[
    {
        "id": 207343,
        "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": 111,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "# EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n103\n\nThe European lower orders were not, of course, totally neglected by their superiors. The church and the various missionary societies, such as the Mission to Seamen, did their best to elevate the moral tone of the less fortunate. Various institutions were established to cater to their needs—a Sailors' Home at West Point, close to the Seamen's Church, St. Peter's, and a Soldiers and Sailors' Rest at East Point. By the end of the century, there was also a Union Jack Club, a Royal Naval Seamen's Club, a United Services Club, an Institute of Marine Engineers, complete with technical library and librarian, and a branch of the British Mercantile Marine Officers' Association (the last two catered for a merchant navy elite). A Seamen's Hospital had also been opened.\n\nThe military authorities, in turn, strongly backed the work of the Army Temperance Association and the Independent Order of Good Templars, a society of abstainers formed in America in 1851, which had ramified over the Anglo-Saxon world. No doubt all these associations, societies, and clubs did sterling work and restrained some servicemen from seeking the scabrous temptations offered by Tai Ping Shan or Wan Chai; but they did not offer enough to the average soldier or sailor, only tea and buns, prayers and uplift, draughts and dominoes, and the ministrations of lay missioners, missionary ladies, and army and naval chaplains.\n\nIn 1889, the Hong Kong Ladies' Benevolent Society was founded 'for the purpose of rendering assistance in cases of sickness, want, poverty, or distress arising from time to time amongst persons other than members of the Portuguese or Chinese communities'. The society helped defray the passage home of destitute Europeans and educated orphaned European children; in some cases, it paid the rents of the hard-up and obtained employment for those stranded in the colony.\n\nWhat the government felt about poor whites is mirrored in the report prepared by Dr. Eitel in 1880 on the treatment of paupers in Hong Kong:\n\nIn the case of British destitutes, anything done by the Government over and above what is now being done in furnishing such destitutes with board and lodgings in the Gaol, would tend to make the condition of a 'beach comber' or destitute here more eligible than the lot of the hardworking seaman or stoker, and consequently put a premium on loafing and idleness... I would",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208643,
        "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-1979",
        "page_number": 100,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n73\n\nand soon the Holy Sacrifice is being celebrated on four makeshift altars, each of us taking his turn. After Mass, Father Troesch manages to get a little fire going in our kitchen and soon we have a cup of coffee and a dish of oatmeal. We have already been informed that the Japanese authorities will give us rice, meat, vegetables, tea, salt, and sugar—all of which will be strictly rationed and that we may be allowed to purchase other foods, such as fish and vegetables from hawkers who will come into the Camp. We are to have two meals a day, from the Camp kitchen, now merely a large rice caldron set up on some cement blocks in an area-way on the ground floor of our Block. Our cooks in this general kitchen seem to be some stranded American sailors, whose captain scuttled his ship when the war began.\n\nAs we take stock of our surroundings, we find that there are already some two hundred Americans here, and more expected. Some of these who arrived early began, with typical American aggressiveness, to clean up the place, and when we arrived, our rooms were in a very presentable state. In the other Blocks, there are over a thousand British, and more arriving, in trucks and buses, with more or less baggage. We likewise find five Maryknoll Sisters in Block \"G\". These are the Holy Spirit School staff, who in the beginning of hostilities had been evacuated to the Queen Mary Hospital, where they also served as nurses. The Japanese have taken over the Queen Mary Hospital, also all the other British Hospitals in the Colony and the staffs are rapidly being brought to Stanley. Our sick, Father Bauer and the two Brothers, have also arrived in Camp, Father Bauer being not much improved. In the course of this afternoon, nine Canadian Immaculate Conception Sisters arrived, and were given quarters in one of the British Blocks. We suppose the Kowloon contingent of Maryknoll Sisters will soon appear as well, along with Father Feeney. We are saving a cot for him.\n\nImmediately upon our vacating the House, the Japanese Gendarmerie moved in, and at night, we can see a few lights in the building.\n\nJanuary 22nd—A call for able-bodied seamen on deck for manual labor; some to help in the kitchen, cutting wood and preparing food, others for carrying baggage of new arrivals, and others are set to work carrying cement blocks for the construction of a",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    }
]