RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch

ORASHKB and author

Vol. 1 (1961)

ISSN 1991-7295

35

To begin with a few examples in poetry: the poet Ts'ao Chih (A.D. 192-232), son of Ts'ao Ts'ao and younger brother of the first Emperor of Wei, wrote about the knight errant in "The White Steed", also known as "The Knight Errant":

A white steed decked with a golden halter
Galloped past towards the north west.

"Who is the rider?' I enquired from a by-stander.
'A knight errant from the north' was the reply.
'He left his native district when he was young,
And spread his fame across the distant desert.
He always carries a fine sturdy bow
With arrows of bramble wood, long and short.
Pulling the string, he hits the target on the left;
Shooting from the right, he hits it again.
Looking up, he shoots an ape in flight;
Bending down, he hits the bull's-eye once more.
He is more agile than a monkey,
And as fierce as a leopard or dragon.

When alarms came from the frontier
That barbarian troops had made repeated raids,
And when a call to arms was heard from the north,
He mounted his steed and reached the frontier fort.
He rode on right into the land of the Huns,
Holding the Mongol tribes in high disdain.
He threw himself before the pointed swords
Without giving a thought to his own life.
He did not even worry about his parents,
Let alone his children and his wife.
His name entered the register of heroes;
His heart had no room for personal feelings.

He risked his life at a time of national disaster,
And regarded death merely as coming home'.10

This portrait of a knight errant may be a little idealized, for the poet is, in all probability, using the subject as an excuse to express his own frustrated patriotic wishes and military ambitions, being prevented from fulfilling these by his elder brother. Nevertheless, the poem remains a good illustration of some of the ideals of knight errantry. Notice, in particular, that the knight errant did not allow filial devotion to deter him from his heroic task.

10 Ts'ao Tzu-chien shih-chu (with notes by Huang Chieh, Peking, 1957), pp. 69-70.

2000
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811
OLD BRITISH KOWLOON

131

example of a local boy making good, whilst his public activities demonstrate the sustained zeal to perform charitable works that continues to typify leading members of the Chinese community of Hong Kong to this day. Farming was not for him. When in his twenties he set up a general store in Yau Ma Ti where his elder brother was already running a wholesale vegetable business. Very soon he turned his energies in other directions and established two cross-harbour ferry services with steam launches running from Yau Ma Ti and Mong Kok. At the same time he also went into the confectionery and soft-drink business in Hong Kong. These activities prospered to such an extent that whilst still in his thirties they enabled him to undertake public affairs. He served on the Yau Ma Ti Kaifong for many years and, up to the time of its removal, he was also the leading manager of the Tai Shek Kwu Temple which, as you will recall, was a particular concern of his own village of Mong Kok and the adjoining rural settlements. In 1917 he became founder President of the Kowloon branch of the Hong Kong Confucian Society and two years later he was appointed a director of one of Hong Kong's oldest charitable institutions, the Po Leung Kuk. These appointments mark the summit of his career. He responded to the traditional Chinese concern for his family ties and background by founding the Wong Clansmen's Association of Hong Kong in 1925, and when the universal flood disasters of 1924 affected his family's home district of Wai Yeung he had become founder President of the Wai Yeung Relief Association and was responsible for raising the then considerable sum of $9,000 to help flood victims there. He was also president of the Chinese Steamboat Association for some time.45

With its varied activities his career is a useful reminder that a person can be involved in various public capacities at one and the same time. The various community and welfare groups which characterised Hong Kong society at this time and later were operated on a complementary basis and not one of exclusion. As in his case the strands of village, town, business, family and district are all interwoven to form the traditional pattern of Chinese charitable activities.

Finally, I wish to touch on another aspect of village and town life in Old Kowloon. Because of its proximity to Hong Kong, where a variety of religious bodies from the West established
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g
104

CARL T. SMITH

imposture and contemptible impudence". He later was part of Chan Lai Tau's ambassadorial staff at Washington, and upon his return to China in 1882, he promoted the organization of the Canton and Hong Kong Telegraph Company.38

Associated with Ho Shan Chee in the Telegraph Company was a kinsman, Ho Kwan Shan (何崑珊) alias Ho Amei (何阿美),†Œ4 the Secretary of the On Tai Insurance Company in Hong Kong. Ho Kwan Shan had been educated at Dr. Legge's Anglo-Chinese College in Hong Kong, being a schoolmate of the sons of Ho Asun. Upon completing his education, Ho Kwan Shan joined his elder brother, Ho Low Yuk (何陸玉) in Australia in 1858. From Australia in 1865 he went to New Zealand to arrange for the importation of the first Chinese laborers to New Zealand. Returning to Australia, he served for a time as interpreter at Ballarat, Victoria. In 1868 he came back to Hong Kong. Here he became a clerk in the Registrar General's Office. Later he became interested in developing mines on Lan Tau Island as well as at other places in Kwang Tung Province.39

The most prominent of the Ho clan, however, was the family of Ho Tsun Shin (何遵善) or as he was better known in Christian circles, Ho Fuk Tong (何福堂).† His father had been a block cutter for the press of the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca. Ho Fuk Tong joined him there and became a student at the College. He showed scholastic aptitude and for a time accompanied the son of the senior missionary at the Malacca Station to India for advanced study. Upon the arrival of the Rev. James Legge at the Mission, a close bond was established between the two young men. Ho Fuk Tong was his junior by three years. When Legge removed to Hong Kong in 1843, Ho Fuk Tong accompanied him and was ordained as the Chinese pastor of the London Missionary Society congregation in 1846. He continued as a faithful minister of the congregation (now Hop Yat Church) until his death in 1871. He was conscientious and faithful in his service to the church, but he was also very successful as a financier. After his death there were numerous Court suits over the interpretation of his will and the administration of his estate. Some of the difficulties arose because Ho Fuk Tong held his property under various aliases. In one of the cases a barrister gives his opinion why Ho Fuk Tong followed this procedure:
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063
174

church.

CARL SMITH

With the loss of the patronage of the mission, A-sow had to find other employment. This was not difficult as a Chinese with a good knowledge of English was in demand.

In August 1855, he was employed as the third interpreter in the Chief Magistrate's office at a salary of $50. The first interpreter was a former classmate, Tong A-ku, better known as Tong King-sing (Tang Ching-hsing) later associated with the development of the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company.

A-ku had been educated with his two brothers at the Morrison Education Society School, but when it was disbanded in 1849, he and his younger brother were received into Dr. Legge's school. The elder brother, A-chick, or as he was known in later life Tong Mow-chee, transferred to St. Paul's College.

In January 1856, A-sow was advanced to second interpreter with a salary increase of $25. The next year Tong A-ku left and A-sow had another substantial increase when he moved up to first interpreter. At the same time his former position was filled by his brother-in-law, Ho A-lloy.

A-sow was dismissed from the Magistrate's office in 1858 because of his association with members of Hongkong's criminal element. This was revealed in the course of a Civil Service Abuses Inquiry. There were those, however, who felt an injustice had been done in his dismissal.

He then moved to the newly organised Chinese Maritime Customs Service. The honesty of its employees were at times in question.

Yung Wing (Jung Hung), one of the former students of the Morrison Education Society School and initiator of the Chinese Educational Mission to the United States, in his biography states that after his return to China following his graduation from Yale College, he was employed for a time in the Customs at Shanghai, but soon left as he could not countenance the corruption involved.
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063
203

ed his brother by raising much of the capital needed to open the mines.

In 1883 King-sing was sent to Europe and America to inspect mining operations and machinery. His elder brother took over the management of the China Merchants' during his absence. It was a time of troubles.

The French were expanding their interests in south China and war broke out. As a precaution, the property of the China Merchants' was transferred to the firm of Russell and Company. This would prevent their ships from being seized by the French as they would be flying the American flag. After cessation of hostilities and peace was restored, the Chinese again assumed control.

Even though Mow-chee assumed these extra duties, he retained his position with Jardines until his death. In his latter years, however, he was able to place the management of the compradore's office under the care of his son Tong Kidson.

This son had been one of the boys sent by the Chinese Government to be educated in the United States under the Chinese Educational Mission.

The scheme was initiated by Yung Wing who had been a classmate of Tong Mow-chee in the Morrison Education Society School. Several of Kidson's cousins were also students of the mission. The most famous was Tang Shao-i, a leading political figure during the Republican period, Tong Kai-son, or as he was also called, Tong Kwok-on, after following his father Tong King-sing in the administration of the Kaiping Mining Company, became the first President of Tsing Hua College in Peking. Tong Yuen-cham, a student of the mission and a graduate of Columbia University, New York City, became Director-General of the Imperial Chinese Telegraph Administration.

No doubt the position and influence of Tong King-sing and Tong Mow-chee enabled these students of the Educational Mission to arrive at their own high position in the Government of China in the early part of the 20th century.
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x
97

the barrel resting on a second man's shoulder.

Kang sì: a baked mud or brick bed used in northern Chinese homes, warmed in winter by hot air from the kitchen flue passing through it.

Ko-ino Hul #₺★ : A powerful secret society; the Elder Brother Society, membership to which was strictly forbidden by the Ch’ing government and punishable by death.

Kowtow : 'knock the head': The ceremony of prostration common in China, chiefly performed before the emperor, in religious ceremonies, and by inferiors to superiors as an humble apology.

International Settlement together with the French Concession [Shanghai]: Colonial enclaves where privileges but not political control were enjoyed. The Municipal Council of the International Settlement, against which Mesny occasionally railed, eventually regarded itself as independent even of the UK and US Governments. Most foreigners regarded their presence in Shanghai, despite increasing Chinese nationalism, as in the best interests of the Chinese. Foreigners were divided socially and economically into businessmen, officials of all kinds including police officers and customs officials, missionaries and others such as be-shored seamen, refugees, later mainly White Russians and German Jews, and 'stayed-on' westerners who had married Chinese women or had nowhere better to go.

Lartigue railway system: Mesny would appear to have been acting as the local agent for the Lartigue Railway Construction Company in China [in 1886] though whether authorised on a retainer or on commission we shall probably never know. The Lartigue system was invented during the 1880s by Charles Lartigue, a French inventor who, having observed how camel loads were balanced on either side of the animal, invented a monorail which after a tentative experiment in France was chosen as the system to be used for the Bally-Bunion to Lisowel Railway in a remote corner of Ireland in 1888.

There is no indication that the line Mesny proposed between Wu-sung and Shanghai, ever got beyond Mesny's fertile imagination. Wu-sung, the town at the junction of the Yangtze and the river which leads up to Shanghai, was where ships first berthed before sailing up the Wu-sung River to Shanghai,
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641
126

47

form of incense ashes rather than tablets suggests that the ancestor halls did not use tablets to represent ancestors individually. It is also found in the Yingsheng ("Reception of the Holy") dedicated to the main honoured gods during the Jiao festivals, and the Yingshen Guiwei ("Escorting gods to their places") during the Hongchao festival of Fanling, both conducted by Cantonese Daoist priests in the New Territories. An elder of Kam Tin compared the Yingsheng ritual with the ancestral hall ritual found in the Qingle ancestral hall of Kam Tin, to which I shall refer below. I am not sure if a cloth “bridge” is used in this ancestral hall ceremony.

Op cit pp 142-144. In a recent visit to Cheng Tau, a woman in her 60s referred to the ancestral hall as a-gong ha ("the Place of Ancestors"), which seems to have been the more usual expression for ancestral halls among the Hakka. Compare the expression with Bak-gong ha ('the Place of the Bak-gong earth god'). It is interesting that the title of this category of earth god, whose territory is more limited than the dawang, shares the expression for "elder brother of grandfather".

ibid p. 224 » 10

174

ibid p 160

Discussion of this aspect of ancestral worship is summarized in C Fred Blake, Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town, The University Press of Hawaii, 1981, pp 92-93, 115 n 1, 116 n 2. A possible example is the case of Wo Hang, N. T. where an ancestral hall of the second fang houses the spirit tablets of the first and second generation. See Allen John Lueck, Lun Chun, Land is to live: A study of the concept of isu in a Hakka Chinese village, New Territories, Hong Kong, unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1985, p 273.

Compare H G H Nelson, "Ancestor Worship and Burial Practices", in Arthur P. Wolf ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 263-267, on the shen-ting which fulfilled the functions of domestic altars for the households in each area” in a Cantonese village in the New Territories. He observes that the shenting "occupy a place half way between [tang ancestral halls] and domestic altars”.

Vol under Donga jie ("Winter festival")

TON Op cit. pp 147-148

Op cit. p 12

Op cit. p 176

100

It is interesting to note the distribution and context of Mountain Songs. It is interesting to note that Mountain Songs were sung only by the male villagers (in some festivals with women hired from other villages) in the Cantonese villages whose dialect is known to others as daaih ga wo ("big family language"), and which correspond to the area of the five big clans. In some of the other Cantonese villages, e.g. in Shatin and Saikung, Mountain Songs were sung by the women on the eve before a wedding at the bride's home. Mountain Songs, and related pre-marital courtship, was more popular among some female Cantonese villagers in the Kowloon area who cut grasses for sale as fuel. The livelihood of these women, like that of the Hakka immigrants, depended more on the city. I know much less
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794
132

Arthur Sowerby was recorded in the Directory & Chronicle of China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, etc. for the years 1932 and 1938 as manager of China Industries Ltd, with an office in Museum Road, Shanghai and in 1938, as a director of the Post-Mercury Company Inc., USA in Avenue Edward VII, also in Shanghai. The latter was involved in printing and advertising.

Arthur was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Zoological Society, a member of the RAS North China Branch and also President [1928] of the China Society of Science and Arts [in Shanghai], as well as being Honorary Director of the Shanghai [RAS] Museum.

iii

He married three times, the first time in about 1910, at the age of twenty-five, to Mary Anne Mesny, the daughter of John Mesny of the Chinese Customs Service. She would have been just about the same age as Arthur though more than likely his elder by a few years. She seems to have disappeared from the scene almost immediately, perhaps dying comparatively young but not before she bore him a son. She does not appear in any notes after their marriage even when his parents and sisters were evacuated from Taiyuan to the safety of Tientsin during riots. This suggests that she was no longer present after about 1911 or 1912. As Mary Anne's father, John Mesny, was married to a Chinese lady whom he married in Hankow in 1866, Mary Anne was half-Chinese. This was a time when mixed marriages and even more so, marriage to someone with native blood, was frowned upon by the more bigoted expatriates.

His second wife, to whom he was married at the age of forty-two in 1927, was Clarice Moise, the American with whom he founded the China Journal. Clarice died in 1944 during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai.

His third wife was Alice Cowens, an old friend and the lady who had nursed Arthur's brother when he had been gassed during the First World War. She was invited to join Arthur in Shanghai in the Autumn of 1946 at a time when he was too ill to travel back to England alone and promptly flew out, first to Hong Kong and then, five days later, she arrived in Shanghai and married him.
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794
136

I am grateful to the Reverend Carl Smith for the following information:

An announcement from a China mail of 1925. Married, at Shanghai, yesterday, Miss Clarice Sara Moise, to Mr. Arthur de Carle Sowerby, publisher of the China Journal of Arts and Science. Will of wife, Clarice Clara Sowerby, probated in Hong Kong in 1948, written in Shanghai 1933, in favour of her husband Arthur de Carle Sowerby of Shanghai, and son, Arthur Mesny de Carle Sowerby. Sister, Nina Ethel Moise. Will of Sowerby himself: Arthur etc., probated in Hong Kong, 1955, Arthur de Carle Sowerby, scientist, at present residing at Fairfax Hotel (?), 2100 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC. Wife, Alice Muriel Sowerby. If predeceased, sister-in-law, Nina Ethel Moise, 6485 San Marco Circle, Hollywood, to receive half; and son, Arthur Mesny de Carle Sowerby, to get the other half. Will written 7th November, 1949. A death record of Arthur de Carle Sowerby, 16th August 1954.

Carl Smith also commented that it was known that Sowerby had children (sic) by a Chinese woman. It would appear that most expatriates in Shanghai were unaware of Sowerby's first marriage in Tientsin to William Mesny's niece, Mary Anne, and that the reference to the 'children by a Chinese woman,' remembering that Mary Anne's mother had been Chinese, suggests that Sowerby's first marriage had been quietly 'forgotten.'

i The bandits were referred to as the Ko-lao Hui, the Elder Brother Society, an old powerful secret society, membership to which was strictly forbidden by the Ch'ing government and punishable by death. Their gangs robbed and killed far and wide as well as causing trouble with their inter-gang feuding.

ii The British Residents' Association was formed in 1931 to enable long-term residents to have a say in the running of the Concession. At about the same time, in order to support the authorities in the Concession following the recent troubles and crises, a body known as the Shanghai Fascisti was organised, and led for a while by Sowerby. The Fascists at this time were regarded by many as an honourable force against encroaching communism.

iii John Mesny died in 1884 in Hankow leaving a widow and eight children, all under the age of sixteen.

iv Davidson-Houston, JV: Armed Pilgrimage : Robert Hale Ltd : London: 1949

v Journal of Oriental Studies Vol. II. No. 1. January 1955 [University of Hong Kong]
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278
302

so that I may die childless, as I am now old and not likely to have any more children. I had never met or seen Mason before he presented himself to me as being the United States Consular Marshal at Hankou, which was a lie, he being actually a Custom House Officer at Zhenjiang.'

Let us try to unravel the sorry story of Mason and Mesny. It is involved and still has aspects which are difficult to fathom. We have a number of versions or parts of it available to us but will confine ourselves to three: Mason's own story, briefly described below, written some 30 odd years later after he had roamed the world as a vagrant worker; the letters from the Inspector General of the Imperial Customs, Sir Robert Hart; and Mesny's bitter accusation. Mason, according to Mesny, practically ruined him and certainly caused Mesny great personal problems as he explained in great detail in his Miscellany. It is difficult to fit these three pieces of jigsaw together as there are few elements in common; however, the basic story is there. Mason bought a large quantity of foreign arms, ammunition, and explosives with which to arm a rising against the Imperial government, and having been arrested in Shanghai, was tried, sentenced, gaoled, and finally deported. Mesny was called as a witness but was accused to his face by the Chinese Premier, Li Hongzhang, of being the chief or very senior in the anti-Imperialist bandit body, the Elder Brother Society. This led to Mesny being ostracised by Chinese officialdom and, as his be-all and end-all as a business go-between was his contacts with Chinese officials, his life quietly slipped downhill thereafter.

According to records — ‘Charles Welsh Mason, a young Englishman, had joined the Imperial Maritime Customs in December 1887 and was sent to Zhenjiang, an important post but a minor port on the Yangzi, as 4th assistant B, where he joined the Gelao Hui and became involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the Chinese government. In July of 1891, he took two months' leave and went to Hong Kong, where he purchased a quantity of arms and ammunition for the Society and arranged for it to be shipped to Shanghai and from there on to Zhenjiang. He also recruited men for the Society and bought a quantity of dynamite, which he carried with him to Shanghai, where he requested Commissioner Bredon of the Imperial Maritime Customs to allow it to be shipped on to Zhenjiang so that he, Mason, could uncover more of the Chinese rebels' plans. Bredon refused the "sting" and instructed Mason to report to Hart in Beijing. Instead, Mason took a river steamer
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278
314

32T. Adkins joined the China Consular Service in 1854 and was the first Vice-Consul in Zhenjiang, being posted there in May of 1861, preceded by an assistant, Phillips, in February who had been sent to the ruined city to set up the Consulate in a ruined temple. Within a week of Adkins' arrival, he had moved the Consulate a mile down river to safer accommodation away from the Taiping fighting. He remained there, on an island, living a monotonous life alone as Phillips had been transferred elsewhere. He left Zhenjiang in poor health in February 1865 after serving there for three and a half years to return to the UK.

33 This was the Cantonese title by which the bandits were known. In Mandarin it would be Shiwu Zi† £ 'The Fifteen Sons'.

* Parker E.H. John Chinaman and a few others: John Murray: London: 1902

35 Robert Anderson Mowatt, former consular official: acting Chief Justice and Acting Consul-General Shanghai, April - October 1891.

* The Elder Brother Society (Gē Lǎo Huì): a secret society sworn to overthrow the Imperial government, the foreign Manchu Qing dynasty and replace it with a Chinese emperor.

Mesny's son would have been about six at the time of this story, whilst his only other child, his daughter, had not yet been born.

**Mason, C. W. (1924) Chinese Confessions. London: Grant Richards Ltd

"Fairbank, Bruner and Matheson, ed (1975). The I.G. in Peking: Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press

* Transit Passes are discussed in a separate chapter below.

4

According to Mason in his Confession, Croskey had told him that Croskey's father was an English baronet in business in Vancouver and his mother a Spanish Creole of San Diego in California.

42 Parker, E.H. (1903) China Past and Present: Chapman and Hall Ltd: London

"Cook, Christopher (1982) The Lion and the Dragon - British Voices from the China Coast: London: Elm Tree Books.
================================================================================