[
    {
        "id": 206011,
        "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": 91,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "86 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\n1860's, cannot have been much worse than those experienced by contemporary European emigrants to America and Australia; and may have been better than those experienced by many thousands of Irish emigrants to America during the famine years of 1846-48. In her book \"The Great Famine\", Cecil Woodham-Smith gives horrifying details of the sufferings of these unfortunate people. Two of the most tragic cases concerned the British ships Larch and Virginius, which left Sligo and Liverpool respectively for Quebec at this time. Of the Larch's 440 passengers 108 died at sea, and 150 of the remainder were landed sick; while of the Virginius' 476 passengers 158 died at sea and 106 of the remainder — including the master and mate — were landed sick. At that time American ships were superior to British, and their fares were higher than on British ships, because they applied the Passenger Acts more strictly. Also during this same summer of 1847 German ships were constantly arriving at Quebec with hundreds of healthy, robust, and cheerful passengers. It was surely a mastery of British understatement for Earl Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies, to write that \"the desire to reach America being exceedingly strong, many emigrants are content to submit to very great hardships during the voyage\". Nor is it to be wondered that fully 90% of these emigrants later crossed over into the United States, among them the father of Henry Ford. The greatest hardships during the famine emigrations took place on ships chartered by landlords anxious to clear their estates of impoverished tenants, and some of the worst cases are said to have involved Lord Palmerston's own tenants. Lord Palmerston, who was Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister for most of the 1840's, and prominent in the campaign against the African Slave Trade, probably knew little about his tenants' misfortunes, in itself one of the most telling indictments of the Irish land system. \n\nIn all the long period of Chinese emigration and until the early years of the 20th century, very few Chinese women emigrated, a factor which has had an incalculable effect on South-east Asian history. It is said that the Chinese authorities, while comparatively lax in preventing the emigration of men, took great precautions to prevent women emigrating, and it was not, for instance, until the mid 1920s that the authorities in Hainan Island allowed women to emigrate. A Chinese woman was a rare sight in the streets of Bangkok until about 1910, but within twenty years",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207020,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1974",
        "page_number": 91,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "FATHER ERNESTO GHERZI, S.J., 1886 - 1973 AN APPRECIATION\n\nG. J. BELL*\n\nIn the Bulletin de Geophysique No. 34 from the College Jean-de-Brebeuf, Montreal there was enclosed a notice of the death of Father Ernesto Gherzi, S.J. at Saint-Jerome, Quebec. He died on 6 December 1973 at the age of 87 years and 4 months. Fr Gherzi was a very well known and popular figure on the China coast between the years 1910 and 1954. He made notable contributions to the science and practice of seismology and meteorology while at Zikawei Observatory, Shanghai from where he operated an efficient typhoon warning service. He was a colourful character who made a great impression on all those who met him and he is remembered with affection by very many mariners and aviators—both military and civil—who served in the Far East in the thirty years prior to 1954.\n\nEARLY YEARS\n\nFr Gherzi was born in San Remo, Italy on 8 August 1886. In October 1903 he joined the Society of Jesus, an order whose members had made great contributions to geophysics and meteorology at their Observatories at Zikawei and Manila. He was posted to Zikawei for the period 1910-13 after which he went to England to work with Appleton on ionospheric studies for the Admiralty, London. He was ordained in England in June 1916 and returned to China in October 1920 to start his long scientific career in the famous meteorological, seismological and magnetic observatory at Zikawei.\n\nThe Zikawei Observatory was supported by grants from the Chinese Customs, the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, the Shanghai municipality and the telegraph companies; in return it provided time signals, weather forecasts and magnetic data for shipping. Fr Gherzi produced annual summaries of typhoon tracks for 1926 and for the years 1928 to 1940; they were addressed to the\n\n* Mr. Bell has been Director of the Royal Observatory, Hong Kong, since 1965. This article first appeared in Weather, Volume 29, No. 5 (May 1974).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
        "rank": 0
    }
]