[ { "id": 207340, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "100 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nbesides music-halls and lodging-houses, the haunts of vagabonds well known to the police.19 \n\nThe spectacle of Jack Tars, returning from the grog-shops of Tai Ping Shan and Sai Ying Pun, tipsily and rowdily weaving their way along Queen's Road, affronted respectable Britons. A Wesleyan missionary complained in 1894 that the colony was always upset by the arrival of a fresh man-of-war whose crew once ashore would behave like wild animals. \"They drink like fishes,\" he complained, \"ride round the town in rickshaws, making night hideous with their shouts, eat over-ripe fruit from street stalls, are stricken with cholera, and die in a few hours.\" He insisted that for soldiers and sailors (and possibly for most others in the East at the present moment) \"total abstinence is a duty\".20 \n\nThe Wesleyan missionary, a fervent supporter of the temperance movement, misunderstood the reasons for excessive drinking among servicemen in Hong Kong. It was not due to innate depravity or irreligion. Soldiers and sailors drank because of the tedium, the hideous boredom they had to endure as pariahs in Hong Kong. They were totally excluded from polite European society; there were no young white women of their own class to walk out with; there were few entertainments, except lugubrious church or mission functions, provided for them. Off duty the only pleasures available, apart from a climb up the Peak, a jaunt in a sampan, or a visit to the Botanical Gardens, were the drinking dens and brothels of the more welcoming Chinese quarters of the town. \n\nSailors, in particular, led almost completely isolated lives in the Far East. News from home could take months to reach their ships. Often they spent over a year without going ashore on leave. Walter White, a ship's painter, joined H.M.S. Scout at Sheerness in 1859, left England in that year and did not return from service on the China Station until 1864.21 His experience was typical. He spent New Year's Day, 1862, in Hong Kong and put up at the European Hotel, a hostelry overlooking Tai Ping Shan. From the verandah of his hotel, he wrote home, \"you can sit and look down upon the teeming, squalid living, jangling and evil smelling Chinese quarters.\"22 But it was in this teeming quarter that White and his naval companions were obliged to spend their evenings of leave, \n\nMajor Henry Knollys epitomises the life of the British gunner in Hong Kong in the 1880s thus:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210876, "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": 227, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "210\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nIn the meantime the minister, the Rev. J. L. Poore, was concerned about the Chinese who had flocked to Australia in search of gold. What disturbed the Rev. Mr. Poore was the isolation of these people. He could communicate with them only through an interpreter or the strict limitations of pidgin English, neither very effective methods for introducing them to the Christian religion.\n\nHis evangelistic interest had already prompted him to send for copies of the New Testament from Hongkong.\n\nHaving received 2,000, he was in a quandary as to how they should be distributed. If he gave them out to the immigrants as they landed from the ships, they would not likely add them to the heavy packs they had to carry to the goldfields. As he pondered the best way to dispose of the Testaments, Poore chanced upon a shipping notice that two Chinese evangelists had arrived carrying letters of introduction addressed to him.\n\nAfter locating them, he found them of “undoubted piety, possessed of considerable literary attainments\". Ho A-low, particularly, was a scholar in his own language, able to translate from English to Chinese and vice versa, and a fluent and correct English speaker.\n\nHaving found them, he then did not know what to do with them. The problem was financial; that of knowing how to support two Chinese evangelistic workers. The Congregationalists were building a church and were already in debt. He decided upon a bold move. He wrote a statement of the needs of the Chinese, the opportunity suddenly presented to meet the needs and the duty of the Christian in this regard. He then sent his appeal to all Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Congregational and Baptist ministers in the area inviting them to meet and discuss the problem. There was a unanimous response.\n\nThe spirit of the meeting was exhilarating. “All were cordial and welcomed the young men with joy; all agreed that something must be done.” A provisional committee was named to arrange for a public meeting. Circulars were issued. The Mechanic's Institute, where the meeting was held, was packed to capacity with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212248, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "NOTES\n\n167\n\nFrom manuscripts in the John Fryer Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.\n\nThe title on the holograph was added in pencil at the top of the page and underlined; a pencil was used to cross out the salutation, probably at the time when the title was added prior to typing many years later. In transcribing this material I have followed the holograph document. Minor changes have been made to bring punctuation and use of numbers into conformity with modern usage and to improve readability. Editorial additions are in square brackets. Fryer tended to write run-on paragraphs; a caret indicates where long paragraphs have been broken up. Colons and semicolons are not easily distinguished in the holograph; Fryer was inconsistent in his use of the apostrophe.\n\n1\n\nFryer mentions below that it has been a fortnight since his arrival. This would place the date for this letter around August 13, 1861.\n\n4\n\nA sketch of the general plan of St. Paul's College, drawn in ink and tinted with watercolors by Fryer, accompanies the holograph document. See Plans in text, redrawn from Fryer's sketch plan.\n\n4 Fryer generally wrote \"&\" in his handwritten letters, but converted these to \"etc.\" and \"and\" in his typewritten transcriptions.\n\nFryer became engaged to Anna Roleston of Chudleigh, Devon, before embarking for Hong Kong,\n\nThe Second Anglo-Chinese War, 1858-1860, which led to a stoppage of much of the trade of Hong Kong with China to 1861.\n\n# This is one of the rare examples of Fryer's use of hyperbole; other examples can be detected below.\n\nHI\n\nThe Reverend George Smith, Bishop of Victoria.\n\nRev. William Roberts Beach arrived in Canton in 1853 sponsored by the Wesleyan Missionary Society. He joined the Church of England in 1855. In 1857 he became Warden of St. Paul's College and Chaplain to the Bishop of Victoria. His other appointments included a period in Macao as Missionary Chaplain in 1857, and service as Chaplain to the Forces under Sir Hope Grant in 1861. He was appointed Colonial Chaplain and Canon of St. John's Cathedral by the Rev. Alford, who in 1867 became \"Lord Bishop of the see of Victoria, and Warden (for the Church Missionary Society) of St. Paul's College'. (see E. J Bitel, Europe in China, Hong Kong: Kelley and Walsh, 1895. p. 466.) Alford was Principal of Highbury Training College, London, at the time when John Fryer was enlisted for work at St. Paul's College.\n\n|| This was the College in Staunton Street, later renamed St. Saviour's (1863), and then (1875) St. Joseph's.\n\nזן\n\nFryer travelled to Hong Kong on the sailing ship Prince Alfred.\n\nPublished in Volume 29 (1989) of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.\n\n14\n\nSee Plans in Text.\n\n15\n\nSee Plates 2-4.\n\n16. Charles R. Alford; see note 10.\n\nדן\n\n* \"animals\" standard English school master-speech for \"schoolboys\".\n\nश्र\n\nPossibly the British Museum.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212708, "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": 17, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "2\n\nof bonnes bouches relating to him and his family. The information, its presentation and language tell us more about William Mesny than about Chinese life. A considerable part of his writings consisted of piecemeal notes or essays written to emphasize, probably unconsciously, both his prominent standing with important Chinese and his foresight as a man of ideas. He played up so many of the episodes in which he was involved that it is difficult not to minimise and even to discount what in practice must have been his quite significant achievements. Three major subjects regularly featured in Mesny's Miscellanies, his economic and political foresight which was inevitably spurned by westerners and Chinese alike; his activities as part of the Chinese imperial military forces in Kueichou quelling a rebellious minority ethnic group; and his wives and women in general.\n\nIn one of his forthright, self-congratulatory moments he wrote, \"The Editor of Mesny's Chinese Miscellany feels that he has a sort of an inspired mission in China to set forth, preach and proclaim the inspiring and magic-working words of Reform and Progress to the inquiring multitudes amongst China's 400 million black-haired people.'\n\nWilliam Mesny (pronounced “May-knee' in Jersey), was brought up in the bilingual Channel Island community speaking English and French. He left home when he was nearly twelve to travel far afield but without ever losing pride in being a Jerseyman and British.\n\nMesny was born at La Croiserie Vingtaine in the parish of Trinity in Jersey on 9 October 1842, the eldest son of William Mesny of Alderney and Marie Rachel née Nicolle, second daughter of Philip Nicolle of du Nord, Jersey. Mesny's father was described in one place as a cobbler, a local preacher preaching several times a year in French and English Wesleyan chapels, and a member of the Royal militia (probably the Jersey Militia). Mesny writing elsewhere in his Miscellany described his parents as poor; his mother was 'bed-ridden' and his father, though a Wesleyan local preacher, was forced to work for a living in attendance on divers engaged in the harbour works, and often repaired his own shoes to save the expense of having them repaired at a shoemaker's. Mesny's father and his grandfather, Guillaume Mesny, were both said to be of St Martin, Jersey, whilst Mesny himself claimed that his roots lay in the ancient family of Megny d'Auregny [i.e. Auregny Alderney]. It has also been recorded that Mesny's father and grandfather had both been born and brought up in Alderney with the father moving to Jersey at some stage. Guillaume's brothers included the great grandfather of Miss Lucie", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212727, "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "21\n\nIn 1896 when describing various secret societies Mesny, as an aside wrote 'I'm of the ritualist sect, Tsai-li Chiao [sic] #, a secret political society3, the members of which bind themselves to abstain from eating flesh of oxen, goats and sheep; from drinking wine and all other intoxicating liquors; from smoking opium, tobacco and all other such ingredients in any form. The ritualists usually wear a white girdle, but abstain from wearing anything red or green. This society is now [1896] very strongly rooted in Northern China. It has a temple or hall in Shanghai, with a priest or master, who initiates members after several severe trials and approbation in secret. Candidates for membership in this society have to undergo very severe trials for steadfastness and fidelity before they are considered fit for initiation.\" He refers to members of the society as 'they' without once referring to his own membership again nor does he ever refer to the society or his membership elsewhere.\n\nConsidering the distances he covered in central China and the era he lived in it would seem amazing that he did not die young, as did his brother in Hankow at the age of 39. He lived to the ripe old age of 77, was described in his last year as walking briskly, with clear eyes, fair complexion and tinted like a winter apple, and although we do not know what he died of, 1919 was in the middle of the great world influenza epidemic.\n\nReligion\n\nIt has to be borne in mind that he was living and writing during a period of incipient reform, with Chinese imperial die-hards fighting back against increasing foreign influence which they saw mostly manifest in missionary activity. Chinese officials and for that matter Chinese peasants too were unable to differentiate between Christian sects. Mesny's only criticisms of Christians were for Roman Catholic priests who had, he claimed, set their converts against non-Catholics of all kinds, revealed by their use of abusive terms for non-Catholic Christians. As this was a common complaint, and one which was reciprocated equally strongly by Catholics, Mesny would appear simply to be voicing popular British and American expatriate views of the day.\n\nMesny came from a Wesleyan Methodist background and both he and his brother in Hankow had some links with the Wesleyan Methodist missionaries in Hankow, especially with David Hill, Mesny was also a Free Mason of long standing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212797, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "91\n\nHart, Sir Robert [1835-1911]\n\nKnown as the \"I G” [Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs]. His Bureau was the one financial stay and prop, the negotiable asset, the one honestly administered and creditable branch within the Imperial government. He left the British Consular Service in 1861 to join the Customs Service, appointed I G in 1863.\n\nHill, David [1840-1896]\n\nWesleyan missionary stationed in Hankow until 1867. Died of typhus in Hankow. Hill was not only a witness with Griffith John at the re-marriage of William Mesny's brother's widow to E.G. Wilson in October 1884; he was also guardian with William Mesny to John's children.\n\nHung Hsiu-ch'uan ## [1813-1864] a Hakka\n\nLeader of the Taiping Rebellion: believed himself to be entrusted as the brother of Jesus to lead China and destroy the Manchu regime. [There is an inexplicable reference in Mesny's Miscellanies to a daughter 'of Hung?' wishing Mesny to return to Nanking to marry her]\n\nGordon, C G [1833-1885]\n\nAn English officer in the Royal Engineers who commanded the 'Ever-Victorious Army' against the Taiping rebels. He was appreciated by the Ch'ing Imperial government and was the first foreigner to be awarded the prestigious Yellow Riding Jacket. He later helped advise the Chinese during the Ili uprising in the early 1880s. He died in Khartoum during the Mahdi Uprising.\n\nJohn, Griffith [1831-1912]\n\nMissionary, LMS, Hankow 1861-1912. (Hill: q.v.)\n\nPrince Kung: also known as I-hsin [1832-1898]\n\nSixth son of the Tao Kuang emperor and half brother of the Hsien Feng emperor. Probably one of the most important Ch'ing dynasty officials in foreign affairs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215436, "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-2001", "page_number": 213, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "162\n\n1993, p. 154. Morais, Carlos Alexandre de, Cronologia Geral da Índia Portuguesa, Lisbon-Macao, 1993. Ms. Amita Bairg, UNESCO heritage consultant on India, kindly provided number of churches and convents in 17th century Velha Goa.\n\n10 Arches of Triumph appeared in church portals at the time in Andalusia, in Southern Spain. For Vandelvira's career and famous treatise on architecture, see Barbé-Coquelin de Lisle, Tratado de Arquitectura de Alonso de Vandelvira, 2 vols. Albacete, 1977.\n\n\"V. Fraser. \"Architecture and Imperialism in sixteenth-century Spanish America”,\n\nArt History, 9, No. 3, Sept. 1986, pp. 325-35.\n\n\"The Architecture of conquest: building in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1535-1633\", 2 volumes, Ph.D. diss., Uni. of Essex, Colchester, 1984.\n\n12 George Kubler's classic thesis on the plain style of Portuguese architecture forms the subject of his book, Portuguese Plain Architecture: Between Spices and Diamonds, 1521-1706, Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press, 1972. For a recent discussion of this style, see Miguel Soromenhos' article, \"Classicismo, italianismo e ‘estilo chão'. O ciclo filipino\", in História da Arte Portuguesa, direcção Paulo Pereira, Volume 2, Lisbon, 1995, pp. 377-403. See in particular pp. 383-86.\n\n13 David M. Kowal, \"Innovation and Assimilation: The Jesuit Contribution to\n\nArchitectural Development in Portuguese India\", in The Jesuits, Culture, Sciences, And The Arts, 1540-1773, University of Toronto Press, 1999, pp. 482 and 488. It is somewhat ironic that D. Kowal uses the term \"retable-like\" for the\n\nportal decoration of the façade of São Paulo. Professor J.B. Bury dismissed an exact term in the first assessment of my MPhil thesis (see note 1) as not precise enough, one which I eventually gave up.\n\n14 See flap of vol. 2, in Barbé-Coquelin de Lisle, op. cit, for illustration of the\n\nseldom reproduced portal of Saint Elizabeth Church.\n\n15 Documenta Indica, (edited by Josef Wicki) Rome, “Monumenta Historica Soc. Iesu\", 18 vols, 1948-1988. For São Paulo, see vol. 4, pp. 726-27; vol. 8, pp. 584-86; vol. 9, p. 491. For an interesting reconstruction of the site of Church and College see, Schurhammer, G., Francis Xavier, vol. 8, Jesuit Historical Institute, Rome, 1980, p. 457.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]