[
    {
        "id": 206965,
        "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-1974",
        "page_number": 36,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "30\n\nFL. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nThe arrival of the Marquis de Morès was, on the other hand, barely noticed in the press. The China Mail merely reported in its shipping column: 'Arrived Per Calédonien for Hong Kong from Marseilles. Marquis de Morès. Also Marquis de Morès servant'.* The Marquis had boarded the Calédonien, a Messageries Maritimes vessel, at Marseilles on 20 October and had arrived in Hong Kong on 22 November, eight days after Mayréna had taken a room at the Hong Kong Hotel. The Marquis was accompanied by William Van Driesche,' who in fact was not a servant but the Marquis' private secretary or rather homme de confiance. Because Government House was overflowing with guests, Morès had been forced to seek a lodging in the town and had booked into the Hong Kong Hotel. But Morès was not interviewed by any diligent reporter and we have, therefore, no contemporary description of the Marquis' personality or of his bearing and appearance in Hong Kong.*\n\nBoth Mayréna and Morès visited Government House, though not on the same occasions. Morès was invited to dine with the Des Voeux because they knew the Marquis's father, the Duke of Vallombrosa,* and had visited him in 1866 and 1872 at his villa 'des Tours' in Nice. Morès brought a letter of introduction from his father. Des Voeux states that he knew nothing of his extraordinary past, which is now so notorious that it is unnecessary to refer to it. At the time of his arrival my house was full, and so I was unable to ask him to stay with us, as I should certainly have done otherwise in memory of hospitality received from his family. But he dined with us several times, and we found him to be decidedly clever, and, I am bound to say, as agreeable and amusing as he was good-looking. His experiences, however, had been of such a wild nature that I was not altogether sorry for the accident which caused him to be a guest at an hotel instead of Government House.10\n\nMayréna's audience with Des Voeux took place on 15 November, the day after he landed in Hong Kong. We know that Mayréna had contrived the meeting and that Des Voeux was curious to see this strange visitant from pagan Sedang, a country about which nothing was then known in Hong Kong. This is confirmed by Des Voeux himself who states that Mayréna had",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206986,
        "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-1974",
        "page_number": 57,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG \n\n51 \n\nboarded Huck Finn's raft on the Mississippi went by the names of the Duke of Bilgewater (Bridgewater) and the Dauphin. But a title not only helped to disarm potential sceptics but allowed an adventurer to secure credit, often a necessity for the realisation of his schemes. Mayréna, as we have seen, kept himself afloat for some time by the sale of bogus titles, decorations and honours. A title, as it were, gave the claimant a fake persona, a social mask or facade behind which the predator could lurk. In this century, however, a devaluation of titles has taken place coincident with the rise of meritocracy.\n\nPoor communications helped an adventurer of the impostor or swindler type, for if knowledge of his past leaked out too soon, this would undermine any claim to respectability and diminish confidence in his intentions. News flowed more sluggishly in the nineteenth century, though it was a period of great achievements in the development of a network of world-wide communications. In 1853 the P. and O. had established a regular mail service between Hong Kong and Calcutta, thus establishing fortnightly communications with England; in 1863 the French Messageries Maritimes opened a route to the East; telegraph connection with Manila was achieved in 1880, with Canton in 1882. Nevertheless, mail, newspapers, and reading matter of all kinds took time — usually a month — to reach Hong Kong from Europe, even at the end of the century. There was also no Interpol to flash news by telegraph or wireless about international swindlers, pretenders and other social pests. The Hong Kong public had to wait several weeks before Le Courrier d'Haiphong brought news of the accusations Father Guerlach had levelled against Mayréna. It was not until 24 December 1888, six weeks after his arrival in Hong Kong, that the general public acquired some knowledge of Mayréna's chicanery and general untrustworthiness.\n\nIt was not only the pursuit of adventure, of fame or fortune, that drew adventurers to alien shores. Some left their homelands to escape from the cultural constraints and legal bind of their own societies — an escape, as they saw it, into freedom, innocence and, its corollary, libertinage.57 Laurence Hope, the wife of Lieutenant-General M. H. Nicolson of the Bengal Army, in 1902 wrote:\n\nUpon the City Ramparts, lit up by sunset gleam,\n\nThe Blue eyes that conquer, meet the Darker eyes that dream,58",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208929,
        "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-1980",
        "page_number": 91,
        "title": "RAS-1980",
        "content_text": "HONG KONG RIOTS OF OCTOBER 1884\n\n59\n\nNaturally the British Government protested this incitement to murder in its territories most strenuously. At British insistence an Imperial Decree was issued disavowing the proclamation and censuring the responsible officials for an excess of zeal. The censure did no damage to any of their later careers and amounted to barely concealed backhanded praise. When the British later asked for a re-publication of the decree of censure by Chang Chih-tung in the belief that it would calm Hong Kong, Chang refused. He justified his refusal, and the initial proclamation itself, on the grounds that he had merely been trying to encourage overseas Chinese to go to the areas of combat and help China in her struggle.10 That had, of course, been part of the original proclamation, but his explanation was no more convincing then than it is now. Interestingly, the Daily Press of October 1 pointed out that Commissioner Lin had issued a similar appeal in 1840 during the First Opium War.\n\nSeveral of the Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong published Chang's original proclamation when it was issued. The colonial authorities were so concerned about the potential effect of the proclamation that they brought charges against the newspapers for incitement to murder. Eventually the prosecutions failed in court, but the days following the publication of the proclamation were filled with incidents of Chinese refusing to provide services to the French, either to the ships of the Messageries Maritimes or to French naval vessels calling at Hong Kong for repairs and supplies after the battles with the Min forts. There were also incidents involving clashes between French naval personnel and local Chinese reported from Singapore.11\n\nThere is no question that the reported incidents were not simply anti-foreign, though later that would enter into them. Unlike incidents in other areas of China, only the French were affected. Even in Canton the incidents nearly ceased when it was announced that there were no more French in the city.12 On September 7 when Admiral Lespés, who had bombarded Keelung before the Foochow attack, was ashore in Hong Kong the local authorities were so concerned that some of the large numbers of Cantonese in the city might try to collect the rewards offered for the deaths of French officers that they assigned the admiral an escort of Sikhs.13\n\nWhen the cargo-boatmen were fined for refusing to work the French ships the action triggered a strike against all ships of what-",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209433,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1982",
        "page_number": 90,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "68\n\nELIZABETH SINN\n\nhaving been supplied by a French firm to the order of the French admiral. The animals remained at the Praya the whole morning as no cargo boats could be hired to ship them out to the French man-of-war. Eventually the crew had to man a boat themselves to take the cattle on board.11\n\nThese events convinced Acting Governor Marsh that the proclamation of the Canton authorities was achieving its intended effects. Worried that more inflammatory proclamations would be published and stir the people to more extreme actions, he decided to prosecute the four Chinese newspapers on a charge of Inciting to Murder.12\n\nIn the meantime, the Chinese refusal to work for the French had other repercussions. On the 26th, 3 Chinese cargo boats were charged with unlawfully refusing to accept employment, i.e. to transport the bullocks. The charges were brought by Mr. Vincenot, the French agent provisioning the man-of-war. The mistresses of these boats were fined $5 each.13\n\nThe following day, eleven cargo boats were also fined for refusing to work for the French; this time, it was for refusing to unload a steamer of the French Messageries Maritimes Company. They were also fined.14\n\nOn the 30th, an all-out strike of boats took place. They were no longer boycotting just the French. Almost every boat, those engaged in loading and discharging cargoes as well as passenger boats, rowed off to the Chinese side of the harbour. Boats which continued to work were stoned from the Praya, but when the police arrived, no trouble developed. In the course of the day, the strike became more widespread, and even employees on boats owned by hongs joined it.15\n\nNo arrests were made that day, and the China Mail reported that the boating community was to meet at Yaumati to decide on future action. The strike continued into the next day, the 1st of October. Only a few boats chartered at East Point were still operating.16\n\nThe strike spread on 1st October from the Praya and the boats to many other areas. At the Hong Kong Hotel, for inst-\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
        "rank": 0
    }
]