Kong Weekly Press. They made up afterwards. After they died together on July 21st, Lowson wrote: 'At this time he had ceased to be simply causing trouble and angry because he had not been taken more notice of but he began to see our side was right.'\n\nJuly 17th\n\nA meeting of the Permanent Committee Lockhart, myself and others A warm discussion arose and I had to tell Lockhart and Francis that they were both damned cowards as they were afraid to go near the plague cases They wanted many things done which were simply impossible When I called them damned cowards old Ayres backed me up and there was some scene May did not say much but silently agreed with us\n\nLowson knew that by calling Lockhart and Francis cowards to their face he could not expect to get any recognition for his work. He put down on this entry in bold letters: CMG strip. Also, 'that settled the question of future honours as neither would forgive me and they were bitter enemies for years.' In those days he could indeed expect the CMG, as the Order of the British Empire which later becomes the normal award for civil servants was not instituted until the reign of George V. However, he received some other rewards as we shall soon see.\n\nJuly 19th\n\nGovernor really played the bloody ox Feeling very bitter and strained at this time as Governor and Lockhart felt everybody was thinking them nonentities and fools and they had a very bad time It was entirely their own blame\n\nI think we have had enough of the bickering. Lowson ended the diary", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213092, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "141\n\nwith some happier notes.\n\nJuly 23rd\n\nBy this time we had broken down the opposition and matters began to run smoothly\n\nAnd after a long gap, the final entry,\n\nSeptember 3rd\n\nI left for Japan about this time spending all September in Colony In Japan the guest of the Japanese Government and made a national hero Valuable presents numerous and suite of rooms in the Imperial Hotel\n\nThis red-carpet treatment must have been recommended by Kitasato in appreciation of the help given him by Lowson in making the discovery that earned him international fame\n\nHaving read the diary, I learnt more about the situation as it developed from day to day but it came as a surprise to me that so much had gone on behind the scenes arising from clashes of personalities The three important people whose responsibility in the fight against the Epidemic was no less onerous than that of Ayres or Lowson were called: fools, cowards and nonentities. They were the Governor, who was in overall charge as head of the administration, the Colonial Secretary, who was the Governor's principal assistant, and the Chairman of the Permanent Committee of the Sanitary Board which was set up to recommend on legislation Were the accusations justified? We do not know, but it would be interesting to find out something about these three.\n\nSir William Robinson was Governor of Hong Kong from December 1891 to January 1898. His governorship covered a most difficult period in the history of Hong Kong, during which 'misfortunes after misfortunes assailed the colony in swift succession', to quote from Sayers. The year 1894 was a particularly bad one for Robinson and Hong Kong. His wife died but not from plague. Two very severe typhoons struck Hong Kong in September and October, causing much devastation and many casualties. Above all, there was the Epidemic with its effect on the economy and other aspects of life in the Territory. Robinson reported to the Secretary of State for the Colonies that 'Without exaggeration, I may assert that so far as trade and commerce are concerned the plague has assumed the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213093, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "142\n\nimportance of an unexampled calamity. However in spite of difficulties in balancing the budget, many public works projects were completed during his term. He governed with a liberal-mind for he increased the number of unofficial seats in both the Legislative and the Executive Councils in response to a demand for reforming the government. He also agreed to have an unofficial majority on the Sanitary Board. Generally regarded as an able administrator he stayed for fully six years as Governor, the longest tenure held by any governor thus far. In the history of modern China, he would be remembered as the Governor of Hong Kong who imposed a five-year ban on Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who then went to London and was kidnapped but rescued by Sir James Cantlie but that is another story.\n\nSir James Stewart Lockhart, the main target of Lowson's attack, was Registrar General and acting Colonial Secretary in 1894. There is a biography of him written by Shiona Airlie entitled 'The Thistle and the Bamboo.' He emerged from it as a capable but ambitious man who was eager to seek promotion ahead of his time, and in spite of what Lowson said of him, he got on well with the Chinese. The function of a Registrar General in the early years was to deal with Chinese affairs, not legal matters as at present, in fact, the initial title was Protector of the Chinese. In this office, Lockhart maintained good relations with the directors of Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk and the District Watch Committee, the three main representative bodies of the Chinese community. As to his character, he was said to possess 'humoured geniality which endeared him to his contemporaries' but 'occasionally his patience snapped and from a man considered in the main to be warm-hearted and genial, he became angry and stubborn.' He made at least one important contribution in connection with the Epidemic. After the Resumption of Tai Ping Shan Ordinance was passed, action had to be taken to demolish the old houses. Both landlords and tenants put up a spirited resistance as they both had to suffer financial loss, no rent to be collected by the landlords for sometime and no cheap lodgings for the tenants who were mostly coolies. The coolies threatened to go on strike which would paralyse the city in already very difficult circumstances. Lockhart, who was fluent in Chinese, having been a cadet in the Hong Kong Civil Service, was instrumental in solving the dispute which ended amicably. In 1895, at the age of thirty seven, he became Colonial Secretary when his acting appointment was substantiated. In addition, he was appointed as Special Commissioner for the New Territories in 1897 after the lease was settled. In 1902, he went to Weihaiwei as its first Civil Commissioner. On his departure the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213094, "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "143\n\nnewspapers were to recall that 'he was an exceedingly courteous and popular official and earned the respect of all with whom he was brought into contact' all except Lowson perhaps.\n\nJohn Jonathan Francis was first admitted as an attorney and solicitor in 1870 and called to the Bar in 1877. In 1887, he became the third barrister in Hong Kong to become a Queen's Counsel. He had served as a police magistrate and a puisne judge. For public service, he was once a captain in the Hong Kong Volunteers Corps, standing counsel for the Hong Kong College of Medicine when it was being established, and Chairman of the Permanent Committee of the Sanitary Board. There is an amusing and unflattering story about him told by Norton-Kyshe which gives us an insight into his character. He was presented with a silver ink-stand in 1895 in recognition of his services during the Epidemic but he returned it because he considered himself slighted by the treatment he received as compared with Mr. May who had been his colleague on the Committee.' May was awarded the CMG which Francis thought should also be given to him instead of a mere ink-stand.\n\nHowever, two other government officials, the Colonial Surgeon and the Captain Superintendent of Police, whose parts were of great importance, apparently escaped Lowson's wrath. Dr. Phineas Ayres held the office for twenty-four years, from 1872 to 1897, the longest ever in the history of the medical service. After he took up his post, he had been very critical of the sanitary conditions in the native quarters in his annual reports. Despite his warnings, it was almost ten years later than Osbert Chadwick was asked to conduct a survey. In his Report published in 1882, Chadwick made many recommendations to improve the conditions. Although a Sanitary Board was constituted to take action, still not much was done for another ten years until the Plague Epidemic burst upon the scene. Endacott wrote that Ayres criticised the Sanitary Board for its 'long, wordy, windy, desultory rambling discussions, ending in nothing being done' in 1895, the second year of the Epidemic. One can see why Lowson had some respect for him. Again quoting from Endacott, Robinson described Ayres as 'having a rather foolish manner, but he is in perfect possession of his senses', and acknowledged that 'he had warned the Colony continuously of the evil sanitary conditions.'\n\nMr. May won universal acclaim and admiration for the drive and energy he showed in carrying out his duties as head of the police force. Sayers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213095, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "144\n\ndescribed him as 'ubiquitous and indefatigable, burying, demolishing, disinfecting, burning and evacuating during the Epidemic.' He eventually succeeded Lockhart as Colonial Secretary in 1902 and as Sir Henry May, became Governor of Hong Kong in 1912, the first local cadet officer to have risen to the highest rank.\n\nFor details about Lowson's subsequent career and life, I am indebted to Mrs. Ashburner for giving me some biographical notes. He came back to Hong Kong to continue his work in the Epidemic after his holiday in Japan. In 1896, he married Miss Isabel Lammert at the St. John's Cathedral. His bride was the second daughter of G.R. Lammert, the auctioneer, whose firm Lammert & Co. was the first of its kind in the Territory, with rooms in Duddell Street for many years. He went on leave in 1897 but soon after went to India at the request of the Secretary of State to advise the government in their efforts to stamp out plague. However, he did not stay long. To quote from an obituary notice, 'he quarrelled with the authorities in a very downright fashion after a few months and took himself to England. This sounds like Hong Kong all over again!' He was back in Hong Kong after this episode. In 1901, he became ill with tuberculosis. On sick leave in Australia, he was asked to advise the Government of South Australia about plague. Eventually, in 1902, he was invalided out of the service at the age of 36 only. He was awarded a gold medal, but not the CMG which was what he would have liked. Back in Scotland, after a period of convalescence, he was active in public affairs in his home town, Forfar. He was elected to the Town Council in 1905 and served continuously for thirty years, during which he was Provost from 1925 to 1931. During the First World War, he served as a Medical Officer of Health for troops quartered in the area. He died in 1935, aged 69.\n\nFrom a number of obituary notices which Mrs. Ashburner kindly sent me, I have gathered some descriptions of Lowson. 'He had a most forceful personality.' 'Pale faced, bright-eyed and black-haired, he stood about five feet ten and had hardly any flesh on his bones.' That was his appearance. About his work on the Forfar Town Council, 'Into the duties of his office he entered with characteristic energy. It was not long before he had shaken his seniors out of their self-complacency.' Also, 'He criticised at every opportunity the Council's methods of doing business and he attempted and did indeed bring about many much-needed reforms.' Another passage: 'He was looked upon not unreasonably as something of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213096, "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": 164, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "145\n\na file-brand, his actions were dictated by his intense interest in his native town and its welfare.' A final judgment: “No matter how bitterly he might differ with any of his colleagues, and in his early years in the Council particularly he figured in many a heated scene, he left all rancour behind at the Council table. Next day he would greet his opponents as cheerfully as though nothing had happened to ruffle them and be good friends.\" We know that in Hong Kong, Lockhart and Francis had not responded to him,\n\nIn the end, how should we appraise Lowson and his diary? You will agree with me that he would appear to have been a rather difficult man; otherwise, he would not have clashed with authorities wherever he worked, in Hong Kong, India, and Forfar. You will recall that at the early stage of the Epidemic, he, a relatively junior doctor, offered to take sole charge but was turned down. This shows that he was probably the type who would prefer to give rather than take orders. But he was undoubtedly a forthright and strict character, uncompromising in disputes when he thought he was right and entirely honest in his intentions. I am sure all of us have come across such traits among our friends and colleagues. But neither Lowson nor history should accuse any of the people he criticised of mishandling the situation in any way. There was nothing else they could have done without the means that we now have at our disposal and the knowledge of the disease we now possess. Lowson's diary, though covering only the first phase, is undoubtedly a valuable addition to the literature on the Hong Kong Plague Epidemic now that it has become available.\n\nIn recent years, there has been much talk about Hong Kong's resilience, its capacity to recover quickly from one financial crisis after another, becoming even more prosperous each time. We seem to have forgotten Hong Kong's resilience in having survived the devastations of diseases, such as malarial fever in its infancy, bubonic plague in its adolescence, and occasional outbreaks of cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, and others all through the years. There was a time when living in Hong Kong was a hazard, for one never knew when life or health would be threatened. The Plague Epidemic of 1894 was a real calamity for Hong Kong, as Sir William Robinson had said. But it can be regarded as a watershed for, after it, Hong Kong became a healthier and cleaner place. To mark its centenary, let us pay tribute to all those who contributed in the long fight against the Epidemic in their various capacities, as administrators, legislators, and medical and health officers, among them our unsung hero, Dr. J. A. Lowson.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213189, "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-1994", "page_number": 11, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "2 July\n\n7 July\n\n16 Sept\n\n5 October\n\n7 October\n\n21 October\n\n11 November\n\n9 December\n\n10 December\n\n16 December\n\nRescue Archaeology in Hong Kong Mr S.T Chin (This was combined with a visit to the Antiquities & Monuments Office)\n\nAnthony Lawrence Retrospective (This was combined with a dinner at the China Club)\n\nThe Coming Man 19th Century American Perceptions of the Chinese. Professor Philip Choy and Professor Marion Hom\n\nThe Lowson Diary A Record of the Early Phase of the Bubonic Epidemic in Hong Kong in 1894 Professor G H Choa\n\nTwo lectures on Vietnam. Dr Norman Owen and Dr Patrick Hase\n\nHong Kong's Wild Places - Changes through the Centuries Mr Edward Stokes\n\nDisappearing Trades and Artisans of Old Hong Kong\n\nShanghailanders. Colonial Attitudes and Informal Empire 1843-1943. Dr. R.A. Bickers\n\nBusiness in China An Historical Perspective (Held jointly with the South China Research Circle at the University of Science and Technology)\n\nCompetition and Organisation A Re-examination of Chinese Business Practices Professor Gary Hamilton\n\n1995\n\n20 January\n\n13 February\n\n8 March\n\nA Case Study of a Chinese Funeral Dr. Dan Waters\n\nAjanta Cave Paintings Mr Benoy K Behl\n\nAncient Monuments of Angkor Then Preservation and Future Dr Richard Engelhardt\n\nSome of the lecturers are here this evening as guests of the Society and I hope you will re-introduce yourselves to us, and members will welcome them in our midst. And on the subject of lectures and visits the Council is always very receptive to ideas - not only ideas but offers to lead a visit.\n\nLectures and activities are not however the only areas for which the Society is well known. We again make our views known to the public, we publish an annual journal, and the next one is likely to appear shortly: we celebrate anniversaries, and we will be bringing out a 35th anniversary publication, edited by Dr. Elizabeth Sinn entitled \"Villages\" with many original contributions by local members. We hopefully provide an impetus", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213501, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 97, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "65\n\nactually a few wretched huts or matsheds built on shelves cut out on the acclivity of a ridge. They were filled with Indian sepoys, the Bengal Volunteers. A supplement of a survey of Hong Kong in the Canton Press dated February 1842 gave us information about the Sai Ying Pun Barracks in 1842.\n\n\"A half-moon battery or platform which is to mount some half-dozen heavy guns on carriages is constructing at the extreme west of the town to protect the barracks there and at which are stationed the Bengal Volunteers\" (Sayer, 1937, P. 209).\n\nThe sanitary conditions of the barracks in those days were largely neglected. The water closet system that existed in the barracks was unfortunately unsuited to a tropical climate. Epidemics of fever spread through Hong Kong every summer in those early years of British occupation. In 1842, the Indian troops, stationed in Hong Kong lost nearly half their number. The death rate for the army in Hong Kong for that year was 25%.\n\nIn 1843, the sanitary condition of Hong Kong was most alarming. In the summer of 1843 an extraordinary outbreak of malaria fever occurred which during the six months from May to October carried off by death 24% of the troops and 10% of the European civilians. It was noticed that this virulent fever ravaged chiefly the extreme west and east ends of the British settlement. (It was due to the opening up of the ground by the troops in making roads or new buildings created marshy conditions that helped to breed mosquitoes). At the West Point Barracks in Sai Ying Pun where the left wing of the 55th regiment quartered, sickness was so universal that the regiment lost 100 men between June and the middle of August. On 20 July 1843, the troops stationed there were hastily removed on board ships in the harbour and the Barracks were abandoned and ordered to be razed to the ground. At the recommendation of the Committee of Public Health and Cleanliness, the ground in the neighbourhood was ordered to be levelled and well-drained.\n\nSince Sai Ying Pun had proved to be one of the most unhealthy spots in the Island, the main forces of the army began to move out of the place. The Royal Navy also found the naval base east of Belcher's Bay unhealthy and lay fully exposed to the fury of a typhoon and moved.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213505, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "69\n\ndue to high density made the spread of diseases rapid and easy. In 1888, a very serious epidemic of smallpox broke out among the inhabitants of the district. In 1894 Bubonic Plague fell upon the district with a vengeance.\n\nProbably the terrible disease was introduced into Hong Kong from Canton. Unfortunately, Hong Kong had for several months been suffering from excessive drought and consequently a very limited water supply. The local overcrowding and insanitary conditions tended to favour the spread of the disease. It was not surprising to learn that two or three days later after the first appearance of the plague (11th May 1894) it assumed an epidemic form.\n\nThe plague had gained a firm footing in the most densely populated districts of Hong Kong. In Sai Ying Pun, First, Second, and Third Streets were the most infected parts of Hong Kong. The disease in Sai Ying Pun was due possibly to the bad conditions of the latrines, especially the public ones. They were used by the bulk of the Chinese population. Few Chinese dwellings in the district were provided with facilities of this kind. The plague bacillus was abundantly found in the faeces. In those latrines, there was practically no disinfection of the faeces, and they were not cleaned out as regularly as they ought to have been. These latrines were often visited by plague-stricken people. The bacillus was probably borne by air and infected the neighbouring houses.\n\nFrom a letter of Dr. Lowson to the Colonial Surgeon, bearing the date 15th August 1894, we learn that:\n\n\"There is a licensed private latrine at 113 Second Street. At a casual glance, the shut-up houses all around bear eloquent testimony upon this point. Round this latrine, there is scarcely a house occupied.\n\nIn Centre Street, at the corner of Third Street, there is a latrine. On passing into Third Street to the South, numerous houses are shut up, and several cases have occurred in the neighbouring houses.\n\nAt 82 First Street, there is a latrine with an entrance at 91 Second Street. A very large number of cases occurred round this place. Around several other latrines, more especially at 29 First Street, numerous cases occurred. Sheung Fung Lane off Second Street and opposite to No. 91.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213509, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 105, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "REFERENCES\n\n73\n\nChadwick O) (1882)\n\nReport on the Sanitary Condition of Hong Kong, London\n\nEitel, E.\n\n(1895)\n\nEurope in China\n\nFortune, R (1847)\n\nThree Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China. London\n\nJanet, UHLG (1931-5)\n\nOld Hong Kong, Hong Kong\n\nLethbridge, C.H. ed. (1948)\n\nCentenary History of Hong Kong. Hong Kong\n\nLo, Hsiang Lin et al (1963)\n\nHong Kong and its External Communication before 1842, the History of Hong Kong prior to the British Arrival, Hong Kong\n\nLowson, J.A. (1895).\n\nMedical Report on the Epidemic of Bubonic Plague at Hong Kong in 1894. Hong Kong\n\nSayer, G.R. (1937)\n\nHong Kong Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age, London\n\nSimpson, W.J. (1903)\n\nReport on the Causes and Continuance of Plague in Hong Kong and Suggestions as to Remedial Measures, Hong Kong\n\nTalbot, I.E.D. (1971)\n\n'An Outline of the Urban Development of Hong Kong Island During the Nineteenth Century' in Dwyer, D.J. (ed.) The Changing Face of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, P47-62\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213780, "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-1996", "page_number": 132, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "103\n\nQingzhou. The other, Zhang Zhao San (3) Lang, eliminates epidemics. Less is known about Zhao Hou San Lang, who may be related to a legendary figure Zhao Hou who could have once been accepted into Canonical Daoism during the Ming, but left otherwise no trace in the Daoist Canon.\n\n50\n\n45\n\nHakka and Cantonese material suggest that Chen Jinggu, one of the three ladies, actually belonged to a separate tradition: that of goddess Wang Tai Wu who was associated with Mao Shan. It is likely that the current Taiwanese version represented the result of an effort to bring into the tradition of Lü Shan the Three Ladies. One observes that the Taiwanese account curiously mentioned Wang Tai Mu and two other female deities under the name of upper, middle, and lower “palaces\", which is a corrupted version of an entry in the Cantonese priests' manual. But the connection between the Lü Shan and Mao Shan traditions can be found in the Liannan manuals as well. Perhaps they are found in the same tradition all along. I have already mentioned the appearance of Mao Shan magic much earlier than the 17th century ones to which Strickmann referred. \"The Yi Jian Zhi has also a strange story, in more complete form elsewhere, that tells of a man who is destined to become upon his death Mao Shan dongzu (“master of cave?\") and is therefore protected even before then from the revenge of a ghost.\n\n**\n\nRecords of ordination name in genealogies\n\nGiven the different interpretations by genealogists of the names of their ancestors, some ordination names are not designated as such. There are cases in which genealogies trace descent from the same ancestors but some give “ordination names\" their designation and some do not. Examples include the Wen genealogies and the Lis found in the New Territories of Hong Kong and elsewhere. I shall mention this again. Probably in many cases, the descendants have one or more names but no specific information as to the nature of each; i.e., whether ming, zi, hao, or an ordination name. One example is a He whose entry in the genealogy reads \"Nian Shi(4) Lang, ming Chuan, zi Yuan Mei, hao Han Ming\", leaving the reader no name category to apply to Nian Shi(4) Lang, which is not designated as an ordination name. Another example is the first ancestor of the Diaos, whose names were given as Qing, \"original name\" Fa Ying, and zi Zizhong, but written Qian Yi(1001).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214318, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "140\n\nborne to Earth by the Celestial Immortal Tian Fei, to his apotheosis when he was about to be borne off to Heaven; he is portrayed in one scene preparing medicinal drinks and in another overcoming the flood dragon.\n\nA popular legend related in Jiangxi about Xu describes how he destroyed a monstrous snake which had been terrorising the areas of western Jiangxi. Another describes how in Changsha in neighbouring Hunan province he killed a dragon which had transformed itself into a woman and had married a local mandarin.\n\nXu Sun, according to Fitkin, had been a good and sympathetic magistrate and as such was regarded as a protective deity throughout Jiangxi province as well as among Jiangxi people wherever they went. According to folk memory he never took 'squeeze' nor would he tolerate corruption. He also threw the flood dragon down a well telling him as he did so that he might come forth when the iron tree blossomed. This well was in the huge Wan Shou Gong, a temple in the centre of Nanchang and though the temple was burned down in about 1916, it was [in 1922] being rebuilt at a huge cost and, as far as can be ascertained, no longer exists. Folklore claims that plague and flood, as well as brigandage would come to Jiangxi if there were no Wan Shou Gong in which to offer up worship and reverence.\n\nAccording to Bai Youchan [the Daoist Thunder Ritual master of the Mao Shan cult - ca. 1200 AD] Xu was venerated initially because, using water-charms, he had cured multitudes who were suffering from a virulent epidemic. Imperial patronage of the cult ensued in the 12th century AD. All his temples used to be called Wan Shou Gong as indeed his cult centre temple at Xi Shan still is.\n\nAnother legend, possibly a variant on the water-charms story, and related in neighbouring Anhui, claimed that Xu had been an important tea merchant. Tea brewed from his leaves not only quenched the thirst but also cured sickness and even prevented people from becoming sick. He was widely renowned for his generosity giving away his tea to the poor in the Spring for people to infuse and drink to ward off sickness. He was deified for such benevolence by order of the emperor.\n\nIn 1920 Nanchang was claimed to be unique in that it had never", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214396, "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": 254, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "220\n\n1906 the Government used these men as enumerators and during the 1929 water shortage, it was District Watchmen who undertook the thankless task of maintaining order amongst the queues of people waiting at street fountains.\n\nIn 1938 the District Watchmen were called upon to accompany vaccinators on a door-to-door campaign during the smallpox epidemic of that year and, as the clouds of war gathered, it was the District Watchmen who ensured the security of the refugee camps. When these extra duties are considered, it is easy to explain the decrease in the number of Court cases in 1938 from a high of 2,067 the previous year. In 1939, the last year for which detailed figures are available before the Japanese invasion, the strength of the District Watch Force stood at five Head District Watchmen, six Head Assistant District Watchmen, twenty-six Detectives and 103 uniformed men. The District Watch Force continued to be funded by local Chinese business men augmented by a small annual donation of $1,600 (later $2,000) which Government made to the Fund between the early 1870s and 1893 and from 1903 to 1936. There had been no change in this important financial principle since its inception in 1866.\n\nConclusion\n\nThe District Watch scheme is an important example of how the Hong Kong Government, over a very long period of time, successfully controlled a private security enterprise whilst ensuring that the colonial authorities contributed no more than a token amount towards its upkeep. Given the political climate prevailing in the colony during its formative years, it would have been naive to expect a completely Chinese organization of this nature to operate without some kind of interference from the Government. Security has always been - and continues to be - a topic which can make normally placid people become very nervous. However, from its inception, the District Watch Force's ties with the Registrar General and the Captain Superintendent of Police were more restrictive than had been envisaged by its founding fathers. To some extent the Chinese merchants were their own worst enemies because of their inability to overcome petty internal bickering. However, the merchants who proposed the District Watch scheme may have been thankful that they had been able to persuade the Hong Kong Government to grant them even the limited degree of autonomy which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214497, "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": 355, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "324\n\nthey danced they conspicuously imbibed large quantities of beer and Chinese spirit wines and were showered with water. Although some of the drink was spat out, the dancers' actions became increasingly drunken, with some entering a short-lived trance-like state. After about thirty minutes the dancing concluded with the eating of lettuce, the presentation of _lassie_ and the lighting of a string of firecrackers. The group then set off by van for other markets and fish trading establishments, with the final dance of the morning outside the \"Red Market\" due to be the most drunken of all.\n\nFor much of our knowledge of the Dance Festival, in particular the history and legend, we are indebted to Mrs. Ana Brito, an anthropologist from the Macau Maritime Museum, who as part of her studies on the Festival had interviewed a number of the dancers the year before. Copies of her notes in English, generously supplied to us by Mrs. Brito, show that the Festival was brought to Macau some decades ago from Sek Kei District in nearby Zhongshan County. According to a version of the legend that gave rise to the Drunken Dragon Dance, a certain village had been plagued by a terrible epidemic. In despair the villagers held a procession in Buddha's honour. As the procession was winding its way through the village a dragon in the guise of an enormous serpent arose out of the river. The serpent was killed, hacked into pieces and thrown back into the river, which turned blood red. The villagers drank the water and were miraculously cured.(1)&(2)\n\nLeaving the Dragon to make its way through the Inner Harbour area we left for Coloane Village, where festivities were centred on the Tam Gong Temple on the waterfront. This was heavily decorated and had all the trappings and atmosphere of a well-attended Chinese festival. There were many worshippers, as well as beggars, and clouds of smoke from joss sticks and fireworks. We played our part with Dr Patrick Hase lighting the RAS HK string of firecrackers. Nearby a large matshed had been erected where stars from the Cantonese opera world were soon due to perform.\n\nTowards noon the Tam Gong Festival procession gathered in the Rua da Cordoaria, off the village square, and then made its way through the village to the Temple. This procession was a less spectacular affair than the Tam Gong processions held in Ah Kung Ngam Village, Shaukiwan, Hong Kong, but was equally attractive within its own", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214498, "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": 356, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "325\n\nrural simplicity. Many of those in the procession were school children dressed in a variety of international costumes whilst the presence of ladies dressed in costume (see illustration) reminded us that Tan Gong is a Hakka god and that the Hakkas have both a rural as well as coastal background. (3)\n\nAfter a sumptuous Portuguese casserole lunch at the Cacarola Restaurant in the nearby Rue das Gaivotas we made our way to the Taipa House Museum. Here there was lovingly recreated the living style of Macanese civil servant families living on Taipa Island during the early 20th Century. A reminder of much quieter times before we jet-foiled our way back to busy Hong Kong.\n\nNOTES\n\n1. It is not uncommon in 19th Century and early 20th Century Guandong folklore for dragons appearing in the guise of serpents to perform epidemic curing miracles. Witness my account of the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance on p.307. Vol.30, 1990 JHKBRAS. (For my research on this subject I am indebted to the Rev. Eric Kvan).\n\n2. Stevens, Keith (1997), p.140 Chinese Gods, Collins and Brown, in his account of the story of Lung Mu, the Mother of the Dragon, gives another example of a Pearl River area dragon turning from a serpent to a dragon.\n\n3. SIU, Anthony K.K., Vol. 27 JHKBRAS tells of the origins of Tan Gong in Guandong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215514, "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": 291, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "241\n\nA REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENT OF CEMETERIES IN HONG KONG: 1841-1950\n\nKO TIM-KEUNG\n\nHong Kong had been claimed for the British Crown even before the First Opium War (1839-42) was formally brought to an end. A naval party under Sir Gordon Bremer landed on the island on 26th January 1841. A form of government was organized and a chief magistrate and a harbour-master appointed, and in June the first land sale took place to create the impression of permanency. The port was declared a free port, and merchants, both foreign and Chinese, were encouraged to settle and trade there. However, little significant building followed, the main deterrent being the island's insalubrity and a high death rate from 'Hong Kong Fever.' Hong Kong, quite unexpectedly, became the last resting place of many of these early settlers and troops.\n\nThe Burial Ground in Wan Chai\n\nThe first years in Hong Kong had a distressing aspect for the British, particularly its army, because of disease. The setting up of the first barrack areas along the north coast of the island led to severe epidemics of fever among the troops. 183 of them had died in 1841. Consequently, a burial ground for the dead was urgently needed. A notice was proclaimed in August 1841:\n\nA piece of land to the eastward of Cantonment Hill having been allocated by Government as the ground for the burial of the dead of Europeans and others, Notice is hereby given that persons burying their dead in any other unauthorised place will be treated as trespassers.\n\nJno. F. Mylius, Land Officer, Hong Kong 30th August 1841.\n\nA 19th-century publication also records: \"Deaths now [1841] became frequent occurrences also among the European community; hospitals had to be hastily constructed, and the first cemetery (near the present St. Francis' Chapel, above Queen's Road East) began to fill...\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215515, "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": 292, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "242\n\nSeveral months later on 2nd April 1842, another piece of land adjacent to the burial ground was allotted for internment of Roman Catholics.7 It was recorded that during the leveling work, because of heavy rain, a landslide obstructed Queen's Road. A letter from the Inspector of the Land Office, dated 20 June 1842, required the building of a retaining wall and the immediate clearing of the road. Burials started as soon as the site formation was over. On the same compound, two brick houses were also built, one at the bottom used as a seminary and the second at the top of the hill as the residence of Father Luke Poon8 who had just arrived from Macao to assist the work in the seminary.9\n\n10\n\nEpidemics of fever, which visited Hong Kong each summer in its early years of development, retarded its development and gave it an evil reputation for insalubrity. 1841 and 1842 had been bad summers, but 1843 was even worse. In 1843 the annual death rate among European troops in Hong Kong was 22 percent and among Indian troops even higher. One regiment alone, at West Point, lost a hundred men between June and the middle of August.11 The Royal Army Medical Corps history records 'Hong Kong proved a costly acquisition, as in spite of good barracks and hospital as the men continued to fall sick and die.”12 Almost all contemporary public, private and regimental records had similar entries in regard to the terrible cost in lives, particularly among the troops, in the early development of Hong Kong.13 The popular Illustrated London News had the following account in 1845:\n\nIts diseases are endemic fever, diarrhoea and dysentery...The British Commander, General D'Aguilar, has declared, that to retain Hong Kong will require the loss of a whole regiment every three years... The grave yard was soon filled and another was required form14 the Surveyor-General, who found it difficult to point out a proper spot.\n\nThe burial ground in Wan Chai had only been in use for a short period's15 as space was running out. It became necessary for a new burial site and the Wong Nai Chung Valley,16 soon to be named as Happy Valley, quickly provided the answer,\n\n17\n\nYet the last graves and monuments in Wan Chai were not removed until 1889. By then it had become surrounded by a dense population of Chinese of the poorer classes, it is difficult to keep it in a condition of decency and cleanliness.18 The ground was sold for development.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215517, "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": 294, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "244\n\nin the Happy Valley.'\" The year of 1845 is referred to as the year when the Colonial Cemetery was opened, in a number of official records.24 This was also suggested by a contemporary local historian.25\n\nThe new site for the Catholic cemetery, later to be named St. Michael's Catholic Cemetery and adjacent to the Colonial Cemetery, was granted on 7th January 1848.26 At the same time, it was requested that the use of the old burial ground should be discontinued:\n\nHis Excellency the Governor in Council has been pleased to grant the Ground next to and North of the English Burial Ground in the Valley of Wong-nei-chong, for the purpose of a place of Burial for Roman Catholics, provided you distinctly agree to discontinue for the future all internments whatever in your present burial ground.27\n\nDeath and suffering continued to trouble the troops into the 1850s. A British soldier who was posted to Hong Kong between 1850 and 1854 had recorded not only the sorrowful condition, but also commented about the location of the race-course:\n\nDuring July, August and September [1850], we buried about 300 men. I never seen or heard anything like the epidemic that got amongst the men and every one, native and European has this sickness... Every day at this time July and August three dead bodies into the hearse at once off to the Happy Valley (grave yard named)... At this time October 1850 the remnants of the 59th were about 250 and 150 of these were either in hospital on shore or on board the Minden Hospital Ship across the harbour, so many men dying...\n\nEvery year we had the races at the Happy Valley Course. On the main road running around the Race Course in Happy Valley opposite the Grand Stand was the burying ground where so many of our comrades lay buried... I always considered the Race Course was in the wrong place, as the sight of the grave yard generally dampened my spirits and took all pleasure away at these races...\n\nBy the mid 1850s, it was thought that the Colonial Cemetery had already been nearly full, and it became a subject of discussion in a local newspaper:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215523, "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": 300, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "250 \n\nburial ground. Inland Lot 899, on the east by the Pokfulam Road, and West by Cliff facing the Sea, measuring on the North, 4,800 feet, South-West, 3,500 feet, West, 5,100 feet.\n\n69\n\nCAROLINE HILL. Situated on the South side of the Caroline Hill Road and to the South of Caroline Hill, bordered on the North by a Public Road, 400 feet, South, 612 feet, East, 1,275 feet, West, 1,100 feet.\n\nIn the 1890s, a Eurasian cemetery, generally known as Ho Tung Cemetery before the Second World War and later renamed 'Chiu Yuen Cemetery,' was erected in Mount Davis, with the first grave dated to December 1892.70\n\nThe Plague Cemeteries and Trenches\n\nThe first outbreak of bubonic plague in Hong Kong occurred in May 1894. In less than a month, more than two thousand persons had died. On 6 June, Father Piazzoli, the pro-vicar, wrote:\n\nThe plague is spreading rapidly with 100 dead each day, though only a section of the Chinese city is infected. The tragedy is terrible. There are streets completely empty: it is estimated that about 40 thousand Chinese have left the island. The harbour too is deserted, the large ships sail at large; the trade is dead and the most horrible misery is growing...\"\n\nFrom 1896 on, the plague became almost an annual recurrence. Over the period 1894-1901, about 8,600 people succumbed to the disease.72 Two plague cemeteries were designated at Kennedy Town and Cheung Sha Wan in 1901.74 In addition, a section of ‘Kau Pui Loong Cemetery' (see below) was also referred to as 'Plague Trench'75 (疫症); which was also the case of 'Kai Lung Wan East Cemetery' (also see below).76\n\nIndian / Hindu Cemeteries in Kowloon\n\nIn 1900, a Hindu Cemetery was authorized in Kowloon, this might have been the result of the plague, as many Indian troops were among the victims of this epidemic disease. This Hindu Cemetery was described as:\n\nPage 300\n\nPage 301", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216103, "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-2002", "page_number": 402, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "336\n\nGovernment servants completed four-year tours up until the early 1960s. When we went on leave, being seen off was a grand occasion. One would normally organise a reception for a number of friends. They boarded the ship. Occasionally, there was a bit of gate crashing by people known as \"professional see'ers off\" who enjoyed the company and a few free drinks.\n\nBrass bands would play Auld Lang Syne on the quay and paper streamers would be thrown to friends on shore. As the ship pulled away the streamers would break and the \"umbilical cord\" would be severed, as it were. After a four-year tour a government servant would earn something like seven months leave plus 30 days travelling each way. That meant you were away from the colony for about nine months. Being seen off was an important affair for Chinese too and, in the 1950s when the growing of rice was not profitable any more and the \"vegetable revolution\" was underway, many New Territories' Chinese made their way to England to work in restaurants. On being seen off just about the entire village would sometimes turn out!\n\nOn one occasion I was on leave in England and a fellow passenger on a train spotted my suitcase. 'Ah,' he said, 'you're from Hong Kong. Tell me. Do they still put paint on with their hands?' I had to admit that painters stick their woollen-gloved hand into a pot of paint when they paint metal railings and the like. They still do. It's labour saving. It's surprising what people remember about Hong Kong after they have left.\n\nPestilence\n\nThe colony was not a healthy place in its young days and many expatriates died young, as a wander through what we used to call the Colonial Cemetery (now the Hong Kong Cemetery) in Happy Valley reveals. There were cases of bubonic plague up until the 1920s with an especially bad epidemic in 1894. There was a worrying outbreak of cholera in the early summer of 1961. Stalls were manned by nurses in the street, for example by the Star Ferry. There was no wasting of time and no paperwork. All you did was roll up your sleeve. Now, from the days of pestilence and being an unhealthy place, Hong Kong has a life expectancy greater than most western countries, including Britain and the USA.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216407, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "116\n\nJapanese cruiser YAHAGI11 was due to arrive at 2200 hours that evening.\n\nIn the interim the freighter MADRAS MARU2 arrived. She attempted a rescue operation but this was not successful. Indeed the seas were so high that it was not even possible to contemplate sending the nine survivors across to her for repatriation to Japan.\n\nSince all these Japanese flag ships had appeared or were due to appear at the scene of the grounding Captain Mackinnon informed NASHI that he would sail for Hong Kong that afternoon, and take with him the nine men. Later he was to write:\n\n'Many friendly and complimentary flag signals were exchanged with all ships present, including the wreck. At 1700 I proceeded to Hong Kong leaving the Japanese destroyer NASHI in charge of the situation.'\n\nOn Saturday 7 November HERMES returned to her buoy at Hong Kong and a short while later the nine rescued seamen were landed ashore.\n\nIt is pleasant to be able to record that in due course official thanks were rendered by the Japanese minister of foreign affairs, Baron Kijuro Shidehara. His letter was addressed to the British ambassador to Tokyo, H.E. Sir Francis Oswald Lindley who forwarded these thanks to the Foreign Office in London from where, in turn, they were passed to the Secretary to the Admiralty.\n\nA year later, on 6th December 1932 at Hong Kong, the C. in C. came onboard our ship to present Lloyds Silver Medals to the three officers, and Bronze Medals to the six ratings who had taken part in the rescue. Also a bronze shield, mounted on a wooden base, was presented to the ship by the Committee of Lloyds.\n\nIn December 1931 an epidemic of diphtheria struck Hong Kong. Amongst those taken ill was Captain Mackinnon. Commander Baxter temporarily assumed command until the arrival of the ship's new commanding officer, Captain W.B. Mackenzie, on 25th February 1932.\n\nCaptain Mackinnon duly returned home and on 21 January 1933", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]