[
    {
        "id": 205613,
        "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-1968",
        "page_number": 155,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "150 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\ncanal which would give access to warehouses and so on built in the Valley (a plan which A. T. Gordon, the Land Officer, endorsed in the 'dream' of the future City of Victoria which he communicated to Pottinger in 1843).4 But if Pottinger's description is accurate, it would have taken a good deal of imagination to see it that way. \n\nThe East Point site was purchased, at the first Land Sale on 14 June 1841, in the name of Captain William Morgan, a ship's captain who may have been Jardine's Hong Kong manager, and the actual area purchased was not specified then or when Pottinger's Second Land Committee was attempting to settle the Land Question in Hong Kong. We learn, from a later source, that it amounted to almost 170,000 square feet (about 3.4 acres). It is, however, often overlooked that the firm also purchased three other marine lots at the same sale: numbers 26, 27 and 28 and it is here that they had already commenced building by the time of the sale. This contention is upheld by a number of contemporary accounts of the sale. The Canton Register (predecessor of the Hong Kong Register) intimates that one purchaser had commenced building before the sale,6 \n\nWe are told in an unpublished history of the early years of Jardine, Matheson & Co. that in February 1841, within a month of the naval forces taking possession of the island, that they had erected a large matshed godown above the foreshore. An anonymous correspondent of the China Mail, writing 8 years after the event, but who attended the first sale in 1841, states that Matheson, in order to avoid the expenses involved in landing goods at Macao for transhipment, resolved to land a consignment of cotton at Hong Kong. To make this possible, he sent from Macao materials for the erection of a godown. This building, he avers, was four feet above the ground at the date of the sale and was sited on what later became known as the Commissariat Stores. The fact that they were building and had ground cleared, he continues, gave additional value to adjoining lots. As will be seen, Marine Lots 26, 27 and 28 were shortly to become the Commissariat stores. If further support is needed, I may quote from Tarrant's History of Hong Kong, published in 1861 or 1862: he states that \"some months before the sale......Messrs Jardine, Matheson & Co, erected those godowns which now form part of the Naval Yard, near the Canton Bazaar.” \n\nI",
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    {
        "id": 205616,
        "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-1968",
        "page_number": 158,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n153\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Minutes of Evidence, Q. 2260.\n\n2 G. R. Sayer, Hong Kong: Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age, 1937, p. 99.\n\n3 Pottinger to Lord Stanley, (No. 15 of 1844), 28 February 1844, (CO129/5/£174) The occasion of this despatch was Admiral Cochrane's suggestion that East Point would make the best site for a naval depot and that Jardine, Matheson & Co. should be removed to make way: see Cochrane to Pottinger, 23 February 1844 (CO129/5/£182).\n\n4 Gordon to Malcolm, 6 July 1843 (CO129/2/f.138).\n\n5 See Friend of China, 2 November 1850.\n\n6 Canton Register, 29 June 1841.\n\n7 E. J. Yorke, The Princely House, (unpublished), p. 487.\n\n8 China Mail, 20 December 1849.\n\n9 Apparently published in 1861 or early 1862 in either Canton or Hong Kong. It was a reprint of articles written by Tarrant in his newspaper, the Friend of China, at the time when he was publishing it in Canton. For this extract, see Friend of China, 9 November 1861.\n\n10 Canton Press, 19 February 1842.\n\n11 See Hong Kong Register, 15 January 1850. The siting is amply demonstrated from maps also. And see Minute by Pottinger on the question of accommodation for General D'Aguilar, Saltoun's successor: January 1844 (CO129/5/f.93).\n\n22\n\n12 Malcolm to Jardine, Matheson & Co., 17 February 1842 (CO129/5/f.96).\n\n13 See Hong Kong Register, 15 January 1850.\n\n14 Yorke, op. cit., p. 488.\n\n15 Pottinger to Jardine, Matheson & Co., 3 June 1842 (CO129/5/f.224).\n\n16 The firm claimed later that this godown belonged to their Bombay agent, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, without whose consent they were unable to comply with a request that it be sold to the military for use as barracks: see Pottinger to Saltoun, 26 October 1843 (CO129/5/f.524).\n\n17 Yorke, op. cit., p. 491.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206269,
        "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": 86,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "80\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nto the preservation of the national integrity; uneasy under the restraint of law and unscrupulous of the means by which they live, they abandon without hesitation their hearths and household gods, their birthright and their father's tombs, to wander, unrespected, whither gain may call them. The unsettled state of the Colony, and the vast amount of crime during its infancy afford abundant proof of the demoralizing effects of their presence... (More recently) Hong Kong has been invested by numbers of the Triad Society, the members of which under shelter of a political maxim ‘overturn the Tsing... and restore the Ming' perpetuate the grossest enormities. I have satisfied myself that most of the burglaries have been planned and attempted by members of this dangerous association.3\n\nFearon mentions in his report a person named Aqui as the most influential and wealthy of the native residents. He had rapidly risen from the lowly status of a bum-boatman. William Tarrant, an early historian of Hong Kong who was well acquainted with the early days, writing in 1861 comments that\n\n— there were some curious fish among the earlier native settlers; the leader of them is still living in Victoria, Loo Aqui, alias See Mun King. If all reports be true, Aqui was monarch of all he surveyed on the water about Hong Kong prior to our taking possession — that is to say, he was the Sea King who took toll from all that passed his squadron. This is of course rumour only; and we but mention it to say that the presence of Aqui on the island had much to do in keeping people of better character from settling, or even visiting the place.+\n\nGeorge Smith, the future Bishop of Victoria, visited Hong Kong in 1844 and gives an equally critical description of Aqui's activities.\n\nHe possesses about fifty houses in the bazaar, and lives on the rent, in a style much above the generality of the Chinese settlers, who are commonly composed of the refuse of the neighbouring mainland. During the war, Aqui acted as purveyor of provisions to the British armament and acquired some wealth. After the peace, he was at first afraid to return to the mainland, lest he",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206457,
        "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": 5,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1971 ·\n\nHON. TREASURER's ReporT FOR 1971 -\n\nTHE LIBRARY, 1971 -\n\n-\n\nTRANSACTIONS OF THE BRANCH\n\nChinese Medicine and its Contribution to Modern Medical Science (A Lecture given on 16th November, 1971) DR. F. I. TSEUNG\n\n-\n\nSome Nineteenth Century Water Colours of Canton and the Far East (A Lecture given on 15th December, 1971) P. H. COLLIN -\n\nRaja James Brooke and Sarawak: An Anomaly in the 19th Century British Colonial Scene (A Lecture given on 18th January 1972) -DR. L. R. WRIGHT\n\nARTICLES:\n\nThe Establishment of the Tsungli Yamen: A Translation of the Memorial and Edict of 1861 — J. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nSir James Haldane Stewart Lockhart: Colonial Civil Servant and Scholar- HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\nA Historical Review of Housing Conditions in Hong Kong DR. E. G. PRYOR\n\nTraditional Chinese Regional Architecture: Chinese Houses LINDA F. SULLIVAN\n\n·\n\n-\n\nPage\n\n1\n\n6\n\n9\n\n12\n\n20\n\n29\n\n41\n\n-\n\n-\n\n55\n\n89\n\n130\n\nThe Origins of Hong Kong's Central Market and the Tarrant Affair Dafydd Emrys Evans\n\nArchaeology in Hong Kong and South China (1938) — W. SCHOFIELD\n\n―\n\nThree Chinese Deities: Variations on a Theme KEITH STEVENS\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n-\n\nWho Hoisted the Union Jack? DR. J. R. JONES\n\nChina's Earliest Printing—a Note a Note L. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\n-\n\n-\n\nUnusual Trees in Hong Kong: the Canton Water Pine SHEN DZE-CHIA\n\nA Note on Agricultural Change in Hong Kong AIJMER\n\n-\n\nLetting Go the Wooden Goose JAMES HAYES\n\n150\n\n-\n\n· 161\n\n169\n\n196\n\n-\n\n197\n\n-\n\n198\n\nGORAN\n\n-\n\n201\n\n207\n\n-\n\n207\n\n-\n\n213\n\nProgramme Notes for the Visit to Pokfulam, Hong Kong Island, 29th July, 1972 - JAMES HAYES -\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\n-",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206608,
        "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": 156,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "The Origins of Hong Kong's Central Market and the Tarrant Affair\n\nDafydd Emrys Evans*\n\nThe public market which at present stands in Queen's Road Central in Hong Kong occupies the site of a succession of older buildings of which the earliest was built as a market in 1842. The early history of this market amply demonstrates the too-seldom revealed complexity of Chinese merchants' commercial transactions at the time of the founding of the Colony of Hong Kong.\n\nHong Kong's first public market opened on the site in May, 1842.1 At the first sale of crown land in the new Colony in June, 1841, the westernmost lots were put up to auction first and the first four, designated at the sale numbers 19 to 16, were not sold but reserved for Government purposes. It was on the lot numbered 16 that the market opened, lying as it did conveniently near to the Upper and Lower Bazaars.2 The Market was, apparently, the brain-child of the Colonial Secretary of the time, Colonel George Malcolm who secured the erection of buildings at a cost of some $3,500.3 He appointed a Chinese named Hwei Aqui as Superintendent and established a fixed list of prices to be charged by the individuals to whom the stalls were let by Government.4\n\nWhen Sir John Davis succeeded Sir Henry Pottinger as Governor of the Colony in 1844, he decided that the Market could operate as a useful source of revenue for the Government and sold the market franchise to the highest bidder who was then free to charge what he could to the stallholders. The successful bidder was, in fact, Hwei Aqui and, though he had apparently given satisfaction formerly when simply in the employ of Government, caused grave dissatisfaction once he was operating the market on his own account, with prices rising far faster than they had previously and without the benefit of Government control over the state of the market.\n\nIt is the few years after the market passed into private hands that it makes its contribution to Hong Kong's history, not only on\n\n* Mr. Evans is Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong. See Journal vol. 10, 1970, for his earlier article \"Chinatown in Hong Kong: The Beginnings of Taipingshan\".",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206609,
        "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": 157,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "H.K.'S CENTRAL MARKET AND THE TARRANT AFFAIR\n\n151\n\nthe level of the commercial interests of Chinese merchants of the time but also because of the extent to which it figured in a scandal over bribery by Government officials and the victimisation of a Government servant who later became the embittered editor of one of the Colony's newspapers, the Friend of China.\n\nThough, from an historical point of view, the former matters are far more important, the two are not wholly distinct for the Government servant in question acquired property interests in the market.\n\nAfter Sir John Davis let the market franchise go to the highest bidder, he granted the franchise holder a short lease on the premises, thereby effectively changing the relationship of the market operator to the Government. Accordingly, the lot on which the market stood, an area of 37,800 square feet, was leased on 1 July 1845 to Hwei Aqui at a rent of $4,800 per annum (about £1,000). This area, comprising the whole of the land between the shore-line and the Queen's Road, was larger than that of the original market and allowed for the houses and shops which had been built between the market buildings and the road.\n\nIt is at this point that the scene becomes confused for Hwei decided to develop the property further and had to borrow money to do so. Between the date of the lease and mid-1847 when Hwei died, he executed several transactions, some of which are recorded in the records of the Government Land Office as Mortgages, some of which are not. The earliest was on 6 August 1845 when he borrowed $1,500 for one month from the estate of a Chinese, Tong Kim-sing who had been in business as a ‘contractor' until his death in 1844, at the staggering rate of interest of 10% per month. The satisfaction of this mortgage is not recorded in the Land Office but it is known that the administrator of the deceased's estate left the colony about this time and the defect might have been one of form only. About two months later, on 12 October 1845, Hwei borrowed from Ying Wing-kee, described as a ‘compradore' and one of the only two Chinese to have bought land at the sale of Crown Land on 22 January 1844, $2,800 for a period of 18 months and at a rate of repayment which worked out at an interest rate of almost 6% per month. Hwei was, therefore, deeply in debt before the year was out. Before his death in 1847, there follows one further transaction which was imperfectly recorded at the time. On 13",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206610,
        "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": 158,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "152\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS EVANS\n\nNovember 1846, he assigned the lot to Foong Achi (otherwise Attai) for an unspecified amount. The transaction was recorded as an absolute assignment and this led Tarrant, then Clerk of Deeds in the Land Office and to whom we shall shortly return, to add a note on the lease register to the effect that the leaseholder's name could not be altered in the Lease Register until the mortgage encumbrances were cleared. Though Foong later claimed that the transaction was an absolute assignment, with $1,000 as the consideration, Tarrant rejected this on the ground that the document of assignment was a forgery.10 But in 1848 Foong re-assigned the property to Hwei's administrator, stating that all sums owing were satisfied. This is sufficient to show that, when the market passed to Hwei's brother Afoon on his death in 1847, the picture was already complicated. It was to become more so.\n\nHwei Afoon seems to have felt the need for more cash for reasons which will soon become apparent and he entered into a transaction which is very difficult to understand, though he may have done so under duress. On 28 June 1847, he assigned his interest (as administrator) to two others on trust for various purposes. These two named persons were, first, Chow Aoan who, at the time was compradore to the Government Treasury and, as such, a powerful man. He already had extensive property interests in the Chinese parts of the town and was to extend them in the years to come. The other person was Le Quong-cheong about whom less is known. He described himself on one occasion as a 'bookseller' but certainly also lent money.\n\nThe purpose of the transaction must have been to secure the repayment of monies borrowed by Hwei Afoon. Ying Wing-kee had transferred to Le on 19 June 1847 his interest in the property, the transaction being memorialised as a mortgage to secure the repayment of $2,400 owing to Le by Ying, but it may have in fact been a transfer to Le of Ying's interest under the mortgage of 12 October 1845. As shall be seen, however, Ying retained some interest in the market. The deed of assignment of 28 June 1847 required the trustees (Chow and Le) to pay the Crown Rent twice a month. Then they were to permit Ying Wing-kee to receive the rents of the nine shops fronting on the Queen's Road, showing that Ying retained some interest though precisely what it was is not clear. Hwei Afoon himself was to be paid $100 per month and the trustees were to pay",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206611,
        "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": 159,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "H.K.'S CENTRAL MARKET AND THE TARRANT AFFAIR\n\n153\n\nto themselves, in the case of Le, interest at 4% on the principal sum of $2,400 (the figure given in the deal between Ying and Le) and, in the case of Chow, at 4% on the sum of $1,000. All disbursements were to be met by them and any balance after all these purposes had been satisfied was to be put to reducing the principal outstanding to them. Once the capital sums were repaid, then the property was to be reconveyed to Hwei Afoon for a nominal $5.\n\nThus, by mid-1847, four different people had different interests in the market. There remains one other who so far has not yet appeared on the scene.\n\nHwei Afoon was a builder and contracted with the Government for some work on Government property at Stanley (Chek Chu). He completed the work and received an order for payment drawn on the Treasury. When he went to the Treasury to collect his money, the Treasury Compradore (Chow Aoan) told him that he would deduct $750 which was owing to Colonel Caine's Compradore (named Lo Een-teen) in respect of the Market. Afoon knew that his brother, Hwei Aqui, had agreed, in consideration of influence being exerted on his behalf to secure the lease of the Market, to make a payment of $150 per month to Lo Een-teen and also to allow him to select meat and produce in the Market without payment. The point was that Lo represented that he could persuade his master, Caine, then the Colonial Secretary, to give the lease to Hwei; apparently made these payments and after his death Afoon paid $400 to have the lease transferred to him but demurred at the payment of $150 per month, considering no doubt that there was little that Lo could do about it if he did not pay. But he was reckoning without Chow Aoan who attempted to dock the arrears of 'squeeze' unpaid by Afoon.\n\nThe arrangement of 28 June 1847 may have been an attempt by the parties to reach an 'honourable' solution. But matters did not stop there for Afoon unadvisedly went to the Surveyor General's Office to complain that he was not receiving all the money due to him under his Government contract and, no doubt, explained why. He told his story to William Tarrant, the Clerk of Deeds and general factotum in the office of the Surveyor General.\n\nTarrant had had a mixed career since arriving in China a few years previously. He had first come as a steward on board ship and, on the establishment of the colony, was able to secure the position of",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206613,
        "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": 161,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "H.K.'S CENTRAL MARKET AND THE TARRANT AFFAIR\n\n155\n\nwhich went into his own pocket. The accusations had, of course, been withdrawn because they were impossible to substantiate but doubts still existed on the expenditure of the money which had undoubtedly been collected—Caine's version was that it had been used to run a voluntary hospital for the women but the Hong Kong Register alleged that a sum of about $500 per month was still being collected. To make matters absolutely plain, the Register reported that Afoon had told them that the Compradore's 'squeeze' was known to the Chinese as \"Caine's rent\" or \"tax.\"20\n\nThe finger was pointing at Caine though it is fair to say that Tarrant, whatever his motives, merely recounted the alleged facts. It was the two newspapers which implicated Caine in the dealings of the two compradores, but it was only Tarrant who found himself arraigned, with Afoon, for conspiring to damage the reputation of Caine. He was committed to trial before the Supreme Court by a bench of Justices. As it happened, the three justices were all Government servants (Campbell, Hillier and C. G. Holdforth) and two of them held to be Caine's protégés. It is probably true that the public was taken aback at this and Tarrant had their sympathy. When his case eventually came before the Supreme Court in October, Tarrant being suspended from duty during this period, the Attorney General moved that the trial be postponed because of the absence of a material witness. Lo Een-teen, Caine's Compradore, had disappeared from the Colony. Tarrant was willing for the trial to proceed but the Chief Justice Hulme ruled that it should be postponed and when it came up again, the Attorney General (now Parker, acting) moved before Campbell, now Acting Chief Justice, that there was no case to answer and did not offer any evidence.21 But, although Tarrant was now a free man, he found himself without a job—during his suspension the Government had combined his post with another. He proceeded to petition the Secretary of State, Earl Grey but he was hampered by lack of evidence.22\n\nIt is at this point that we return to the account of transactions in the Central Market. On 23 November 1847, Hwei's interest in the Central Market ceased when it was sold by the Sheriff to Le Kip-tye, an interpreter in the Government's employ, in execution of a writ of fi. fa.23 in the suit McSwyney v. Hwei Afoon.24 His interest was said to amount to 5/13 of the whole and this must have been his interest under the deed of 28 June of the same year.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206614,
        "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": 162,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "156\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS EVANS\n\nThis had the effect of substituting Le Kip-tye for Hwei Afoon in that arrangement.\n\nAt about the same time as the charges against Tarrant were dismissed, in the December of 1847, Tarrant purchased at public auction the equity of redemption25 of the Market lot. This sale went unrecorded in the Land Office, possibly for sinister reasons but more likely because Tarrant desired to keep it quiet for the time being.26 He probably bought the equity of redemption at the same sale as that at which Le Kip-tye purchased an interest, Tarrant buying the redemption and Le that right to receive $100 per month which Hwei had had. It must have been that Tarrant's purpose was to buy himself an interest in the Market so that he could obtain positive evidence about corruption to back up his petition to Earl Grey but he was not yet in a position to be able to call to see the accounts which would tell what he needed. However, about two months later, on 24 February 1848, Le Kip-tye assigned his 5/13 interest to Ong Chok27 in consideration of a monthly payment of $10028 and, on the same date, we find the second complicated transaction involving several parties. Chow Aoan, Le Quong-chong and Hwei Afoon (whatever interest he had remaining) assigned their respective interests to Tarrant (in consideration of a payment of $130 to Hwei Afoon, the sum which Tarrant is stated to have paid at public auction for the equity of redemption) and to Ong Chok (in consideration of a payment of $2,400 to Le Quong-chong and $1,300 to Chow Aoan, both sums being the sums still outstanding as principal under the arrangement of 28 June).29\n\nTarrant was now in strange company, being a part-owner of what was otherwise a wholly Chinese concern. But he still could not get his evidence and, the following February, he arrived at an arrangement with Ong Chok whereby he released his equity of redemption in favour of Ong in return for a quarter share of the surplus rents, etc.30 Now, whilst he could undoubtedly use the money since he was unemployed and would have had little coming in from the few properties he owned, he very significantly secured the right to inspect the books on the first of every Chinese month.31\n\nWhatever evidence he did uncover, if any at all, certainly did not reach the public but he was able to receive limited redress from Earl Grey who vindicated him to the extent of allowing him his",
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    {
        "id": 206615,
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        "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-1972",
        "page_number": 163,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "H.K.'S CENTRAL MARKET AND THE TARRANT AFFAIR\n\n157\n\npay during his suspension to the date at which his post was abolished, but he could do no more. The injustice was acknowledged but, as the Friend of China put it, it was \"but miserable redress in a pecuniary light.\"32\n\nTarrant's connection with the Central Market ceased on 28 December 1849 when he assigned his quarter share of the profits to Chow Aqui, one of Hong Kong's biggest Chinese businessmen at that time.33 Chow had extensive property interests in the Lower Bazaar area, had run Hong Kong's first theatre and had had the opium monopoly for a few years. Curiously enough, allegations had been made a few years previously that he was able to use Government police officers to protect his monopoly and Caine was inevitably linked with the allegation. The lease of the Market came to an end in 1850, the term being expired but Chow was given a renewal for two years from 10 March 1851 at the same rent and the lease was further renewed on two subsequent occasions.35\n\n16\n\nThis account illustrates two quite diverse matters. First, it shows the extent to which Chinese in Hong Kong adapted themselves to the institutional demands of a British colony. Although the whole system of law was alien to them, the transactions memorialised in the Land Office show the extent to which the possibilities of English Law were utilised to their commercial advantage, even though on some occasions it is difficult to follow at this remove the complexity of their dealings. If they did sometimes find themselves on the losing side in the Supreme Court, there were a significant number of Chinese businessmen in Hong Kong itself whose names recur over the years and who were, presumably, successful. Several have been named in this article but there were perhaps about a dozen or so in this category.* They, in addition to the Europeans, learnt to take advantage of the British system.\n\n37\n\nThis account also touches on the problem of the integrity of the colonial Government of the time. While it is true that the Chinese who came to the island may not have expected what the European would have regarded as an incorrupt government, it is also true that the circumstances of the colony in its early days gave opportunities for corruption which some were not slow to use. Though there was little at this time or later that could definitely be proved against\n\n* On this subject see Rev. Carl T. Smith's article \"The Emergence of a Chinese Elite in Hong Kong\" at pp. 74-115 of the 1971 Journal. (Ed).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206616,
        "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": 164,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "158\n\nDAFYDD EMRYS EVANS\n\nCaine, allegations were repeatedly made of his complicity with persons of ill-repute, in particular with Daniel Caldwell, for many years a Government servant and consort of the 'Jonathan Wild' of Hong Kong, a Chinese called Wong Akee (or Machow Wong).\n\nAfter this incident of the Market extortions, which most wanted to believe anyway, Tarrant turned his attentions towards the Press, becoming—how is unexplained—the owner of the Friend of China on the departure from the Colony of the editor who had taken his side in market dispute, John Carr. Tarrant was able to use the editorial columns to pursue Caine and his subordinates on every possible occasion but in the end it was Caine who won. In 1859 he was forced out into the open and instituted a Crown prosecution for criminal libel against Tarrant. This ended with Tarrant being jailed for one year. When he was released before the end of his sentence Tarrant was a broken man and left the colony for Canton, where he continued to publish the Friend. He paid a visit to Hankow in 1861 and settled later in Shanghai but his journal never flourished thereafter.\n\nIt is, perhaps, a pity that the issue of corruption in government in Hong Kong, some of which was so devastatingly exposed by Sir Hercules Robinson, a later Governor, in 1861 in his Report to the Home Government on Civil Service Abuses in Hong Kong, was so clouded by the personalities of those who concerned themselves with the issue. The undoubted corruption which government servants like Caine permitted, even if they did not actively participate in it themselves, could have at least received a check if the then Governor, Sir John Davis, had had the courage of his own convictions and the confidence of the public and ordered a proper investigation into the Market scandal. Instead, the rumours which had started in 1841 when Caine was alleged to have allowed piratical activities for a price, rumours fed by the Lock Hospital scandal and the Tarrant affair, continued unabated until 1861, by which time most of the objectionable public servants had left the service.\n\nNOTES\n\nA Friend of China, 19 June 1842.\n\n2 The Lower Bazaar, located in the present Bonham Strand area, came into existence when A. R. Johnston, who had control of the administration of the island when Sir Henry Pottinger was absent from the colony prosecuting the war against China, allowed Chinese who had helped the British",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206617,
        "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": 165,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "H.K.'S CENTRAL MARKET AND THE TARRANT AFFAIR\n\n159\n\nforces during hostilities against China to settle and allotted them small lots on the waterfront. The Upper Bazaar which lay in the area of Graham and Stanley Streets consisted also of relatively small areas granted to Chinese who were presumptively useful to the nascent colony as tradesmen. The Lower Bazaar was almost totally destroyed in the great fire at the end of 1851 and the Upper Bazaar was removed in 1844 and its inhabitants resettled in Taipingshan.\n\n3 See Gordon to Pottinger, 10 February 1844 [CO129/V/f.141].\n\n+ Evidence given by Colonel Malcolm to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Commercial Relations with China, answer to question 4633.\n\n5 Davis sought to let as many monopolies go as possible to private individuals for what they were prepared to give. Thus, in addition to the markets, he let out also opium, salt, and quarrying monopolies.\n\n6 Lease Register Volume C, f.94. The lot was leased as Marine Lot 38. The lease registers referred to are the Registers of the Land Office in which all dealings in crown land were recorded. The actual transactions themselves are also recorded separately as 'Memorials' and reference is made to them by number. The numbering was done according to the order in which they were registered. I am indebted to the Registrar General of the Government of Hong Kong for allowing me access to the records of the Land Office and for permission to publish material derived from that source.\n\n7 Memorial 122.\n\n8 Memorial 143.\n\n9 Memorial 258.\n\n10 Friend of China, 7 July 1847.\n\n11 Memorial 383.\n\n12 In this article, the romanisations found in the Land Office records are used even where they do not correspond to those either in the Wade-Giles system or current usage.\n\n13 Memorial 304.\n\n14 Ibid.\n\n15 Memorial 345.\n\n16 Hong Kong Register, 27 July 1847.\n\n17 Friend of China, 14 July 1847.\n\n18 And in so doing, incidentally, infringing the provision of the Treaty of Nanking, 1842, which allowed British subjects to proceed only to the \"Treaty Ports\" and to nowhere else in China.\n\n19 Friend of China, 14 July 1847. Tam Achoy's market was known as the Kwang Yuen and in the disastrous fire in December 1851, the fifty-one houses which comprised the market were destroyed: see Hong Kong Register, January 1852. Tam was referred to a few years later as the \"most respectable Chinaman\" who made a practice of going into the witness box to speak for the character of accused persons. He remained in Hong Kong until his death in the 1870's and was one of the founders of the Tung Wah organisation, a charitable body still functioning in Hong Kong.\n\n20 Hong Kong Register, 27 July 1847.\n\n21 Hong Kong Register, 19 October 1847; Friend of China, 23 October 1847 and 18 December 1847.\n\n22 The Editor of the Friend (John Carr) claimed to have seen Hwei's accounts and that they revealed the \"squeeze\" payment.\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209777,
        "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": 36,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "14\n\ninterfered, and had the fence removed, to the detriment, we think, of the villagers, who had they hereafter been ousted from their homesteads, would have been glad, as the amount of compensation uniformly adjudged to the aborigines, has far exceeded their expectation\". (Friend of China, 25 May 1843)\n\nThe bay of Tung Lo Wan where the village of So Kon Po was located became the centre for the salt trade.\n\nEarly Government-financed improvements in the area included a road from Wong Nei Chung to So Kon Po built in 1845 at a cost of $2,000, and a sea wall under three contractors employing some six thousand men (C.O.129-11 No.73).\n\nIn 1844 an order was issued forbidding the cultivation of rice in the Wong Nei Chung and So Kon Po valleys. It was thought the miasmic vapours arising from the paddy fields made the area unhealthy. The cultivated land of the Wong Nei Chung valley was seventy-five acres and of So Kon Po thirty-seven acres. Following this prohibition of rice growing, the land was purchased by the Government from its Chinese owners. The area was drained, and health improved. The Governor, in a report submitted to the Colonial Office dated 10 March 1845, said he was contemplating letting the So Kon Po valley to Chinese for market gardening (C.O.129-11, No.28).\n\nAn advertisement in the Hong Kong Register dated 16 July, 1846 indicates that the introduction of the new crops to the valley took place very shortly afterwards:\n\n\"Farm to let the Hinton Farm, district of Su-kun-pu, comprising about 30 acres, six and upwards of which are of the best arable land. Possession can be given immediately on removal of present Crops, consisting principally of Flax and Vegetables. Apply to the Proprietor at the Land Office, Mr. Tarrant.\"\n\n52\n\nAt the time William Tarrant was clerk in the Land Registry Office.\n\nAfter purchase from the Chinese, the valley was laid out into five Farm Lots. These were sold at a Land Sale on 1 July 1846 on twenty-one year leases. The purchasers were George Duddell,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209778,
        "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": 37,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "shopkeeper, land speculator, auctioneer and entrepreneur; William Tarrant, Land Office clerk and later editor and proprietor of the newspaper Friend of China, Charles Markwick, auctioneer for the Government; Hugh Mackay, shopkeeper his lot No. 4 was resumed in 1859 for nonpayment of Crown Rent; and Wong Ah Hoy, one of the original So Kon Po cultivators.\n\nWong sold his lot in 1852 to Chang On Kee, a merchant trading at Hong Kong, who in turn sold it to George Duddell in 1857. Duddell had already bought in 1851 the lots of Markwick and Tarrant. Thus all the arable land of the valley was in his possession, except the lot of Mackay which reverted to the Government shortly after. Duddell added to his holdings by purchase from the Government in 1853 of Farm Lot 13. This was between his valley lots and So Kon Po village.\n\nIt was probably in the 1850's that Duddell experimented with growing coffee plants in the valley. Evidence of the project was still to be seen in 1878. The Hong Kong Daily Press in that year published a series of articles on places of interest around Hong Kong. The issue of 17 December 1878 gave directions for a walk to the \"Coffee Plantation\". The hiker was directed to proceed to the Race Course, passing the Obelisk and keeping straight on over a bridge to the gardener's cottage. There he was to turn to the right for one hundred yards, with the race course on his right and a densely wooded hill on the left, and follow the footpath up the hill through the trees. On descending the hill on the other side, he would find himself near some huts occupied by Chinese quarry-men or stone-masons and on the path leading to the coffee plantation. The writer noted, however, that \"the coffee shrubs are now neglected\".\n\nGeorge Duddell, having retired from Hong Kong some years previously, sold his So Kon Po land to William Keswick, of Jardines, in 1884. The lots, whose twenty-one lease had been extended to seventy-five years, were regranted to Keswick as Inland Lots 955, 1018, 1019, 1020 and 1021. Keswick transferred the present site of St. Paul's Convent and Hospital to a Jardine enterprise, the Hong Kong Cotton Spinning, Weaving and Dyeing Company. This was in 1898. The property was bounded to the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212760,
        "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-1992",
        "page_number": 69,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "54\n\ncontinuation of Chapter VII of his long-running serial on The Life and Adventures of a British Pioneer in China describing his journey from Hankow to Kueichou in 1868. The Notice explained that 'the original notes taken by me [Mesny] on the journey were sent by special request to Mr. William Tarrant, Editor and Proprietor of The Friend of China, a newspaper published at Shanghai in those days. Before having published my notes, however, Tarrant died and his printing establishment was taken over by Messrs. Little Brothers, I believe, and my notes thus fell into their hands, and no doubt sharpened the appetite of Mr and Mrs Archibald Little for travelling in Szechuan. At any rate I never saw or heard anything more of those notes although I occasionally saw in the columns of the North China Daily News, notes of a Journey to Szechuan which were so very much like mine that I wrote to Mr F. H. Balfour about them, believing they formed part of the notes I had sent to Tarrant. In the winter of 1880-1881 I happened to be again at Chungking and there told the late Consul-General E. Colbourne Baber about the lost notes. Baber thereupon persuaded me to rewrite them from memory without further delay and I did so, hence the present chapters with their many imperfections.' The accusation that the Littles had been involved in 'pirating' his travels would have been serious and may have prompted a response. However, none appears to have been made. The explanation that he had had to rewrite the travels from memory explains why there were so many gaps and duplications. It was however strange that he delayed so long the publication of such a serious allegation against the Littles.\n\nIt is clearer in Volume IV, even more than in previous ones, that Mesny likes to portray himself as more Chinese than Western. He has long commented on individual friendships with numerous Chinese whilst rarely mentioning Europeans and Americans. When he does, they are usually sinologists of one form or another, mainly missionaries like Moule, Griffith, etc. The first article, if it may be called such, was a two-page biography of Tso Tsung-t’ang, a former Governor General or Viceroy of the Min-Che provinces. When Tso was posted to the Shen-Kan provinces in 1865 Mesny called on him in Hankow to pay his respects, and after the Viceroy had learnt that Mesny had been a prisoner of the Taipings, he immediately appointed Mesny as his French and English secretary. In the early 1880s, he invited Mesny to visit him in Foochow where he was again the Viceroy of the Min-che provinces, with a view to Mesny undertaking some progressive works including telegraphs, railways, and mining. The Viceroy died before Mesny was able to call",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
        "rank": 0
    }
]