[ { "id": 204740, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "32\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nOur confinement to the Factories and Square and the guard the same as before.\n\nSunday, 21 April\n\nLetters were received today from the Bogue stating that 8,500 chests of opium had been delivered to the Chinese. Servants all off again.\n\nTuesday, 23 April\n\nWe supposed the demand for the bond would not have been persevered in by the Commissioner, but yesterday the 10,000 chests of opium (we hear) having been delivered into his hands, before he permits the communication to be opened by passage boats as was to have been the case on the receipt of the 10,000 chests, he now says, No, it cannot be, it is true I have half the opium but before I fulfil my promise I must have the bond. This is a direct violation of his agreement, the communication is not open, no boats are permitted to go up or down. We are consequently still prisoners and this act of treachery has exasperated the foreigners very much. Half the community at least looked forward to a release at this time and to go to Whampoa and Macao to wait the result of the completion of the delivery but are disappointed. Captain Elliot's orders to Johnston were not to deliver more than the stipulated number of chests till the passage boats were allowed to run, and we hear today that he has stopped delivery.\n\nThe foreigners are so idle that we meet in the Square every afternoon and have all sorts of games; ball, leapfrog etc., much to the amusement of the Chinese. The sailors, of whom there are 38 here, afford us the most fun by their queer games.\n\nFriday, 26 April\n\nUp to yesterday evening we had various rumours from Chumpee where the opium ships are discharging. One report was that the deliveries had been temporarily stopped by Johnston which was confirmed by letters received by the Hong merchants, and the cause of his doing so explained by the passage boats not running. Captain Elliot, however, notwithstanding this breach of promise by the Commissioner wrote three days ago to Johnston to go on with the deliveries as fast as possible without regard to the Commissioner's word being kept or not. The object now", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204974, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n73\n\nofficial agreement between the two countries to refer to piracy. and Article 52 gave British warships permission, when in pursuit of pirates, to enter any port on the coast. Provision was also made for co-operation between the Royal Navy and the Chinese for punishment of pirates, restoration of stolen goods, and so on, and later treaties and agreements followed the same pattern. Unfortunately, experience proved that the Chinese had undertaken more than they could carry out; and that the provincial authorities were as often unwilling, as unable, to implement the pledges of the Peking Government.\n\nThe pirates on the coast in the 1840's, 50's, and 60's, included British, American, French, and other foreign renegades, who often worked in league with Chinese merchants in Hong Kong and the treaty ports. The system of ship registry then in force in Hong Kong was even more liable to abuse than the present system, and allowed Chinese shipowners an easy means of claiming the protection of certain foreign flags. This increased the difficulties of the Navy, already hard pressed to distinguish between convoy and pirate, and between pirate, trader, and fisherman.\n\nThe most famous renegade among the pirates in the 1850's was an American sailor called Eli Boggs, for whose capture the Hong Kong Government offered a reward of $1,000. This was won by an even more famous American sailor, more often associated with blackbirding in the Pacific, than with piracy on the China coast. Captain Bully Hayes, however, made his debut on the China coast, and when that part of the world became too hot for him he moved south to Australasian and Pacific waters.\n\nHayes first appeared in the Far East in 1854 at Singapore, as master of the American barque, Canton. He was then twenty-five years old. After selling the Canton, which did not belong to him, he appeared in Hong Kong a few months later as master of another American barque, the Otranto, which was probably under charter to the famous American house of Russell and Company. In Hong Kong's Victoria Hotel, and in the company of the masters of two Jardine opium clippers, Long John Saunders of the Chin Chin and King Tom Donovan of the Spray, Hayes made the acquaintance of some naval officers, and for the rest of his time on the coast he was a great favourite with the Navy. During", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205786, "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-1969", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "86 \n\nR. BRUCE \n\nmonopolies abolished whilst levies on imports were to be limited, and vessels were to pay a tax on their size. But Burney failed to get permission for a British Consul to reside at Bangkok. Nor was he able to free British nationals from Siamese law. \n\nNext came the Americans. A merchant, Mr. Edmund Roberts, was commissioned by the President to secure a treaty at least as good as the British one. This was seven years later, in 1833. Although a President seemed to the Siamese a much less august personage than a King and America was both remote and less important, Roberts secured his treaty. It was almost exactly the same as the Burney agreement. \n\nIn the next two decades, especially in the \"forties, trade became more difficult. In fact the treaties with the British and the Americans gradually eroded away, and the old monopolies were taken back by the Court. Imports and exports were farmed to Chinese merchants by the King. Duties were arbitrary and heavy and trade dwindled. Everywhere else the British had greatly expanded their commerce by mid-century. Singapore was growing rapidly, the China trade had increased still further after the Opium War, the northern coast of Borneo was open to British commerce. It seemed only natural and civilised to the bold merchant princes and sea captains of Victorian England that Siam should, willy-nilly, share in the new prosperity, especially now that the first steamships had reached the Gulf of Siam. \n\nSir James Brooke, the White Rajah of Sarawak, was the next British envoy to sail up the Menam to Bangkok. He came in August 1850 on board H.M.S. Sphinx accompanied by a merchant vessel of the Company, the Nemesis, both steamers. Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, cautioned Sir James to be careful in his quest for better trade. \n\n\"In conducting these negotiations\", he directed, “you must be very careful not to get involved in any disputes or hostile proceedings which would render our position in Siam worse than it now is or which might compel Her Majesty's Government to have recourse to forcible measures in order to obtain redress. It is very important that if your efforts should not succeed they should at least leave things as they are and should not expose us to the alternative of submitting to fresh affront or of undertaking expensive operations to punish insult”.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206240, "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-1971", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE DEBATE ON NATIONAL SALVATION \n\n51 \n\n12 In June, 1885, Li Hung-chang signed an agreement with the French minister to China, Jules Patenotre, in Peking. The outline of the agreement was as follows: \n\n1. Annam was to become a French protectorate; \n\n2. The ports Lao-kay and Lang-son were to be opened for international trade; \n\n3. The French were to withdraw from Kee-lung and Peng-hu ; \n\n4. The French were to be the sole builders of all railways in Annam. An additional agreement was also signed in 1887. By this agreement Long-Chou and Mong-tzu were to be opened as trading ports, the prohibition of opium-smoking was to be revoked and the French were to have all privileges in South-east China. Cf. Liu Pei-hua, op. cit. \n\n13 Cf. Kung Kuang-te (Compl), P'u-tien chung-fen chi Foochow Machiang chan-shih ta-luch ching-hsing, Vol. 2, 22a; T'sai-chiao Shan-jen, \"Chung-Fa Ma-chiang chan-i chih hui-yi” also Chung-Fa Chan-cheng, Vol. 3, pp. 115-140. \n\n14 Liu Pei-hua, op. cit., pp. 121-122.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208045, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "68\n\nJ. T. KAMM\n\nsystem of land distribution had its origins several centuries ago. At the time when the land was distributed, the tenant paid the landlord a certain sum; this sum represented the rent which the tenant thereafter handed over each year. The landlord could not increase the rent, nor could the tenant refuse to pay it. Furthermore, the landlord could not investigate his tenants in order to take back the land.” (G236).\n\n28 Data from the land memorials, which register sales of subsurface values, indicate that a one-mow plot of land seldom exceeded 6 taels during the late 18th century. As we shall see later in the text, these prices necessarily remained constant into the 19th century. In the Hong Kong Almanack and Directory for 1846, we learn that the tenants valued each mow of rice paddy at $40.00 (1 tael = 1.11 Mexican dollars in 1846). Granted that tenants made good profits from the sale of land, still this example tends to illustrate the great potential disparity between the two values. (Hong Kong Almanack and Directory for 1846, Note on the Island of Hong Kong by A. R. Johnston; written in 1843).\n\n29 Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China, ibid., p 7.\n\n30 CSO306/1899 Extension; \"With reference to the petition of Tang Yung Ping and others they naturally, at present, prefer the old feudal system of payment of rent in kind.\"\n\n31 HKTCSMTC: Hong Kong Almanack, “Note on the Island of HK”.\n\n32 CSO150/1901 gives a detailed account of these negotiations.\n\n33 In general, the maintenance of perpetual tenancy systems presupposes the existence of communal landownership. The British found over 25% of all lots held in clan names in 1898; later Chinese sources place the estimate at 30%. These figures are probably not reliable for the earlier part of the century. The Tangs, as we have seen, held landlord rights over all of Hong Kong Island. They similarly held over 60% of the territory in Kowloon ceded to Britain in 1860, Land in North Kowloon was lost by \"fraudulent sale” in 1898 (CSO2982/1898). Other clans, besides the Tangs, apparently lost sizable tracts as “individual initiative” replaced clan solidarity throughout the period,\n\n34 CSO150/1901.\n\n35 CSO109/1902.\n\n36 Nan Yang Tang Shih Tsu P'u, \"Notes on Land Tax.\"\n\n37 Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China, ibid., p 18.\n\nESSAY II: TAXLORDISM\n\nThe peasants and gentry of Hsin-An witnessed two concrete manifestations of the growing power of foreign countries in China during the waning years of the nineteenth century. In April 1887, the Kowloon Customs House of the Imperial Maritime Customs was established under provisions of the Anglo-Chinese Opium Agreement of September 1886. As was the case with all customs houses established during the era, supervision of the revenue stations was entrusted to a European career officer in Sir Robert Hart's service, J. McLeavy Brown. A great expansion in customs activity", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210896, "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-1986", "page_number": 247, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "230\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nplague, the Hongkong Government cleared most of the district of Taipingshan. This had been the city's most congested area, and its removal displaced a large number of people.\n\nTo provide needed housing, Ho A-mei explained that the Fuk Tin Co was building houses across the harbour, where it was still rural. There would be fresh air, wide streets and better sanitary conditions.\n\nSome several scores of houses were almost completed and site formation for others was in progress. The houses were of brick with tile roof, two storeys high and with ample room between the blocks. The intention was to build several hundred. Built in bulk, the properties could be sold at a bargain price, at the same time the promoters could realise a substantial profit.\n\nThe hope was that \"many respectable Chinese will buy land and houses over the way as family residences and that thus many well-to-do Chinese who have houses in the interior will find it convenient and pleasant to 'pitch their tent' in the neighbourhood of this thriving colony.\" Nor need there be any anxiety about security as there were military personnel at the Chinese custom's station at Laichikok.\n\nBut looking ahead only a little farther, there was the prospect of the area becoming British, for as the interviewer stated, “such an extension of Hongkong has long been needed, and, I am glad to say, the day when it will be un fait accompli is now within measurable distance.\" The distance was three more years.\n\nOPIUM MONOPOLY AND HO CONNECTION\n\nSomehow Ho A-mei became involved in a Chinese scheme to solve the opium question. Some background will aid in understanding his role in the scheme.\n\nIn 1875 the British took the opportunity presented by the murder of a member of a British exploratory expedition in the province of Yunnan to press China for a treaty revision. As a consequence, the Chefoo Agreement was negotiated the following year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210897, "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-1986", "page_number": 248, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "231\n\nHowever, after it had been drafted and tentatively accepted by the representatives of both China and Great Britain, the British Home Government raised objections to the opium clause and wished to have it modified before the formal ratification of the agreement.\n\nSome of the difficulty had been caused because the British negotiators had not consulted British interests in India regarding the opium clause. Reference to India was important as the sale of opium was considered essential to the British Indian economy. If the export was curtailed or stopped, drastic readjustments, both in agriculture and in finance, would have had to be made.\n\nThe demand to adopt these hard measures, however, was increasingly heard by the British Government. It came under criticism both at home and abroad about its opium policy.\n\nIn 1881, the Viceroy of Chihli, Li Hung-chang, sent an unofficial representative to India to discuss the problem with the authorities there. He proposed that China buy up all the opium on the understanding that there would be a gradual reduction in its production over the years.\n\nThe plan would have also meant severe financial readjustments for China, as the taxes it derived from opium imports were a significant part of its revenue.\n\nViceroy Li presented a memorial to the Chinese emperor for the approval of the creation of an opium monopoly by the Chinese Government. In the memorial he presented the several advantages of the plan. He argued that it would enable the Chinese Government to levy whatever tax it wished on opium without any interference from foreign powers. With China controlling all opium imports, it could then begin a programme to control the production of opium within China.\n\nThe view of one newspaper editor was that the plan, if put into effect, would be a \"test of their (the Chinese) sincerity of the position they have taken since opium was first introduced to China; viz, that it is a poisonous and dangerous drug, seriously detrimental...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211006, "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-1987", "page_number": 68, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "14\n\nIbid., part 106.\n\n15\n\nIbid., part 105.\n\n43\n\n16 Lockhart, p. 77; Hayes, p. 164.\n\n17\n\n13\n\nFor the Kowloon Street and its kaifong, see ibid., pp. 171-173.\n\n18 See ibid., pp. 168-171; also Chiu-lung Luo-shan-t’ang pai-nien shih-shih HACKETT (One hundred years of the Lok Sin Tong) (Hong Kong, the lang, [1980]).\n\n19 Peter Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaty 1898-1997 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1980) pp. 19-20; Stanley F. Wright, Hong Kong and the Chinese Customs. China. The Maritime Customs. VI Inspector Series: no. 7 (Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Inspector-General of the Customs 1930), pp. 9-10. “Native” customs offices were handed over to the Inspector-General of Maritime Customs after the signing of the Hong Kong Opium Agreement in 1886.\n\n20 See Faure et. al., vol. 1, p. 166, p. 251.\n\n21 Siu, Chiu-lung ch'eng, p. 37.\n\n#1\n\n23\n\n24\n\n25\n\nBowring to Grey, August 21, 1854, despatch 61: CO129/47. Krone, p. 116.\n\nMacdonnell to Buckingham, August 27, 1867, despatch #358: CO129/124.\n\nJarrett, Vincent H.G. \"Old Hong Kong”, vol. 2, p. 613. This is a series of articles on the history of Hong Kong taken from the South China Morning Post from June 17, 1933 to April 13, 1935, and re-arranged alphabetically by subject. A Xerox copy of copies typed from the original articles is deposited in four volumes at the University of Hong Kong Library.\n\n26\n\nBowring to Grey, August 21, 1854, despatch 61.\n\n27 W.J. Norton-Kyshe, The History of the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong, 2 volumes (Hong Kong: Vetch & Lee, 1971; 1st published 1898) vol. 2, 423–429. Another case occurred in 1896 when a Chinese policeman was shot in Hong Kong. His murderer was arrested in Canton and brought to Kowloon City where he was beheaded. (John Luff, “The Hong Kong Police\", China Mail, February 24, 1960).\n\nMacdonnell to Kimberley, April 3, 1872, despatch #976: CO129/157.\n\n29 See Faure et. al., vol. 1, pp. 103, 114, 133.\n\n30 The tablet is dated the first year of the Tung-chih reign, i.e. 1862. It is still in very good condition.\n\n31 Newspaper cutting dated May 27, 1886, enclosed in Marsh to Granville, May 31, 1886, despatch #183: CO129/226.\n\n32\n\n3\n\nHua-tzu jih-pao #711, January 17 and 18, 1896.\n\nDaily Press, January 20, 1896.\n\n34 Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaty, p. 17; The open nature of the gambling was also decried by the Hsun-huan jih-pao, December 17, 1885.\n\n35 Norton-Kyshe, vol. 2, p. 423.\n\n36\n\nIn fact gambling houses were re-opened as soon as Chinese officials departed from Kowloon, Blake to Chamberlain, August 18, 1899, in Great Britain, Colonial Office. Confidential Prints Eastern (Series 882) (hereafter CO882)/5, no. 66, p. 340.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211140, "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-1987", "page_number": 201, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "176\n\nBefore the public meeting could be held, the Home Government changed its mind about the appointment.\n\nTHE DAY AN ADMIRAL TRIED TO STEAL THE SHOW\n\nIn an attempt to solve the blockade question, Sir Brooke Robertson, the British Consul at Canton, suggested in 1878 that a European be appointed as Chinese Consul in Hongkong. He could check on cargoes of junks and make reports to the Customs authorities in Canton.\n\nIn this way the Chinese could exercise better control over the collection of duties on goods shipped in and out of Hongkong on Chinese vessels. Presumably he would not be prone to engage in all the irregularities allegedly practised by all Chinese officials.\n\nHongkong, however, resisted such an appointment and the matter was dropped at that time.\n\nThe Opium Agreement between Britain and China signed in September 1886, provided for a Chinese Maritime Customs collecting station at Kowloon. The Hongkong Government unofficially condoned the residence of its Commissioner, a British national, in Hongkong.\n\nIn view of this arrangement and the easing of the tensions created by the Chinese blockade of Hongkong, the appointment of a Chinese Consul for Hongkong continued to lay dormant.\n\nIn 1891, however, the Colonial Office suddenly informed Hongkong that a Chinese Consul had been appointed for the port. There was an immediate outcry of indignation. The opposition hauled out the same arguments they had used against any arrangement with China that would have assisted it in collecting customs duties.\n\nIn an editorial comment, the China Mail stated that the arrangement made with China for the Imperial Customs to collect its duties directly had been mutually beneficial, for \"smuggling had been discouraged and legitimate trade promoted, and the Col-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212304, "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-1990", "page_number": 246, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "223\n\nthe 'Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade',\n\nA romantic web has been woven around Jardine's, far more than any other western firm in the Far East. This romanticism stretches to fiction, and Taipan and Noble House, both written by James Clavell, are reputed to be based on the 'Princely Hong'. Also a play named Poppy, about the Opium War of 1840, with comic Gilbert and Sullivan style songs, was staged in London in the early 1980s.\n\nAnother better-known song, 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' written by Noel Coward in 1932, has it that:\n\n\"In Hong Kong They strike a gong\n\nAnd fire a noonday gun\n\nThere is no agreement, however, as to where the Hotchkiss Mark I, three-pound, quick-firing naval gun came from. Some say documents prove that before 1961 it was owned by the Hong Kong Marine Police. Others believe it came from the Royal Navy although Jardine's maintain the Senior Service has no record of the gun.\n\nThe colourful myth that appears in guidebooks is that a penalty was imposed on Jardine Matheson by an irate British admiral because the firm fired a salute to its chief manager as he sailed into the harbour. Another tale has it that the gun was fired to honour the arrival of its opium-carrying fleet. From then on, so both stories go, the Navy compelled Jardine's to fire a gun daily. As A.I. Diamond, previously of the Public Records Office in Hong Kong, wrote:\n\n\"Neither version explains by what authority the Navy could have compelled Jardine Matheson and Company to fire a gun at all let alone daily at noon, presumably in perpetuity.\"\n\nThe true account is quite different. In the British Empire the armed forces used to fire guns at set hours to signify the time. In Hong Kong this practice stopped in 1869 because, by then, many people owned watches, and to save the cost of gunpowder. An extract from the Hong Kong Daily Press, dated January 3, 1870, records:\n\nIt is interesting and just to note that the renewing of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213122, "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-1993", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "172\n\nThe guesthouses (), lower down Wang Tau Street from the gambling house, were three-storeyed shop-houses. The ground floor was the residence of the owner; sometimes a small shop was run as well. Above, on the first floor, was a dormitory for villagers and poor travellers staying the night in town. A few large beds stood here - for one or two cents, you could share a bed with whoever else was looking for a place to stay. For the more fastidious and wealthy, small cubicles on the top floor offered privacy and an unshared bed. Military officers visiting the town would stay in these private cubicles. The guesthouses did not serve meals; guests took food at the adjacent noodle restaurant. The 'totally comfortless' guesthouse used by the Basel missionaries in 1859 must have been of this type.\n\nThere was only one full-time opium divan in the market, although opium could be taken in the prostitutes' houses as well. Up until 1917, there had also been several low-class opium divans in sheds in British Sha Tau Kok - these were closed in that year, as part of the agreement to end trade in opium between Hong Kong and China which, it was hoped, would allow the Chinese Government to end all opium imports, and to control the sale of opium in China. The chaos in the border area, however, made it impossible for the trade on the Chinese side of the frontier to be effectively controlled, and the Sha Tau Kok opium divan continued to trade unmolested until 1951. Opium could also be bought for home consumption from the two tobacco shops in the market. These shops were also heavily engaged in smuggling opium into Hong Kong.\n\nNext to the opium divan was the market barber. In 1853 there had only been itinerant barbers in the town. This shop should be seen, to a large degree, as one of the service trades attracted by the opportunities brought about by the new frontier and garrison, like the prostitutes and the gambling house.\n\nBeyond the guesthouses, near the sea, Wang Tau Street was occupied by the fish laans and the Kowloon Customs Station. The Customs Station was rebuilt several times during this period. The Station building in existence in the 1920s was a solidly built, European style, single-storey structure, with a verandah, built of brick and tile. One end was the residence of the Assistant Superintendent. In the middle were the offices, and the barrack quarters for the junior staff were at the further end. The Customs also rented some nearby houses for stores and quarters. After the Station", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213317, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "120\n\nThe First China War was the culmination of many years of irksome restraint. The British, as did other nations, objected strongly to being treated and listed with Burma, Vietnam and Korea as tribute bearers. The immediate cause was the destruction of all the opium in Canton brought in by foreigners and in 1840 the Chinese fleet attacked a British warship, followed by, amongst other incidents, Canton being bombarded by the British, and the war was on. Palmerston was Prime Minister in Britain during this, the First China War, now possibly better known as the first of the two Opium Wars. It began with a desultory naval engagement and little further happened until Major General Sir Hugh Gough arrived from Madras in March of 1841. The British plan was, first, to capture Chusan island off the coast of Chekiang to use as a pawn in the demand for Chinese agreements to British demands. This proved to be a futile gesture and during 1841 and 1842 British forces, with the continued aim of pressuring the Chinese into legitimising foreign trade within China, proceeded to attack several ports one after the other up the China coast, creeping ever further north towards the capital of Peking, causing the Chinese greater apprehension about the future. The campaign eventually ended with the imminent attack on Nanking, the former capital situated on the Yangtze in central China, avoided last minute by the agreement by the Chinese finally to the terms of a treaty signed in August 1842. One of the attacks on the China coast was on the then city of Chapu, which was to be followed up with an attack on Hangchou.\n\nChapu had a tolerable harbour, with a great rise and fall of tide, so much so that the smaller junks were left high and dry at low water. Together with its suburbs the town, perhaps five miles in circuit built in a square and intersected by numerous canals, lay about half a mile from the coast. The Reverend Gutzlaff in his third voyage up the China coast in January 1833 arrived in Chapu and described the surrounding countryside as the Chinese Arcadia with nothing able to exceed its beautiful and picturesque appearance. He further described the canals, neat roads, plantations and conspicuous buildings, adding that the whole country (of China) from the Yellow River south was flat until one came to the high lands which formed the harbour of Chapu city. The sea, he added, was receding from the land and flats had formed along the shore, visible at low water and constituting a barrier to the whole coast. Gutzlaff found nowhere so much openness and kindness, the (residents') intelligent questions respecting Britain were endless with them never seeming to be satiated with (British) company.\n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214557, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 415, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "384\n\nby the British. By the turn of the century folk memory in Zhoushan itself of the battles and occupation by the British had disappeared much as it has today in Weihai in Shandong province, which had been a British naval base, with a colonial governor, leased at the same time as the New Territories of Hong Kong in 1898 and held until handed back to China in 1931,\n\nThe British captured and occupied Zhoushan on two separate occasions during the First Opium War. The first occupation was short and brutal, ending with an agreement ceding Hong Kong to the British, the reopening of Guangzhou (Canton) to foreigners for trade and an indemnity in exchange for the restoration to the Chinese of Zhoushan. Both sides promptly repudiated the agreement but not before Zhoushan had been handed back. The Chinese commissioner, Qi Shan was recalled to Beijing (Peking) in chains and charged with treason having surrendered Chinese soil.\n\nThe War restarted some six months after the first retrocession by the British and the city of Dinghai was once more taken. The second occupation of nearly four years was longer but much more amicable on both the British and Chinese sides. The British appear to have failed, intentionally or otherwise, to extend their control far beyond the city of Dinghai and were at the mercy of the local Chinese tradesmen who controlled the victuals required to maintain the British occupation forces. This, however, does not appear to have led to trouble as doubtless the local Chinese were comparatively well paid for their provisions.\n\nOnce the third and final British occupation ended, that is after the Second China War in 1860, there would appear to have been neither routine British consular presence on Zhoushan nor representatives of the foreign-run Chinese Maritime Customs on Zhoushan. These were stationed in Ningbo, the city on the mainland a mere couple of hours sailing away. However, there was a lighthouse on Zhoushan run by westerners of the Chinese Maritime Customs though this would seem again to have been directed from Ningbo, and at one stage there was a small American Christian missionary presence contrary to official agreements between the Chinese and Western nations, as well as a Lazarus Mission of Roman Catholics; in practice no Christian missionary presence on the archipelago had been authorised by official agreements.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 } ]