[ { "id": 207382, "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": 150, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "BRIAN MORTON & P. S. WONG\n\npower. There is thus an advantage for an oyster farmer to possess a large family. Usually every member of the family participates in the work. Male members usually handle the more laborious procedures such as the laying of the cultch, the transfer of the oysters from one bed to the other and the harvesting of the oysters for resale. Female members may also participate in this work especially those young and strong enough--but more often they are in charge of separating the oysters from the cultch and the shucking and selling of the oysters. Younger members of the family assist with domestic chores.\n\nIn Deep Bay, the oysters are cultivated in the traditional manner i.e. by bottom-laying (*). This method involves the laying of cultch (*) on the muddy bottom to collect the oyster spat (#). The set oysters are then left to grow for one or two years in the breeding ground (*) before being transferred to the deeper fattening ground (†) for an additional period of one or more years prior to harvesting (#).\n\nElsewhere in the world various materials are used as cultch for the collection of spat. These include stones, shells, bamboo sticks (Cahn, 1950), lime coated roofing tiles or egg-crate fillers, cement dipped wood veneer rings or old fish nets (Needler, 1941; Quayle, 1969) and even sticks of the mangrove, Aegiceras majus (Roughley, 1922). In Hong Kong some ten years ago, rocks and shells (Plate 14; A, B) were most commonly used as cultch. The supply of rock from nearby shores has, however, been virtually exhausted. Consequently stones are now being replaced by concrete tiles (*) (Plate 14; C, D) or concrete posts (Plate 14; E, F). Stones and oyster shells of appropriate size and thickness are still collected and reserved as cultch whenever available. The oyster shells are first cleaned and placed in the sun for weathering prior to being used. Concrete slabs are made artificially at a cost of HK$500/10,000 (in 1974). Old concrete slabs or posts which remain unbroken after the oysters have been detached can be reused. They are cleaned to remove all fouling organisms and then dried in the sun.\n\nThe most important and labour intensive stage in the bottom-laying method of oyster culture is the collection of the spat (**). In Deep Bay oysters spawn from March to September when temperatures are high and salinities are low (Mok, 1973). As a consequence the cultch has to be laid within this period. However,\n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211525, "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-1988", "page_number": 242, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "218\n\nTai Sheung Lo Kwan, the notes add, is none other than Taoist Patriarch Lao Tzu.\n\nTHE HONGKONG MILLING COMPANY'S FAILURE*\n\nE. W. WRIGHT\n\nThe suicide of A. H. Rennie, manager of the Hongkong Milling Co., and the subsequent closing down of the big milling plant which Mr. Rennie founded, is still causing much discussion in Pacific coast milling circles. Late particulars of the tragedy and the causes which led up to it, seem to indicate quite clearly that the death of Rennie and the failure of the institution which he established have combined to postpone indefinitely the attempt to build up the milling business in China on anything more than a very moderate scale.\n\nWhether or not it is possible to manufacture flour at a profit at Hongkong, is still a matter of doubt with some Pacific coast millers. They do not regard the failure of Rennie as proof conclusive that the business cannot be conducted with a profit, for Rennie, while a remarkably good flour salesman, knew nothing about the details of manufacturing flour. His failure, however, has made Pacific coast millers sceptical about the future success of milling in China in competition with the product that is shipped across the Pacific.\n\nThe rise and fall of the milling project at Hongkong is so much a part of the remarkable career of Mr. Rennie, who promoted it, that its history can best be told by relating his.\n\nA. H. Rennie was a native of Canada, where he was born in 1857. He became the confidential adviser and secretary of Hon. John Norquay,\n\n* This very interesting account is reprinted from the Northwestern Miller of 24 June, 1908, published at Minneapolis. Rennie left his name in Rennie's Mill, Junk Bay, near Kowloon. The editor is grateful to Mr. W. J. Howard, a long-time member of the Society, for contributing this item to the Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211527, "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-1988", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "220\n\nstock of the company was $1,000,000, and it was all needed before the end of the first year's business.\n\nPrior to the appearance of Rennie as a miller, the chief obstacle to milling with a profit in China was the lack of a market for the offal. Practically all of the profit enjoyed by the Pacific coast millers came from the high prices at which they were able to market millfeed, for which there was no demand in the Orient. Rennie, without much investigation, decided that the offal from his two thousand barrel mill could be fed to pigs at a profit and he established a “piggery” with several hundred animals at the start.\n\nBut millfeed for Chinese hogs was but little more nutritious than poison, and they died by hundreds; the experiment proved a flat failure. This was the beginning of the trouble, and as there was no market for millfeed in the Orient, it became necessary, in order to dispose of it, to ship it to Honolulu. Here it was sold at a very low price in competition with the Oregon mills. As Rennie secured most of his wheat from Portland and Puget Sound, the bran and shorts that finally found a consumer at Honolulu, had to stand a freight rate across the Pacific, and thence half way back again, compared with a short mileage between the Pacific coast ports and Honolulu, paid by the American millfeed.\n\nWhile the pigs were dying, the Chinese were refusing to buy the flour. Mr. Wilcox had spent a large sum of money in working up a trade throughout the Orient for particular \"chops\", as the fantastic brands are known. The Chinese by years of experience had learned to have confidence in these “chops\". So long as Rennie had them for sale, they bought from Rennie, but when Rennie, with his new mill, attempted to sell something \"just as good\", the Chinese buyers politely but firmly refused.\n\nThe Orientals are conservative in the extreme and they steadily refused to take up the new brands put on the market by the Hongkong mill. With slow sales for flour, and no profitable outlet for millfeed, matters were far from bright last winter when a cargo of weevily wheat from India distributed the industrious weevil throughout the mill and warehouses so thoroughly that Americans who have since visited the mill express the opinion that it will be impossible to rid the plant of the pest.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211528, "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-1988", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "221\n\nShortly before his death, Mr. Rennie issued a statement showing the business for the first eleven months of operation to have yielded a profit of 16 per cent on the $1,000,000 capital stock. The report was received with incredulity by the American millers, who regarded the details as showing a rather sickly condition of affairs. Of the total of $2,964,535 assets shown in the statement, the mill site, piers, machinery, plant, lighters, etc., were placed at a valuation of $969,138. The stock on hand was given at $1,544,267, and on consignment $55,619. The cash on hand and in the bank was $6,519, and there was due from sundry debtors $386,543.\n\nOn the liability side of the sheet, bills payable were given at $1,305,438.67; outstanding sales at $498,382.28, and on open account, $77,960.30.\n\nThe scepticism of the coast millers was caused by knowledge that Mr. Rennie had resold a number of Australian wheat cargoes at a heavy advance over the purchase price, his profits on these cargoes alone reaching a high figure. Noting that in the face of these profits on wheat, he had been unable to make a better showing for the year, and that he was obliged to include “stocks on hand” at an enormous valuation, none of the millers at all familiar with conditions in the Orient would believe that there had been any profit.\n\nAs matters now stand, the mill is closed down; both mill and warehouse are overrun with weevil; and greater part of the stock that has been ground since the mill began operation is unsold and is deteriorating in value, with almost a certainty that at least a portion of it will become a total loss.\n\nContrary to general reports in this country, there were no Oriental capitalists connected with the enterprise; all of the money was supplied by Mr. Rennie's British friends. The failure to attract Chinese capital to the enterprise was undoubtedly a heavy blow to Mr. Rennie, for his best customers, whose trade had given him such prestige, refused to buy the new flour; they remained loyal to the old \"chops\"; Mr. Wilcox sold direct to them and allowed them the commission which he had formerly paid to Mr. Rennie,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211529, "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-1988", "page_number": 246, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "222\n\nThroughout all the years in which he was accumulating a fortune by selling American flour for American millers, Mr. Rennie never displayed any friendship for this country. His contempt for American institutions undoubtedly caused him to believe that he could beat American millers at their own game, and it was in the attempt to supplant them in the flour trade of the Orient that he met his Waterloo, and for the present at least put an end to flour milling in China. The failure has been so complete and overwhelming that the field will for a long time be regarded with misgivings.\n\nA TRADITIONAL NEW TERRITORIES LATRINE\n\nIn Volume 23 (1983) of the Journal, in a Note entitled “Traditional New Territories Farming: Manuring\", I discussed the traditional New Territories type of village latrine.1 Recently, a traditional New Territories village latrine in full working order was drawn to my attention, and, since these latrines are now very rare, and will very soon be entirely a thing of the past, I felt it would be worth while taking a plan of the latrine, and giving a description of it.2\n\nThe latrine in question was built of field stones, set in a mud mortar. The wall was thickly faced with mud, which in turn was covered with thick lime plaster. This method of construction requires the walls to be rather thick, and in this case the walls were from 1 foot to 1 foot 3 inches thick. The roof was of tiles, laid double thickness for coolness. These were laid on pine beams resting directly on the top of the walls. Because of the weak construction of the walls it was essential to stop rainwater from running down the walls and washing out the mud which held them together: the eaves therefore overhung the walls by about 9 inches. The foundations of the walls were of plastered stone, and projected several inches beyond the line of the walls. The walls themselves only began some inches above ground level, again to keep damp away from the mud.\n\nThe latrine formed a rectangle 16 feet long by 14 feet 3 inches wide on the outside, and about 14 feet by 11 feet inside. The height of the walls to the springing of the roof was 6 feet 1 inch outside, and 5 feet 10 inches inside; the structure was gabled, and the additional height under", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212736, "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": 45, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "30\n\nin 1886, a year after he had ended his service 'being retained by Viceroy Chang Chih-tung in Canton.' It would appear that he mistakenly claimed the seal bore the more senior rank.\n\nMesny - Neither Chinese nor Western: But Perhaps Both\n\nMesny lived within the two cultures to the extent that we are left in no doubt that he was able to see both the good and the bad in both. He criticised national traits of Chinese and westerners on numerous occasions, though despite the almost universal criticisms by western travellers in China of the dirt, personal filthiness, disregard for decency, boorishness and inquisitiveness, to say nothing of the incessant and noisy talk, Mesny never comments. Foreign travellers almost without exception comment on one or more of the following Chinese characteristics, their remarkable mechanical aptitude, with a delicacy of touch; a patience probably unrivalled in the world; adding however that their inability to draw the necessary inferences, and improving and inventing as they proceeded always surprises. The Chinese, they continue, are an intensely practical people who dislike doing anything for which there is no necessity; and finally, despite there being hardly a product which Chinese would not use, and with a hatred of waste that makes them utilise everything, westerners are always amazed that they should be so averse to milk and milk products. Mesny hardly touches any of these matters, possibly as they had either not crossed his mind or more likely because he saw no reason to add to the chorus.\n\nHe was not impervious to Chinese arrogance and occasionally added a barbed aside such as his reference to a non-Chinese tribe in southern China when he added, ... [the Chinese] are ever ready to apply the very opprobrious term of barbarian to every other people, but not their darling selves...' A more telling paragraph amidst the hundreds of snippets or topics, and pen pictures of things Chinese which were the primary fillers of his weekly Miscellanies, one written in February 1905, after forty-five years in China, and therefore presumably a distillation of his views, was a description of:\n\n'Chinamen [sic]. hua-jen #A, a Brilliant man, a Glorious or Elegant Person, a Chinaman.\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213729, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "Table 20\n\nMale Sellers of Foodstuffs and Allied Trades, 1911\n\n53\n\n \n Occupation\n Northern District\n Southern District*\n \n \n Vegetable dealers\n 21\n 19\n 2.6%\n \n \n \n 25%\n \n \n \n Fruit sellers\n 26\n 16\n 2.1%\n \n \n \n 3.1%\n \n \n \n Bakers\n 7\n 35\n 4.7%\n \n \n \n 0.1%\n \n \n \n Poultry dealers\n 4\n 4\n 0.5%\n \n \n \n 0.5%\n \n \n \n Grain and flour dealers\n 5\n 11\n 1.5%\n \n \n \n 0.6%\n \n \n \n Rice dealers\n 70\n 43\n 5.8%\n \n \n \n 8.4%\n \n \n \n Rice pounders\n 24\n \n \n \n \n \n 2.9%\n \n \n \n Tobacco dealers\n 18\n 14\n 1.9%\n \n \n \n 2.2%\n \n \n \n Wine sellers\n 22\n 30\n 4.0%\n \n \n \n 2.6%\n \n \n \n Fishmongers\n 74\n \n \n \n \n \n 8.9%\n \n \n \n Butchers and pork sellers\n 8\n \n \n \n \n \n 1.1%\n \n \n \n Oil sellers\n \n 1\n 0.1%\n \n \n \n 1.3%\n \n \n \n Tea sellers\n 15\n 26\n 3.5%\n \n \n \n 1.8%\n \n \n \n Unclassified and general\n 535\n 538\n 72.2%\n \n \n \n 64.3%\n \n \n \n TOTAL\n 832\n 745\n 100%\n \n \n \n 100%\n \n \n \n *Includes New Kowloon\n \n\nTable 21\n\nMale Dealers in Foodstuffs, Northern District, 1921\n\n \n Occupation\n No. of Males\n \n \n Beancurd/bean stick makers and dealers\n 42\n 4.4%\n \n \n Bakers/Flour millers\n 42\n 4.4%\n \n \n Dried fish curers and dealers\n 54\n 5.7%\n \n \n Preserved meat makers and dealers\n 1\n 0.1%\n \n \n Rice millers\n 27\n 2.8%\n \n \n Rice dealers\n 84\n 8.8%\n \n \n Dog meat sellers\n \n 0.1%\n \n \n Fishmongers\n 186\n 19.5%\n \n \n Fruit sellers\n 16\n 1.7%\n \n \n General grocery\n \n \n \n \n Butchers\n 397\n 41.7%\n \n \n Noodle sellers\n 67\n 7.0%\n \n \n Salt dealers\n 2\n 0.2%\n \n \n Sauce makers and dealers\n 12\n 1.3%\n \n \n Tea dealers\n 3\n 0.3%\n \n \n Vegetable sellers\n 11\n 1.2%\n \n \n \n 7\n 0.7%\n \n \n Total\n 952\n 100%", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213765, "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": 117, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "88\n\n\"The total Northern District recorded population was 69 thousand in 1911, and 699 thousand in 1921 (including the boat-people), suggesting, at 35 births per thousand, about 2420-2450 births a year, of which half (1210-1225) would be male.\n\nThe 1921 figures for women aged 10-14, 15-19, 25-29, 30-34 do not show the same pattern as the 1911 figures did for the same group a decade earlier; in 1921 these groups, namely 4,380, 3,390, 2,792 and 2,616, thus making it very likely that the differences were due to under-reporting, given the static nature of the population.\n\nThe figures in Table 7 take no account of emigration from the area which would reduce the resident adult male population (particularly between ages 20 and 40). Emigration was a significant social feature (it is discussed more fully below), but does not make the very rough figures in Table 7 substantially inaccurate.\n\n42 Death-rates, of course, differed much more on a year-by-year basis than today. Epidemic disease (smallpox especially) killed many children, but smallpox struck only one year in every 3 or 4. Malaria and dysentery, the other major killers of children after neo-natal infections, were more endemic as problems. The Census officer in 1921 discussed death-rates within the New Territories, but, presumably because he was aware of the problem of under-reporting of children, he limited himself to the death-rates of persons aged over 25, pointing out that the death rates of males between 25 and 50 were double those of England and Wales at the same date, and were 50% higher for females. Between 50 and 60, death rates in the New Territories were, he found, 1.4 times those in England and Wales and rather higher than this for females. The percentage of the population still alive at age 60 in the New Territories was less than half that in England and Wales for males, and barely half for females (Census Report 1921, page 161, para 8).\n\n55\n\nPapers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 1900. (Sessional Papers), printed by Noronha and Co, Government Printers, No 8, \"Report of the Acting Principal Civil Medical Officer for the Year 1900. Laid Before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor\", p. 253, 1902. No 37, p 729, 1905, No 15, p 266, 1906. No 14, p 350, 1907. No 27, p 459, 1908, No. 21, p 459, etc., Administrative Reports for the Year 1909, p K54-6, 1910 p L51-52, 1911 p L61, 1912, p L60-61, 1913, p. L61-62, 1914. p L63. 1915, p M57-58, etc. A short history of medical provision in the New Territories is in Administrative Reports for the Year 1932, p M103-104.\n\n55\n\n21\n\nReductions in infant, especially neo-natal, mortality in the market-towns between 1911 and 1921 were certainly less than the numbers of infants not reported to the Census, and thus are invisible in the statistics.\n\nThe 4.3% reduction the loss of Tsuen Wan implied was offset, to a large extent, by the 1921 higher figures for the boat people. Between these two factors, the 1921 figures would be expected to be lower than the 1911 figures by about 1-2%.\n\n~ Administrative Reports for the Year 1920 page O29-30", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215044, "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-2000", "page_number": 140, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "96\n\nChinese labourer at dinner near Lillers 11/3/1918\n\n(by courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, London, Q10736)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]