[ { "id": 205169, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "120\n\nOLD BRITISH KOWLOON\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nOn 19 January 1861 a ceremony took place at Tsim Sha Tsui, a village on the Chinese mainland directly opposite the British Colony of Hong Kong. On that day a mandarin of the provincial government at Canton handed over a paperful of soil in token of the cession of the Kowloon peninsula to Great Britain. In this way a tiny fraction of Chinese territory passed under British rule.\n\nIt is not the object of this article to give a comprehensive account of the development of Old British Kowloon as the area became known after 1898 when another treaty transferred the adjoining area of Chinese territory to England; for this could not be done within the confines of a short article. Rather, it is my intention to give a short description of the peninsula and then to turn to a more detailed examination of some of its villages, with special reference to the origins of the settlers, their way of life, and their local institutions.\n\nWhat was the Kowloon peninsula like in 1861 when it passed under British rule? A contemporary description reads:\n\n44\n\nThe land may be briefly described as being about 2,366 yards in length and 966 in breadth: its surface being extremely rugged from the presence of numerous small hills divided by ravines and patches of marshes and rice fields; rocky and precipitous on its southern and eastern shores and gradual shelving off on its western one to a fine sandy beach.\n\nA good idea of the unpromising terrain may be had from a drawing by Lieut. Collinson made from the Kowloon foothills behind Kowloon City about fifteen years earlier (see the illustration to this article).\n\nA specialised account of the newly acquired territory was sent home to the British Government. This was the report of the Anglo-Chinese Land Commission of April 1862. Due to the\n\nThe author is an administrative officer in the Hong Kong Government service.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206481, "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": 29, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "Scarth3 \n\nNINETEENTH CENTURY WATER-COLOURS OF CANTON \n\nT \n\n- \n\n23 \n\nan excellent artist by the way (who) told me he once saw 150 people beheaded on the execution ground at Canton”.4 The Bishop of Victoria, the Rev. George Smith has almost the right initials, but neither he nor Scarth were on the Adelaide. None of the artists in the Catalogue of the Chater Collection has the initials G.A.S. \n\nAmong the passengers arriving on the Adelaide, the \"Friend of China\" of December 2nd notes the twenty officers by name, among them Lieutenants Schomberg and Short. \"The Hongkong Shipping List\" of the same date, refers to Major Schomberg, R.A., and Lieut. Short. The artist of the paintings must have been subsequently sent from Hong Kong up the Pearl River to the Bogue before December 16th, to join the troops which had arrived earlier on the Imperador and Imperatrix who had been sent on to the Bogue immediately after their arrival. Indeed the Adelaide, with her troops on board, moved up the river from Hong Kong on December 2nd. The artist presumably was present at the capture of Canton on 29th December, and at any rate was in the city in February 1858. He took part in what he calls the \"Jingal pic-nic\" on the 20th of that month. \n\nThis curious inscription (a jingal being a sort of portable Chinese field-gun hardly conducive to a picnic atmosphere) is explained further, and at some length in Col Fisher's Three Years' Service in China, Col. Fisher relates: \"On the 20th February a pic-nic party went out to see a little of the country and of the people; and as we did not know what sort of reception we should meet with, we made rather a strong muster. There were nine officers and twenty-four men, with a couple of ponies to carry the luncheon. We started before seven o'clock, going out through the north-east gate of the city. \n\n+ \n\n\"After walking for about three hours, we rested in a very pretty spot under some fine trees, and one of the party shot a woodcock, which was hailed as a great event; and we determined to devote some little attention to so good a cause. We did not wish to return by the same road by which we had come out. The valley in which we were, we knew to be divided from the great north plain, by the White Cloud Mountains, a range familiar to our eyes from Canton. We hoped to reach that plain by some pass through the hills, and so return to Canton by way of the North Gate.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214562, "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": 420, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "389\n\nI append a copy of the inscriptions on the two monuments in question with a list of the other headstones in the same locality which may possibly prove useful for future reference.\n\nAppended to the report was a copy of a list of gravestones within the British cemetery in Dinghai also recorded during the visit of the individual who wrote the report. It came as somewhat of a surprise to us to note the number of graves of wives and children of British soldiers as we had assumed that during the two short assaults on Zhoushan in 1842 and 1857, and the several years of occupation British soldiers were without their dependants, because of the remoteness of China from the more permanent British bases.\n\nList of Monuments in British Graveyard\n\nat Chusan\n\n1. Monument to 55th Regt.\n\n2. Captain Colin Campbell\n\n3. Commander Harmer, H.M.S. Driver\n\n4. Eliza Woods and infant son wife of Sergeant Woods.\n\n5. Captain Hopton Steward of\n\nix Regt. Madras Native Infantry.\n\n6. Wife of Quarter Master Perl Royal Irish Regiment.\n\n7. Corporal M. Gleeson 98th Regt.\n\n8. Sergt. Blake, 98th Regt.\n\n9. Infant daughter of Sergt. Cobden\n\n10. Mrs. Gregory, wife of Lieut Colonel Gregory 98th Regt.\n\nPage 420\nPage 421", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214770, "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-1999", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "149\n\nwho bring them food. Japs get very strict about buying food at the wire and many Chinese get beaten up, women being stripped naked in full view of everyone. Indians are getting unruly. Several deaths from dysentry.\n\nEighth. Florrie and her amah arrive with more food. She tries to cross the road but I signal her back. No parcels get through as a General is expected to visit us. My boy also arrives. What a disappointment.\n\nNinth. Jap General arrives with an escort of twelve cars and troops manning machine guns in lorries. He drives to the gods hut, steps out, has his photograph taken, and drives off without a word. What a farce. Many wild rumours but as usual no truth in them.\n\nTenth. Bed collapses again during night. Our roof leaks from the effects of a bomb but so far the weather has been perfect. The flies swarm everywhere due to the filthy condition of the camp. All buying at the fence stopped, the Japs torturing any Chinese who come near the fence.\n\nEleventh. Florrie arrives again and I receive a parcel of bread, butter, milk, and tomatoes. What a treat and the six of us make short work of it. Rumours even wilder: Tokyo reported bombed, Japs suffer severe naval defeat. Hitler committed suicide, and Japs evacuate Malaya. Have grand supper of coffee, bread, butter, and jam.\n\nTwelfth. All buying definitely stopped, many Chinese beaten up.\n\nThirteenth. Many sick with tummy trouble. One feels fairly fit but completely lacking in energy. Twenty Scots arrive from Fan Ling, amongst them being Potato Jones, who commanded the company at the Shing Mun Redoubt, and Lieut Thompson, who was hit by a grenade and is practically blind. Japs refuse to take him to hospital which will probably cost him his sight. Florrie brings another parcel. I throw a message to her across the road screwed up in a cigarette holder.\n\nFourteenth. Everyone's stock of food running low. Rumours still wild but always good news and we think are going well.\n\nFifteenth. Florrie comes again but Japs won't allow parcels", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216400, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "109\n\ntrouble in Hankow might be expected, the unrest in the Atlantic Fleet, the Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and the change of Sterling from a gold basis, with its serious effect on ships' companies paid in silver, were events all calling for the closest attention.\n\nOn 18th September 1931 the Japanese Kwantung army in Manchuria, Lieut. General Shigeru Honjo, staged an incident which enabled them to allege that the Japanese owned South Manchuria Railway had been dynamited north of Mukden. Armed with this excuse, a premeditated assault was launched by them against the city of Mukden itself.\n\nAt the time the local Chinese war lord was a protégé of Chiang Kai-shek, Chang Hsueh-liang or the 'Young Marshal'. In June 1928 his father, Chang Tso-lin, the 'Old Marshal,' had been assassinated by the Japanese.\n\nUnfortunately as a consequence of his internal conflict with the Chinese communists, Chiang Kai-shek had decided on a policy of first conquering the bandits and rebels, his euphemism for the communists. He reasoned that with these left wing groups eradicated then later he would be able to deal with the foreign, or Japanese, invaders. So it was that in order to limit the extent of what he saw as merely being an incident, he ordered the 'Young Marshal' not to actively resist the Japanese move against Mukden.\n\nIn short order the Japanese army went on to occupy the remainder of that large and rich province of Manchuria. Thus was established the region later to become their puppet state of Manchukuo.\n\nThere were two important results.\n\nFirst, by their action in Manchuria, which certainly had not been sanctioned by the civilian government of Japan, the army established itself as a power within the government. No longer was every aspect of government under civilian control.\n\nSecondly within China the people saw that China as represented by Chiang Kai-shek, had permitted Japan to occupy a part of their country. By not attempting to eject the Japanese, and so endeavouring to rally all", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]