[ { "id": 207254, "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": 22, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "LIBRARY NOTICE\n\nOwing to the removal of the British Council Library from Gloucester Building it became necessary to make new arrangements for the R.A.S. Library, part of which had been made accessible to members through the kind co-operation of the British Council Representative and with the assistance of his library staff, and had been housed in the Gloucester Building,\n\nThe books in the R.A.S. Library have therefore now been transferred to the Public Records Office, 2 Murray Road, which is on the mezzanine of the multi-storey carpark building above the Transport Department Licensing Office, access being by the external staircase next to the carpark shroff's office. By kind permission of the Archivist, the books are shelved in the P.R.O. Library, where they may be consulted by members of the Branch on production of their membership cards, and borrowed in accordance with the revised rules of which a copy is attached.\n\nIt is unfortunately still necessary to keep the periodicals (bound and unbound) and pamphlets belonging to the R.A.S. Library in the Main Library of the University of Hong Kong, where members may consult them on application to the Hon. Librarian. These items are not available for loan.\n\nThere are a few copies of the printed catalogue of the Library, 1972 and first supplement, 1972-73, available to those members who have joined in the past three years, on application to the Hon. Librarian. It is hoped to produce a second supplement for 1974-75 at the end of this year.\n\nDonations of books relating to the interests of the Society are always welcome. Arrangements can be made to collect books from donors who are not able to convey their gifts to either the P.R.O. or the University Library.\n\n18th October, 1975.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210196, "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": 167, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "146\n\nR.J. MINERS\n\nLegislative Council. Instead of following the model ordinance sent from London, this bill repealed the Contagious Diseases Ordinance of 1867, but then immediately re-enacted most of its provisions for the licensing and inspection of brothels, omitting only the clauses providing for the compulsory inspections to which the Secretary of State had specifically taken exception. Other features of the existing Hong Kong system were retained in the regulations issued by the Governor in Council after the bill had been passed, and these regulations were not forwarded with the ordinance when it was sent to the Colonial Office for confirmation. The deliberate flouting of a directive from London could not be permitted, and in 1890 the 1889 ordinance was itself repealed and a new ordinance enacted on the lines laid down by the Secretary of State. Both the 1889 and 1890 ordinances were only carried through the Legislative Council by the votes of the official members acting on the instructions of the Governor against the unanimous opposition of the unofficial members.\n\n14\n\nIn spite of the dissension which it aroused, it seems that the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance made little practical difference to the operation of the Hong Kong system of control. The inmates of the houses reserved for European clients continued to report at the Lock Hospital for their weekly examination as regularly as before, even though certificates of good health were no longer issued. They had all been individually informed by the Colonial Surgeon and the Registrar General that attendance was no longer legally obligatory, but they turned up just the same. The prostitutes in the brothels catering for Chinese had never submitted to these examinations, so the repeal of the ordinance made no difference to them. The distinction between the two types of brothels was still maintained in the regulations issued under the 1890 ordinance, and penalties could still be imposed on any brothel keeper who allowed his house to be patronized by members of the wrong community, since the Hong Kong government had been successful in persuading the Secretary of State that this continued segregation was necessary if breaches of the peace were to be avoided. So servicemen continued to enjoy some measure of protection against the danger that they might come into contact with a prostitute who had not been medically examined.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210201, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "151\n\nHong Kong authorities saw no need to take active steps to improve the situation.\n\nParliamentary pressure over social hygiene in Hong Kong largely lapsed after 1894 once the legal framework for the licensing of prostitutes and the registration of brothels had been repealed by the Legislative Council and thereafter Hong Kong was left free to set up its new extra-legal system of control without further interference from London. But after the end of the First World War agitation on the subject revived. The League of Nations appointed an Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children which published reports highlighting the connections between state regulation of prostitution and the procurement of women. The first warning to Hong Kong of the revival of concern in Britain was the arrival in the colony in 1921 of a Commission from the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease which had been sent out to report on conditions in the Far Eastern Colonies. The Governor, Sir Edward Stubbs, had objected to any such visit and forbade government officials to give the commissioners any assistance; he also informed them when they arrived that they were not to hold any public meetings or advertise their presence in the press. In spite of this studied discourtesy the commissioners, Mrs. Neville-Rolfe and Dr. Hallam, set out upon a thorough exploration of the seedier areas of the city and various medical institutions, and were able to make contact with some business and religious groups and with some of the leading Chinese. On their return to London they submitted a scathing report to the Colonial Office on medical and social conditions. According to the commissioners, no serious attempt had been made by the government to improve the standard of health of the native population in 85 years of British rule; the infant mortality figures were disgraceful; the Tung Wah hospital was very dirty and badly equipped; the Po Leung Kuk, a place of refuge for Chinese girls, was largely used as a recruiting ground for cheap supplementary wives by members of the committee. The Colonial Office was given its first description of the working of the system of tolerated brothels, which Mrs. Neville-Rolfe dismissed as ineffective in preventing the kidnapping of girls into brothel slavery; on the contrary it was alleged that the artificial value put on the Chinese girl by the system of recognised brothels is the main inducement to the kidnappers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210204, "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "154\n\nR.J. MINERS\n\ninstructions were sent to Hong Kong so long as the Conservatives remained in power. However, as soon as the minority Labour government of 1929 came into office, various pressure groups, such as the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene and the National Council of Women of Great Britain, set to work, writing to the Prime Minister and the new Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Passfield (formerly the Fabian Society reformer Sidney Webb), demanding that Hong Kong should follow Singapore's example and suppress all its brothels. There were also more parliamentary questions from Lady Astor and other sympathetic M.P.s.32 In 1930, there was a change of Governor in Hong Kong: Sir Cecil Clementi left to govern the Straits Settlements, and Sir William Peel from the Federated Malay States was promoted to Hong Kong. Clementi had never shown himself very receptive to policy suggestions from London, and his transfer gave the Colonial Office an opportunity to initiate a change of policy. Before taking up his appointment, Peel saw Lord Passfield in London and was informed that it was the policy of the Labour government that all brothels should be suppressed, but that he should first look into the question and submit a report to London.\n\nPeel sent his views to the Colonial Office in August 1930, three months after his arrival.34 He stressed that the abolition of licensed prostitution and tolerated houses was opposed by the military and naval authorities, senior government officials, and the leading members of the Chinese community who sat on the District Watch Committee. Abolition would probably lead to an increase in the number of sly brothels and streetwalkers, and a greater incidence of venereal disease. It would also make it impossible to deal effectively with the international traffic in women: in Singapore, some measure of control could be exercised at the point of entry where immigrants arrived in a few large vessels, but this was out of the question in Hong Kong, where thousands arrived daily in river steamers, junks, and by land; so the licensing and interrogation of intending prostitutes at the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs was the only way of checking that they were entering the profession of their own free will. The Governor finally suggested that if the Secretary of State was determined upon the suppression of brothels, a start could be made by refusing to register any new prostitutes; but he would prefer to await full details of the results", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211602, "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": 17, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN,\n\nCONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE FOR THE BASIC LAW.\n\n30 October 1989\n\nDear Sir,\n\nI am writing this personal letter in my capacity as President of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.\n\nThe Hong Kong Branch, first begun in 1847 and re-established in 1959, is a wholly independent body, and self-financing. The enclosed Brochure, together with the Chinese version to be printed shortly, will indicate our long history as a cultural society, and our record of work done in Hong Kong over the past thirty years.\n\nI have been a member practically from the outset, and have been an office-bearer since 1966, editing the annual Journal for 14 years, serving as a Vice-President since 1970 and as President from 1983. I have thus been closely involved with the affairs of the Hong Kong Branch for most of its recent history and feel that I can give you an accurate idea of our hopes and aspirations for the future.\n\nPut very simply, we would hope to continue our activities in the interests of Hong Kong long after 1997, and in the same way as we are able to operate at present. Our particular function is to increase the common stock of knowledge and understanding of Hong Kong, and to build a bridge between the Chinese and expatriate parts of the local community, promoting social interaction and friendship among its residents.\n\nLike other bodies of its kind, our Society is registered under the Societies Ordinance. It has an approved constitution, to which any changes require the approval of the licensing authority. Otherwise, within these parameters, our Society operates with complete freedom of action, and its activities are not controlled, directed or restricted by the government in any way.\n\nThis freedom of action is at the root of our continued successful existence. It feeds the imagination and creativity which enable the Council to mount successful programmes that meet with the approval of the\n\nxvi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213201, "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": 23, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "2\n\nThe name apparently derives from a city in Germany, but records indicated they had for a time lived in Egypt or Turkey before arriving at the China coast.\n\nThis study is one-dimensional. I do not have sufficient knowledge nor have I undertaken the necessary research to put the story of the Germans in Hong Kong in a proper international setting or to relate it to the complexities of the internal and external developments of the German states and, subsequently, the German nation. This study is based on Hong Kong sources and hence is seen only from the Hong Kong view. The story could be greatly enlarged and enriched by a scholar with broader knowledge than the present author.\n\nSources for the study\n\nDocumentation of sources is usually of little interest to the average reader but they are important to the scholar who might want to check the facts or further develop aspects of the subject. I am not aware that there has yet been published so detailed a history of the German-speaking community in Hong Kong as the present study. Even so, I have not dealt with the subject in a thoroughly exhaustive way. I have confined myself to data found in Hong Kong and I have not included every detail or fact I have in my files.\n\nReaders who check the notes will find that most of my information is from a limited number of sources: Hong Kong newspapers; the Hong Kong section of directors for China and the Far East; the Hong Kong Government Gazette contains jury lists, annual probate calendars, the medical register, notices of changes in the partnership of firms and authorisation to sign; reports of the Spirit Licensing Board; the China Repository lists of residents on the China coast 1833-1851; Colonial Office records, especially for the World War I period; selected Series in the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, especially those from wills, rates and valuations, and surrendered deeds; and the memorials in the Land Office. With so many references, there may have been some mistakes in transcribing dates and names. I hope these errors are at a minimum.\n\nI should like to express my appreciation to the staff of the Public Records Office, the Secretariat Library, the Special Collections Room at Hong Kong University Library, and to the Registrar General for permission", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213213, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "14\n\nheard that Petersen's barman had been discharged for neglecting his duties due to lack of supervision. The board commented that Petersen's more lucrative employment at the German Consulate led him to neglect his business. If he was to continue to hold his spirit licence, he could not leave the management of his business to others (DP 2 Nov. 1875).\n\nPeter Henry Schmidt was a German by birth but came to the East as a young man and married a Portuguese girl from Macao. For many years he was the proprietor of a licensed boarding house for seamen. Over the years he and Petersen built up a money-making business as shipping masters for the recruitment of crews. While Petersen worked his business through the German Consulate, Schmidt did the same through the American Consulate. In 1881, Mr. Smith - he had changed his name from Schmidt to Smith - brought action in the Supreme Court against the American Consul, Colonel John Mosby, for slander. The alleged slander were remarks published by the Consul concerning the involvement of Smith in the desertion of two seamen from the \"Belle of Oregon\". The Consul had been informed that Smith had harboured the deserters in his garden in Kowloon and that after the \"Belle of Oregon\" left port, he brought them to his boarding house in his launch. The testimony of Smith stated he had been in Hong Kong about twenty years and had held a licence for a seamen's boarding house for some eighteen years. \"During that time,\" he continued, \"I have done a great deal of business for the various Consuls. I and Mr. Petersen have done lately more than half the foreign business of the port. On December 24th, they (the two deserting seamen) brought permits to ship and I took them into my house. They were Scandinavian. I do work for the Consulate. I have done so for the last ten years, gave them board and lodging in the ordinary course of business.\" Smith then goes into some of the history of his connection with the American Consulate and its licensing of crews, \"Since Colonel Mosby has been in the Colony, I have not been an officer of the American Consulate nor in any way connected with it. Under his predecessor I had a desk and a clerk in the U.S. Consulate.\" Mr. Smith's assistant testified that Colonel Mosby had said, \"You can tell Peter Smith he is not going to ship any more men in this office. I shall tell all the American shipmasters not to have anything to do with him.\" The assistant also told the court that in his despatches the Consul had called Mr. Smith some very hard names. Mosby had attacked everyone who had previously been connected with the Consulate.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213970, "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-1997", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "4\n\naloof on his return. The present writer can vouch for his active approval of an African-inspired experiment whereby departmental administrative officers in the urban areas would collect and transmit upwards a monthly 'intelligence digest' of local opinion, morale and responses to government action or inaction, and of attitudes to prominent local figures and to Chinese or foreign affairs: this was meant to supplement what was collected in their own specialist manners by the HK Police Special Branch (SB), the New Territories Administration (NTA), the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO)'s Political Adviser (PA) and the Security Liaison Officer (SLO). Some of what was collected may have been too near the knuckle, some was rather too easily discounted as mere \"gossip,\" important though that might be as a reflection of influential belief at the grass roots, and some may have hurt the dignity of those who had the existing duty of intelligence-gathering. The governor was persuaded to drop the experiment as proving trivial.\n\nBut Trench also showed interest in another interloping proposal that, in the absence of any generalist government institutions to supplement the Secretary for Chinese Affairs (SCA)'s advisory staff (who liaised with the various kai fong (Neighbourhood) Welfare Associations, Clansmens' Associations and Residents' Associations, which were often self-perpetuating), District Officers (DOs) should be appointed in the urban areas; these should have certain executive functions, fewer than those of their colleagues in the New Territories so as not to encroach on the licensing prerogatives of the Urban Council, but sufficient to ensure that all should know of their existence and, above all, of where their offices were. Primarily they should oversee and co-ordinate the activities of the various professional and technical departments in their bailiwicks, but also, like paternalistic mandarins, inquire into, report upon and seek answers to the needs and concerns of the inhabitants. This suggestion was effectively smothered by a DCS who was unable to understand what such DOs might achieve in a city that existing institutions did not already adequately do: the concept of such junior, peripheral, government officers being responsive to people, as opposed to being mere executive agents responsible for essential infrastructural public services, was alien. Apart from the SCA's and District Commissioner New Territories (DCNT)'s contacts with often self-appointed élites, there was little by way of direct exchange with the man in the street: the same DCS once said, \"Government must, of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216168, "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": 467, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "401\n\nConstruction Company, a contractor engaged by the Maintenance Section of the Public Works Department. The launch \"Ming Kee\" was normally used to carry the workers to and from Tathong Point. The Director of Marine respectfully - but ominously - requested the Director of Public Works to arrange for the coxswain of the \"Ming Kee\" to report to the Licensing Office, Marine Department, Hong Kong. Unfortunately the P.W.D. file contains no further information on the incident.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nOn 10 April 1982 the function of the old Public Works Department (P.W.D.) was replaced by the Lands and Works Branch, and the Architectural Office of the P.W.D. became part of the Building Development Department. In April 1986 the Building Development Department was dissolved and the Architectural Services Department established. In 1990 the name of the Maintenance Branch of the Architectural Services Department was changed to the Property Services Branch to whom acknowledgements are due for inspection of their files.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]