RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 118 A. D. BLUE the Yangtse was now open to foreign trade and navigation for almost 1,400 miles from the sea, and access had been gained to the rich and populous province of Szechuen, of which Chungking was the chief port. The section of the river between Ichang and Chungking was known as the Upper River, and the first steamer to navigate this section belonged to Archibald Little, whose Y-Ling had been the first steamer to navigate the Middle River. Little was a member of a well-known Shanghai family, and he was the real pioneer of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtse. He had commenced his career as a tea taster for a German firm in Kiukiang in 1859, but soon went into business on his own and was one of the first to appreciate the possibility of trade in Szechuen Province and beyond in Tibet. He settled in Chungking soon after it became a treaty port, and started up several industries connected with wool, bristles, and coal—to mention some of the more prominent, and also engaged in marine insurance, specialising in covering cargoes on the Upper Yangtse.1 The Shanghai Chamber of Commerce had sent two prominent British merchants—Alexander Michie and Robert Francis—up the Yangtse to Chungking as early as 1869, to investigate trade prospects there, but no important developments followed. In 1887 Little made a much more intensive trip from Ichang to Chungking by junk, and formed the opinion that there were great possibilities for trade in Szechuen Province and beyond. The following year he attempted to run a steamer service between Ichang and Chungking with a stern wheeler specially built on the Clyde called the Kuling. Because of a clause in the Chefoo Convention stipulating that foreign steamers could only go to Chungking after Chinese steamers had gone there, the Kuling was not allowed to go beyond Ichang. Little then sold her to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, who employed her on the Hankow-Ichang service. One of his brothers was a famous editor of the North China Daily News, and another a well-known doctor in Shanghai. [Robert Swinhoe, British Consul at Amoy was sent up the Yangtse by Sir Rutherford Alcock, British Minister at Peking, in March 1869 to enquire into the trade of the Upper River. He reached Chungking in May of the same year. His account of this journey was published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society Vol. XL (1870), pp. 268-85. It is accompanied by a folding map of the Upper River from the Tungting Lake to Chungking compiled from the charts made by two survey officers specially sent up the Yangtse for this purpose. Ed.] ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d THE HANKOW STEAMER TEA RACES 45 tea merchants on the one hand and the London market on the other. As the River rose the ocean fleet sailed up the Yangtsze. As many as sixteen or seventeen vessels made up the London fleet with the addition of a few vessels for Odessa or other Black Sea ports (Table 1). Of this fleet only two or three vessels were regarded as in the race and received higher rates of freight than the rest. Until the very end of the period the race was usually between the "Castles" of Thos. Skinner & Co. and the "Glens" of McGregor, Gow & Co. and the rivalry of the leading ships was intense. A special lottery was drawn. Rates of freight were always high for the most likely winners and varied between £6.10.0. and £4.0.0. per space ton during the period. Slower vessels and later departures secured lower figures, usually between £3 and £4, although in one year the rate was down to £2.10.0. and less. The tradition of the Clipper races thus remained although the economic justification a very considerable difference in transit time which affected the quality of the tea was no longer as valid as it had been. Nevertheless the race carried on, partly by its own momentum and sentiment, until the ship owners realised the costliness of building expensive, fast vessels for one voyage a year, and costly losses on the market convinced the tea merchants that low freights were more essential to the continuance of the trade than fast passages. Rivalry between the various tea buyers led to chaotic conditions which favoured the Chinese tea merchants. In 1879 the North China Daily News wrote: "The supply of tea in China had already been in excess of European demand, and exports had only been checked in each case by the arrival of news of an overstocked market on the arrival of the first crops. But such a rush for hurrying teas to a glutted market was never cooled down. Why? In most professions there was a recognised etiquette which kept up the character of the profession and came to the help of each member. Unfortunately in China the absence rather than the presence of this etiquette has been the rule. Under this principle of everyone for himself there was exhibited an anxiety to get the better of each other rather than to purchase at remunerative rates. Each sought to raise the market on his neighbour, and a chasze might frequently be heard of boasting of how he had got a chop to which he had a fancy out of the hands of a brother chasze." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 48 T. J. LINDSAY One point that shows up in the accounts is the speed of coaling at Singapore. In 1880 Glencoe loaded 1,130 tons in 103 hours, in 1882 Sterling Castle 1,600 tons in 10 hours, in 1884 Glenogle 1,500 tons in 62 hours. Moyune 700 tons in 5 hours in 1887 as against Glenogle 1,200 tons in 5 hours in the same year. The “Glen" figures of 220 tons an hour in 1884 and 240 tons in 1887 are remarkable. What of the conditions in these ships racing home? The stoke-hold must have been almost unbearable, so it is no wonder that difficulties with the stokers were reported. In 1882 there was trouble culminating in Singapore when a stoker of Glenogle struck the Chief Engineer. When a European shore policeman came on board the 31 stokers threatened but the policeman "took his stand in the most daring manner and fairly cowed the men by his determined demeanour". At Hankow, too, there was trouble in 1883 when some of Glenogle's crew were reported to have mutinied and the Navy had to be called in to deal with the situation. Passengers, too, had something to complain of. On one occasion in Singapore when two or three passengers had been granted conditional passages they found the saloon and every state-cabin crammed with tea. Conditions in the China tea trade were about to change. In 1881 the North China Daily News wrote: “It is not so many years since China was the only tea producing country. It was sufficient then for the buyer to watch the deliveries at home and the export from China, to be guided, with little chance of error, in his operations. But the fatal energy of our race has reared up in British India a frightful rival to the Flowery Land, and India not only demoralises China by sending opium here, but demoralises our tea markets by sending tea in increasingly enormous quantities to London. There are no squeezing Mandarins in India, there is European supervision in packing and the firing of the leaf, and the plantations are connected with civilization by the railway and the telegraph. Everything is done to give India an unfair advantage over China. Java is competing too, and Ceylon is threatening. As yet Indian tea is hardly taken on the continent of Europe at all, but here too it will penetrate sooner or later, as it is doing into America and Australia, and then there will be no corner of the earth where the sway of China tea will be undisputed.” ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 52 T. J. LINDSAY TABLE I TIME TAKEN HANKOW TO LONDON Year Vessel Transit Time 1870 Erl King ... 1871 Enterprise 61 days 1872 Deccan 56 1873 Venetia 50 1874 Glenartney 50 1875 Glenartney 49 1876 Glenartney 46 1877 Loudon Castle 46 1878 Gleneagles 41 1879 Glencoe 40 1880 Glencoe 40 1881 Glencoe 38 1882 Sterling Castle 39 1883 Sterling Castle 32 1884 Glenogle 31 1885 Glengarry 37 1886 Glenogle 45 1887 Moyunc 37 Sources: 1870-1879 China Mail 1880 3. 7. 1879 24. 8. 1880 1881 19, 7. 1881 1882 Hong Kong Telegraph 28. 6. 1882 1883 3. 7. 1883 1884 North China Daily News 21. 7. 1884 1885 China Mail 8. 7. 1885 1886 5. 7. 1886 1887 4. 8. 1887 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 217 2.3.1864 (Wedn) Performance by the amateurs of the Royal Artillery. No plays are mentioned in the announcement (NCH 27.2.1864). 4.3.1864 (Fri) Performance by Mrs. Greig: "dramatic reading and English ballad music” with the cooperation of Mr. Marquis Chisholm, piano, and the Rhenish Band. N.N. (H) R: This was an evening at which the Herald predicted that "ladies may without impropriety be present". Mrs. GREIG had had “a most successful career in India and the colonies" and it was the first time she had come to Shanghai (NCH 27.2.1864). 28.3.1864 (Mon) T. KORNER: "The Governess" (“Die Gouvernante') T: Farce (1 act) A.F.F. Von KOTZEBUE: "The Harvest at Home" N.N.: Bullrick at Kroll" C: Amateurs of His Prussian M.S. Gazelle Th: On board ship(?) N: It is not recorded in which language these pieces were played: titles and authors are those given by the Herald. Of Kotzebue's play I have not been able to find a German equivalent. HED, however, mentions some plays with the same title by British authors: Thomas Parry (1848) and Charles Dibdin (1787), as well as some by unknown playwrights. R: Perhaps in some fear, the Herald noted with a sigh of relief that "the evening passed off without a single contretemps" (NCH 2.4.1864). Curiously enough the only ship in port with the name "Gazelle" was a British merchantman which had arrived there from Hankow on the 22nd. 30.3.1864 (Wedn) M.W.B. JERROLD: "Cool as a Cucumber" (1851) T: Farce (1 act) J. KENNEY: "Raising the Wind" (1803) T: Farce (2 acts) J.S. COYNER: "Duck Hunting” (1862) T: Farce (1 act) C: Amateurs of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps F: Prologue, spoken by Commm. R.C. Antrobus Th: N.N. (H) N: First performance of the season R: After a brief period in which the actual names of resident-amateurs had been published, there was a reversion to the old practice of stage names, at least probably for most actors. A whole list was printed in the Herald (Messrs Talbot, De Jones, Robinson (were these latter two the same as those active in 1858?), Carnegie, Coke, Dolittle, Smith, Blister, Buttons, Bellingham and John; and Mesdemoiselles Olivia, Pipchin, Robinson and Sally), of whom only Mr. Talbot may have been genuine. As usual the female characters of the farces were played by men ("prettier and more graceful amateur ladies than we have ever seen before"), a generally horrid sight for the serious theatregoer. Not so for Shanghailanders for "large numbers of residents who were desirous of obtaining admission were excluded for want of room” (NCH 2.4.1864). A detailed review had appeared in the Daily Shipping News of 31.3.1864, no longer available. Increasingly, instead of full reports, summaries from the daily edition were published until one has to resort entirely to the Daily News; of Survey). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 54 continuation 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. It 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 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 162 It was clear when I gave the Ezekiel Abraham Memorial Lecture in 1987 that strong feelings still remained, Kranzler, 745. 7 The Hankow Daily News July 13, 1917, 1. Statistics differ. Even the Encyclopaedia Judaica gives different numbers on different pages. Without scrutinizing temple rolls, it is difficult to ascertain the number of Jews in Shanghai at a given time, but it can be estimated to be less than 2,000 from 1920 through the early 1930s. David Kranzler gave the following figures: On 25 March, 1934, there were 1,671 Jewish adults and children in Shanghai (881 male and 790 female), including Sephardic Jews as well as the Ashkenazi community. A little more than ten years later, 14,245 persons (8,283 male, 5,962 female) were classified as Jewish refugees in Shanghai in November 1944. Of these, 8,114 had come from Germany, 1,248 from Poland, 3,942 from Austria, and 236 from Czechoslovakia. Between 1939 and 1946, there had been 418 births, 366 marriages, 104 divorces, and 1,726 deaths among the Jewish population in Shanghai. 40 Hans and Lala Diestel, respectably bourgeois before the Japanese occupation, ground assorted grains in their living-room by hand, using a Chinese millstone, selling the meal to the Red Cross for cash. Later on, they operated a factory making shoes, employing Jewish refugees. 'There was never any problem with raw materials,” related the indefatigable Mr Diestel, who was born in Tsingtao, 'because the Japanese thought that I was German.' Betty Peh-t'i Wei, Shanghai, Crucible of Modern China, Hong Kong, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, 252. " Conversation with Ezekiel Abraham in Hong Kong. Also, see Joseph and Lynn Silverstein, 'David Marshall and Jewish Emigration from China', China Quarterly, (London 1979). 12 The New York Times, 27 February, 1983. 13 Old Chronicle of Hong Kong November 1870. 14 Hong Kong Telegram 4 May, 1904. Shanghai dispatch. 15 Wei, 252. 16 The China Mail, 24 September, 1918, 17 I am sorry that I have lost the date of this issue of the Hong Kong newspaper. 10 His will was probated in Hong Kong in 1886. 19 Left Sassoon and Company 21 January, 1891 20 Merchant. His will, witnessed by Hardoon, was probated in 1893. 21 The obituary in the South China Morning Post. 8 August, 1979, identified Mrs Ezra as Mozelle Robinson Ezra of Shanghai. Edward Ezra and Mozelle Sopher were married in 1907 22 People's Daily (Beijing), 15 October, 1991, 2. 21 Chinese sources insist that he worked as a door keeper. At least he had control over accessibility to the boss 24 Complaints included members riding to services on the Sabbath and High Holy Days rather than travelling on foot ================================================================================