[
    {
        "id": 204468,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1962",
        "page_number": 100,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n89\n\nThe education of the people was not calculated to improve matters, either over their own disputes or in taking a sensible attitude towards trouble from outside. I have already mentioned the educational process by which the literati obtained their degrees. The great majority of the people, by contrast, were illiterate and superstitious and for the most part were bereft of any formal education. Cattle tending and crop watching came first: schooling a bad second. Education was the result of parental initiative and favourable circumstance. As I have already said, there appear to have been schools in the larger villages, but they were private and were usually attended by a small proportion of village children, those whose fathers were willing and could afford to educate them. At Ho Chung near Sai Kung, for instance, a large village of nearly a hundred families in 1898, the number of children in the school, which was held in the schoolmaster's private house, was around twenty. The children came and went, some spending three years there, others less, and none but the brightest spent longer. Many children received no education at all, since in addition to the cost of tuition, parents had to pay for books, desk, pen, ink, and stationery. Study consisted of portions of the Four Books and Five Classics and reading, recitation, and dictation based upon them. The number of characters learned at school was limited, and the classical terms and characters learned by rote were not always of much use in daily life in the country, whilst practical subjects such as arithmetic and geography were unknown. Only clever children with well-off and determined parents continued their education and, by going mostly to Canton, learned something of the outside world.\n\nLife was therefore constricted and uncertain, dependent as it was to a great degree on a lack of natural disasters, and the epidemics which invariably followed in their wake, and sometimes did not require such prompting. There is a catalogue of such things in the District History.12 Life was also essentially local and personal. It was not therefore surprising that disputes over land, whether rents or taxes, were considered of great moment in the minds of the people. There is evidence for this throughout the New Territory, where court cases relating to land were sometimes held to be of sufficient importance to warrant their being inscribed on stone tablets inside the more important temples.",
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    {
        "id": 204476,
        "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-1962",
        "page_number": 108,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES \n\n97\n\nJ, FUNG Yiu Tsan, residing at No. 69 in this village, have a farm hut and a piece of waste threshing ground at Lot Nos. 94 and 95, which I hereby sell to a junior clansman FUNG Tak Yau, because I am old, have no son to support me and cannot make a living or obtain the money I need by borrowing. The price agreed upon is twenty-four silver dollars. This has been paid in full, after weighing, to me personally; the money is to be taken home for me to spend; hereafter the above-named payer will assume ownership of the farm hut and waste threshing ground, including the walls, tiles, ordure pit and boundary stones. From now on no arbitrary claims may be made, for this sale is voluntary and payment has been made in full and as agreed. This agreement is irrevocable. Should this property be found to have been acquired under suspicious circumstances, the vendor alone will be held responsible; the above payer is not liable. This written agreement is hereby prepared as proof and for retention by FUNG Tak Yau.\n\nAnother, drawn up during the difficult days of the Japanese occupation in 1942 reads,\n\nThis deed of sale on land is drawn up by the vendor CHAN Wan Shing. Because he has not money for purchasing provisions, he first offered to sell to his kinsfolk the nine plots of land, total area three dau chung, located at Nam Pei Tau in Shek Pik Village, bequeathed to him by his grandfather, but none of them are interested. Then, through the medium of a middleman, KWOK Lai Pai of Tai O was approached and he undertook to buy them at a current price of $165.00. Again, through the middleman, CHAN Wan Shing has received a sum of $165 for himself, and with effect from the date of this deed, the lots will become the permanent property of KWOK Lai Pai. For fear that verbal agreement may not constitute evidence, this deed is executed as a certificate to confirm the transaction.\n\nDuring a land court held during the Shek Pik settlement just as a case was being settled in the present possessor's favour in default of proof of the plaintiff's contention that the original document was a mortgage and not a sale (and therefore redeemable, according to custom, despite subsequent transactions) the defendant pulled out a new sheaf of papers for inspection. Among them was a white deed which proved to be the original mortgage of 1918. He thereby defeated his own case. It turned out that he had never bothered to read the papers handed over to him with the white deed of sale drawn up during the Japanese Occupation. Similarly, a sixty year old mortgage elsewhere on Lantau which was discovered in the land registers when succession was being determined, was honoured by the mortgagees, though grudgingly, the real point at issue being the amount of compensation and not the return of the land, as no figure was stated in the original entry.\n\n12 This is recognised in the provisions of the New Territories Ordinance Cap. 97 where the registration of a so manager in the Land Office is obligatory. A change of manager can only be secured after the vacancy has been filled at a properly advertised clan meeting and notices of election, posted by the District Office, have expired without objection, Prospective sales of two land have to be reported to the Assistant Land Officer (the D.O.) and advertised by him, again without objection, before a sale is allowed. Trustees, too, are not permitted to sell land belonging to minors unless the Land Officer has given his",
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    {
        "id": 204780,
        "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-1964",
        "page_number": 83,
        "title": "RAS-1964",
        "content_text": "72 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\nbe shown for inspection to prove ownership at the land settlement which followed the British lease and, though opinions differ on this point, many old villagers have said that their deeds were handed in to the Government and not returned. This would, in part, account for their being in very short supply today, at any rate throughout the area with which I am familiar; that is the islands and the Sai Kung and Clear Water Bay districts. Following widespread enquiry over a number of years, I am convinced that another factor of great importance in explaining their scarcity is the Japanese occupation of the Colony in 1941-45. Many villagers say that their papers were destroyed at that time, in many cases by themselves, since they feared the questions which might result if the Japanese authorities got their hands on them. The less they knew the better, was the prevailing view, and therefore many families destroyed their papers, to our present loss.\n\nFortunately, to set against this background of loss and decay, there are the valuable records of the land settlement carried out within a few years of the lease of the New Territories to Britain in 1898. These consist of records of a ground survey, carried out mainly to a scale of thirty-two inches to the mile, in which individual lots are set down and numbered, and their ownership listed in an accompanying schedule certified as correct by an officer of the Land Court.2 These constitute a modern \"Domesday\" of all titles to land in the leased territory. Their usefulness to the historian is obvious and apart from their intrinsic value as a contemporary record they provide many clues to the past and enable detailed checks to be made on some of the persons and organisations whose names appear on commemorative tablets and others dated items such as furniture and fittings, which are to be found in the many temples which dot the countryside.\n\nThere are also the recollections of elders, particularly those over eighty years of age, who were young men at the time the territory changed hands. The memories of the oldest men are sometimes good and when this is the case they can do a great deal to fill in the bare bones of the land records and the genealogical trees. Since certain changes overtook the region within the first decade of British rule,3 their testimony is of the greatest importance to a realisation of manners and attitudes and an understanding of the system of civil and military administration which obtained",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204799,
        "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-1964",
        "page_number": 102,
        "title": "RAS-1964",
        "content_text": "90\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nIt is hoped that this account of Peng Chau will demonstrate the diversity of settlers and enterprises which appears to characterise even the smaller settlements of this part of the Kwangtung coastline. Peng Chau is a Cheung Chau in miniature, and because of its smaller size a wider treatment than was possible for Cheung Chau can be given, in an article of this length. Again, my intention is to provide no more than an outline, and an indication that, despite their size, such communities could be complex settlements in which traditional lines of division were blurred by proximity and a common environment.\n\nNOTES\n\nAny statements in respect of Peng Chau and its people which appear to be unsubstantiated are based on information supplied by various elders. I am most grateful for the assistance given by the Chairman of the Peng Chau Rural Committee, Mr. LAM Shue-chun#, and Mr. LO Chi-chung# of the District Office, South,\n\n1 See \"The pattern of life in the New Territories in 1898\" pp. 75-102 of this Journal, vol. 2 (1962) and \"Cheung Chau 1850-1898\" in vol. 3 (1963) pp. 88-106.\n\n2 See Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong—hereafter styled Sessional Papers (Hong Kong Noronha & Company, at yearly intervals, in this case 1905) p. 144 in the Report on the work of the Land Court for the New Territories for 1900-1905.\n\n3 See G. N. Orme, “Report on the New Territories 1899-1912” in Sessional Papers 1912, pp. 56-57, for significant changes in wages and the cost of living.\n\n4 A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong, Government Printer 1960) p. 83. In this article characters have not been given for any place names which appear in the Gazetteer,\n\n5 Schedules to the Block Crown Lease for Peng Chau, District Office, South, New Territories Administration. Hereafter styled BCL.\n\n6 Under the Convention of Peking signed on 9th June 1898,\n\n7 Sessional Papers 1911, p. 103(22) and (26). This figure is broken down into 434 males and 208 females, children included. The preponderance of males is noteworthy and may be due, in part, to the number of single men employed in the limekilns. The boat population are not specified separately in the Census returns and cannot be separated from the 4,442 contained in the Cheung Chau district figure. Cheung Chau with Peng Chau and Nei Kwu Chau formed a census district in 1911, but whilst the land population for each place is given separately, the boat populations are not so specified.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204802,
        "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-1964",
        "page_number": 105,
        "title": "RAS-1964",
        "content_text": "FENG CHAU\n\n93\n\n26 Dated the thirteenth day of the sixth Moon of the 8th year of Kuang Hsü (27th July 1882).\n\n27 Other examples of local tax-lords are quoted in note 12 of my Cheung Chau article. For an interesting instance from another part of the New Territories see Appendix II to the Report on the New Territory for the year 1900, Hong Kong Government Gazette, vol. XLVII (1901), pp. 1403-4, where a claim by members of a branch of the TANG family of Kam Tin to ownership of the whole island of Ts'ing I was investigated by a member of the Land Court. He wrote \"I have taken special pains to go thoroughly into this case because it seems a very typical example of the curious and unwarrantable pretensions to the ownership of very large tracts of country which are perhaps the most striking feature in the economy of what we call the New Territory.\" Like the TANGS, the CHANS may have owned part but claimed, or aimed to control, the whole.\n\n28 It is interesting that the earliest grave known on the island has a tablet dated Chien Lung fifteenth year (1749) and that the person buried there is a CHAN Yiu Hong & and the person responsible for erecting the tablet (no relationship is given) CHAN Hing Sin. These men may conceivably have had something to do with the CHAN Yan Hop and Yee Ka Tongs. The grave is unlikely to be that of a fisherman and most likely to be that of someone who was living on Peng Chau at the time of his death. Not everyone is provided with a formal grave, and therefore he was probably a person of some consequence. Also, at the time of the land settlement, various persons named CHAN who were not local villagers but belonged to Peng Chau and Nam Tau (BCL) owned land on the Lantau coast opposite Peng Chau. One of them was the CHAN Yan Hop Tong of Nam Tau. This land may represent the remains of larger holdings left over from an earlier period but mostly sold or mortgaged by 1899, or else not recognised by the Land Court during the re-registration of titles, as being \"not compatible with the principles of British administration\" as happened with some other tax-lord land in the New Territories—see note 12 to my Cheung Chau article.\n\n29 Peng Chau M.S.\n\n30 BCL.\n\n31 BCL, Lantau coast.\n\n32 A lucky day of the first winter month of the year of Tao Kuang (1834),\n\n33 BCL.\n\n34 BCL.\n\n35 BCL.\n\n36 Peng Chau M.S.\n\n37 At the 1911 census (see note 7 above) the population of these villages was Nei Kwu Chau 78, Tai Pak 52, and Yee Pak 59. There were also families living in hamlets at Nim Shue Wan, Cheung Sha Lan, Hai Tei Wan, Hung Shui, Kau Shat Wan and Man Kok, but they are not listed in the Census.\n\n38 There is conflicting evidence about the prosperity of the area in the second half of the century. The decline of population on the Lantau coast opposite Peng Chau has been noted. This is more noticeable elsewhere on Lantau, where some of the more important villages can be shown to have\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt",
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        "id": 205043,
        "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-1965",
        "page_number": 151,
        "title": "RAS-1965",
        "content_text": "142\n\nVETCH, H.\n\nVETCH, Mrs. H.\n\nVIO, Dr. E. G. -\n\nVISCHER, Mrs. H. B.\n\nVISICK, Mrs. M. -\n\nVOGEL, E. F.\n\nWALDEN, J. C. C.\n\nWALKER, P. R. -\n\n-\n\nWALSH, Miss A. T.\n\nWARD, Miss B. E.\n\nWARD, Miss J. E. A.*\n\nWARD, W. L.\n\nWATSON, K. A.\n\nWATTS, Major, E. V.\n\nWEI, Dr. Tat\n\nWEINREBE, H. M.\n\nWELCH, H. H.*\n\nWILLAN, E. G. -\n\nWILLIAMS, B. V.\n\n·\n\n·\n\nWILLIAMS, Mrs. H. ·\n\nWILLIAMS, Miss H. M.\n\nWILLIAMS, P. B..\n\n+\n\nWILMOT-MORGAN, Mrs. D. M. -\n\nWILMOT-MORGAN, E.\n\nWILSON, B. D.\n\n-\n\nWINKLER, Mrs. E.\n\n→\n\n-\n\nHong Kong Univ. Press, The University, H.K.\n\nAs above.\n\n315, H.K. & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K.\n\nA-23, Estoril Court, 15 Garden Road, H.K.\n\nDept. of English, The University, H.K.\n\n3A, Marigold Road, 1st floor, Kowloon.\n\nN.T. Administration, North Kowloon Magistracy, Tai Po Road, Kowloon,\n\nc/o Resettlement Dept., Pui Ching Road, Ho Man Tin, Kowloon,\n\nFlat 5, 137 Pokfulum Road, H.K.\n\nc/o Dept. of Anthropology & Sociology, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, W.C.1., England.\n\nc/o National Provincial Bank Ltd., Bideford, N. Devon, England.\n\nApt. 3, No. 7 Magazine Gap Road, H.K.\n\nc/o Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, H.K.\n\nHQ. Land Forces, B.F.P.O.1., H.K.\n\nH.K. Anti-Tuberculosis Assn., Queen's Rd., E., H.K.\n\nWeinrebe & Pennell, Ltd., 1103-4 Yu To Sang Bldg., H.K.\n\n33 Lexington Road, Concord, Mass., U.S.A.\n\nc/o Colonial Secretariat, H.K.\n\nN.T. Administration Headquarters, North Kowloon Magistracy, Taipo Road., Kowloon,\n\nc/o District Office, Taipo, New Territories.\n\n612, King's Park House, Gascoigne Road, Kowloon.\n\nc/o Colony Headquarters, Arsenal Street, H.K.\n\n93 Kadoorie Avenue, Kowloon.\n\nAs above.\n\n3-C Homestead Road, The Peak, H.K.\n\n402 Clovelly Court, 12 May Road, H.K.\n\n* Life Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt",
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    {
        "id": 205347,
        "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-1967",
        "page_number": 109,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "102\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n2 This figure is given in the table at p. 145 in Sessional Papers, i.e. Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, for 1906 (Hong Kong, Noronha & Co., Government Printers) included in \"New Territories: Land Court, Report on Work from 1900 to 1905\". The figure is for all private lots demarcated, and includes house lots as well as agricultural land.\n\n3 Colony Census of 1911 in Sessional Papers 1911, pp. 103 (22, 26 and 37-38).\n\n4 See Extracts from a Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong in The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 8 April 1899 at p. 541. Also Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JHKBRAS), Vol. 3 (1963), pp. 144-145 and Vol. 4 (1964), pp. 146-150.\n\n5 This information is based on my own extensive enquiries in the Hong Kong region. They corroborate the usual accounts given in many books, among them E. T. Williams, China Yesterday and Today (London etc., Harrap & Co., 1923) pp. 118-136, Chapter VI, \"The Village Republic\" and E. T. C. Werner, China of the Chinese (London, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1920), pp. 161-165, \"Local Government”.\n\n6 See p. 12 and notes 15-17 of my \"The Settlement and Development of a Multiple-Clan Village\" (Shek Pik on Lantau Island) in Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories (Hong Kong, Hong Kong Branch of Royal Asiatic Society, n.d. but 1965),\n\n7 See also my note \"Village Credit at Shek Pik, 1879-1895\" in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, No. 5 (1965), pp. 119-122, for interest rates of 50% of principal per annum, simple interest, from a money loaning Tong in the same area. This Tong's varied means of doing business are paralleled in the surviving papers showing Cheung Kwong-chuen's agreements with local farmers,\n\n* See Ping-ti Ho, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China, Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368-1911 (New York, Columbia University Press, 1962), pp. 33-38, \"It would not be an exaggeration to say that in Ch'ing times practically anybody who could afford a little over 100 taels could obtain the chien-sheng title and the right to wear the scholar's gown and cap\", p. 34.\n\n* For more details of the area see my article \"A Mixed Community of Cantonese and Hakka on Lantau Island\" in Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories, cited at note 6 above.\n\n10 His name heads the list of twenty-six persons who presented a commemorative red and gilt board on the occasion of the last major repair to the Tin Hau temple at Ham Tin, Pui O dated the equivalent of 15 January 13 February 1915.\n\n11 For a brief account of this village see the article referred to in note 6 above.\n\n12 The Census of 1911 lists 5,694 Cantonese and only 944 Hakka out of an estimated land population of 6,710. See Sessional Papers 1911, p. 103 (22). I have my suspicions about the Hakka figure but have not yet counter-checked by other means. For alleged Cantonese domination see inter alia K. M. A. Barnett, \"The Peoples of the New Territories\" in J. M. Braga (ed) The Hong Kong Business Symposium (Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, 1957), pp. 261-265, and G. N. Orme's \"Report on the New Territories 1899-1912\" in Sessional Papers 1912, p. 44 where he says that the imposition of British rule led to the freeing of the neighbours of",
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    {
        "id": 205415,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1967",
        "page_number": 177,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "170\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n16 This bell is dated in the autumn of Chien Lung year (1773).\n\n17 Summary of Report of the Squatters Commission, p. 115. The same man said (p. 122) that Ap Lei Chau 'was built about 1850'.\n\n18 Hong Kong Government Gazette for 28 March 1857 p. 4, Table No. 3.\n\n19 Hong Kong Government Gazette for 1867 p. 92, Table No. 7.\n\n20 Mayers, Dennys and King. The Treaty Ports of China and Japan (London, Trubner and Co., 1867) p. 49.\n\n21 Hong Kong Sessional Papers, i.e. Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, for 1897 and 1911, pp. 484 and 103(23) respectively.\n\n22 Mayers, Dennys and King, p. 49 mention 'boat-building and general trade'. See also information given in the printed proceedings of a court case over ownership of land on Ap Lei Chau given in Sessional Papers August 1886 - September 1887 (Appendix to Report from the Land Court of 1886-87), pp. 33-35.\n\n23 For another example see my article on Cheung Chau (an island near Hong Kong that together with the rest of the New Territories was leased to Great Britain by the Convention of Peking, 1898) in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 3 (1963), especially pp. 95-98.\n\n24 Sessional Papers 1911 and 1897 at the pp. quoted at note 21 above.\n\n25 See also the article referred to at note 23 above.\n\n26 This and the previous paragraph are based on the oral statements of three Ap Lei Chau elders born 1887, 1891 and 1897 who had belonged to the three Fongs. Their evidence helps to interpret and confirm the evidence given before the Squatter Board during a hearing to determine ownership of the Hung Shing temple in 1893. See Summary of Report of the Squatters Commission, pp. 120-141.\n\nFootnote:\n\nIt is clear from re-reading Sayer, pp. 22-23, that the Hung Shing temple was originally on a small island that was later, and before Sayer wrote in 1937, joined by reclamation to its larger neighbour Ap Lei Chau.",
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    {
        "id": 205822,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1969",
        "page_number": 128,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "122\n\nH. G. H. NELSON\n\n* Records covering 380 houses from 1905 to 1968 reveal 55 sales of houses. This includes sales within (the majority) and between surname groups of which Sheung Tsuen has seven, formerly eight -- but does not include sales to outsiders; these do not in any case become significant until after 1963. The 55 house-sales include 12 houses which were sold twice, which for reasons given below, may be regarded as a significant reduction of the total; and also include sales of empty sites, cowsheds, and latrines. These latter are sometimes, but not invariably, indicated in the Memorial of sale, so it is likely that there were more of this type than the records reveal: I estimate the total at about 10. The number of original sales of habitable houses in this 63 year period is therefore a little above thirty.\n\n9 I occasionally heard the term chinguk EA used to describe such a house; but strictly speaking this refers to the house which contains that version of the ancestral tablet which has been passed down the eldest son line.\n\nT\n\nT\n\n10 The question of the completeness of the records may be raised: in general, I think it is safe to say that in as important a matter as title to house-property, transactions are almost certain to be registered eventually at the local District Office. The only exception to this is the adjustment of property rights which may involve a sale between brothers after a division: this often occurs before the brothers' succession to their father is registered, so that the sale does not reach the Land Records. In one such case that I know of, however, the sale between the brothers was felt to be important enough for it to be documented and witnessed by \"the Village Representative and all the elders\". This took place in 1960 or 1961.\n\nThe Hon. Editor has drawn my attention to non-registration of transactions in the early years of the British administration of the New Territories, citing the District Officer's report for the Southern district (1912) which says:-\n\nEight hundred and sixty-five deeds were registered during the year. This is only slightly above the average for the last seven years during which the Land Ordinance has been in force. There is no doubt that much land changes hands without registration; and it is probable that not more than 10 per cent of mortgages on land in the less accessible parts of the district are registered. The journey from Lantao is an almost insuperable obstacle and a \"stamped paper\" is generally considered sufficient security.\n\nIn this case the principal reasons for non-registration were distance and poor communications. At Sheung Tsuen the main land office was at Tai Po until the Yuen Long District Office was established in 1947. (though it appears there was some kind of Land Office-cum-Court at Ping Shan pre-war). If people had to go all the way over Tai Mo Shan to Tai Po there would have been similar disincentives to registration here too.\n\n11 Cf. M. C. Yang, A Chinese Village: Taitou, Shantung Province, Columbia University Press, New York and London, 1965 edition, p. 40: although this instance comes from a very different part of China, and a village where domestic architecture is different from that in Hong Kong.\n\n12 The institution of k'ai-tsai ## often loosely translated as “godson' - is not relevant here.\n\n13 See for example H. D. R. Baker, A Chinese Lineage Village, London, 1969, p. 49.\n\n14 Apart from its obvious restriction to a unilineal descent system, kwoh-kai also differs significantly from Western forms of adoption in that the initiative may come either from the adopter or the adoptee, as indicated below.",
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    {
        "id": 205974,
        "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-1970",
        "page_number": 54,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n49\n\nThe staffing situation improved between 1897 and 1901 and 12 more cadets were recruited from England, the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States including Reginald Fleming Johnston, Cecil Clementi, A. G. M. Fletcher,50 and Geoffrey Norman Orme. The incorporation of the New Territories into the Colony meant that more recruits would be needed for district administration and as members of the Land Court set up to determine thorny problems of land ownership and tenancy.52 However, 17 cadets were recruited between 1901 and the end of 1914. There were losses of course: notably the gifted Stewart Lockhart who was transferred in 1902 to Wei-hai-wei as H.M.'s Commissioner, and the equally gifted R. F. Johnston who was also transferred to Wei-hai-wei as District Officer in 1904.\n\nA posting in the New Territories provided for some younger cadets an escape-hatch that removed them from office life in the Colonial Secretariat and other departments in the Central District. Service in the New Territories, a mainly agricultural area dotted with small village communities and small market towns, had more in common with colonial service in Africa and South-East Asia, and the cadet was left comparatively free to go his own way, lead an open-air life and exercise judicious authority. The job demanded initiative, stamina, and magisterial skills; and, if one is to believe Mr. Austin Coates,54 a cadet at a much later date, it was a deeply rewarding life which allowed a cadet to become involved in the lives of simple people, farmers and fishermen, small shopkeepers and craftsmen. Certainly, the report of the District Officers for the New Territories, such as those written by Stewart Carne Ross, have a little more colour than the stilted administrative reports presented annually by heads of departments.\n\nBy the 1920s cadets had become entrenched in most government departments and they filled all the senior posts in the Colonial Secretariat, the directing and co-ordinating agency of government. The exceptions were some departments, such as the Medical and Sanitary Services, Public Works, the Royal Observatory, and Marine Department, which necessitated at the top someone with specialist knowledge. The Inspector General of Police (also in charge of the Fire Brigade), the Director of Education, the Postmaster General, and the Superintendent of Imports and Exports, however, were all cadets, but not the...",
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    {
        "id": 205980,
        "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-1970",
        "page_number": 60,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941 \n\n55 \n\n19 Kenneth Myer Arthur Barnett (born 1911). Educated at Mill Hill School, London, and King's College, Cambridge, Hong Kong Civil Service 1934. Retired as Director of Census and Statistics 1970. \n\n40 Quoted in James Hope Hennessy's Verandah, London, 1964, p. 186. Hennessy is quoting, presumably, from Sir George Bowen's Thirty Years of Colonial Government, London, 1889, which I have not seen. \n\n41 Margery Perham, op. cit., p. 302. Lugard also liked and trusted A. W. Brewin, the Registrar General: \"if he once said, he was very 'pro-Chinese' this was really a compliment. He would allow Brewin to forbid his own delivery of a speech to a Chinese gathering. He could not always understand the reason ‘but I trust implicitly in him'.\" \n\n42 E. J. Eitel \"Chinese Studies and Official Interpretation\", p. 8. \n\n43 Alleyne Ireland, Far Eastern Tropics, London, 1905, p. 34. In 1901 Ireland was appointed Colonial Commissioner of the University of Chicago for the purpose of visiting the Far East. \n\n44 Ibid., p. 32. \n\n45 Norman Gilbert Mitchell-Innes (1860-1947). Educated at Repton and Edinburgh Academy, Hong Kong Civil Service 1881; Treasurer 1891; left Hong Kong Service in 1896 and transferred to the Home Prison Service. Des Voeux thought highly of Mitchell-Innes. See G. B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong 1841-1962, Hong Kong, 1964, p. 112. \n\n46 Report on Defalcations in the Treasury, Sessional Papers, Hong Kong, 1893, p. 546. \n\n47 Ibid., p. 546. \n\n48 Norton-Kyshe, vol. 2, p. 447. \n\n49 Ibid., p. 447. \n\n50 Sir Arthur George Murchison Fletcher (1878-1954). Educated at Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1901; transferred to Ceylon 1927; Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, 1926-9; Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for Western Pacific 1929-36; Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Trinidad and Tobago, 1936-38. \n\n51 Geoffrey Norman Orme (1879-1966). Educated at Cheltenham College and Hertford College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1902. Director of Education 1924-26. Left Hong Kong Service in 1926. \n\n52 The Report on the Land Court, 1900-1905, Sessional Papers, 1905, gives a list of the presidents and members of the Land Court in order of their appointment, most of whom were cadets. H. H. J. Gompertz was appointed in 1900 and resigned in 1904; Cecil Clementi in 1903; and C. M. Messer and J. R. Wood in 1904. The Registrars in order of appointment - all cadets were: J. H. Kemp, E. D. C. Wolfe, and S. B. C. Ross. The Land Court in 1905 consisted of three members: C. M. Messer, Cecil Clementi, and J. R. Wood. The New Territories became popular with cadets as a place to walk or shoot in on week-ends. Robert Oliphant Hutchison (1880-1920), the Superintendent of Imports and Exports, on his way to shoot snipe at Saikung fell off a launch in a squall and drowned. His body was never found. With him at the time was D. W. Tratman, the Colonial Treasurer. One imagines from the evidence that both had \"tiffined\" rather too well. \n\n53 \"At first British officials were limited in principle to two, dealing with police and land. In 1899 a police magistrate was appointed and also an assistant land officer to deal with land cases, and the police were placed \n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61",
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    {
        "id": 206522,
        "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": 70,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "64\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\nFrom his headquarters at Taipo Lockhart was directly in control of the administration of the New Territories from May to July 1899. His first task was to establish law and order and this was achieved through the activity of the able F.H. May, Captain Superintendent of Police, who stationed police at convenient points throughout the area. Steps were then taken to define the Districts and Sub-Districts under section 4 of the Communities Ordinance, No. 77 of 1899. The principle followed was to adhere as closely as possible to the divisions recognised traditionally by the Chinese, which meant in most cases that such divisions followed the natural features of the countryside, so that in the main each sub-district was contained in a valley. The territory was divided finally into eight districts and forty-eight sub-districts. After these had been defined, committee-men were appointed for each sub-district. In Lockhart's words: \"These Committee-men have formed a useful link between the Government and the villagers, and have been of much assistance in explaining to the people the objects of the various measures of Government which have been introduced from time to time. The Committee-men as a rule are those who possess influence in their own immediate neighbourhood, whose advice is listened to, and whose lead is generally followed. The wisdom of affecting with responsibility those to whom the people have been accustomed to look for leadership and of using them to elucidate the objects of Government is evident.\"25\n\nBut the most important task accomplished by Lockhart was the allocation and registration of all privately-owned land. This necessitated, as Lockhart had suggested in his report of 8 October, 1898, a proper cadastral survey. The surveying began in November, 1899, and was completed by May, 1903. In the meantime the registration of land claims was being carried out steadily from July, 1899, at Taipo, Ping Shan, and in the Land Office in Hong Kong. In the following year all the registration work was taken over by the Land Court. The object was to secure the registration of all the owners of cultivated land in the New Territories in order to prepare a Crown Rent Roll.\n\nWhen Lockhart returned to his office in the Colonial Secretariat in July 1899, the day-to-day work of administering the New Territories was carried on by three cadets — E.R. Hallifax, C.M. Messer, and J.H. Kemp. But although Lockhart was no longer physically",
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    {
        "id": 207827,
        "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-1976",
        "page_number": 215,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "200\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\nChinese rule, the remoteness, the danger and the expense of the central courts had left much authority to the local elders, and especially to those entrusted with powers of collecting local taxes: under British rule this authority naturally decayed, though they have continued sometimes to be the medium of dealings with the villagers. But their moral influence has often been of great assistance to the officials in the maintenance of the public peace, and their knowledge of the decisions of questions concerning local customs, disputed successions, fung shui and such like. (Report on the New Territories, 1899-1912, Papers laid before the Legislative Council no. 11 of 1912, p. 45).\n\n17. We shall need to consider who these elders were, but before doing so we must look at a wider context within which local leadership was to be seen. At the time the New Territories were created they were in large part covered by a network of village-groupings, many of them being known under the name of yeuk. A yeuk was a collection of neighbouring villages which had some means of expressing its unity (sometimes in the ownership of property common to the grouping) and which was often combined along with other such yeuk to form what I propose to call a yeuk-complex. This kind of organisation can conveniently be illustrated from material on the yeuk-complex to have survived most fully into our own day. I refer to the Ts'at Yeuk (i.e. the Seven Yeuk) of Tai Po.\n\n18. There for long stood a market town at Tai Po: Tai Po Kau Hui. It was (and physically remains) just by the Tang settlement of Tai Po Tau, but the market was under control of the Tang people further north in Lung Yeuk Tau. As Masters of the Market the Tang taxed sellers and, if the stories told about them now are to be believed as reflecting reality, and not mythical justifications of revolt, they harassed buyers by the exercise of the privilege of claiming choice produce. Their control of the market was from time to time challenged. In 1892, the matter having been brought to the county magistrate's court at Nam Tau, a ruling was given that only the Tang had the right to build shops in the market. This decision (which was inscribed on a stone slab and placed in the local Tin Hau Temple) appears to have been the culmination of a series of challenges to Tang power by the Man of Tai Hang. (Up to 1873, when it was destroyed by a typhoon, the Man had had a settlement next to the market, but by the 1890s their base was Tai Hang). In response to the unfavourable outcome of the lawsuit",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207841,
        "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-1976",
        "page_number": 229,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "214\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\ning, for they are now cut off from the intensive study of a period in which British administration and Chinese law and society were mutually adjusting themselves). Many disputes must have been dealt with in the communities within which they arose, and the remoter villages may in fact have had little to do with the Administration directly; but over a large area of the New Territories it came to be accepted that the administrator was a sure and final arbiter of major differences. In his report on the Northern District for 1913 Ross wrote: 'Some years ago by tacit consent parties did not bring forward cases relating to the \"tso\" and the settlement of ancestral property. Now a large number of cases heard are applications for a declaration as to the parties entitled to share in the property of a common ancestor...\n\n39. The powerful role of the pre-war administrator in social control has left a legacy which weakens the effectiveness of modern attempts to divert the settlement of disputes to other channels. The Rural Committees are now expected to take over a large share of the burden of mediation. In fact, the tendency still seems to be that differences which cannot be composed within a village (where the Village Representative and the other elders are often incapable of exerting the authority to settle the matter) pass first to the District Officer whence they may be referred to the Rural Committee, sometimes returning to the District Officer when the Rural Committee finds itself unable to produce a settlement. And in some cases a settlement is never reached, because as matters have stood in the last couple of years, the District Officers no longer exercise many of the judicial functions with which they were formerly endowed. Land and small debts cases now fall within the competence of the new District Court.\n\n40. Two questions are raised about the operation of the new court. First, is it so court-like in comparison with the informality of the old system practised by administrators that it attracts to itself the unfavourable attitudes which Chinese traditionally displayed towards the yamen? As well enter the jaws of hell as pass through the gates of the yamen.\n\nSecond, are the subtleties of Chinese custom likely to be taken account of in the new court as they were in the days when justice was administered by officers trained to study and respect these niceties? It is of course too soon to say anything definite about the first question; the reactions of people to the court will need to be watched over a period of years; but as\n\n+ + + + +",
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    {
        "id": 207842,
        "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-1976",
        "page_number": 230,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "far as I can see, it is not fear that keeps people away from the court so much as unfamiliarity with technically administered justice and reluctance to become involved with professional lawyers.\n\n41. Through the courtesy and co-operation of the Registrar of the Supreme Court, the Registrar at the Kowloon District Court, and the District Judge, I was able to collect some information on recourse to the Fanling District Court (which covers most of the New Territories) since its establishment. From 27 Sept. 1961 to 19 April 1963, 1,741 cases were heard (436 in 1961, 1,179 in 1962, and 126 in 1963). The cases can be seen to fall mainly into four classes: 'goods', 'loans', 'possession', and 'dishonoured cheques'. In round figures the 'goods' cases amount to 280, 'loans' cases to 1,170, 'possession' cases to 70, and cases of 'dishonoured cheques' to 60. The 'loans' cases, which account so heavily for the business of the court, owe their great number to the activity of the Director of Agriculture and Forestry in claiming his due. It is the 'possession' cases which bring us into the traditional field of New Territories disputes: land. But in fact these cases seem to be largely about tenancies held by immigrants, the terms on which land is to be let for vegetable-growing and poultry-keeping (particularly with respect to the termination of leases) not yet having become standardised to the point where there is a generally recognised custom. The only other classes of cases where numbers rise to any significant degree are 'rent' (18 cases), 'wages' (29), 'wages in lieu of notice' (24), and 'tax' (16). So that, on the whole, the business of the court appears to be largely bound up with the relations between government and individuals and between long-settled residents and outsiders with whom they have become commercially engaged. Matters touching 'Chinese law and custom' have hardly yet reached the court. The extent to which lawyers were involved in the cases is worth noting. In 151 cases solicitors acted for plaintiffs; but only 3 defendants were so represented. (There are no solicitors outside the urban area and no sign yet that rural practices may develop).\n\n42. The second question raised at the beginning of paragraph 40 has already been answered in part: so far what has been regarded as falling within the province of 'Chinese law and custom' has barely been in question in the court; but the court is so constituted that if such cases do arise District Officers and other experts can be asked to sit with the judge, and it will be interesting to see whether cases of this kind do arise in the future in any considerable number.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207856,
        "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-1976",
        "page_number": 244,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 229\n\nher grave was on the head her descendants would be very great men: but if on the tail they would be more humble people, perhaps officers of low degree, and, although prosperous, none would succeed to high rank.' The princess chose the tail because she preferred her descendants to stay humble, she herself having suffered so much. See Sung Hok-p’ang, ‘Legends and Stories of the New Territories”, IV. Kam T'in (continued)', The Hong Kong Naturalist, vol. VII, no. 1, April 1936, pp. 34f.)\n\n62. The term fung shui is often used to mean simply a grave, and there is no need to stress the point that burial lies at the heart of geomancy. But in fact fung shui covers all aspects of men's dwellings on earth. Every territorially defined unit of society has its fung shui, from the household up to the state. The residence of the head of the state affects the prosperity of the country. (For this reason great emphasis is often placed on the geomantic excellence of Government House). The fortunes of cities, towns, and villages depend on their physical arrangement and dominating buildings. Political units take their fate from government offices. (The fung shui of the new Fanling District Court has impressed many locals). The fung shui of an ancestral hall determines the fortunes of members of the clan. (For this reason it is hardly ever to be found inside a wai, a walled enclosure; it must have free access to its site). A house shapes the destiny of its master and those for whom he is responsible. Consequently, geomancers are often employed to advise on the siting, orientation, certain architectural features (especially height), and work—and opening-dates of domestic and other buildings. Indeed, there appears to be some specialisation among fung shui sin shaang in the New Territories, some of them putting themselves out to be experts on graves and others on buildings.\n\n63. Burial and the fung shui associated with it differ markedly in city and countryside. Only the rich among the people in the urban area can afford to escape the regimentation of their dead in cemeteries and seek geomantically favourable sites in private plots. (Some in fact acquire the right to bury their dead in land forming the traditional preserves of village communities. They may have to pay dearly for the privilege. Along one of the main roads in the New Territories there stands a pavilion, now many years old, which was put up as part of the compensation to the local people for the geomantic disturbance caused them by the burial in their area of a",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208001,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1977",
        "page_number": 40,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "24\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nof Hong Kong (1866) and who acted on occasion as legal representative of Dent and Company in that Colony.14\n\nThe Colonial Office by 1879 was favourably disposed toward Sarawak's expansionist plan in Brunei. A compromise was eventually achieved between the Colonial and Foreign Offices whereby Brooke was allowed a further cession of Brunei territory, the Baram River district, while North Borneo was confirmed to the company and it was allowed to acquire several territories on the north and east of Brunei Bay.\n\nAs to the attitude of Brunei toward the carving-up of its territory, few of the rajas of Brunei Town objected, for they were paid handsome cession monies from both Sarawak and North Borneo. In general, the temptation of a considerable monetary payment in hand overrode any desire to retain nominal title to territories over which Brunei sultans had long since ceased to rule and from which little, if any, revenue was obtained. That the presence of the British and the monetary payments tended to bolster a declining court and infuse it with vigour, if but superficially, was not lost upon the sultan and his rajas.\n\nThe keen competition which arose between Sarawak and North Borneo over the charter issue and the cession of Baram created a strong and bitter rivalry between the two states. Their attention was soon drawn to the remaining territory of Brunei. It seems clear that both Raja Brooke and the Company fully expected the demise of the sultanate, and each was determined to obtain as large a share of the remaining territory as possible. Raja Brooke had, for example, as early as 1874, offered to take over the administration of Brunei.\n\nIn 1890, Raja Brooke did annex the Limbang River district at the invitation of its Kayan chiefs, who had carried on a long rebellion against the extractions of corrupt Brunei rajas. After some on-site investigations, Britain reluctantly agreed to the acquisition. The raja was on firm legal ground, for he had obtained the chop of the sultan to the cession. But the loss of the Limbang was bitterly objected to by the rajas, who at almost the eleventh-hour began to realize that their individual selfishness and rivalry was bringing about the gradual extinction of the sultanate. The Limbang issue remains to this day a point of controversy between Brunei and Sarawak.15 No one at the time seemed to notice that Sarawak's",
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    {
        "id": 208036,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1977",
        "page_number": 75,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN\n\n59\n\nThe study of perpetual tenancy systems has long constituted an important, if overlooked, avenue of research into the diversity of economic life which characterized pre-revolutionary rural China.13 Though the institution of perpetual lease was widespread, the degree to which it dominated the agricultural sector—as well as the particular form it took—varied considerably over short distances. In a communication to the Colonial Secretary's Office in January 1904, an officer of the Land Court complained of difficulties facing administrators attempting to codify the land tenure system:\n\nChinese law does not, so far as I can ascertain, contain any mention of perpetual lease and I am informed that the custom of leasing land perpetually is local in the New Territories and does not prevail a short distance from our borders.14\n\nThe variant of perpetual tenancy found in 19th-century Hsin-An closely corresponded to the ti-ku (地骨)/ti-p'i (地皮) system found in Ch'ung-An Hsien (崇安縣) of Northern Fukien. Hsu Tien-t’ai, in his \"Study of the Tenancy Systems of Fukien” (福建租佃制之研究), groups this system with the t'ien-ku (田骨)/t'ien p'i (田皮) category of perpetual tenancy (永佃制). His description follows:\n\nConcerning t'ien k'u (lit: \"field's bones\") and t'ien p'i (lit: \"field's skin\"), or k'u t'ien (骨田) and p'i tien (皮田), this system is found in several counties throughout the province, the names changing slightly from place to place. The value of the \"bones\" belongs to the landlord, and the value of the \"skin\" belongs to the tenant; both sides can freely sell their respective rights. While the landlord (\"bones-master\") can freely sell his title, he can, in no way, affect the rights of the tenant to the \"skin-value.\" Moreover, the responsibility of paying the land-tax resides, as usual, with the landlord. When the tenant sells his title, even if disputes arise, there is no way for the landlord to interfere. Indeed, even the government finds it difficult to intervene.15\n\nOne of the earliest British accounts of perpetual lease in Hsin-An is to be found in Lockhart's \"Memorandum on Land\" appended to his Report on the New Territory at Hong Kong (1900):\n\nThe relation between landlord and tenant is often a complicated one, chiefly owing to the system of perpetual lease. Under such leases the landlords have practically renounced all rights to the\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208057,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1977",
        "page_number": 96,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "80\n\nJ. T. KAMM\n\nOne of the earliest petitions received by the British after the occupation relates to the collection of land tax by a group of tax-lords, and illustrates their ability to lobby effectively for the preservation of their \"rights\":\n\nHau Chak Wing (侯澤榮), Liu In Yu (廖延裕), Liu Sut Kam (廖雲錦) and Tang Yui Shan (鄧銳臣) gentry of Sheung Yu Tung, complain that Ho Fung Wing (何鳳榮) of Ki Ling Ha (企嶺下) village, Wong Sin (黃先) of Nai Chung village (坭涌村), Li A Fat (李亞發) of Wong Chuk Yeung (黃竹揚), Tang Shek Tse (鄧錫梓) and Wong Fat Shing (黃佛成), have combined together, and instigated the various villages of Tung Hoi (東海) district to refuse paying the rent in paddy amounting to 2000 stone.\n\nPetitioners have already produced title deeds for the payment of taxes, and the government has already issued notification directing the farmers to pay their rent as hitherto. These farmers have not paid their rent for two years, nor have they been dealt with, although petitioners have brought this matter to the notice of the Government.40\n\nThough considerable confusion initially existed over the issue of whether the sum stated referred to taxes or rents, the matter was eventually resolved with the Land Court's recognition of these gentry as \"taxlords.\"41\n\nExamination of the early history of Britain administration in the New Territories lends final proof to the economic interpretation of the basis of tung. Though the colonial administration attempted to bolster the chu as local judicial bodies, they essentially undermined their power by abolishing taxlordism. As a result, the category tung rapidly dropped out of local usage.42\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Imperial Maritime Customs, Decennial Reports, See Kowloon reports in the volumes for 1882-1891 and 1892-1901.\n\n2 Ibid., 1882-1901: p.682.\n\n3 C. M. Chang, \"Tax Farming in North China,” in Nankai Social and Economic Quarterly 8:4 (1936), pp. 831-836. Chang defines ya shui (牙稅) as \"at first no more than a license fee paid by various brokers for the privilege of doing the business of brokerage, i.e. to bring together prospective...",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208059,
        "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-1977",
        "page_number": 98,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "82\n\nJ. T. KAMM\n\nlawsuits. In some instances the smaller villages pay their land tax through the influential clans.\" (p. 20).\n\n18. Tung-Kuan Hsien-chih (1921), 3:4a.\n\n19 For details on Hakka migration into the area, see Lo Hsiang-lin's K'o chia shih liao hui p'ien (***** Historical Sources for the Study of the Hakkas). See also Essay I.\n\n20 Krone, op. cit., p. 125.\n\n21 Sung Hok-p'ang, \"Legends and Tales of the New Territories” in The Hong Kong Naturalist, VII: 3 and 4. For the tale of the \"Hungry Bug\" see pp. 249-250 in number 3.\n\n22 CSO6269 in 1909,\n\n23 Extension Papers, p. 227.\n\n24 See statements by Tang Kok-lam in the Extension Papers (pp. 216 and 293-294): \"... the reason for the resistance is that there were rumours that there would be an increase in taxation, numbering of houses, and taxes on fruits and houses.\" See similar reasons put forth in the petition from the Tung Wo Kuk of Sha Tau Kok Tung, p. 319.\n\n25 CSO130 in 1902.\n\n26 Pat Heung and Shap Pat Heung are districts whose natural boundaries are made up of two major valleys of Un Long to the southeast and northwest of Kam Tin, respectively. These hsiang consist largely of small, multi-lineage settlements with substantial Hakka populations. In some of the documents in the Extension Papers, tung is appended to these districts, a usage still heard among the older elders in the area. The hypothesis which I develop later in this paper refers specifically to the large-order tung; however, it applies equally to the smaller-order tung insofar as they constitute districts treated as a whole for the purposes of revenue collection.\n\n28 CSO6269 in 1909.\n\n29 The only mention of this decision which I have seen is Tratman's account of the opening of a new market at Un Long in CSO3172 of 1915. \"Of the existence of this feud there can be no doubt. It began in the endeavors of Pat Heung to free their land from the ground-rent claimed by Kam Tin as first settlers and so overlords of the whole district. The actual bone of contention fell to the Pat Heung when the Land Court disallowed all the \"taxlord claims\" in that district; but the bad blood still remains. Its fast manifestation was in the form of an organized assault by the people of Un Long on certain Kam Tin cultivators in 1911.”\n\n30 Hugh Baker, \"The Five Great Clans of the New Territories,\" Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 6. pp. 25-48.\n\n31 “If a person is arrested by a village constable, he is taken before the gentry and elders of the village, who assemble in a place specially appointed for the purpose. The gentry and the elders, who are the representatives of the clans inhabiting the villages, are selected by the inhabitants to deal with cases in the village council, The usual cases are those of theft, disputes about land, domestic squabbles, and cases of debt. Most of these cases are summarily dealt with by the village council, and as a rule, the decision of that council is accepted as final. But if either of the parties to a case is dissatisfied, he can appeal to a council of the Tung, or to a general council, made up of representatives of the different Tung. A reference to Map VI will show how the newly leased territory is divided",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208189,
        "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-1977",
        "page_number": 228,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "212\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n24. a. Several tales contain information regarding land tenure. For instance, an elder of the 3rd Fong who related the Tang Hei-sui () tale (see Sung p. 253), mentioned that members of the Tso () established after his death each received 100 Tam Kuk each year till 1898, indicating extensive holdings.\n\n24. b. As mentioned above, the Kam Tin Tangs virtually owned the Pat Heung Valley (even the suspect Cadastral Surveys confirm this).* They also possessed land around Yuen Long and further south, Shun Fung Wai (). Ancestral land on Hong Kong Island totalled approximately 1000 Chinese acres, and clan land (shared among the five fongs) in Kowloon was extensive (200 acres in Cheung Sha Wan alone).\n\n25. Land was either communally or privately owned. The former (\"communal ownership\") is divided into a number of categories, the most important of which are Tso () and Tong (). Tong land is appropriated in the literary name of an ancestor (hence early confusion of Tongs as literary clubs). Unlike Tso, the joint holders need not be descendents of a common ancestor. Hence, while Tso land exhibits \"vertical solidarity\" within a fong across class boundaries, Tong land establishes horizontal ties across fong within class boundaries.\n\n26. For the uses to which ancestral land is put, see the material from the Nam Yeung genealogy and the section on Land Tenure (\"varieties of Tenure\") reproduced from the Hong Kong Government Gazette, No. 26, 28 April 1900. I would here simply like to add two further uses of ancestral land: 1) defence funding and 2) financing ritual ceremonies. On the former, see Enclosure 7, no. 172 from Extension of the Boundaries. [I add here what might appear superfluous; ancestral land increases in direct proportion to the distance from Kam Tin. Private holdings predominate within the heung itself]\n\n27. As we have seen, the Kam Tin Tangs acted as \"unofficial\" government of a large section of San On county. One of the essential elements to this system of control was their status as tax-lords. The former is thus explained in Cecil Clementi's report on his work in the New Territories in 1905-1906: \"On the recommen-\n\n“Suspect\" because they do not always reflect the pre-1898 situation: owing to decisions about ownership made by the New Territories Land Court.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209753,
        "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-1983",
        "page_number": 12,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "its street traders, and will continue working eastwards in preparation for the second book,\n\nOther activities\n\nApart from the more routine aspects of our work, this year has been a busy one for the Council in other respects. A number of new proposals took shape and have either produced results or show promise for the future. Perhaps the most successful has been a series of eight 15-minute talks on buildings of historical significance, broadcast on English Channel 4 of Radio Hong Kong in February and March 1984. The subjects included Government House, the Supreme Court, Flagstaff House (formerly the General's residence), the Bishop's House and St. Paul's College, together with a number of Chinese buildings, Sam Tung Uk Village, the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road, Tsang Tai Uk at Shatin and Tai Fu Tai at San Tin. With one exception, these talks were undertaken by Council members of the Society, and the fact that we were able to produce them upon request underlines the Council's combined expertise in this line. I should add that we received excellent support on the production side from Ms Tisa Ng, editor of the series and her staff. This venture has been taken a step further by a proposal to publish the talks in an expanded form with plenty of photographs, and the Hon. Editor has this in hand.\n\nWe have also been considering a monograph series of publications, reprinting with commentary basic interesting documents from the past, such as the 1899 Lockhart Report on the New Territories and the 1882 Chadwick report on the sanitary condition of Hong Kong. In this connection, we have hopes of entering into a project with Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, whereby we will produce a number of monographs for consideration with a view to yearly joint publications with the Press. Meantime the University Press has requested us to consider sending their annual catalogue of books on oriental studies, mostly on China and Hong Kong, to our members. On the basis of this expected cooperation, and in view of the OUP's prestige and impressive publication programme, we thought it sensible to agree to this proposal. It will benefit members, and all mailing costs are paid by the Press.\n\nxi",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209805,
        "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-1983",
        "page_number": 64,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "42\n\nattempt to see if the customs were general throughout the New Territories.1\n\nThe Communist army reached Canton in October 1949. Shortly before and after that date, floods of refugees poured into the New Territories, many of them later engaging in agriculture, mostly vegetable farming. Up until then, natives of the New Territories were primarily rice farmers, living in long-established villages with customs and practices that regulated their lives. The only land available for cultivation by refugees tended to be marginal land without water. The refugees dug wells, made new paths, leased land from New Territories natives, and erected shacks all over the place (before October 1949 there were virtually no temporary structures in the Tai Po district). The energy, initiative and desperate attempts by the refugees to earn a living in new communities where neighbours seldom knew each other resulted in their following a way of life without traditional rules of conduct. To some extent, this washed off on the traditional New Territories natives, aggravated by the movement from 1951 onwards of New Territories men to emigrate overseas and to the urban areas of Hong Kong and Kowloon. This movement tended to break down the old indigenous customs.\n\nIn 1953-55, in Yuen Long, I used to have regular discussions with certain village elders who were locally acknowledged as experts on traditional customs; they proved most co-operative when they appreciated my interest in the subject. I always cross-checked the information with other local informants, but had neither the opportunity nor the need at the time to cross-check further afield so as to ascertain how widespread the custom was or the extent to which it applied to both Punti and Hakka communities. It must be accepted therefore that, in the absence of further proof, these customs may not necessarily have been uniformly observed throughout the New Territories or elsewhere in Kwangtung.\n\nFrom September 1953 to early 1954, in addition to my work as District Officer, I was also Police Court Magistrate (in Ping Shan), Assistant Land Officer (holding Land Courts), and Small Debts Court Magistrate. These had always been the functions of the District Officers at Tai Po and Yuen Long. But, during my",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209806,
        "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-1983",
        "page_number": 65,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "43\n\ntime at Tai Po (1949-51), a separate District Officer (now Sir Donald Luddington) had undertaken the Court duties. My Court duties in Yuen Long provided yet another insight into local custom. For instance, if it were not for the several cases that arose in the Small Debts Court, I might never have understood the workings of money loan associations. The frequent Land Courts (often two a day in 1955) provided a wealth of information about agricultural leases, inheritance, graves, and fung shui,\n\nIn 1951, I served for a time in the former Secretariat for Chinese Affairs where my duties required me to spend part of every day attempting to resolve family disputes, mostly matrimonial. This provided much background material on the status of parties.\n\nIn those more settled days, when communications were difficult and New Territories villages lacked newspapers, radio and television, tradition tended to rule the conduct of villagers, just as rice cultivation ruled the village economy. Traditional customs no longer carry the same weight these days, and in some cases are all but forgotten. Rice cultivation continues in only a few remote corners of the New Territories. Its implements and associated equipment (such as ploughs, harrows, winnowing machines) are hardly recognised by the new generation which may have little idea of how their grandparents lived. Wealth in those days was equated with the number of rice fields owned, and rice depended on a plentiful supply of water. Hence the old Chinese saying \"Shui wai choi\" (**水為財**), meaning \"Water makes riches\". The English reply might be that, since then, much water has flowed under the bridge.\n\n2.\n\nSuccession\n\n(a) By Chinese custom there is no such thing as testamentary disposition of property. All a man's \"will\" can do is permit his widow(s) to remarry, and to moralize for the sons' edification. There may have been some doubt in the past whether by English law a New Territories domiciled person can make a valid will disposing of New Territories property otherwise than as custom would have directed anyhow. But this of course is no",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209991,
        "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-1983",
        "page_number": 250,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "228\n\np. 10. Kani, Hiroaki, A General Survey of the Boat People in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1967, p. 22.\n\np. 12. Leland, Charles G., Pidgin-English Sing-song, or Songs and Stories in the China-English Dialect, London, 1876, p. 4.\n\np. 14. Lin Yutang, My Country and My People, London, 1936, p. 120.\n\n16. Doolittle, Social Life, Vol I, pp. 253-254.\n\np. 16. Lin Yutang, My Country, p. 121.\n\np. 17. Percell, Victor, The Chinese in Southeast Asia, 2nd edn., London, 1965, pp. 17-18.\n\np. 18. Staunton, Sir George T., Ta Tsing Leu Lee: Being the Fundamental Laws, and a Selection from the Supplementary Statutes, of the Penal Code of China, London, 1810, pp. 543-544.\n\np. 22. 'Notes and Queries', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol XI, 1971, pp. 204-209.\n\np. 22. Annual Departmental Report by the District Commissioner, New Territories for the Financial Year 1959-60, Hong Kong, 1960, p. 33.\n\np. 24. Annual Departmental Report by the District Commissioner, New Territories for the Financial Year 1951-2, Hong Kong, 1952, pp. 5-6.\n\np. 25. Sayer, G. R., Hong Kong 1862-1919. Years of Discretion, Hong Kong, 1975, p. 97.\n\np. 26. Teng Ssu-yü 'Chinese influence on the Western Examination System', Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol VII, 1943, p. 305.\n\np. 33. #AŢ✶ Shanghai, 1947, p. 1086.\n\np. 34. Yang, C. K., Religion in Chinese Society, California, 1961, p. 155.\n\np. 38. Backhouse, E. And Bland, J. O. P., Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking, London, 1914, p. 325.\n\np. 40. Williams, S. Wells, The Middle Kingdom, New York, 1913, Vol II, P. 435.\n\np. 41. Smith, Arthur H., Chinese Characteristics, London, 1900, pp. 234-235.\n\np. 42. Williams, S. Wells, Middle Kingdom, Vol II, p. 451.\n\np. 44. McAleavy, Henry, The Modern History of China, London, 1968, p. 87.\n\np. 44. Chow, Carl, Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom, London, 1941, p. 116.\n\np. 45. Werner, B. T. C., Myths and Legends of China, London, 1922, p. 162.\n\np. 46. De Groot, Religious System, Vol V, p. 532.\n\np. 58. Doolittle, Social Life, Vol I, pp. 268-269.\n\np. 58. Stevens, K. G., Chief Marshal T'ien', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol XV, 1975, p. 305,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211535,
        "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": 252,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "228\n\nIt reads in translation:\n\n+\n\n+\n\n\"There are two sorts of rice huller. One is made of wood. The other sort is made of mud. This sort is made with a round bamboo frame, filled with clean yellow mud. Bamboo teeth are pressed into both the upper and lower hulling faces. The upper frame of the huller has a hollow to receive the grain, the capacity of which is double that of a wooden huller. If the grain is at all damp when it goes into the huller, it will be crushed. After hulling 200 shek (E) of rice, a mud huller will start to fall to pieces. Wooden hullers require strong men to operate them, but mud hullers are suitable for operation by women or young people. The ordinary peasants use mud hullers of this type.\"\n\nI am grateful to Mr. Yau for drawing my attention to this description.\n\nJames Hayes\n\nA GLIMPSE OF THE LAND SETTLEMENT AT SHEK PIK VILLAGE,\n\nLANTAU ISLAND, HONG KONG\n\nIn the opening years of this century, following the lease of what is now the New Territories of Hong Kong, all land that was being utilised or had been occupied was surveyed by the new government. A Land Court was set up to settle all claims to ownership of land, and any disputes were adjudicated. Finally, a register of ownership for each of the 355 Demarcation Districts was prepared and bound into a folio together with a survey sheet and a Block Crown Lease.\n\nWhilst the work of the survey and land court are well-documented in the official reports of the time,1 few materials showing the process in the villages have survived.\n\nTo my mind, the most interesting of these are the small printed \"chits”, known to villagers and government staff alike as Chi Tsai",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211537,
        "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": 254,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "230\n\nThe main additions to our knowledge of the land situation at Shek Pik afforded by the chi tsai come from the notations giving the local place name (4) of each property, and whether a field was being cultivated by an owner or another party, and whether the claimant held a mortgage on someone else's property, as did Chi Yau-kei in a number of cases. Other information, on the use of huts, the occupancy of houses, with the numbers by which they were known in the village (?), and on abandoned (uncultivated) land, was also provided. Mortgages held by Yau-kei were also noted.\n\nIn Chi Yau-kei's case, the chi tsai appear to show him in possession of a considerable amount of land, some abandoned or fallow but mostly under his own (and his family members') cultivation and use. His fields extend over demarcation districts 312, 315, and 318, but are mostly located in the last.\n\nIs such information reliable? It could only have been given by the claimant. Unless he was slack in his answers, deliberately to avoid giving more information than he had to, or because he could not be bothered — it would have been easier to say that he occupied and farmed everything himself — the chances of accuracy are fairly good. If so, it is a pity that more chi tsai from the village have not survived, as they would have told us more about land use than it is possible to gain from the ownership schedules in the Block Crown Lease.\n\nFinally, a word about the forms themselves. They are of additional interest because each carries a red oval-shaped \"chop\" bearing the title of the New Territories Land Court in English and Chinese. In every case, there is another \"chop\", also in red, from the District Officer, added after the claim of ownership had been substantiated, stating that the paper is only for identification and record purposes and has no value by itself, since only the Tsap Chiu would be taken as an accurate record — presumably in case unscrupulous persons tried to pass the Chi Tsai off as title deeds in a fraudulent sale.\n\nThe forms have another value, in that the District Officer's notice is the earliest example I have seen of the use of the Chinese title “Lei Man Fu (li min fu)”, the time-honored description of the officer and the implied duties of the post. The full inscription reads:\n\n!\n\n \nI",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211540,
        "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": 257,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "DEZAKETTRE DWUKISME)\n\nJames Hayes\n\n233\n\nNOTES\n\nSee the list of printed papers given at pp. 271-272 of my book, The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911: Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside (Hamden, Conn., Archon Books, 1977). Perhaps I should add that whilst the progress of the survey and land settlement are described, the records of hearings in cases where disputes could not otherwise be settled are not now available, save for some reports in the local English-language newspapers.1 See Chapter 4, \"Shek Pik, A Multilineage Settlement of Cantonese Farmers\" in Hayes 1977, op cit, pp. 104-128. I have also used some of the documentary material in my paper Education and Management in Rural South China in the Late Ch'ing at pp. 575-592 of Vol. 1 of Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on Asian Studies 1984, (Hong Kong, Asian Research Service, 1985).\n\n1 Although surviving “Chi Tsai” from the New Territories are few in number, they are not rare either. I have come across them here and there in my research, but unfortunately dismissed them as being of no particular interest or value, compared with the Block Crown Leases and actual customary deeds of sale and mortgage.\n\nOne entry from my Notes, for instance, taken at Chuk Yuen Village, New Kowloon, in July 1963, states, \"Her husband's father was Lam Hei (), and she showed me a few chits for lot numbers claimed at the Land Court in 1901. They included one interesting receipt for 13 tax receipts, presumably Ch'ing land tax receipts, which must have been submitted as proofs of ownership at the land settlement following the lease of the New Territories to Great Britain in 1898“. A collection of some dozens of chi tsai from New Kowloon villages is in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong (HKMS104): these will be the subject of a separate note in due course.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211613,
        "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": 28,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "and a treadmill was in operation for punishment up until the early 1900s. Prisoners were escorted to Court, so it is believed, by a tunnel. Although the author went to Victoria Prison in the 1970s, on Justice of the Peace visits, he is unable to substantiate this.\n\nA few colonial-style buildings, such as the Helena May Institute (completed 1916) on Garden Road, and the old Supreme Court building (foundations laid 1903, completed 1912) in Central District, are still in use. The latter is now the Legislative Council Chambers, and has been described as \"Lutyens classical revival style adapted for the tropics\".\n\nIn spite of forceful protests by the Heritage Society which was wound up, despondently, in 1983 — and the Conservancy Association, the Repulse Bay Hotel, the previous Hong Kong Club building, and the old Kowloon Railway terminus (except for the tower2) have all succumbed to the wrecker's hammer. The average Hong Kong citizen, it seems, has limited interest in conservation. He or she believes that a building has an economic life span, and, after that, it should go. To be fair, the Government, advised by the Antiquities and Monuments Office and the Antiquities Advisory Board, has declared a number of structures, for instance the Stanley Police Station (1859)13 as Monuments under the Antiquities Ordinance. Other Monuments include the steps and gas lamps in Duddell Street, Central District; rock carvings and inscriptions; old villages, for example Sam Tung Uk in Tsuen Wan; and the District Office, North, building at Tai Po in the New Territories.\n\nThe Territory also possesses a variety of other old structures, such as the fort and battery at Tung Chung and the fort at Tung Lung. There are also ancestral halls and study halls, like Shut Hing Shue Shan, at Ping Shan, and Chou Wong Yi Kung Shue Yuen, in Kam Tin.\n\nAmong other declared historical Monuments are Wan Chai Post Office (1915)1* in Queen's Road East, Western Market in Sheung Wan, and the Pathological Institute,1 in Caine Lane. As of 1990, such Monuments totalled 43. One of the most famous of Hong Kong's old buildings was Murray House (circa 1843).1 It was demolished carefully in 1982, and the parts were labelled, numbered and stored. The intention is to re-erect it on another site.\n\nIn 1935, the then new 66-metre high Hong Kong Bank (the third bank on that site) was fully air-conditioned (the first large building in Hong Kong).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213345,
        "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": 167,
        "title": "RAS-1994",
        "content_text": "150\n\nstudies, they uncovered huge volumes of local historical materials - genealogies, land deeds, books, stone inscriptions, and oral history. Ethnographic material obtained through the observation of rituals, artifacts and dress, architecture, economic activities, language, symbols and everyday behaviour added further dimensions to their knowledge and highlighted vital links between the present and the past. These scholars might be more interested in using the materials to either discourse about Chinese culture, social organization, social status, power and government, gender issues, inter-lineage relations and so on, but their work nevertheless became invaluable ingredients for reconstructing the unique history of each locality.\n\nThe Scholar-Officials\n\nThe New Territories was the happy hunting ground of another group. These were District Officers of the Hong Kong government who were responsible for governing rural Hong Kong. Scholars of the sinologist tradition, they were particularly well placed to collect large amounts of oral and documentary materials while working among villagers in the New Territories. Prominent among them were K.M.A. Barnett, David Akers-Jones, and James Hayes, who was to become Hong Kong's leading historian. His major works, which combine scholarship, administrative experience and personal insights, are now classic studies.\n\n6\n\nThis group, known as the \"scholar-officials\", was later joined, and greatly strengthened, by Patrick Hase in the 1970s.\n\nIt should be noted that to these scholar-officials, the study of 'traditional' Chinese society is more than a purely intellectual exercise. To govern the New Territories, the Hong Kong government needs a working knowledge of the customs and culture of the indigenous inhabitants, especially in relation to land, family, lineage relations etc., and relies heavily on District Officers who are 'on the spot', as it were. For judicial purposes, too, when disputes over land and inheritance arose, 'sinologists' - academics and civil servants - are frequently called in, even flown in, to act as expert witnesses at court. A recent Ph.D thesis by Selina Ching Chan for the Oxford University analyses how in the New Territories, traditions are interpreted differently by the rulers and the ruled, each group in the way most expedient to them; thus she offers rare insights into the intricate relations between power and scholarship.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213438,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 34,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "ARTICLES\n\nCHINESE CUSTOMARY LAW IN HONGKONG'S NEW TERRITORIES. SOME LEGAL PREMISES.\n\nEDWIN HAYDON\n\nLast year [1961—Editor] the legislation regulating the New Territories of Hong Kong was amended1 and jurisdiction was conferred on the Supreme Court of Hong Kong and on the District Courts subordinate to it.\n\n\"to hear and determine all questions and disputes at law or in equity in connexion with or in anywise arising out of or regarding any land in the New Territories.\"\n\nAt the same time the Land Officer was divested of his former powers to decide questions of land in the New Territories summarily,3 and District Officers were divested of the summary jurisdiction, which for many years4 they had exercised in Small Debts Courts, in actions or matters where the claim, debt or damages sought to be recovered did not exceed one thousand dollars. Since 1953 the District Courts had exercised a concurrent jurisdiction with the Small Debts Courts in such actions. The effect, therefore, of this amending legislation was to confer from henceforth exclusive jurisdiction in all proceedings arising in the New Territories on the courts of law staffed by the professional Judiciary.\n\nSection 17 of the New Territories Ordinance reads:\n\n\"In any proceedings in the Supreme Court or the District Court in relation to land in the New Territories, the court shall have power to recognize and enforce any Chinese custom or customary right affecting such land.\n\nSo much is clear in respect of land cases, but in respect of other proceedings which may involve Chinese custom or customary right one must search further back to the source from which the British Crown's rights in the New Territories spring.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213440,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 36,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "The terms of the Order-in-Council were echoed and further implemented in the New Territories (Exemption from Laws) Ordinance, 1899 (No 6 of 1899). The position, therefore, as regards proceedings other than land cases is that such of the laws of England as existed when the Colony obtained a local legislature, that is to say, on 5th April 1843 are the governing laws subject to two provisions,\n\nFirstly \"except so far as the said laws are inapplicable to the local circumstances of the Colony or its inhabitants;” Secondly \"and except so far as they have been modified by laws passed by the said legislative.”\n\nThe first provision has always been construed to let in Chinese customary law when a necessity arises of preventing injustice or oppression. The passages already quoted from the Secretary of State's despatch and from the Governor's proclamation bear out that construction in regard to the application of section 5 of the Supreme Court Ordinance to the New Territories.\n\nAs to the date for the recognition of customary law to be applied in such cases, opinions differ. One opinion is to be found appended to the Report of the Committee appointed in 1948. The choice there offered is between custom existing in 1841, when Captain Elliot took over Hongkong, that existing in 1898, when the New Territories were leased to the United Kingdom, or that existing in 1905, when the New Territories Land Ordinance, 1905, was enacted. The anonymous author of that opinion inclined to select the latter year, but the Committee expressed no opinion on the matter. The New Territories Administration, on the other hand, has interpreted “Chinese Law and custom” to mean the law and custom of Manchu China as it existed on April 20th, 1899. For reasons given in my previous article, it is submitted that as in the Colony of Hongkong, so in the New Territories, a court should apply the Chinese customary law existing at the time that court is called upon to determine any issue. Particular support can be found for that submission in respect of the New Territories in the opinion of the Attorney General in 1898 that it was \"hardly necessary...to enter into the question as to whether any and, if so, which of the laws of England in force on 5th April, 1843... should be specially included in an exempting Ordinance, because such laws were only brought into force in Hong Kong “so far as they were not inapplicable to the local circumstances of the Colony or its inhabitants.” The Government was\n\nPage 17\n\n \n...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213441,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 37,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "then considering whether the New Territories should be exempted from the application of any legislation in force in Hong Kong in 1898. The Attorney General apparently took the view that as regards any English law in force in the Colony such an exemption would not arise, since it would be exempted from application to the New Territories by the first provision of section 7 of the Supreme Court Ordinance, 1873, even though that particular law might not be inapplicable to the circumstances and the inhabitants of the Colony of Hong Kong. In other words, he does not appear to have been looking at the theoretical needs of the inhabitants of the area along the south bank of the Shum Chun River in 1843, which area later became the New Territories in 1898, but at their requirements at the time he considered the matter in December 1898.\n\nA former Solicitor General of Hong Kong has drawn attention to the distinction between the provisions of what is now section 17 of the New Territories Ordinance and of what is now section 5 of the Supreme Court Ordinance. To this matter, it will be necessary to revert later when we consider the customary law on particular subjects. It is, however, fitting to observe at this point that the legislature in enacting section 17 of the New Territories Ordinance did not specify the date for the recognition of \"Chinese custom or customary right affecting such land.” The plain meaning of the words, it is submitted, leads one to the conclusion that the Chinese customary law to be so recognised and enforced is that which affects the land at the time of the hearing of the proceedings. The legislature must be presumed to have been logical; it would be unlikely to select modern Chinese customary law for application in land cases and the Law of the Manchu Ts'ing Dynasty obtaining in the Province of Kwangtung in 1843 or in 1899 for application in other proceedings arising in the New Territories. Here again, it is submitted, is an additional argument in support of the view that in all types of proceedings, both those involving land and otherwise, the Chinese customary law applicable, if it is to be applied, is modern Chinese customary law obtaining in the New Territories.\n\nHaving so defined the date for recognition of Chinese customary law, the question then arises as to what that Chinese customary law comprises. In 1911, that question was difficult to answer, and we may with advantage digress a moment to consider the words of the Chief Justice delivering the judgment of the Full Court in the case of LI",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213442,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 38,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "CHOK HUNG vs. LI FUI CHOI\n\n\"No enquiry has ever been made to ascertain what Chinese law is. It is an extraordinary fact that the Court of this Colony, in which the Chinese live and trade as freely as Englishmen and citizens of other countries, should do with regard to the Chinese what it would never dream of doing with regard to Frenchmen or Germans or Americans; and not only that, but that it should be entirely in ignorance of Chinese law on any subject which concerns the family life and family law of those who form the bulk of its inhabitants, which is so often before the Courts—its marriage law, and the rights of property it gives; its law applicable to children. We are in the dark as to the law of majority, as to the customary law of China generally, and above all as to its law of succession. The attitude of the Court has been to let the troublesome question wait until it is definitely raised by the parties. I myself have been guilty of this, though I have rebelled more than once or twice.\n\nPage 20\n\nDuring the last half century, there have been three such enquiries, of which the results have been published. I refer, of course, to the Report of the Committee appointed in 1948,1 Greenfield's article on marriage,2 and the report and recommendations on the same subject by the Attorney General and Secretary for Chinese Affairs in 1960.2 The latter two publications do not deal with any Chinese customary law of marriage particularly obtaining in the New Territories, but the first does deal with certain aspects of Chinese customary law peculiar to the New Territories.\n\nIf a search is made of the law reports, only two cases will be found where the particular Chinese customary law obtaining in the New Territories was considered. Prima facie, that is a remarkably small number for 57 years of law reporting, and it is worthwhile probing the reasons for this dearth of case law.\n\nFirstly, the Chinese much prefer to compose their disputes or to refer them to extra-judicial arbitration than to a court of law.**\n\nSecondly, in deference to this general desire of the litigants, the District Officers arranged for the bulk of the disputes which came before them, in their Small Debts Courts or when they sat as Assistant Land Officers to decide summary land cases, to be settled out of court, most",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213443,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 39,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "6\n\nfrequently in consultation with rural committees and village representatives.\" For example, during the year 1956-57, of 138 land disputes which the District Officers dealt with, 30 were settled through rural committees or other local bodies, 92 were settled out of court and 16 were decided in court.” And in the following year, of 112 land disputes, 19 were settled through rural committees or other local bodies, 70 were settled out of court and 23 were decided in court. The method of disposal of one such case is recounted in the District Commissioner's report for the year 1948-49:\n\n\"For the first time since 1913 a land dispute, which had dragged on for nearly a year, was resolved when one of the parties satisfied the District Officer Taipo of his good faith by decapitating a cock in a local temple, a supreme test of honesty. As the dispute was not formally heard under Part II of the Ordinance, the legality of this expedient will fortunately not be subject to review by a Judge.\n\n1920\n\nThirdly, the Full Court ruled that it had no jurisdiction to entertain a further appeal from the decision of a judge of the Supreme Court under section 23 of the New Territories Regulation Ordinance, 1910,\n\nThere are, however, a further eight unreported cases of the Supreme Court sitting in its appellate jurisdiction from decisions of the land officer in land cases arising in the New Territories. The cases all date to the first post-war decennium until 1956. The pre-war records of the Supreme Court were destroyed during the Japanese occupation 1941-45; and since 1956 there has been no appellate proceeding of this type.\n\nWithout proof by evidence in court, it would clearly be dangerous to rely upon works describing customary law obtaining generally or in certain areas of China in the past, as information as to customary law obtaining in the New Territories for Chinese customary law \"is subject to divergencies not only from Province to Province but sometimes from clan to clan in the same neighbourhood.\" Such books may have some comparative value. It is, however, to be regretted that it is difficult in Hong Kong today to trace even one copy of those works written in English to which reference was made by the 1948 Committee.*2\n\nApart, then, from the Report of that Committee, which covers the wider field of Chinese customary law generally obtaining in Hong Kong",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213444,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 40,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "Kong and only occasionally refers to particular aspects of that law obtaining in the New Territories, and apart from the two reported cases, there is no published material dealing specifically with Chinese customary law of the New Territories which the courts may apply in cases arising from those territories.\n\nAlthough such law must be established by proof acceptable to the court, there is an apparent and an urgent need for a restatement of that law. Such a restatement would, it is submitted, be likely to be of assistance to the courts and to the legal profession. The material for such a restatement must naturally be accumulated over years, the most likely sources being the officers of the Administration and of the technical Departments, who are in daily contact with the inhabitants of the New Territories. In 1958 the District Commissioner stated-\n\nwe sadly miss the pre-war records. Successive District Officers in each district had, prior to 1941, built up what they called their \"Bible\" of knotty points of custom, obtained from independent witnesses who were alive in 1899 and were called not by either party to the dispute, but in accordance with Chinese practice by the Court itself.**\n\n(Although that loss may be held to the account of the Japanese, it does appear that nation has more than adequately repaid its debt to sinology by its scholars' researches into Chinese customary law.*4) During the last decade administrative and technical officers have again undertaken the task of collecting material on Chinese customs maintained in the New Territories and it is on the unpublished results of their labours that the ensuing restatement of Chinese customary law is based.\n\nThe Country and The People.\n\nThe area of the New Territories comprises 355 square miles of land and 673 square miles of sea. The leased territories extend in strict definition from Boundary Street in the middle of Kowloon to the Shum Chun River but the area of 7 square miles immediately to the north of Boundary Street is known as New Kowloon and is administered not as part of the New Territories but as an extension of the Urban Area, that is, the ceded territory of the Colony proper.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213448,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 44,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "the public examinations which they never obtained.\"7%\n\nThe Tanka have always been despised by the land-dwellers and intermarriage between land and sea-dwellers is probably non-existent.” Nevertheless the Tanka \"are the principal sea-faring people of South China, owning large sea-going junks and engaging in deep-sea fishing.\n\nThe Hoklo* speak “a Min dialect similar to those spoken in the Province of Fukien and in the Chruchow, Hoilukfung and Kiungchow areas of Kwangtung Province \"They have frequented the territories since some unknown era.\" The Hoklo are few in numbers and are mostly to be found in the eastern waters of the area. Balfour has an interesting observation to make on all four communities:-\n\n“Our analysis of the existing population has revealed that the order of migration into the region corresponds roughly with the height above sea level of each part of the community. The Tanka and Hoklo, who were the earliest people, live on the seacoast, the Punti, who came next, occupy the fertile plains and valleys, and the latest comers the Hakka, are to be found mostly in the uplands\n\nA Restatement of the Customary Law,\n\n1983\n\nTwo general types of omission have been made on principle in this restatement: firstly, all doubtful points of customary law, for the courts may in due course be called upon to decide them; secondly, mere social customs without legal force, for they are the concern rather of the sociologist.*\n\nThe Customary Law of the Land-dwellers, the Cantonese and Hakka Land\n\nThe most important part of the customary law obtaining in the New Territories undoubtedly concerns its land if for no other reason than that all questions affecting such land, in view of the preservation of Chinese custom by statute, should prima facie be governed by such custom.** Such is not the position in regard to proceedings which do not involve land, then by virtue of section 5 of the Supreme Court Ordinance, English law as existing in 1843 as modified by subsequent",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213467,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 63,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "30\n\nIf a widow marries again she must either marry another man from her deceased husband's family or she must get the consent of her deceased husband's elder brothers to bring an outsider into the family. Otherwise she cannot touch the property left by her deceased husband.\n\nTo conclude this attempt to state the Chinese customary law obtaining in Hong Kong's New Territories it would appear appropriate to refer to a passage in the address of the Chief Justice of Hong Kong, Sir Michael Hogan, which he delivered on the occasion of the opening of the new courthouse at Fanling on 2nd September last year [1961 - Editor] :-\n\n\"I understand... that some anxiety has arisen as to whether Chinese customs and customary rights will be affected, and whether judges sitting in the District Court will be as familiar as were the District Officers with those customs and customary rights\n\nThe answer to that anxiety may be found in the power, conferred by section 15 of the District Court Ordinance, on the judges of requesting the District Officers or anybody also to sit as assessors in any case in which that course would be desirable. Section 17 of the New Territories Ordinance which provides for the application of Chinese custom and customary rights in appropriate cases remains untouched and will continue to apply as before. Indeed, it may well be that our system of law reporting, whereby decisions are recorded, published and made available for perusal by all who are interested can contribute to the ascertainment and preservation of those customs and customary rights, about which it is frequently so difficult to obtain reliable information and evidence.\"\n\nNOTE\n\nNew Territories (Amendment) Ordinance, 1961 (No 13 of 1961) and New Territories (Amendment) (No 2) Ordinance, 1961 (No 15 of 1961)\n\n1\n\ns 16 (as amended) New Territories Ordinance (Cap. 97) Prior to these amending Ordinances, the Supreme Court had original jurisdiction in respect of land having a capital value exceeding $10,000 or an annual value exceeding $1,000 (vide s 2(1)(d), now repealed, and former s 16, now replaced, and the decision of REECE J in AU SUN YUE and CHUNG YAU 1958, HKLR 235)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213468,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1995",
        "page_number": 64,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "31\n\n* These powers of the Land Officer sprang from the New Territories (Land) Ordinance, 1905 (No. 36 of 1905).\n\n1 Such powers were originally conferred on District Officers by the New Territories Small Debts Court Ordinance, 1908 (now repealed). By agreement of the parties, District Officers, by virtue of the proviso to that section, could determine suits with subject matter up to $5,000 in value ($1,000 HK is the approximate equivalent of £62-1st in 1962 - Editor).\n\nBy the Convention of Peking, 9th June 1898 vide Laws of Hong Kong, Allibone's Edition 1913, Vol. III, pp. 6-7.\n\nibid, pp. 8-9.\n\n* § 7, Supreme Court Ordinance 1873 (now s. 5 of Cap. 4).\n\nExtracts from a Memorandum on some Legal Aspects of the Hong Kong Extension, by W. Meigh Goodman, Attorney General of Hong Kong, dated December 1898, in Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1899, p. 209 at p. 210.\n\n19 Mr. Chamberlain (then Sir Joseph) to Sir Henry A. Blake, Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1899, p. 177 at p. 178, para 5.\n\nTranslation of the Chinese Proclamation dated 9th April 1899, being Appendix IX to Sir Henry A. Blake's Report to Mr. Chamberlain dated 19th February 1900, in Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1900, p. 280.\n\nvide my article \"The Choice of Chinese Customary Law in Hong Kong\" (1962) 11 International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 231 at pp. 232-233.\n\n\"Chinese Law and Custom in Hong Kong\" Hong Kong 1953, (hereinafter cited as Committee Report 1953) Appendix 1A at p. 122.\n\n1bid, Chap. II, para. 13 at p. 8.\n\n15 Memorandum of the District Commissioner, New Territories, to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, dated 20th March 1958. It would appear that the 17th April 1899 was the date intended (vide the Governor's Proclamation of 8th April 1899 which appeared as Appendix XX to the Governor's Report in Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1900 at pp. 291-292) to bring the Colony's laws into force in the New Territories with effect from 17th April 1899.\n\n18 (1962) 11 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 231.\n\n17 loc cit para. 6.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    {
        "id": 213473,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 69,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "36\n\nHong Kong Sessional Papers, 1900, pp 26-269 This Report was forwarded to London under cover of Sir Henry A. Blake's despatch to Mr Chamberlain of 19th February 1900 and this Memorandum of Land was subsequently published as Command Paper 403 in November 1900 (vide Committee Report, 1953, Chap III para 39 and Appendix 10 at p 207, where only two extracts appear) Mr Lockhart stated that the Memorandum was prepared with the assistance of Mr. Messer and Mr Ts'oi, Cader and First Clerk respectively\n\nA later, verbose but less informative source is \"Some Notes on Land Tenure in the New Territories\" attached to the Report, dated 4th March 1901, on the Land Court for 1900 by Mr HHJ Gompertz (who in 1909 was elevated to a puisne judgeship), a Member of that Court - Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1901 p 371 at p. 374\n\n17\n\nThe Emperor of China\n\nre the Chinese Government and Imperial Rent\n\nReport, DCNT, 1959-60, para. 171. The District Commissioner's Report for 1947-48 records (at para 29) that it was discovered in that year that one hamlet had never paid Crown rent since the British occupation of the New Territories This was remedied by the grant of a Block Crown Lease\n\n90 8. New Territories Ordinance (Cap 97)\n\n\"Report, DCNT, 1959-60, para 171\n\nTA\n\ne The Chinese Government\n\nby Bruce Shepherd, Deputy Land Officer, dated 17th January 1900, being Appendix VIII to Lockhart's Report, para. 12 (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1900, p 277 at p 279)\n\n44\n\nReport dated 18th February 1905 of Mr C. Mcl Messer, member of the Land Court (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1905, p. 149)\n\nReport dated 7th March 1905 of Mr JR Wood, Member of the Land Court (Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1905 p. 147)\n\nIbid, and see also Report on the New Territories 1899-1912, para 21(1), (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1912, p 46)\n\n7\n\nTregear, op cit, p 62\n\nDA\n\nReport, DCNT, 1959-60, para 177 and Tregear, loc cit\n\n44 Wilson's Notes\n\nalso sometimes termed \"Ching Sheung\" according to Wilson's Notes",
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        "id": 213474,
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        "document_key": "RAS-1995",
        "page_number": 70,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "37\n\nThis passage was one of the two extracts from Command paper 403 quoted in Appendix 10 to the Committee Report, 1953, and was considered by the Committee to be still relevant (Chap II para 39) See also the Explanation in Appendix 22 to that Report at pp 313-315\n\n101 Wilson's notes. This was the type of land which gave rise to one of the two reported cases dealing with land in the New Territories viz. TANG CHOY HONG vs TANG SHING MO & OTHERS (1949) 33 HKLR 58, See also the decision dated 30th January 1950 of the land officer in Ping Shan Land Case No. 233/75B/48, LEUNG MUN TONG & OTHERS vs WONG KAM KWAI (unreported) - “It is an almost universal custom throughout the New Territories that land which is reserved for ancestor worship, commonly known as \"Ching Sheung\" land, may not be sold \"\n\n(On appeal - Civil Appeal No. 9 of 1950 (also unreported) the order only was varied by Williams Ag CJ)\n\nThe English Rule against Perpetuities probably does not apply to gifts of ancestral land in the New Territories - vide intra under “Succession” and note 137\n\n  \n    Cap 153\n  \n\n10 vide Committee Report, 1953, Chap III para. 39 and Appendix 10 as to money loan associations see below\n\n106 vide s. 19, New Territories Ordinance (Cap. 97)\n\n107 Committee Report 1953, para. 1.3\n\n10 Mr PC Woo, whose views on Chinese custom were highly valued by the 1948 Committee has informed me in a private communication that these terms are not proper legal ones but are slang used by villagers\n\nop cit para 19\n\nReport, DCNT, 1950-52, para 37\n\n1 (1950) 34 HKLR 297 at pp. 304-306\n\n112 Tsun po Land Court Case No. 4 of 1950 (unreported)\n\nper Mr B D Wilson in Ping Shan Case No. 45 of 1954, TSING KAN & OTHERS vs LAI CHEUNG (unreported) the appeal against this decision Civil Appeal No 17 of 1954, LAI CHEUNG vs THE KWOK YUEN (unreported) - was dismissed by Reynolds J on grounds that the Court had no jurisdiction, see also almost identical wording by same land officer in Ping Shan Land Case No 5 of 1953, TANG CHING LOK TSO vs TO HOP CHOI (unreported), the appeal in this case - Civil Appeal No 15 of 1954 (unreported) was similarly dismissed by Reynolds J",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216301,
        "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": 60,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "'Rare plant delays zoning decision' (by A. So, South China Morning Post, November 4, 2000)\n\nWith the intensive rural development and increasing land demand in Hong Kong from the late 1970s, policy related to land use became a more complicated task as people paid much more attention to the prime land than ever. The government has been putting efforts in environmental conservation; however, society's development continuously needed more land for both industrial and residential purposes. Adding to the dilemma, the government's claim to use of indigenously held land (either for conservation or development) was strongly rejected by the land's owners and dwellers. One of the main grounds for challenging the government has been the small-house policy enacted in 1972. Being able to build small houses within the village zone has been considered the indigenous rights claimed by local inhabitants in the leased territories; however, the increasing demand of house land requires village zones to be re-drawn. As we have seen from the case of Tai Long Wan, villagers expected to have some farm land converted into house land in order to have enough land for potential small-house applicants, yet, the government and many conservation groups have other considerations. In 2001, a village in Tai Long was graded as a historical settlement but future directions of restoration were not discussed yet.\n\nPak Lap\n\nDuring the late seventeenth century, the Qing court encouraged migration to the coastal region after the Ming loyalist regime under Zheng Chenggong on Taiwan was pacified. Therefore, Hakka villages spread all over the eastern New Territories in Hong Kong including Sai Kung were mostly founded around that period. The second village, Pak Lap, shared a similar historical background with Tai Long Wan; more importantly, as far as I know, it is the only traditional village settlement in Hong Kong restored and developed into a small-scale rental-based resort houses. (for more information, see their homepage at: http://go.to/paklap). However, it was not planned in that way at the very beginning of the restoration. The story goes back to the early 1980s when Hong Kong was enjoying its economic achievements through the development of trading, finance, banking, and tourism industry.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]