RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch RASHKB and author 8 and contributions from the community, it built a commodious home for itself with a spacious lecture room and provided accommodation for its very valuable library and museum. In Hong Kong we hope that some facilities may be afforded in the new City Hall for societies like ours but if our plans are to mature we need a meeting place of our own where we can build up an Oriental library which should fill a special need which cannot be supplied by the University, whose library is not readily accessible to the public, or by the new City Hall, whose library will probably be of a wider popular interest. As the basis of our projected library we propose to print a sufficient number of our periodical journals to enable us to exchange periodicals with kindred societies in other parts of the world. We also propose in our journal to review books on Oriental affairs which may bring us a useful nucleus of publications. Until we have enough money to buy books it would be greatly appreciated if members who have any books of interest and connected with the objects of the Society would kindly remember that any gifts of books and journals would be most welcome. The Branch is greatly indebted to benefactors who have been generous with donations. In Sir Richard Winstedt's message on its formation he expressed the hope that both European and Chinese firms with their accustomed generosity would help to foster the growth of a Branch of high promise. This hope was realised in the donations received of 500 dollars each from Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., and The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, and 250 dollars from Mr. Ellis Hayim. Then in April last year there came a munificent gift from an anonymous donor who is not now resident in the Colony. This was the gift of 10,000 dollars in memory of Arthur de Carl Sowerby, a great authority on the natural history of China, who was the founder and curator of the museum of the Society in Shanghai. These contributions have enabled us to put aside a capital fund which will help us in our aims for the future while yielding a useful interest in the meantime. It is greatly hoped that other merchant houses and individuals in the Colony may, without any direct appeal, emulate the example of these benefactors and help us to build up a Branch of the Society in Hong Kong worthy of the heritage which Professor Drake in his inaugural address coupled with the corresponding task which such heritage implied. During the year there was little change amongst the officers and members of the Council. Mr. Endacott resigned owing to pressure of work and the vacancy was filled in accordance with the rules by the co-option of The Hon. A. G. Clarke. Mr. ================================================================================ 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 RASHKB and author 128 Vol. 1 (1961) ISSN 1991-7295 CHING, Henry 9 Village Road, 1st fl., H.K. CHING, Joseph U.S. Consulate-General, H.K. CHOA, Dr. Gerald H. Queen Mary Hospital, H.K. CLARK, Mrs. N. E. H.K. & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. CLARKE, The Hon. A. G. Colonial Secretariat, H.K. CLARKE, B. A. 25-A Robinson Road, Top fl., H.K. COHN, Dr. A. J. 116 Leighton Road, Leisham Court, 6th fl., H.K. COOK, J. 522 Alexandra House, H.K. CRANMER-BYNG, J. L. Dept. of History, H.K.U. CUMINE, E. 14 Embassy Court, H.K. CUMMING, M. S. Butterfield & Swire, H.K. DAIKO, P. P.O. Box 201, H.K. DAVID, Mrs. M. C. Dept. of Geography & Geology, H.K.U. DAVIS, Dr. S. G. Education Dept. Battery Path, H.K. DEANS PEGGS, Dr. A. Cheshire Wing Room 40, R.A.F., Little Saiwan, H.K. DEVENISH, D. C. S.A.C. 5100108 DJOU, G. G. American International Assurance Co. Ltd., 12-14 Queen's Road C., H.K. DORNHEIM, A. R. U.S. Consulate-General, H.K. DRAKE, Prof. F. S. Dept. of Chinese, H.K.U. DRAKEFORD, L. S. 25 Chatham Road, 11th fl. front, Kln. DUNCANSON, J. D. c/o Barclays Bank (D.C.O.), 1 Cockspur St., Lond. S.W.1. DUNT, P. P.O. Box 94, H.K. EDWARDS, O. P. H.K. & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. ENDACOTT, G. B. Dept. of History, H.K.U. FABER, Mrs. A. 10 Cooper Road, Jardines Lookout, H.K. FABER, S. E. 1 Repulse Bay Road, H.K. FISHER-SHORT, W. 102 MacDonnell Road, H.K. FITZGIBBON, D. J. P.W.D., Central Govt. Offices, Lower Albert Rd., H.K. FUNG, The Hon. Ping-Fan Bank of East Asia Ltd., 10 Des Voeux Rd. C., H.K. GAIFFIER D'HESTROY, Baron P. de Belgian Consul-General, 105 Hongkong & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. GALVIN, J. A. T. c/o G. B. Godfrey, Esq., Jardine House, 13th fl., H.K. GIBBS, Mrs. M. 48, Dina House, Duddell Street, H.K. GILES, R. Crown Lands & Survey Office, P.W.D., Central Government Offices, East Wing, 2nd fl., H.K. GOLDNEY, Miss C. M. H.K. & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. GOTTSCHALK, E. 6 MacDonnell Road, Apt. 15, H.K. GUADAGNINI, Dr. P. Italian Consul-General, 705 Chartered Bank Building, H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 3 succeeded him as Vice Chancellor of the University of Hongkong, and whom we welcome to carry on the tradition of Sir Lindsay Ride and Dr. Knowles. This year, however, the Society and the Council will be suffering three serious losses which will make it necessary to give careful consideration to the composition of the Council to enable it to maintain the vitality which it has sustained during the last six years. Early this year Sir Lindsay Ride, who retired last year as Vice Chancellor of the University and had gone to live at Taipo to concentrate on his forthcoming great work on Macao, to the appearance of which we look forward with eagerness, wrote that he felt that the time had come to give up his membership of the Council. Sir Lindsay is a founder member and was a pillar of strength on the Council from the beginning. His address on the Old Protestant Cemetery in Macao, which was published in Volume III of the Journal in 1963, was a memorable one and his address on the same subject last November and his inspired guidance on the occasion of the Society's visit to Macao assured the complete success of the tour. Although Sir Lindsay wrote that he would always follow the activities of the Society from the back benches with unabated interest, his loss to the Council will be severely felt; but we trust that we may still rely on his help and wise counsel which I am sure will be often needed. Next comes Mr. T. J. Lindsay who has performed the increasingly arduous task of Hon. Treasurer from the beginning when he joined the Society as a founder member. Mr. Lindsay has not only looked after our finances and borne the burden of collecting members' subscriptions, but with his immense knowledge of China and the Far East he has been a source of great strength on the Council in all its activities. He is leaving the Colony on retirement to Australia, and we wish him and Mrs. Lindsay long years of happy retirement. As a culmination of our losses, comes the loss of Mr. Lawry. Mr. Lawry will be leaving the Colony this coming summer. From 1961 until recently he was our Hon. Secretary, popular and indefatigable. Upon the resignation of Sir Lindsay Ride as Vice Chairman in January last, the Council by virtue of their powers under the constitution, appointed him Vice President in Sir Lindsay's place until this Annual General Meeting. To fill his ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY 77 income of this man is then at least HK$25. It is also interesting to note that costs in the villages are often estimated in terms of British currency. 40 See e.g. Baker 1965, p. 30. 41 Marriage connections were then cast outside the standard market area of Tai Po. This is in contradiction to an assumption by G. W. Skinner (Skinner 1964/65, p. 36), who suggests that standard marketing communities were endogamous in traditional times. 42 Sometimes children by this mating were brought back to the village. In Big Stream Village there is a man whose mother was a Jamaican woman, and his features are quite distinct. However, I have the impression that he is fairly well integrated in the village. He was, for instance, the only male I saw performing ancestral rites at the graves at the Ch'ing Ming festival. He is working as a policeman in Sha Tin. Otherwise I have not come across any secondary marriages in the valley. REFERENCES BAKER, H. [1965] 'Marriage and the Family', Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories, (Hong Kong, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch) n.d. BALL, J. DYER 1925 Things Chinese, or Notes Connected with China, 5th edn, rev. by E. C. T. Werner, (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh). BARNETT, K. A. 1957 'The People of the New Territories', Hong Kong Business Symposium, a Compilation of Authoritative Views on the Administration, Commerce and Resources of Britain's Far Eastern Outpost, J. M. Braga (ed.), (Hong Kong, South China Morning Post). 1958 'Introduction on Hong Kong Place-names', Hong Kong Gazetteer to the Land Utilization Map of Hong Kong and the New Territories, with Chinese and English Names, T. R. Tregear (ed.), (Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong Press). Bot. Report 1906 1907 'Report on the Botanical and Forestry Department for the Year 1906', Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 1907, (Hong Kong, Noronha and Co., Government Printers). Census 1911 1911 'Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911', Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 1911, (Hong Kong, Noronha and Co., Government Printers). CHEN TA 1939 Emigrant Communities in South China, (New York, Institute of Pacific Relations). CHIU TZE NANG 1964 'Land Use in the Extreme East of the New Territories', Land Use Problems in Hong Kong, S. G. Davis (ed.), (Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong Press). EITEL, E. J. 1895 Europe in China, The History of Hong Kong from the Beginning to the Year 1882, (London and Hongkong, Luzac and Co.). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 104 A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT 新安城: By the REV. Mr. Krone (Editor's Note. Beginning with Vol. 5 (1965) the Society made a start with reprinting selected articles from the Transactions of the old China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society which existed in Hong Kong between 1846-59. The only known complete extant sets of the Transactions in the Colony are the microfilmed sets recently acquired by the Library of the University of Hong Kong and by the Society. The article reprinted below is taken from pp. 71-105 of the sixth and last volume of Transactions, published in Hong Kong in 1859. It is a valuable contemporary account of the north-western part of the San On (Hsin An) district (新安縣) and will be of special interest to readers of this Journal in that it describes something of the history and conditions of life in the area just beyond the present Sino-British frontier in the New Territories. Its re-appearance in print will also provide scholars with the text in a more accessible form than the microfilmed sets which are available here and elsewhere. The author was a missionary of the Rhenish Missionary Society which, according to the account of its history given in The China Mission Hand Book (Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1896) pp. 272-275 came to South China in 1847. From this account, Mr. Krone appears to have come to China about 1850 and worked there for upwards of ten years. He seems to have gone on leave thereafter and died in the Red Sea on his way back to China from Germany. The article is reprinted here exactly as it appears in the original, despite a few obvious errors and inconsistencies). A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT 新安城: Read before the Society, February 24th, 1858 THE District of Sanon, to which the mainland opposite to the Island of Hongkong belongs, is one of the fourteen districts of the department of Canton. During the Han dynasty, and at the time of the Three States, the present Sanon District, together with those of Túng-kun and Pok-lo, formed only one large district, bearing the name of Pok-lo *. and Túng-kun Under the following dynasties, Sanon ✯✯ constituted one district, which was denominated Túng-kun 東莞 ★, afterwards Po-on, and since the 2d year of the Emperor Chi-tok of the Tong dynasty, Túng-kun ✯ £. 東莞. Hung-mo, the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1399 A.D.), found it necessary in the 27th year of his reign to appoint an officer with the title "Shou-yu-sho"-Protector of the region, in order to protect the population, which was rapidly increasing, against the bands of robbers and vagabonds which infested the district. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT J 105 This officer established himself at a place then called Shak-tse-kong, the present Nam-tou, a part of which situated on a hill was surrounded by walls. But it was found that this officer was unable to rule efficiently the whole of the district, and some men of influence, supported by the high mandarins at Canton, demanded that the part of the country which they inhabited should be made a separate district. The Emperor Wan-lik granted this petition in the first year of his reign; the new district was called "Sanon,” new peace; and the walled part of Nam-tou rose to be the district town of Sanon, and accordingly received the name of Sanon Yuen-shing 新安城. The Sanon district included the islands of Lan-tow, Hongkong, and all the small neighbouring islands. The mainland portion of the district was bounded to the North by the districts of Túng-kun 東莞 and Kwei-shin 歸善. The northern boundary is formed by the Pik-tau River, which flows into the estuary of the Canton River, and is navigable for small Chinese sea craft (such as passage-boats) for about 8 miles; and several chains of mountains further to the East. This boundary, however, is very arbitrarily drawn, as sometimes villages in the midst of Sanon belong to Túng-kun. The borders of the three districts join together in the neighbourhood of the mart of Kun-lan, a place notoriously unsafe, as being the abode of thieves and vagabonds, who can with facility escape from the jurisdiction of one mandarin to that of another. To the East, the Sanon District is bounded by the estuary of the Canton River. This estuary is divided by the Chinese into several parts with different names: the part to the south of the Bocca Tigris into which the Pik-tow River falls, is called Hop-lan Hoi; the bay named by the English Lintin is designated by the Chinese Nam-low Bay, after the city of that name; Deep Bay is called Hau-hoi or Back-water Bay*. This bay is generally very shallow, a deep channel however running down the centre; the navigation is rendered more dangerous by the many oyster-beds which exist. The bay terminates in a considerable creek, which is navigable at high-tide for three or four miles, as far as the important mart of Sham-tsuen. & PA. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g 194 GIEDROYC, M. J. H.* GILKES, D. A. GIMSON, C. H. GLASS, Miss M. A. GLOVER, Mrs. J. GOLDNEY, Miss C. M. GOODBODY, D. M. GOODRICH, Prof. L. C. GORDON, K. H. A. 31, Richmond Way, Fetcham, Surrey, England. 5 Goldsmith Road, Jardine's Lookout, H.K. c/o P.W.D. Hq., 4th Floor, Main Wing, Central Government Offices Building, H.K. 14 Braga Circuit, Kowloon. "Crossways", 49 Christchurch Road, Sidcup, Kent, England. c/o H.K. & Shanghai Banking Corpn., H.K. Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, Head Office, H.K. 504 Kent Hall, Columbia University, New York 27, New York, U.S.A. Room 601 Marina House, H.K. GORDON, The Hon. S. S.* Messrs. Lowe, Bingham & Matthews, 22nd Floor, Prince's Building, H.K. GRANSDEN, J. H. GRANT, I. F. H. GRANT, Mrs. I. F. H. GRAY, Miss Audrey M. GREGORY, Prof. W. G. GRIFFITHS-OWEN, Miss M. GUILLAUME, Baron P. HADDOW, Dr. I. F. G. HALE, Richard E. HALL, Miss Joyce de Dept. of Modern Languages, The University, Pokfulum, H.K. c/o Jardine Matheson & Co., Ltd., P.O. Box 70, H.K. As above. 9A Cameron House, 40 Magazine Rd., H.K. Dept. of Architecture, The University, Pokfulum, H.K. D-12, Bay Court, Repulse Bay, H.K. Flat 5, Abermor Court, May Road, H.K. New Territories Health Office, North Kowloon Magistracy, Taipo Road, Kowloon. The Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corpn., P. O. Box 64, H.K. c/o Colonial Secretariat, H.K. HALLWARD, Miss C. L. J. St. Stephens Girls' College, Lyttelton Road, H.K. HANSON, Miss Katherine Universities Service Centre, 155 Argyle St., Kowloon. HARDEN, Mrs. Guy T. Jr.* 15 Shek-O, H.K. HARRISON, Prof. B. Dept. of History, The University, H.K. HAYDON, E. S. The Supreme Court, H.K. HAYES, J. W. c/o The Colonial Secretariat, H.K. * Life Member Please notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 4 room for the Society and its library in a large room of the Supreme Court. During the year we suffered the loss of our very efficient Hon. Secretary Miss Michaeliones who was transferred to the British Council at Leeds and also of our Hon. Treasurer Mr. Lanchester of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. We have, however, been fortunate in having as Hon. Secretary Mr. T. H. Thomas of the British Council and as Hon. Treasurer Mr. D. A. Gilkes, a Chartered Accountant on the administrative staff of the Chinese University and we are deeply grateful to them for undertaking a task which occupies so much of their time and labour and those of their staff. I cannot conclude without expressing again our deep appreciation of the support and assistance given to the Society by the British Council and its staff. The Society's early meetings were held in its library; the Council of the Society holds all its meetings in its office; it has provided us with three successive Hon. Secretaries who with their staff, and in particular the indispensable Mrs. O'Hara, have been a tower of strength on which we have relied from the days when the Hong Kong Branch was re-established in 1959. 8 April, 1968 J. R. JONES Lectures in 1967 comprised: - 16 January Major Michael Banks, R.M. A Wall of Snow: Exploration and Mountaineering in the Himalayas, Arctic Greenland, Alaska and the Yukon. 13 February Mr. Chuang C. Shen "Early Chinese Buddhist Paintings in Tunhuang." 6 March Professor J. R. Levenson 'A Dialectical View of Confucius. 1 April Visit to Places of Interest on Hong Kong Island. 3 April Annual General Meeting. 17 May Mr. Hugh Gibb Three films on Angkor and one on "The People of the Great Lake." ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d # HON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1967 The Accounts have again been kindly audited by Mr. O. P. Edwards of The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation. I assumed office as Hon. Treasurer last June following Mr. G. W. Lanchester. The Accounts show a small deficit amounting to $738. This is due almost entirely to the increase in expenditure on publications which amounted to $12,670, almost double the expenditure of the previous year. Most of this increase is due to the printing of the 1966 Symposium and Journal and the reprinting of Sir Lindsay Ride's article "The Old Protestant Cemetery in Macao", referred to in the Hon. Treasurer's Report for 1966. It is hoped to recover the cost of these publications by their sale during the current year, and it is gratifying to note that Journal sales for this year are already in excess of the figure for 1967. Members are reminded that Journal receipts for 1967 are predominantly from sales to those outside the Society, the annual Journal being free to members. Annual Memberships, whilst showing an increase over the previous year are considerably less than the total expenditure, and the Society was only able to meet the heavy expenditure on Journals by the income from investments and the sale of Journals. In spite of reminders there are still about 25 members who have not yet altered their bankers' orders from $20 to $30 and it is earnestly hoped that they will take the necessary action. The investments still show an increase in market value over cost, in spite of the depressed market and the effects of devaluation. The amount of $25,333 cash deposit is illusory. Almost one-half has already been used for meeting the printing charges of the Journals, and shown as a Sundry Creditor in these accounts. A further amount of approximately $1,500 representing the balance of a donation from the Asia Foundation has already been used to pay for books: this grant is now exhausted. It is also hoped to reprint Volume I of the Journal which has now been sold out and to increase the stock of books in the library. Members and their friends are earnestly requested to note that there are several back issues of Journals and other publications for sale as listed in the recent pamphlet in the 1967 Journal. Their sale is one way of increasing our income over expenditure. 8 April, 1968 D. A. GILKES ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d NOTES ON HONG KONG LIBRARIES 65 be removed for use within the Court, in Chambers, or the Registry, but were not to be taken further: whether this applied only to barristers and solicitors, who were privileged to use the Library subject to the rules, or also to the Judiciary and Law Officers who were entitled to use it, is not clear. Mr. J. W. Norton-Kyshe, the Registrar of the Supreme Court, whose useful history of the laws of Hong Kong is the source of the information on its Library, managed to persuade the Government in 1896 that an annual grant should be made for the purchase of books. In 1897 this amounted to $500, and in the following year it was doubled,12 Certainly the history of Hong Kong libraries in the nineteenth century is by no means restricted to those which have been considered in this article, although they are probably the most important. There must, for example, have been libraries in the various schools, both Government sponsored and others, though the condition of school libraries in the Colony even today suggests that they would not have been particularly well organised fifty or more years ago. Government departments other than the Supreme Court must also have had collections of books. All these possibilities, quite apart from the existence of private libraries, both Chinese and English, need to be investigated. What has been discovered so far, however, contributes to refute the common notion of Hong Kong as a cultural desert, and to indicate that library history in Hong Kong goes back almost as far as the history of the Colony itself. NOTES 1 V. H. G. Jarrett, under the pseudonym of 'Colonial' contributed a series of articles to the South China Morning Post between 17th June, 1933 and 13th April, 1935 on "Old Hong Kong". Typescripts of these articles were rearranged alphabetically by subject and bound in four volumes (unpaginated) in the S. C. M. P. Office. By kind permission of the Managing Director, a Xerox copy of this set is available in the University of Hong Kong Library. This extract is from the article headed "Public Library." 2 Hongkong Register, vol. 25, 1852, pp. 94-5. 3 At this date (1852) prices were normally quoted in Spanish or Mexican dollars, equivalent to about 4/2d sterling. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d FURTHER NOTES ON THE SUNG WONG T'OI 69 4. Twenty metres south-east of No. 3 is a small stone on which only two characters could be deciphered: 山 本 ? 2 ? This may mark the boundary of a grave site, as do the stones on other hillsides marked 山界. 5. Grave inscription on the south ridge of the hill: 邑 香 梁氏孺 This commemorates a deceased wife, from the Leung family, of Heung Shan district, now Chung Shan. Her husband may have been an official. 6. An inscription of some length on a tile which stood in a cup-like hollow on the west slope of the hill commemorates the repair of a grave by the Ch'an family in the autumn of the 21st year of Kwang Hsu, 1895. The 'repair' can have been little more than nominal as there was no cement or building material such as is usual on graves. 7. At the foot of the path leading to the modern archway stands a T'o Tei altar bearing the following inscription which clearly refers to the historic associations of the hill; 宮王大 洪恩施福澤 聖德顯威靈 8 & 9. Two boulders on the south-east side of the hill-top each bear the same brief inscription: 記 王 10. Twenty metres north of Inscription No. 1 is a flat boulder bearing the characters:--- 號 I 11. A boulder on the south-east of the hill bears a single carved character: 英 These last four inscriptions evidently date back to a time prior to the passing of the Sung Wong T'oi Ordinance in 1899,* when * Ordinance No. 3 of 1899. For the text see Hongkong Government Gazette, 18th February 1899. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d 128 # CHINESE STREET-CRIES IN HONGKONG By J. NACKEN* Editor's note. Dr. Alan Birch, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Hong Kong, came across this article in the China Review, Volume II, 1873, pp. 51-55. This publication was made available to him from U.S. National Archives Microfilm, Gp. 108, Roll 9 by courtesy of the United States Consulate General, Hong Kong. The Branch is grateful to Dr. Birch for bringing this interesting article to our notice. It is reproduced here exactly as in the original, though a different format has been adopted to suit the Journal's printing style. My friend was sitting at his desk, busy, no doubt, in framing the best-worded sentence ever penned in the East, when a howl from the street rang through the lofty verandah, and rebounded, as it were, from the high ceilings of the room. "That's one of those ubiquitous hawkers," said my friend angrily, springing to his feet and rushing to the verandah to have a look at the back of the disturber. I joined my friend quietly and was just in time to see a pair of broad shoulders raising themselves, and a pig-tailed head bending backwards; and then came a second edition of the howl we had heard before. I myself, being of an asthmatic nature, rather envied the sturdy fellow who could carry so much on his shoulders and walk a brisk pace, and yet have breath enough left to utter such stentorian sounds. "What does that fellow call out?" my friend asked. I could not say, though I had been in China for some years, and, as my friend remarked, ought to know, if I pretended to know Chinese at all. That was some years ago. In the mean-time others like my friend must have suffered from the annoyance which led to the framing of Ordinance No. 8 of 1872, which says that: "Every person is liable to a Penalty who shall use or utter Cries for Purpose of buying or selling any articles whatever,... within any District or Place not permitted by some Regulation of the Governor in Council.' For the hawkers of Hongkong wooden tickets are provided which must be renewed every quarter at a cost of 50 cents. These * Mr. Nacken was a member of the Rhenish Mission, Mr. H. A. Rydings has located a brief reference to his work in South China in the account of the Rhenish Mission given at pp. 272-276 of The China Mission Hand-Book (Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1896). Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d CHINESE STREET-CRIES IN HONG KONG 133 Another class of hawkers are the sellers of articles for daily use. Here is one panting under his load of earthenware; there is another who cries out his bamboo-wares, such as baskets, brooms, mats, benches, ginger grinders etc. Hawkers of fans, pipes, feather-dusters, china, fire-wood, tobacco, salt, oil, cloth, lanterns, etc., one meets everywhere. Beautifully arranged bunches of flowers are offered to you in the street, but happily in a quiet way, because they attract sufficient attention by themselves, I suppose. "What does that fellow call out? He has nothing in his two baskets." Ah, my friend, he belongs to a very numerous and a very bad lot of men. He is a buyer of refuse. If you hear a voice cry out “mái lán t'it lán l'ung”* you may be sure that he will soon be at the back of your house, near your servants' quarters. He has plenty of money with him, and he will buy from your cook bones, feathers (the good ones for fans and the bad ones for manure), rags and empty tins; from your coolie, paper, nails, shoes, needles, thread or anything that can be got hold of whilst sweeping the rooms; from your boy he will buy bottles, glass, or anything which you may have lost, such for instance as a key, a lock, a stocking, a handkerchief, or a gold button, and even a watch. There are a great many of these refuse buyers in Hongkong, but I cannot say how many, as they do not come under the Hawkers' Ordinance. They either have their own shops or they deliver their goods to one of the licensed shops, called Marine stores, which take their name, I am inclined to think, from the fact that all not properly acquired goods are sent afloat into the interior as soon as possible. There are, however, other refuse dealers who are quite respectable. They buy or exchange broken silver, old fans, spectacles, frames, opium-dross, etc. We have now to turn our attention to the cries of those who offer their services for repairing things. And here I must say, that the Chinese have really acquired the art of mending. In how wretched and clumsy a way are things repaired in Europe! There is not a foreigner in China who has not several testimonials in his house, proving that his servants are very careless in breaking glass and china and that his servants' countrymen are very skilful and careful in mending it. His tools look rather primitive, but they * ✰### to buy old iron and old copper. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d HON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1968 On the retirement and return to Britain of Mr. O. P. Edwards of the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank the accounts have been kindly audited by Mr. N. N. Chan of Butterfield & Swire (H.K.) Ltd. Members will note that there is an excess of Income over Expenditure amounting to $6,970, compared with a deficit amounting to $738 in the previous year. This has largely been brought about by the increase in sale of publications, which this year amounted to $6,118 (against $1,708 last year). Such a high figure for the sale of publications cannot be expected for the future since this year's figures include the sales of 2 Journals (1967 and 1968) and the full effects of the sales of the brochure on the 1966 Symposium and Sir Lindsay Ride's booklet "The Old Protestant Cemetery in Macao". There is therefore no room for complacency, and it will be noticed that once again annual subscriptions do not cover our total expenditure, the shortfall being covered by bank interest, income from investments and the sale of publications. In December 1968 the 125 shares in the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (London Register) were sold at a profit of $9,981 and are responsible for the large current account balance ($23,736). The proceeds of this sale have since been re-invested in buying 400 Hong Kong Electric and 400 Lane Crawford, the latter now showing a gratifying increase in market value together with a rights issue of 50 shares. There has also been a recent bonus issue of 133 shares in the China Light & Power. The cost over market value of 6% Commonwealth of Australia 1977/80 can be attributed not only to the low market value of this stock but also to the effects of devaluation. The Society is expected to meet heavy expenditure in the forthcoming year. The 1969 Journal with offprints will call for an amount of $8,000 to 9,000, and it is expected that Volume I of the Journal will be reprinted in the near future, calling for another $3,000. Members are strongly urged to assist in increasing the membership of the Society not only to help towards the cost of this high anticipated expenditure but also to obtain a more satisfactory income over expenditure for the future. D. A. GILKES, Hon. Treasurer. 28 April, 1969. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d 1967 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY INCOME AND EXPENDITURE FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31ST DECEMBER, 1968 EXPENDITURE Sundry Expenses (printing, stationery, postage, lecture expenses) --- HK$ 2,668 1,100 Symposium Expenses + 12,670 Journal Expenses +++ HK$ 3,438 1,471 10,518 1,971 Surplus Excess of Income over Expenditure 6,970 1,190 Purchase of Library Books INCOME ... 1967 HK$ 200 Sundry Receipts 1,192 Symposium Receipts 1,708 Sale of Publications 333 Bank Interest Received 1,916 Dividends Received 580 Life Memberships 1968 10,901 Annual Memberships 1968 Annual Memberships 1969 paid in 1968 Deficit - Excess of Expenditure over Income +++ + HK$ 221 1,382 - L L 6,118 2,041 TTT 1,916 +++ +++ 1,100 11,380 210 60 738 HK$17,628 HK$24,368 HK$17,628 HK$24,368 BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31ST DECEMBER, 1968 LIABILITIES ASSETS HK$42,416 Surplus at 1st January, 1968 J HK$41,678 (738) Add: Income over Expenditure in 1968 Profit on Sale of Investments (Note 1) 6,970 HK$28,431 Investments at cost (Note 2) (For market value see below) Balance at Banks 15,518 7,333 Fixed Deposit $12,223 9,981 18,000 Deposit at Call ITT 526 Current Account +++ 7,152 23,736 43,111 41,678 Surplus at 31st December, 1968 12,612 Sundry Creditor-Printing Charges HK$54,290 58,629 HK$58,629 HK$54,290 HK$58,629 INVESTMENTS Note 1: 125 shares Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (London Register) Cost Proceeds of Sale (Dec., 1968) Profit on Sale + HK$12,913 22,894 HK$ 9,981 (Signed) D. A. GILKES, Hon. Treasurer. Note 2: Cost Market Value 200 shares China Light & Power HK$ 4,030 HK$ 5,800 700 shares 6% Commonwealth of Australia 1977/80 11,488 7,150 HK$15,518 HK$12,950 (Signed) N. N. CHAN, Hon. Auditor. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG 81 should be seized as a traitor by the Mandarins. In the end he settled at Hong Kong, where he is said to encourage disreputable characters by the loan of money, and in various ways to reap the proceeds of profligacy and crime.5 Loo Aqui also appears in the records as Lo Aking 盧亞 or Sze Mun King [Lo] (King, the Gentleman). At the time of the Sino-British war he seems to have played both sides of the game. The Chinese government lured him back to Canton by offering him an official degree of the sixth rank. He accepted but did not stay long with the Chinese, as he was soon back in Hong Kong enjoying the rewards of his services as provisioner for the British forces. He seems to have had supporters in Hong Kong Government circles for he secured the grant of a large and valuable section of land behind the Marine Lots of the Lower Bazaar. This was the area between Queen's Road and Jervois Street extending from near its junction westward to Cleverly Street. He and his family also acquired a number of Marine Lots by grant or purchase. Of the twenty-seven signers of the petition of land owners in 1848, about one-fifth of them were members of the Loo clan. Soon after the settlement of Hong Kong Loo Aqui was operating a gambling establishment and brothels. In 1845 he built a theatre. For a time he held the opium monopoly, and when the residents of the Middle Bazaar were removed to the Tai Ping Shan area in 1844, he petitioned the Government for the privilege of operating a market for the inhabitants, agreeing to build a substantial market house at a cost of $2,500 and to pay a monthly rental to Government of $200 for a period of five years. Loo Aqui and Tam Achoy were recognized as the leaders of the Chinese community, for according to a Chinese account entitled "Information as to the period of the formations of Districts in Hongkong and the alteration of the Character Wan—a bay to Wan—a circuit”, in 1847 they built the Man-Mo Temple on Hollywood Road and here "they judged the people in public assembly" until 1851 when the shopkeepers of the Lower Bazaar "repaired to Man-Mo Temple, elected a Committee, and therein decided all cases of any public interest". Aside from Aqui's income from various business ventures, he had a steady income from his properties. In 1850 he was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 176 REV. JAMES LEGGE the end of June and the beginning of September, and was then removed from its quarters of which I have spoken on board ship. Many civilians also fell victims to Hongkong fever. The mortality was mainly owing to the want of accommodation for the multitudes who kept pressing into the new colony, and to the miasma set free from the ground which was everywhere being turned up. I remember visiting officers who were living in small huts reared on the hill behind the general's house. It was no wonder that one after another they were seized with fever, and either died, or were invalided home. Then the drains were for the time all open, and an atmosphere of disease, which only the strongest constitutions and prudent living were able to resist, might be said to envelope the inhabitants day and night. I have intimated my opinion that there was no subsequent year of sickness and mortality so great as that of 1843; and nothing can be more delightful than the change in the colony in this respect. I do not think there is now a healthier residence on this side of Africa. This has been very gradually arrived at, by the increase of good houses, effectual drainage, the better supply of water, and the growth of trees and vegetation in general. There were other unhealthy years, and it came to be said that we might expect one of that character every seven years; but we have ceased to be troubled with the apprehension of such a periodic visitation. As to the healthiness from increased vegetation, I may mention that Dr. William Morrison, the colonial surgeon, who himself died from abscess of the liver, in October, 1883,* told me, some years before that event, that he had advised planting the ground on the south of the street behind the Murray Barracks with bamboos, as being of speedy growth. It was done, and soon the grove which every one of you knows, began to wave, and there was from that time a marked improvement in the health of the soldiers in those barracks. The Colony, I have said, is now one of the healthiest residences, if not the very healthiest, in the East. The average of 14 years, reckoning back from the present, gives a rate of mortality for the foreign residents, not including the military, of a very little over 4 per cent; and in 1868, the rate was a trifle under 2 per cent, rather lower than the rate of mortality in Great Britain. * SIC: Morrison died later than the date given, but I have no reference books available at the time of writing. Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 186 REV. JAMES LEGGE On the 2nd July of that year, I was walking out on Caine's Road in the afternoon with a friend, when we saw a steamer coming through Sulphur Channel. At first we thought it must be the mail, but it proved to be the Shannon, with Lord Elgin on board. As she steamed into the harbour, and she and the Admiral saluted each other, and the thunder of their guns reverberated along the sides of the mountain, which were then all fringed with mist, I said to my companion, "There is the knell of the past of China. It can do nothing against these leviathans." And so it was. I need not try to tell you how Lord Elgin's measures were delayed in a manner that contributed much, through his prompt and magnanimous decision, to the preservation of our Indian empire. All this and his subsequent proceedings in China may be seen in brief in the memoir of his Life published during the present year. It is only when he is gone that the public at large have the means of knowing what a good and great man Lord Elgin was,—bold, prudent, far-seeing, conscientious. I hope all my hearers, if they have not already read, will soon take the opportunity to read, that memoir, and especially the chapters relating to his two missions to China. The Government at home was equal to the exigencies of the occasion as well as Lord Elgin. Fresh troops were sent out. He went to Calcutta, but was back from it in September. The war at Canton was brought to an end by the capture of the city on the 29th of that month, and Yeh was taken prisoner a few days after. The surprise and disgust of the Chinese in general were great, because he did not seal his loyalty to the dragon throne by at once committing suicide. In January, 1858, I made a visit to Canton, and had the satisfaction of walking all over it, and on a Sunday opened the first house, that was set apart in it to that purpose, for the preaching of the gospel. My sermon was followed by one from a relative of the T'ae-ping king, who came subsequently to be well known himself at Nanking as the Shield King. Poor man! He had been connected with the London Mission here for several years, and was the most genial and versatile Chinese I have ever known, and of whom I can never think but with esteem and regret. Had he taken my advice, he would have remained quietly in Hongkong as a preacher, and might have been living with his head on him to the present day. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g # THE COLONY OF HONG KONG # 187 As I walked out, after the service, round the wall of the city, I had a singular and pleasing rencontre with a countryman and fellow-townsman of my own. Passing the quarters of the English troops, near the Five-storied Pagoda, a fine-looking fellow of the Engineers came panting up the hill, and addressing me, said, “Are you Mr. Legge of Hongkong?” "Yes, but I do not know that ever I saw you before." "But you have," said he, bursting into the sweet Aberdeenshire Doric; "I cam oot for the wark here, and we hadna time to land at Hongkong, or I would hae come to see ye. Dinna ye ken the sma toon o' Huntly in Aberdeenshire?" "I know Huntly well, and so, I suppose, do you. Are you from Huntly?" "Eh! aye. D'ye mind the Piries at the brig-fitt?" All I could do, I could not bring the Piries to my recollection; but this was one of them, John Pirie; and seeing that he had the Victoria Cross on his breast, I touched it, and said, "Weel, I see you hae na been disgracing oor sma toon; what did ye get this for?" "It was a sma matter, and nae worth speaking about." "But tell me what ye got it for." "Weel, ye see, I was in the Crimea in the attack on the Redan. You ken it was a failure, an' we had to retreat, and many o' oor men were i' the open exposed to the fire o' the Russians. I was wounded mysel', but nae sae sair that I couldna keep the field, and I thought I would try and bring aff some o' these men. An' I did sae, an' they thought it was a brave thing, and gied me this cross for it. But it was a sma matter; I couldna but dee't.” On returning from Canton, I started for a short visit to England by way of Calcutta. I reached that city on the day that news came down to it of the taking of Lucknow; and a few weeks after I sailed for home in the same steamer with Sir John Inglis, and many officers of the garrison of Lucknow, and many widows also whose husbands had died there. You may be sure the passage was not tedious with such companions, but I have not time to dwell on my intercourse with them, and many of the thrilling narratives about the siege which I received from their lips. In September, 1859, I was back here again, and found that Sir Hercules Robinson had arrived a little before me as our new Governor. The news also greeted me of the violation of the T'ëentsin treaty by the Chinese, and of the defeat of our fleet at ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 192 REV. JAMES LEGGE I had intended to say something on the coolie traffic, though Great Britain happily is not chargeable with its enormities, as another thing which is disgraceful to the Christianity of the West, and happily has not extended to Japan;-forming another great element of difference in our relations with it and with China, and going far to account for the different way in which foreigners are regarded by the people of the two countries. I have trespassed, however, so long on your time, that I content myself with this brief reference to it. And there is only one other subject which I shall mention. A little ago I quoted from Sir Rutherford Alcock the words of Prince Kung, asking that we should take away from China our opium and our Christian Missions. Are these two things then to be placed in the same category? It is enough to say that Missions are expressly commanded by God, and that it is not in the province of human governments to interfere with them. If there be abuses indeed in the conduct of any religious missions in China, let them be proved, punished, and forbidden. The one thing that in the circle of my experience has been a great blessing to China has been the missionary enterprise. Our Protestant missions may not have come anywhere in it with much observation, but in the little more than five and twenty years that they have been at work, they have made constant progress, and have on the whole been greatly successful. There is much misconception on this subject,—misconception in some to be pitied, in some to be blamed. I would gladly say more upon it, and I think I could prove more than what I have affirmed to the satisfaction of you all. But I must have done; I could not, having been for the best part of my life a missionary, have satisfied my conscience if I had not said thus much on this occasion. Well; what is to be the future of Hongkong? "Things are on the turn," one and another have said to me, "and we shall soon be having as good times as in the best days of Sir Hercules Robinson." Not so soon, say I, unless we have war again, which may God forbid! The first thing must be to get back and foster the junk trade. Then when I try to pierce into the future, I see a railway from Kowloong to Canton. I see a trunk line from Han-k'ow to Canton, and branch lines connecting with it from the great provinces of the west, and from Cheh-këang and Fuh- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 72 HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE their duties effectively. Of this latter group, student-interpreters in the Consular Corps probably made the greatest contribution — such names as Herbert A. Giles, E.H. Parker, E.D.H. Fraser, W.F. Mayers, Thomas Watters, G.M.H. Playfair, E.T.C. Werner,44 speak for themselves but Hong Kong cadets, although few in number (from 1861 to 1941 only eighty-five were appointed), also made a significant contribution and one should cite not only Lockhart but Sir Cecil Clementi45 and Sir R.F. Johnston. All these early British 'scholar-officials' helped to lay the foundations in Britain of Chinese studies and were among the first to staff and to head new departments of Chinese studies or to interest people in the study of a unique Asian civilisation and culture. Lockhart, of course, was a busy, conscientious and efficient civil servant who could not spend his working hours brooding over knotty problems of translation or sinological conundrums; but he was always a remarkably energetic man and, according to his daughter, rose early in the morning and did his private work long before his Department was open officially. Lockhart's studies appear to have extended into the evenings as well. There is an interesting reference to him, by T. Kirkman Dealy, in the Preface (1907) to his revised edition of Chambers' English-Cantonese Dictionary: I still vividly retain very clear recollection of a periodical after-dinner meeting which I was privileged to attend, in the middle eighties, at the former London Mission House, where, round a lamp-lighted table, under the personal presidency of the then venerable head of the London Mission [Dr. John Chalmers], sat the late Dr. Faber, Mr. J.H. Stewart Lockhart (now His Honour the Commissioner for Wei-hai-wei), Mr. (now Dr.) G.H. Bateson Wright, Head Master of Queen's College, Mr. Addys of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, the late Mr. A. Falconer, Second Master of the old Government Central School, and others, eagerly discussing, assiduously comparing, commenting on, and revising, translations of portions of a minor Chinese classic made, since the previous session, by individual members of the class.46 This very Victorian passion for work, which embraced not only his official duties but his private interest in sinology, allowed Lockhart to publish in 1893 his first book, a Manual of Chinese Quota- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h NOTES AND QUERIES The following letter appeared in the South China Morning Post, 10th April, 1972. — Ed. WHO HOISTED THE UNION JACK? In today's (April 7) issue on page 20 you publish an article headed "The Hongkong Club decides to go back to Victorian Era”. In the article you state "The Club was founded in 1846, five years after the Union Jack was hoisted on Possession Point by Captain Charles Elliot". The statement is not correct. It is true that Sir Charles Elliot issued a formal declaration of British sovereignty over Hongkong in January 1841 after the treaty of Chuenpi, but the Union Jack was hoisted on Possession Point by Captain Belcher commanding H.M. survey ship, Sulphur, on January 26, 1841. The account is given in Captain Belcher's book "Voyage round the World" published 1843, Volume II page 157. The following is an extract: "The only important point to which we became officially partners was the cession of the island of Hongkong, situated off the peninsula of Cow Loon within the island of Lama, "On the return of the commodore on the 24th we were directed to proceed to Hongkong and commence its survey. We landed on Monday the 26th January at fifteen minutes past eight, and being 'bona fide' first possessors, her majesty's health was drank with three cheers on Possession Mount. "On the 26th the squadron arrived; the marines were landed, the union hoisted on our post, and formal possession taken of the island by Commodore Sir J. G. Bremer, accompanied by the other officers of the squadron, under a feu de joie from the marines, and a royal salute from ships of war”. There may be some uncertainty about the exact date. It is probable that the landing was on Monday, January 25 and that the more serious formalities took place on Tuesday, January 26. Captain Belcher's history is preserved in the Colony in the names Belcher's Gardens, Belcher's Fort (and formerly Belcher's Creek) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 14 H. A. RYDINGS but moved with it to Morrison Hill where it reopened on 1st June, 1843. As already mentioned, he went home in June, 1845. This was because of the illness of his wife, who died on the journey (5). More details of Dr. Hobson's career may be found in a biographical sketch by Dr. K. C. Wong (6). It is interesting to note that prior to his return to China in 1847, Hobson married Mary, daughter of Dr. Robert Morrison, at Bath. Hobson's successor as Secretary, George K. Barton, was a partner with Thomas Hunter in the Victoria Dispensary. This also had premises in Macao, where Hunter was located. James H. Young was the junior partner in the Hongkong Dispensary in Queen's Road, the others being Peter Young (afterwards Colonial Surgeon in succession to Francis Dill on the latter's death in 1846), Samuel Marjoribanks (who was at Canton) and K. M. Kennedy. Dr. Young resigned as Treasurer and from membership in November 1845. Lastly Henry Holgate, according to Eitel, was appointed Colonial Surgeon in August 1841 by Sir Henry Pottinger, but his appointment was subsequently disallowed by the home Government, and his name does not appear in the official list of holders of that office. He presumably remained in Hong Kong in private practice (8). These, then, were the men who guided the China Medico-Chirurgical Society during its brief existence. Of the six, Drs. Tucker and Dill died before the end of 1846, and Dr. Hobson had gone back to England, whilst Dr. J. H. Young had resigned. The China Medico-Chirurgical Society came into existence at a meeting held at the residence of Dr. Dill on 13th May 1845, attended by eleven "Medical Gentlemen of Hongkong." The objects of the Society were set out as "1st—The bringing into more intimate intercourse [of the] Medical brethren in China, for the sake of giving and receiving information on Medical and Surgical subjects; "2nd—The formation of a Library, where all the best periodicals and the most valuable standard medical works of the day can be had; “3rd—The discussion of topics relating more particularly to the diseases prevalent in China, and to the Native Materia Medica." The annual subscription was $12. The Committee consisting of the three officers and three other members was to be elected half ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r YAUMATEI TYPHOON SHELTER, HONG KONG 29 So it was that on 14th December, 1903 the Honourable Gershom Stewart*, an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, rose to move the following motion- That in the opinion of the Council it is advisable to increase, if possible, the means of shelter for cargo boats and sampans during the typhoon season. In the course of a long speech Mr. Stewart said it was a fact to be borne in mind-- That the harbour is after all the reason of our existence here, from the harbour we either directly or indirectly, all of us, depend on our subsistence. We are now in the happy position of having an abundant revenue and I have now put in a plea for a humble and hard working section of the sea-faring population who have no means of advocating their own cause. He then spoke at some length on the dangers which the boat people faced in the course of typhoons with particular reference to that which had occurred in 1900, and went on to recommend his resolution to the Council on two grounds- The first being that of self-interest for we indirectly will get some benefit because we are doing something to assist trade and secondly on the higher ground of our common humanity. For I think it is right and proper that we should afford all the protection and help we can to an industrious and hard-working section of the community. For during a certain part of the year they may claim to be following a dangerous avocation, because we must remember that these people in numbers, men, women and children have nothing between them and the next world but perhaps a half inch plank when it may be blowing a hurricane in the harbour. Mr. Stewart's resolution was seconded by Mr. C. W. Dickson* who pointed out that-- * Listed in Who's Who in the Far East 1906-7 June (Hong Kong, China Mail, Publishers) as b. 1858, came out to Hongkong Bank, Jan. 1883, Exchange Broker, Chairman of the China Association. * Charles Wedderburn Dickson, listed in Who's Who in the Far East as partner in the firm of Jardine, Matheson and Co., and Deputy Chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, b. 1863, arrived in Hong Kong 1884. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r 158 NOTES AND QUERIES 22. 1865 Oct. 24 SACRAMENTO W.H. Nelson San Francisco to Hong Kong: London & San Francisco Bank Ltd. to Augustine Heard & Co. 85 7 boxes refined silver bars weighing 14225 ounces Troy 23. 1866 Feb. 2 100 BENEFACTOR Gordon Berry New York to Hong Kong: W.H. Smith & Son to order 35 casks and 5 bbls merchandise 24. 1866 March 13 VALETTA Charles Cavanagh San Francisco to Foochow: Macondray & Co. to Augustine Heard & Co. 600 quarter sacks flour 50 twenty hoop barrels flour 50 Cases bread 20 boxes maccaroni 20 boxes vermacelli 25. 1866 April 18 LUBRA San Francisco to Hong Kong: Benjamin P. Howes Dibblee & Hyde to Augustine Heard & Co. One sealed box containing 800 Mexican dollars 26. 1866 April 25 JEANIE W.C. Dunham New-York to Hong Kong: L.M. Murray Co, to Augustine Heard & Co. 50 cases oysters 27. 1866 May 14 JEANIE W.C. Dunham New-York to Hong Kong: Jas. Nickerson & Co. to Thomas Hunt & Co. 150 barrels flour 28. 1866 May 14 JEANIE W.C. Dunham New York to Hongkong: M.C.G. With to order 29 cases merchandize "Contents unknown. Goods to be received at ship's tackle when ready... 29. 1866 May 30 SUWONADA Jayne Shanghae to Hong Kong: Russell & Co. to same 113 pkgs merchandise "Copy" ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 216 NOTES AND QUERIES the case of the firms at West Point it was not a good situation in spite of the advantages of its water front. Neither of the firms used their property for a long period. Henry Pybus purchased Marine Lot 58 and the firm of Jamieson How and Company bought the adjoining Marine Lot 57. Both were Calcutta-based firms and both purchased their Hong Kong property at the first land sale in June, 1842. They immediately began to build godowns and residences and were in occupation by the fall of 1842. Both Pybus and Jamieson, How and Co. had connections with Yorick Jones Murrow, an old China hand. In 1839 he was the agent at Canton for Jamieson's. Upon the death of Henry Pybus, Murrow succeeded to his business in 1844, and in 1852 he bought the adjoining godown property of Jamieson, Edgar and Co., as the Hong Kong branch of the firm was called. Murrow formed a partnership with James Stephenson to engage in California trade at the time of the gold rush. They developed an extensive trade with San Francisco and arranged for a line of steam packets between it and Hong Kong. The partnership was dissolved in 1854 and Murrow moved to Canton. In 1859, his property at West Point was sold at Sheriff's sale. Two years previous, he had moved back to Hong Kong and became editor and subsequently owner of the Hongkong Daily Press. Murrow as the "Laird" of West Point had a running feud with the Princely Hong at East Point. He used his newspaper as a weapon to attack. He was, of course, the lightweight contestant and several times he was sentenced for libel and for a period operated his newspaper from prison. He left Hong Kong in 1867*. The suitability of the area for ship berthing has been mentioned. This feature attracted enterprises connected with the shipping industry. In the 1860's and '70's the shipping industry became an increasingly important feature of Hong Kong's economy, particularly as steam replaced sails. In 1851, Thomas Roberts opened the West Point Cooperage and Boat Yard on the lot on the west side of what is now Queen Street. He sold his property to Lee Hing alias Li Sing in 1861. It * Frank H. H. King and Prescott Clarke: A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), pp. 139-141. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LIST OF MEMBERS 251 LIFE OVERSEAS MEMBERS: JORDAN, Dr. David K. - Department of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037, U.S.A. KNOWLES, Mrs. W. C. G. Wakes Colne Place, Nr. Colchester, Essex, England. LINDSAY, T. J., M.B.E. 3, Bareena Avenue, Wahroonga, N.S.W., Australia. LOTHROP, Francis B. 176, Milk Street, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. MANSFIELD, Miss M. B. The Royal Naval School, Haslemere, Surrey, England. McBAIN, George c/o Imperial Chemical Industries (Japan) Ltd., C.P.O. Box 411, Tokyo, Japan. McDOUALL, J. C. - The Old School, Souldern, Bicester, Oxfordshire, England. MEFFAN, Mrs. I. E. - c/o Swire, MacKinnon, C.P.O. Box 703, Tokyo 100-91, Japan. MICHAELIONES, Miss E. O. The British Council, Halls Croft, Old Town, Stratford-upon-Avon, England. MIDDLEBROOK, R. W. 165, East 66th Street, New York 21, N.Y., U.S.A. MILL, Capt. C. S., Jr. - Indian Hill, Pittsboro, N.C. 27312, U.S.A. MILLER, Carl Ferris O. c/o Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, G.P.O. Box 255, Seoul, Korea. PLAG, Rev. A. 7000 Stuttgart 1, Roemerstr. 41, Germany (F.R.) ROBINSON, Prof. K. E. The Old Rectory, Church Westcoat, Kingham, Oxford, OX7 6SF, England. ROTHE, Ulrich 'Wohnstift Augustinum' Apt. 778, 5483 Bad Neuenahr, Germany. SINFIELD, G. H. C. Hong Kong Tourist Assoc., 159 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. SPERRY, H. M. 64, Hillbrook Drive, Portola Valley, California 94025, U.S.A. STEVENS, Major K. G. - 9 Cherry Glebe, Mersham, Ashford, Kent, England. SWIRE, A. C. c/o John Swire & Sons Ltd., 66, Cannon Street, London, E.C.4, England. TARARIN, P. A. 623, Harper Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif. 90048, U.S.A. TILL, The Very Rev. Barry c/o Morley College, 61, Westminster Bridge Road, London, S.E.1, England. TURNER, Sir Michael c/o The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., 9, Gracechurch Street, London, E.C.3, England. WARD, Miss Janet A. c/o National Provincial Bank Ltd., Bideford, North Devon, England. WELCH, Holmes H. 4 Holden Lane, Concord, Mass., USA ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: BUTLER, Miss B. A... BUTT, Dr. Nancy CAMERON, Nigel + CAPLAN, Malcolm Public Services Commission, Room 573, Central Govt. Offices, H.K. 253 The Grantham Hospital, Wong Chuk Hang, Aberdeen, H.K. 11-D, Venice Court, 41, Conduit Road, H.K. c/o Hongkong & Whampoa Dock Co. Ltd. Kowloon Docks, Hung Hom, Kowloon. CAREY-HUGHES, Dr. John Room 315, Hongkong & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. CENTRE OF ASIAN STUDIES CERNY, Miss Eva CHAN, Prof. Cheng-siang · CHAN, Sui-Jeung CHAN, Tom CHEETHAM, Mrs. J. A. CHERN, Dr. K. S. CHEUNG, O. CHIU, Mrs. Carol C. CHIU, Dr. Ling Yeong CHOA, Robert COCHRANE, Mrs. Valerie COCKELL, Miss June V. COLBOURNE, Dr. M. J. COMBER, Leon CONNOLLY, Miss Moira COTTON, P. C. CRABBE, P. I. + CRAIG, Dr. Dale A. CRAMER, B. L. CREMA, Mario + + + + University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. Department of Anatomy, University of Hong Kong, Li Shu Fan Building, Sassoon Road, H.K. Geographical Research Centre, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. Environment Branch, Colonial Secretariat, Lower Albert Road, H.K. 43, Stubbs Road, Flat B-1, 5th floor, H.K. 12, Douglas Apartments, 22, Old Peak Rd., H.K. Department of History, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. 703, Prince's Building, H.K. Twin Brook, Flat 11B, 43, Repulse Bay Rd., H.K. c/o Dept. of Chinese, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. Banque Nationale de Paris, 2nd floor, Central Building, H.K. 3rd floor, 112, Macdonnell Road, H.K. 66, Conduit Road, Flat 6B, H.K. Dept. of Preventive & Social Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Li She Fan Building, Sassoon Road, H.K. P.O. Box 6086, Kowloon. Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulam, H.K. c/o Humphreys Estate & Finance Co., P.O. Box 44, H.K. Property Dept., Local Property & Printing Co. Ltd., 34/6 Caxton House, 1 Duddell Street, H.K. Music Dept., Chung Chi College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. 18, Fenwick Street, 7th floor, H.K. c/o Italian Consulate General, Chartered Bank Building, H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: FESSLER, Loren W.. c/o University Service Centre, 155, Argyle Street, Kowloon. FISHER SHORT, W. c/o Education Department, Lee Gardens, Hysan Avenue, H.K. FLEMING, Miss Paula Language Centre, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. FOLDES, Mr. & Mrs. Leslie 4B, Babington House, 5, Babington Path, H.K. FORSYTH, A. H. c/o Johnson, Stokes & Master, 4th floor, Hong Kong Bank Building, 1, Queen's Road, H.K. FORSYTH, James G.. Unipak (HK) Ltd., 59-61 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Aberdeen, H.K. FRASER, Miss Sylvia c/o Island School, 20, Borrett Road, H.K. FREYTAG, Mrs. Helen H.. 10, Tregunter Path, Flat 1201, H.K. FUNG, Mrs. Lawrence 17, Magazine Gap Road, Flat 5A, H.K. GAFF, Mrs. J. A. Apt. A-2, 5, Tung Shan Terrace, Stubbs Road, H.K. GAILEY, Mrs. Norah Flat 16, 14, Mt. Austin Road, H.K. GARCIA, Arthur Victoria District Court, H.K. GATELY, Charles c/o Environment Branch, Colonial Secretariat, Lower Albert Road, H.K. GEOFFROY-DECHAUME, Francois c/o French Consulate General, 1208, Hang Seng Bank Building, 77, Des Voeux Road, C., H.K. GHOSE, Mrs. Rajeshwari 21A, Kennedy Road, 3rd floor, H.K. GIBB, Hugh c/o Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., P.O. Box 64, H.K. GIBBONS, J. P. Language Centre, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. GILBERT, John FL-A9, Hilltop, 60, Cloud View Road, North Point, H.K. GILKES, D. A. The Bursar's Office, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. GILLESPIE, Col. Richard E. Defence Liaison Office, American Consulate General, Garden Road, H.K. GIMSON, C. H. Buildings Ordinance Office, Public Works Dept, 9th floor, Murray Building, H.K. GOLDNEY, Miss C. M. c/o Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., Queen's Road, C., H.K. GOODBODY, D. M. 727, Prince's Building, H.K. GRAHAM, A. T. R. Flat A, Hing Mee Building, 13th floor, 25-31 Leighton Road, H.K. GRAY, Peter H. c/o Maunsell Consultants Asia, 664, Nathan Road, Kowloon. GREGORY, Miss E. J. c/o Queen Mary Hospital, H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 258 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: LANG, F. G... LANGLEY, John A. LAYTON, F. A. L. LECLERCQ, J. M. LEE, Miss Ngah-Ping + LEE, Sung-Tai LERNER, Bernard - + LESLIE, Mrs. Elizabeth LETCHER, Dr. Roy M. LEVIN, David A. LEWIS, Mrs. Helen LI, Edwin Lao LI, Shi-yi LIM, Miss Laye Tin + + + - 43, Kadoorie Avenue, Kowloon. c/o Toronto Dominion Bank, Rooms 917-920, Hutchison House, 10, Harcourt Road, H.K. c/o The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., Queen's Road, C., H.K. G.P.O. Box 13, H.K. Extra-Mural Studies Dept., University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. 36, Village Road, 3D, The Fine Mansion, Happy Valley, H.K. 601, Regent House, H.K. B-6, Royden Court, 129, Repulse Bay Rd., H.K. Department of Chemistry, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. 14, Conduit Road, Emerald Court 5-B, H.K. Consulate General of Costa Rice, 3, Tin Hau Temple Road, H.K. 72, La Salle Road, 2nd floor, H.K. The Grantham Hospital, Wong Chuk Hung Road, Aberdeen, H.K. LINTHWAITE, Mr. & Mrs, J. 2, The Albany, H.K. LIU, Miss Alison LIU, Sydney C. - LLEWELLYN, John LLOYD, Mrs. Aileen $. LO, Hsiang-lin LOBO, Mrs. R. H. LOCKING, J. R. LOFTS, Prof. B. - LUCAS, Col. E. S. $. - LUNDEEN, Mr. & Mrs. R. W.. LUTZ, Hans F.. MA, Prof. Meng, M.B.E. + + + + 34. Lugard Road, H.K. Apt. B-2, Swiss Towers, 113, Tai Hang Rd., H.K. Dept. of Geography and Geology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. Flat 8A, Hamilton Court, 8, Po Shan Road, H.K. c/o Dept. of Chinese, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. Race View Mansions, Apt. 72, 46, Stubbs Road, H.K. c/o The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, Sports Road, Happy Valley, H.K. Dept. of Zoology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. 94, Main Street, Stanley, H.K. 1101, Tavistock, 10, Tregunter Path, H.K. Tai Yuen Lau, Flat A, 3/F., Tai Pak St., Tsuen Wan, N.T. Dept. of Oriental Studies, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, H.K. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1974 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077 LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: SAPSTEAD, G. SCHWARZ, W. H. SCOBELL, C. L. SELWYN, J. B. SHAW, Dr. & Mrs. B. C. SHOEMAKER, J. F. SHU, Dr. H. T. SIEGEL, H. W. SIU, Miss A. V. SLEVIN, Brian SMITH, Rev. Carl T, SO, Dr. Chak Lam SOLOMON, Mrs. Miriam SPAIN, Mr. & Mrs. E. J. STAFFORD, Peter STEINER, Henry STEMPEL, A. STEWART, Miss J. M. C. STRANGER-JONES, A. J. STRICKLAND, John E. STUMPF, K. L., O.B.E. SU, Ming-Hsuan SU, Samson TAYLOR, Mrs. V. THOMA, Dr. Richard THOMAS, Rik THOMAS, Mrs. S. E. Highways Office, Public Works Dept., Murray Building, H.K. c/o Achelis (HK) Ltd., Kowloon City P.O. Box 9334, Kowloon City, Kowloon. Police Headquarters, Arsenal Street, H.K. 2404 Connaught Centre, H.K. 72, Middleton Towers, 140, Pokfulam Rd., H.K. 73, Kadoorie Avenue, Kowloon. 70, Mt. Davis Road, H.K. c/o Bayer China Co. Ltd., 1916 Union House, H.K. Flat A, Hing Mee Bldg., 13th floor, 25-31 Leighton Road, H.K. Police Headquarters, Arsenal Street, H.K. Chung Chi College, Shatin, N.T. Dept. of Geography & Geology, University of Hong Kong, H.K. 2 Wongneichong Gap Road, F5, Woodland Heights, H.K. D28 Burnside Estate, Repulse Bay, H.K. c/o The Mandarin Hotel, Connaught Road, C., H.K. Graphic Communication Ltd., Printing House, 6 Duddell Street, H.K. c/o Gilman Office Machines, 41st floor, Connaught Centre, H.K. 28, Lancashire Road, Kowloon. 12E, Cliffview Mansions, 25, Conduit Rd., H.K. c/o The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., G.P.O. Box 64, H.K. Lutheran World Federation, Dept. of World Service, 33 Granville Road, Kowloon. 28 Broadway, 10-B Mei Foo Sun Chuen, Kowloon. c/o Shanghai Commercial Bank Ltd., 12 Queen's Road, C., H.K. 6A Pekao House, 30 Conduit Road, H.K. 44, Mt. Kellet Road, 3A, Mountain Lodge, H.K. 31 Conduit Road, 9th floor, H.K. C-3, Clearwater Bay Apts, Clearwater Bay Road, Kowloon. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 212 DONALD C. BOWIE which swept through the hospital from time to time. If any instrument did survive it was not taken to Kowloon when the hospital moved there in March 1945. Placed in a similar position in a hospital today I would never run such a risk again. The foregoing account shows a remarkable naivete on my part. The guilelessness of some of our men was quite as remarkable. I recall examining the diary of a soldier who died in Bowen Road before handing his belongings over to someone authorised to receive them. The diary had many references to world events which had clearly been obtained by wireless. I thought it wise to destroy these references at once, for if discovered they would have led directly back to an illicit receiver as the source which I judged to have been sited in a P.O.W. camp. The Japanese allowed us to receive and read copies of an English language paper called the Hongkong News, which was published in the Colony. My notes show that we began to receive three or four copies of this paper daily from October 1942. I circulated these copies to each ward in the hospital and to all staff, but I am sorry I did not preserve any in my own records. The news in the paper was, I recall, quite accurate in describing places where events of importance in the war were taking place. I cannot say whether all events were recorded in this fashion. The treatment of the stories in the paper was, of course, wholly from the Japanese angle, and the result was to create in us prisoners a mounting sense of the victories they were achieving. We could and did discount many of the stories, and we had in the hospital a number of school-type atlases which were never taken away from us, and from the place names we could at least trace where events were taking place in the war as they happened. At first, this local paper was issued to us free, and from time to time supplies were stopped when it was not difficult to deduce that the issues that had been withheld contained news unfavourable to the Japanese. AUGUST DECEMBER 1942 These five months were for the hospital the worst period of our imprisonment. On 1 August 1942 there were 245 patients attended by twelve officers on the staff, not all of whom were medical, sixty-five other ranks including six Royal Engineers plus one civil engineer, seventeen nursing sisters Q.A.I.N.M.S. and Canadian ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d 214 DONALD C. BOWIE serve for Japan?". We either left this particular question unanswered or replied that we were unwilling to serve for Japan. One young man who had put down roots in Hong Kong before the Far East war, in answer to this question gave a detailed account of his qualifications which were substantial. As the replies passed through my office I saw his answer and persuaded him to leave this question blank in a new form which I gave him and I left him to tear up his own original completed form. Each month all in hospital received what we called necessities. The items varied but as a rule there were a couple of cakes of coarse soap, an envelope of tooth powder, a packet of toilet paper, and a fandoshi. This last looked like a triangular bandage and was tied round the waist, the point being passed back between the legs to be secured to the waistband behind, thus preserving the decencies. From time to time there would be an undervest or stockings or a toothbrush. In September 1942 we were able to restart our gramophone concerts broadcast to the wards during permitted hours after a stoppage which had lasted for several weeks. Also in September we equipped and opened a barber's shop served by men who could shave those unable to do so themselves. Thereafter growing beards, an affectation much in favour soon after our surrender, but already dying out, was forbidden! Ten Canadian combatant soldiers who volunteered for the job came to us as orderlies. Two wounded Chinese members of the H.K.V.D.C. whom we had been caring for were removed by the Japanese. By this time they were reasonably fit to leave and we were told that they would be released in the town. I only hope this was so. In October '43 all our staff received ten yen each from the Red Cross Society and we began to receive three or four copies daily of the Hongkong News free. We were also given twelve X-ray films, and having previously been given glass for windows but having no putty, we eventually obtained a supply of thin wire which our sappers made into nails and re-glassing broken windows began. On the afternoon of 26 October a single American plane flew low over the harbour and rose steeply to the north to disappear over the Kowloon hills. There were further raids during the nights of 27 and 28 October. No bombs were dropped, but thereafter I thought it wise not to remove the ‘Mimi Lau' concrete blocks protecting the ground floor wards on the harbour side. At this time we had beds on every verandah in the hospital in order to gain as ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG 217 we had sudden night checks which would be carried out about midnight or one a.m. One of the most disagreeable tasks in the hospital was that of the washing squad. We had to have a system of washing bed linen for those unfit to wash their own sheets. Most of the work was carried out on badly stained sheets which had come from the dysentery wards and which had to be washed in cold water. The four men under Corporal R. Thompson R.A.M.C. who did this work deserve unstinted praise, but it was not until December that I was able to buy a pair of rubber boots for the washing squad. In the same month Seino gave me 25 grammes of nicotinic acid and all Canadians received ten yen each from home, Patients and staff decorated the wards at Christmas time and it was remarkable what a gay effect was produced by the bright colours of a few empty cigarette packets. We had a little extra for Christmas dinner carefully hoarded for many weeks beforehand. We even had a concert on Hogmanay but I was glad to reach the end of 1942. 1943 Thirty years after the event it is possible to look back and see that 1943 was the turning point for the better in the affairs of the hospital and its inmates. It was less easy to discern this at the time. We had known of the naval battles of the Coral Sea in May and Midway in June 1942. They were fought over four thousand miles from Hong Kong and seemed remote to us. The Japanese accounts claimed them as decisive victories, and it was not till the history of the campaigns became available long after the war that I saw these battles clearly as having imposed the first check on the Japanese advance in the Pacific. It would have been immensely encouraging to have known this at the time. In 1943 we knew of the Russian successful defence of Stalingrad, we knew of the victory in North Africa, the invasion of Sicily and the fall of Mussolini. The placenames on the Russian front showed how that terrible campaign was going. We knew of the island battles in the Pacific; we knew of Guadalcanal; but all the Far East news published in the Hongkong News was presented to show the huge losses inflicted on the Americans by the Japanese defenders of positions which in the end remained safely in their hands. The impression conveyed was one of enormous American losses from Page 225 Page 226 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 98 TIN-YUKE CHAR at the main mast of every war ship. . . . It was a pretty sight, very noisy and warlike.”* The Hong Kong Government Gazette of April 16, 1881, published the announcement with the Chinese and English placed side by side: GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION-No. 131. His Majesty the King of HAWAII arrived in Hongkong on Tuesday evening, the 12th instant, and was welcome to the Colony by the Governor, in the name of Her Majesty Queen VICTORIA. His Majesty, the King KALAKAUA, was accompanied by His Excellency W. N. ARMSTRONG, Minister of State, and Colonel JUDD, Chamberlain, By His Excellency's Command, FREDERICK STEWART, Acting Colonial Secretary. Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 16th April, 1881. 號一十三百一第報憲 署輔政使司史 爲篩論事照得現有 浩德護送前來於本月十二日卽禮拜二晚抵港 夏威儀國大君主加拉嘉華隨帶宰臣士當及司儀長參將 香港總督郎敬用 大英后帝城克多壢阿名迎接登岸爲此特示俾衆週知 一千八百八十一年 四月 十六 示 A tiffin (luncheon) party was given by Mr. Chater, a rich merchant.† Men of all nationalities came to meet the King and his party at this magnificent affair. The King asked Armstrong to take his place and propose a toast to the Governor who later asked Armstrong to write out the speech for transmission to the Home Government in London. Armstrong in his letters back to Foreign Minister Green mentioned, "I must admit having a glorious time with Sir John Pope Hennessy, as he is a man of immense information, great experience, and liberality. . . . Governor Hennessy will * The Hawaiian flag was designed by Capt. Alexander Adams, Englishman, in 1810, with eight stripes for the islands and the British Union Jack in the upper left corner. † See Plate 16. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n CHEUNG CHOW -LONG ISLAND 131 Junks are the reason for Cheung Chow which only exists to take over their cargoes of fish, salt, or hides, and to supply them in return with all that junks need, ship chandlery and stores, gear of all sorts, and certain amusements for the fisherman, some of them innocent and some not. It stands between Hongkong with its population of some 600,000 persons clamorous for food, and the fishing fleet which cannot afford to lose time beating about in narrow and often becalmed waters under high hills. At Cheung Chow the wind is almost always blowing, but the deeply indented bay and the sheltering spit between the hills give shelter. The junks can run in, unload their catch, revictual or refit, and stand out to sea in any wind, with no delay. The steam ferry carries their fish to the waiting markets for them. But the islanders have a second string to their bow for the presence of the ferry has made it worth while to grow vegetables for the same market, and the little glens of the island are terraced to the limit to provide vegetables to the inhabitants and a surplus for that export. Subsidiary trades have grown up from the same root, if fish can be called a root; fish must be salted and dried, so there is a great trade in salt, though most of the salt which comes into Cheung Chow is not rubbed into the fish there but is re-exported to China. When we have pictured the little land to ourselves, described its climate, the races and tribes of its inhabitants, we will wander along the busy main street, and so take ship and depart from this little place so like some ancient Greek kingdom set in the wine-dark sea smelling of fish, overrun with pigs. Later we will return to see the Moon-cake festival, and after that let someone more capable take up the tale. The Little Land and City Cheung Chow is shaped as the photograph shows.* It would seem that one of the very numerous saddle-shaped ridges in which Hongkong abounds has sunk here so that the ridge between the two peaks makes a long double beach, only one hundred yards wide at its narrowest. On the Western Side the bay is large and partly sheltered by other islands, but on the Eastern it is open to the sea, and the N. E. Monsoon pours aslant into that bay, and rages against its headlands. So the town turns its back to the * Not reprinted. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 136 W. J. HINTON on sanitation and the care of a little system of hill tracks which might serve as a model to the New Territories. Their King is the District Officer South, the "Lord of the Isles," but Kaifong and Residents Association alike show a praiseworthy spirit of independence, and a capacity for governing themselves; moreover, the injunction “Agree with thine adversary quickly" is well understood and followed in China, even under British rule. But we have drifted from geography into politics, like better men before us, and it would be well to pass back to the native community, through the terraced fields dotted with blue-clad figures bowed over the hoe, or shuffling along the narrow paths with a yoke of watering buckets, or cutting and pulling the beetroots, carrots, and cabbages. We will go back to the Eastern end of the village and then traverse its length, completing our brief survey by passing out to our waiting boat over the harbour, and so back to Hongkong. On the stage thus set, it may be that we or someone more competent may stage scenes from the life of the island folk from time to time. There is a strange and interesting feast in the Spring, well worth describing, and at the New Year when the whole fishing fleet lies at anchor in the bay, the little town is all alive. A sitting in the Court of the District Magistrate would be worth describing too, and a meeting of the City Fathers, the Kaifong. We must write, for lack of better witnesses, yet how true it is that those who know do not say, and those who say do not know! But to our walk. There lies our little yacht that brought us from Hongkong, white and strange among the high-sterned junks with their brown mat sails. We have all the afternoon to wander, and half the night to lie in the Harbour before the tide turns and we must up anchor and away. Strolling through the Town We have landed on the beach near the Temple of Kwan Yin and find ourselves among the Hakka people who inhabit this end of the town. Their small, sturdy figures are to be seen clustered about the well where the women are drawing water, or bending over the boats in the boat-building yard that slopes to the water's edge. There is material for a whole study in the types of boat and the methods of building alone, but we cannot stop to watch for more than a few minutes while the skilful ship's carpenters fix the ribs and planking of a brand new sampan. A word of greeting to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n CHEUNG CHOW LONG ISLAND 141 slowly in the widening bay, pushing a dark ripple before her. A sampan with three powdered and giggling girls drifts by, and as it passes, one sings in high quavering falsetto the first verse of a love song; then the second is sung by her companions. A young man sitting in his boat in the deep shadow of a junk's high stern answers the call, singing the third verse of the song, and the two boats glide together, and disappear towards the shore. "Another silly fish caught and ready to be landed!" But here is our little yacht with the cabin lit up and the wrinkled mahogany face of our boat boy gravely smiling a welcome. We tumble aboard and form our own animated group about the rice bowl while he withdraws to the bow, and sits there silent, still, waiting for the night wind and the tide. The Mooncake Festival The historian of Long Island has not yet appeared. He must be a Chinese, for no European can be sure of understanding the real meaning of the institutions and customs of a Chinese community. But until that historian appears, and perhaps to induce him to come forth and correct the presumptuous foreigner, here is an eye witness's account of a spring feast at Cheung Chow written from memory and the notes of a careful observer, Mr. A. C. Franklin.* It must be understood that the latter is not to blame for any inaccuracies in the following account. + On a day in May, looking from Hongkong towards the Island, through a good pair of glasses we see a new building towering above the houses and temples, and we decide to visit the island and investigate. The ferry starts from the immediate and unsavoury neighbourhood of a loading shoot for the town garbage. The ferries are crowded and frequent to-day, gaily flagged and decorated. Everyone on board is in holiday mood, laughing, eating, talking, and behaving rather like a good-tempered Bank Holiday crowd at home. There seem to be parties of visitors, teams of some kind, and there is an image in a chair on the lower deck. It is not being treated with any particular awe and reverence, indeed it seems more like a mascot than a holy thing. Once out of the harbour we encounter nothing of special interest until we turn into Cheung Chow Bay. Here is a cheerful sight. The whole fleet is in and the bay is full. The heavy brown mat Mr. Franklin followed the author as Registrar, University of Hong Kong, 1913-18. — Ed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 175 Visitors 20. Mountains have always been favoured retreats, especially in the South. Herbert Giles wrote in 1911: Monasteries are built high up on the hills, often on almost inaccessible crags; and there the well-to-do Chinaman is wont to escape from the fierce heat of the southern summer. On one particular mountain near Canton, there are said to be no fewer than one hundred of such monasteries, all of which reserve apartments for guests, and are glad to be able to add to their funds by so doing. (Giles 1911: 9) It seems that rich merchants from Hong Kong were among their number and have long been accustomed to take their ease, and perhaps salve their conscience, there. For 19th century examples reported by European travellers see Henry 1886:320, and Bourne (1895) who reported the death at one of these places of 'Lo Hok-pang, late Compradore of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank' (p. 35). 21. The monasteries of Tai Mo Shan long benefitted from a similar connection. It is clear from the large buildings that have been erected before and after the Pacific War 1941-1945—in one case they include a splendid air-conditioned lecture hall—that they draw at least part of their financial support from a number of wealthy patrons; although the post-war urbanization of Tsuen Wan has probably reduced their attraction as places of refuge from the heat and bustle of the world. 22. Over many years, such persons from Hong Kong, having no local connection other than an existing or sought-after grave for members of their family or even for themselves, have traversed the mountain's sides with geomancers and finally settled for good locations. Here a splendid grave has been constructed, and sometimes a pavilion also where the family can rest and eat during the arduous visits in successive grave worshipping seasons. In some cases only an empty grave and a ruined pavilion remain, showing that the descendants, concerned over business failures and reversals of family fortunes, have taken up the remains and placed them elsewhere, despite the heavy initial and subsequent cost necessitated by feeing the geomancer(s) and hiring mountain chairs for the party, and paying local labour to carry the construction materials. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n NOTES AND QUERIES 227 only able to do so at high tide. At the same time the plane dropped lower and made narrow circles over the town. The Middle School lies just behind the hospital with the Preparatory School on one side and as the plane flew low over one of the buildings a small machine gun opened fire on it. The plane immediately came back, and having thoroughly inspected the position dropped a bomb which blew up a house near us, the machine gun again opened fire and this time the bomb was not so accurately placed and unfortunately fell in our garden, breaking down the wall and making a deep pit about 12 feet within our hospital premises. The plane after dropping a few more bombs flew away, and we found on inquiry that the gunboat with the 2 motor launches had also retired after setting fire to several junks which however had been deserted by the occupants. After about half an hour the plane again returned and released several bombs over the town one of which hit the middle school, demolishing one of their houses alongside our precincts breaking down more of our wall, shattering most of the glass in the doctor's house and covering the garden with broken bricks, large fragments of bomb shells and dust. As far as we know there has been nobody injured. Although we had repeated alarms the plane did not return until 2.30 p.m. when it dropped 4 more large bombs on the Middle School compound, completely demolishing 2 more large buildings. The only good result from this episode was the fact that our young new doctor took fright and ran away in spite of his contract. September 12th, 1939 We have many air raid alarms during the day and sometimes during the night, but the planes pass over us to other destinations. My family arrived in Hongkong August 25th, but has not yet been able to get here. I am glad to have them out from Europe under the present circumstances. They like to have a rest after a long and adventurous journey. They are staying as guests in the Bishop's House. Please continue your prayerful support of our work in China and do all you can to help us. Yours sincerely, EUGEN MILCH. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: BROMFIELD, Mrs. Jeanne BROWN, E. de R. BROWN, Dr. H. O. BROWN, Mrs. R. C. BROWN, T. D. Jr. BROUWER, Mrs. R. P. BULLEN, J. B. BUTLER, Miss B. A. CAMERON, N. CAMPBELL, M. C. CANTERS, R. CARDENZANA, J. CAREY-HUGHES, Dr. J. CATT, Miss Pauline CAVAYE, P. K. CENTRE OF ASIAN STUDIES CHAN, Mrs. A. CHAN, Sui-jeung CHAN, Mrs. T. CHEETHAM, Mrs. J. A. CHEN, Prof. Cheng-siang CHERN, Dr. K. S. CHESTERMAN, Miss M. 5. Cumberland Road, Kowloon. c/o C3 Reef Court, 48 Stanley Village Road, Stanley, Hong Kong. School of Education, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Seabranch A3, 31 Horizon Drive, Chung Hom Kok, Hong Kong. Seabranch A3, 31 Horizon Drive, Chung Hom Kok, Hong Kong. A3 Repulse Bay Mansions, Repulse Bay, Hong Kong. Myer Eastern Buying Ltd., Cheong Hin Building, 72 Nathan Road, Kowloon. Public Services Commission, Room 573, Central Government Offices 5th floor, Hong Kong. 11D Venice Court, 410 Conduit Road, Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, 5/F News Building, 633 King's Road, North Point, Hong Kong, The Belgian Bank, P.O. Box 27, Hong Kong. Hill & Knowlton Asia Ltd., 1401 World Trade Centre, G.P.O. Box 5389, Hong Kong. Room 315, Hongkong & Shanghai Bank Building, Hong Kong. Dept. of Geography & Geology, University of Hong Kong. 8 Aigburth Hall, 9 May Road, Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Tourist Association, Connaught Centre 35/F, Hong Kong. Environment Branch, Colonial Secretariat, Lower Albert Road, Hong Kong. Hong Kong Tourist Association, Connaught Centre 35/F, Hong Kong. 12, Douglas Apts., 22 Old Peak Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of History, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n LIST OF MEMBERS ORDINARY MEMBERS: ROHRS, K. R. ROPER, G. W. + SALMON, Mrs. P. A. SAPSTEAD, G. A. G. - SCOBELL, C. L. - + SCOLLARD, Dr. & Mrs. D. M. + SCOTT, Dr. I. SEARLS, M. W. SHAM, F. + SHANNON, Major J. M. - SHAW, Dr. & Mrs. B. C. - SHOEMAKER, J. F. SHU, Dr. H. T. - SIDNEY, Miss F. A. SLEVIN, B. SMITH, F. K. SO, Dr. C. L. STEAD, Miss S. M. STEINER, H. STEMPEL, A. ++ + - STEWART, Miss J. M. C. STRICKLAND, J. E. - + + + + Flat 3B, 17 Bonham Road, Hong Kong. Police Headquarters, Arsenal Street, Hong Kong. 40 Plantation Road, The Peak, Hong Kong. Mass Transit Railway Corp., G.P.O. Box 9916, Hong Kong. Police Headquarters, Arsenal Street, Hong Kong. 257 35 Baguio Villa 14/FL, 550 Victoria Road, Hong Kong. 35 Middleton Towers, 140 Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Esso Standard Oil (H.K.) Ltd., G.P.O. Box 5369, Hong Kong. 22A, Caine Road 1/Fl., Hong Kong. 1, Salisbury Mansions, Pilgrim's Way, Beacon Hill Road, Kowloon. 72 Middleton Towers, 140 Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. 73, Kadoorie Avenue, Kowloon. 70 Mount Davis Road G/Fl., Hong Kong. 18, Buxey Lodge, 37 Conduit Road, Hong Kong. Police Headquarters, Arsenal Street, Hong Kong. Flat E2-21 Villa Monte Rosa, 41A Stubbs Road, Hong Kong. Dept. of Geography & Geology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Flat 19B, 45 Repulse Bay Road, Hong Kong. Graphic Communications Ltd., Printing House 6/Fl., 6, Duddel Street, Hong Kong. Flat 18A, 3 Tregunter Path, Hong Kong. 28 Lancashire Road, G/FL., Kowloon. Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., G.P.O. Box 64, Hong Kong. STUMPF, Dr. K. L., O.B.B, - Lutheran World Federation, Dept. of World Service, 33 Granville Road, Kowloon. SU, S. TAYLOR, Mrs. V. V. - Shanghai Commercial Bank Ltd., 12 Queen's Road C., Hong Kong. 14A Piccadilly Mansion, 6 Po Shan Road, Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 251 ORDINARY LOCAL MEMBERS RYKER, Dr. Harrison Clinton, Dept. of Music, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NEW TERRITORIES. SALMON, Mrs. P. A., Flat C1, Celestial Gardens, 5 Repulse Bay Road, HONG KONG. SAPSTEAD, Mr. Gordon A. G., Mass Transit Railway Corporation, G.P.O. Box 9916, HONG KONG. SCOLLARD, Dr. & Mrs. David M., 35 Baguio Villa, 14/Fl., 550 Victoria Road, HONG KONG. SEARLS, Mr. M. W. Jr., Dravo Internacional, 901 Hutchison House, 10 Harcourt Road, HONG KONG. SHAM, Mr. Francis, 22A Caine Road, 1/F, HONG KONG. SHANNON, Major J. M., 1 Salisbury Mansions, Pilgrim's Way, Beacon Hill Road, KOWLOON. SHEEHAN, Miss Laura, Impulse Trading, 11 Yuk Yat Street, 10/F, Tokwawan, KOWLOON. SHU, Dr. H. T., 70 Mount Davis Road, G/F, HONG KONG. SO, Dr. Chak Lam, Dept. of Geography and Geology, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. STEAD, Miss S. M., Flat 19B, 45 Repulse Bay Road, HONG KONG. STEINER, Mr. Henry, Graphic Communications Ltd., 4th Floor, 57 Connaught Road Central, HONG KONG. STRICKLAND, Mr. John E., Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp., G.P.O. Box 64, HONG KONG. STUMF, Mr. Karl L., O.B.E., Lutheran World Federation, Dept. of World Services, 33 Granville Road, KOWLOON. STUNEK, Rev. Howard, O. F. M., St. Bonaventure Friary, 47 Sheung Fung Street, Tsz Wan Shan, KOWLOON. SU, Mr. Samson, c/o Shanghai Commercial Bank Ltd., 12 Queen's Road C., HONG KONG. SURECK, Mr. Joseph, Flat 11B, 19 Conduit Road, HONG KONG. SURECK, Mrs. Joseph, Flat 11B, 19 Conduit Road, HONG KONG. SUSSEX, Mr. C. A., El On Lee Mansions, Mount Davis Road, HONG KONG. SUSSEX, Mrs. Elizabeth, El On Lee Mansions, Mount Davis Road, HONG KONG. TANG, Mr. Stephen Wing-Hung, 177 Bulkeley Street, 1st Fl., Hunghom, KOWLOON. TAVADIA, Dr. Phitoza, Dr. Vio & Partners, Hong Kong Bank Building, Queen's Road Central, HONG KONG. TAYLOR, Mrs. V. V., 65 Bisney Road, 2nd Floor, HONG KONG. THOMA, Dr. Richard A. M., 14 Mount Kellett Road, Mountain Lodge 3-A, HONG KONG. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p XX # ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY — HONG KONG BRANCH ## BALANCE SHEET AT 31ST DECEMBER, 1982 ### LIABILITIES 1982 1981 Accumulated Funds $242,461 HK$ Excess of Expenditure over Income in 1981 (8,997) Balance as at 1st January, 1982 $233,464.15 233,464 Sundry Creditor Printing Charges for Journal, 38,000 49,000.00 23,790 28,894 ### ASSETS HK$ Quoted Investment Cost at 1st January, 1982 230,476.72 Add: Purchase of Shares: 24,191 34,271 (2,987.43) 254,680.29 Hang Seng Bank Ltd. 111,147.60 Hong Kong Electric (Holdings) Co. Ltd. Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation 111,147.60 J1,148 Balance at Bank Fixed Deposits. 165,000.00 Current Account 3,329.12 168,329.12 $279,476.72 $271,464 $279,476.72 ### Notes: (1) Quoted investments at 31st December, 1982: Cost Market Value 375 shares Hang Seng Bank Limited $34,272.00 $13,312.50 4,200 shares Hong Kong Electric (Holdings) Company Limited 19,320.00 2,240 shares Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation 24,192.00 17,136.00 2,500 shares Hong Kong Land Company Limited 28,893.60 9,562.50 23,790.00 $111,147.60 $59,331.00 All quoted investments are stated at cost, and no provision for diminution in value has been made in the accounts. (2) Subscription and interest incomes are accounted for on cash basis. ## REPORT OF THE HON. AUDITORS TO THE MEMBERS OF ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, HONG KONG BRANCH In our opinion, the above Balance Sheet is properly drawn up so as to exhibit a true and fair view of the Society's affairs at 31st December, 1982 and of its income and expenditure for the year ended on that date. Kwan Wong Tan & Fong Hon. Auditors Chartered Accountants Certified Public Accountants, Hong Kong Dated: 21st April, 1983. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v XV ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY — HONG KONG BRANCH BALANCE SHEET AT 31ST DECEMBER 1983 1982 LIABILITIES H.K. Currency 1982 SUBJECT TO AUDIT ASSETS H.K. Currency Accumulated Funds Quoted Investment $233,464 Balance as at 1st January 1983 $230,476.72 Add: Excess of Income over $111,148 Cost at 1st January 1983 $111,147.60 (2,987) Expenditure in 1982 885.43 $230,477 $231,362.15 Balance at Bank Sundry Creditor — Printing 49,000 Charges for Journal & Index $59,000.00 165,000 3,329 Fixed Deposits.. Current Account $175,000.00 4,214.55 179,214.55 $279,477 $290,362.15 $279,477 $290,362.15 D.A. Gilkes Hon. Treasurer NOTES: (1) Quoted investments at 31st December 1983: 525 shares Hang Seng Bank Limited 4,200 shares Hong Kong Electric (Holdings) Company Limited 2,464 shares Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation 2,500 shares Hong Kong Land Company Limited + Cost $34,272.00 Market Value $19,950.00 24,192.00 23,100.00 28,893.60 17,248.00 23,790.00 7,250.00 $111,147.60 $67,548.00 All quoted investments are stated at cost, and no provision for diminution in value has been made in the accounts. (2) Subscription and interest incomes are accounted for on cash basis. Dated: 18th January 1984 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 # ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY # HONG KONG BRANCH ## BALANCE SHEET AT 31ST DECEMBER 1983 ### ASSETS H.K. Currency 1983 1982 ### LIABILITIES Accumulated Fund H.K. Currency 1983 $233,464 Balance as at 1st January 1983 (2,987) Add: Excess of Income over Expenditure in 1983 230,477 Balance as at 31st December 1983 $230,476.72 Listed Investments, at cost $111,147.60 885.43 231,362.15 165,000 3,329 Balance at Bank Fixed Deposits Current Account $175,000.00 4,214.55 179,214.55 Sundry Creditor - Printing Charges for Journal & Index $49,000.00 $59,000.00 $279,477 $290,362.15 $279,477 $290,362.15 D.A. Gilkes Honorary Treasurer ## Notes: (1) Listed investments at 31st December 1983: 525 shares Hang Seng Bank Limited $34,272.00 $19,950.00 4,200 shares Hong Kong Electric (Holdings) Company Limited $24,192.00 $23,100.00 2,464 shares Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation $28,893.60 $17,248.00 2,500 shares Hong Kong Land Company Limited $23,790.60 $7,250.00 $111,147.60 $67,548.00 All listed investments are stated at cost, and no provision for diminution in value has been made in the accounts. (2) Subscription and interest incomes are accounted for on cash basis. ## HONG KONG BRANCH ## REPORT OF THE HONORARY AUDITORS TO THE MEMBERS OF ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY In our opinion, the above balance sheet is properly drawn up so as to exhibit a true and fair view of the Society's affairs at 31st December 1983 and of its income and expenditure for the year ended on that date. Dated: 22nd March, 1984, WR510/(A05-8) Kwan Wong Tan & Fong Honorary Auditors Chartered Accountants Certified Public Accountants, Hong Kong ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 xix ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH BALANCE SHEET AT 31ST DECEMBER 1984 1983 LIABILITIES Accumulated Fund $230,477 Balance as at 1st January, 1984 Less: Loss on 2,500 shares of Hong Kong Land H.K. Currency 1983 ASSETS $3171,148 $231,362.15 Listed Investments, at cost $111,140.00 H.K. Currency Co., Ltd. Cost 13,790.00 Sale 8,850.80 14,939.20 Less: 2,500 shares of Hong Kong Land Co., Ltd. 23,790.00 $87,357.60 Less. Excess of Expenditure over Income in 1984 885 24,192.38 231,367 Balance as al 775,000 Balance at Bank Fixed Deposits $145,000.00 31st December 1984 192,130.57 Sundry Creditor Printing Charges 4,274 Current Account 13,772.97 158,772.97 59,000 for Journal $290,362 54,000.00 $246,130.57 $3790.362 $246,130.57 D.A. Gilkes Honorary Treasurer Notes: (1) Listed investments at 31st December 1984; 577 shares Hang Seng Bank Limited Cost $34,272.00 Market Value $524,234.00 4,620 shares Hong Kong Electric (Holdings) Company Limited 24,192.00 30,954.00 3,080 shares Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation 28,893.60 24,486.00 $87,357.60 $79,674.00 All listed investments are stated at cost, and no provision for diminution in value has been made in the accounts. (2) Subscription and interest incomes are accounted for on cash basis. REPORT OF THE HONORARY AUDITORS TO THE MEMBERS OF ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY - HONG KONG BRANCH We have audited the above financial statement in accordance with approved Auditing Standards. In our opinion, the above balance sheet is properly drawn up so as to exhibit a true and fair view of the Society's affairs at 31st December 1984 and of its income and expenditure for the year then ended. Dated: 6th March, 1985. WR510/A05-3) Kwan Wong Tan & Fong Honorary Auditors Chartered Accountants Certified Public Accountants, Hong Kong Note: due to an editorial oversight, Volume 23 contained the accounts of the Society in their "subject to Audit" form rather than in their audited form. The audited accounts for 1983-84 are therefore now given here, with those for 1984/85. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x xvii 1984 LIABILITIES Accumulated Fund $31,362 Balance as at 1st January, 1985 Less Loss on 2,500 shares of $192,130.57 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH BALANCE SHEET AT 31ST DECEMBER 1985 H.K. Currency 1984 ASSETS SH148 Listed Investments, at cost Less 2,500 shares of Hong Kong Land Co., Ltd. H.K. Currency $ 87,357.60 23 "90 Hong Kong Land 14,393 Co., Ltd. 8,358 24,292 Less: Excess of Expenditure over Income in 1985 Balance at Bank 33,956.80 145,000 13,733 Fixed Deposits Current Account $145,000.00 816.17 145,816.17 192,737 Balance as at 31st December, 1985 Sundry Creditor 138,173.77 Pracing 54,000 Charges for Journal $246,131 15,000.00 $233,173.77 $246,131 $233,173.77 D.A. Gilkes Honorary Treasurer Notes: (1) Listed investments at 31st December 1985: 634 shares Hang Seng Bank Limited 4,620 shares Hong Kong Electric (Holdings) Company Limited 3,388 shares Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (2) Subscription and interest incomes are accounted for on cash basis. Cost Market Value $34,272.00 $29,164.00 24,192.00 39,270.00 28,893.60 26,087.60 $87,357.60 $94,521.60 REPORT OF THE HONORARY AUDITORS TO THE MEMBERS OF ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH We have audited the above financial statement in accordance with approved Auditing Standards. In our opinion, the above balance sheet is properly drawn up so as to exhibit a true and fair view of the Society's affairs at 31st December 1985 and of its income and expenditure for the year then ended. Dated: 24th February, 1986. WR510(A05-3) Kwan Wong Tan & Fong Honorary Auditors Chartered Accountants Certified Public Accountant, Hong Kong ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 XV 1985 H.K. Currency ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH BALANCE SHEET AT 31ST DECEMBER 1986 LIABILITIES Accumulated Fund $192,131 Balance as at 1st January, 1986 $158,173.77 Less: Excess of Expenditure over Income in 1986 33,957.15 $158,173.77 Balance as at 31st December 1986 $158,174.62 Sundry Creditor 3,758.15 $233,174.00 ASSETS $ 87,358 Listed Investments, at cost $ 87,357.60 123,926.21 Accounts Receivable 34,247.56 75,000.00 Printing Charges for Journal 75,000.00 107,810.46 Fixed Deposits 100,000.00 7,810.46 Current Account 7,810.46 $198,926.21 Balance at Bank $198,926.21 $233,174.00 $233,174.00 D.A. Gilkes Honorary Treasurer Notes: (1) Listed investments at 31st December 1986: 760 shares Hang Seng Bank Limited 4,620 shares Hong Kong Electric (Holdings) Company Limited 4,065 shares Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation Cost Market Value $34,272.00 $31,540.00 24,192.00 60,060.00 28,893.60 37,601.25 $87,357.60 $129,201.25 (2) Subscription and interest incomes are accounted for on cash basis. HONG KONG BRANCH REPORT OF THE HONORARY AUDITORS TO THE MEMBERS OF ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY We have audited the above financial statements in accordance with approved Auditing Standards. In our opinion, the above balance sheet is properly drawn up so as to exhibit a true and fair view of the Society's affairs at 31st December 1986 and of its income and expenditure for the year then ended. Dated: 18th March, 1987. Kwan Wong Tan & Fong Certified Public Accountants Honorary Auditors ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 62 D.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU The site referred to is the area of rising ground to the south of the site occupied by the present Government House and on a site formerly occupied by the Record Office on "Government Hill" which had served as a temporary Government House from 1841 to 1842. On Oct 7th in 1861 Mr. Th. Donaldson was appointed Curator of the Public Gardens and the gardens were thrown open to the public under certain regulations on August 6th 1864. In October of that year the military band began giving promenade concerts in the gardens at stated intervals. The establishment of the public gardens had obviously done much to instill among the European community a sense of both pride and achievement and this sense of well-being was reflected in the wide-scale level of planting in the colony and confirmed by Eitel (1895) who stated that: "The increased attention, given to the cultivation of trees along the public roads and around European dwellings on the hill side, had already done very much to displace the pristine barrenness of the site on which the city was built by patches of shrubbery." In the copious correspondence between Hongkong and London, the gardens were referred to either as a Botanical Garden (as when the Surveyor General ordered seeds for it from a Mr. Veitch of Chelsea in 1861) or as a Public Garden and was under the auspices of the Surveyor General and a Garden Committee. In 1871 Charles Ford was appointed as the first Superintendent of Gardens and in his first letter back to Dr. Hooker of Kew after his arrival, he reported: "The Public Gardens are in a very fair order and well stocked with plants as regards quantity, but we require greater variety. "Very few of the plants are labelled and I believe, no catalogue of them has been drawn up. We have not any Orchids nor Ferns except those indigenous to the Island. The plants which have been introduced are chief- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 70 D.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU By 1884 all the land available for the extension of the Gardens had been completed. "The exceptionally sterile nature of the soil of this barren rock, the exposed aspect of the Gardens and absence of water for artificial watering in the dry season, necessitate the expenditure of a great deal of thought, time, and means than is usually experienced in establishments of this kind." At least one specimen of each kind of tree or shrub by now carried a label and an exchange of plants and seeds was established with more than 40 organisations. On the cultural side the Annual Flower Show had been organized since 1872 and there was a weekly musical performance by the Regimental Band. Plants were also on sale to the public. Ford had become a tireless worker in establishing a scientific approach to Hong Kong's flora and he was undoubtedly the person to whom credit must be given in establishing, describing and preserving a wide variety of botanical finds both in Hongkong and in China as well as further afield in the Island of Taiwan. He was deeply committed to the more economic aspects of Botany and introduced a wide variety of economically important exotic plants to the area. He also had an abiding interest in forestry and was one of the first people to realise the importance of forest trees as objects of beauty as well as instruments to prevent further soil erosion and thus preserve what little remained of the barren soil of the island. In 1886 Ford explains how expenditure had outstripped estimates but sensibly sugars the unpalatable pill: "The actual revenue for this year will be at least $200,000 in excess of the estimated revenue. Our plantations are thriving splendidly. I am planting very extensively true Camphor trees which will be, I estimate, most valuable to the Colony in due time. I planted many thousands last year and they have all done amazingly well. In 1887 (July 26th) he is again complaining about the lack of support from within the Government but knowing he has the tacit support of Governor he states philosophically: ¦ ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 149 to join him. The boy had already shown great promise as a student and his teacher had urged his village to sponsor his future studies, but the money for this could not be found. When he arrived in Malacca, however, he began attending classes at the Anglo-Chinese College, it being in the same compound as the press. He excelled in the classroom and when the son of the principal was to be sent to the Bishop's College at Serampore in India to further his studies, Ho Fuk-tong was selected to accompany him as a companion. There was an understanding that he could also attend classes if, in return, he taught a class the Chinese language. After a few years the two young men returned to Malacca. Here under the direction of Mr. Legge, Ho Fuk-tong began the study of Greek and Hebrew along with other advanced subjects. He made remarkable progress in the languages and seemed destined for a career as a scholar. An unfortunate incident happened, and, but for the humane understanding of his teacher, this incident could have cut short their association. One day Mr. Legge discovered his student had committed a moral indiscretion. Ho Fuk-tong had some years before been baptised into the Christian church. Fortunately Mr. Legge was not as strict in applying church discipline as some missionaries of the period were. He believed the transgressor was truly penitent for his misdeed and, after a period of probation, accepted him back. It was decided, however, that it would be best if he returned to his home village and married the girl who had been chosen for him from childhood, even though she was not a Christian at that time. Not many months after Ho Fuk-tong had left Malacca for his home at Nam Tsuen Sha in Nam Hoi District of Kwangtung, Mr. Legge left for Hongkong. When a suitable period had elapsed after the marriage celebrations, Ho Fuk-tong and his new wife came to Hongkong. Here ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 152 CARL SMITH Dutch parentage from Malacca, who soon became dissatisfied and left for a more adventurous life at sea; J.H. Moore, born in Macau, who left after a few years, married a beautiful 15-year-old girl from Malacca and then took up newspaper editing and some unprofitable business ventures at Malacca and Singapore; and a student from overseas, William Hunter, an American. Hunter's reminiscences of his days at Malacca indicate he enjoyed them. He studied hard, for it is no easy task for a foreigner to acquire competency in written and spoken Chinese. He enjoyed the companionship of J.H. Moore. When not studying they took long walks, explored the countryside, observed the ways of the people, joined in the excitement of local festivals and shared in the homely life of the missionary staff of the college. He studied at the college for 18 months. He had arrived a boy of 12, he left a confident young man of 14. He returned to Canton where he continued studying under the direction of the Rev. Robert Morrison, but he also began learning the business of the counting house and godown. The firm to which he was apprenticed went into liquidation and Hunter returned to New York. But the "China bug" had bitten him, and when an opportunity came to return to China in 1830 under the patronage of Russell and Company, he eagerly accepted it. This firm had a long history in China trade. Its roots go back to 1789; it took on the name Russell and Co in 1824. It was the largest of the American firms operating in China. It finally failed in 1891, though some members of the firm reorganised in Hongkong as Shewan, Tomes and Co. The latter is still operating in Hongkong. One gathers from his reminiscences and references to him by others that he was a pleasant, agreeable, but not an aggressively ambitious person. When Hunter was visiting one of his former business associates in England, a young son of the family met him. Later he described Mr. Hunter as "a handsome, courteous man with a brown face and white moustache, like a fine type of Anglo-Indian, and speaking Chinese for our amusement with so soft a voice that I have often ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 165 sess qualifications which will make them highly prized and liberally salaried, as interpreters, clerks, and in other services. They cannot and ought not to be treated on the same plan of rigid economy as mere boys. To ensure the prosperity of the institution there ought to be an annual allowance of £25 each, to cover all expenses and support the young men in a manner respectable and befitting the position in life which they are intended to occupy. The school at the London Mission House in Hongkong could now become what the missionary meeting of 1843 intended it to be, the Theological Seminary of the London Missionary Society in China. The meeting had dropped the designation of college as being too pretentious for the character of the reorganised school. In adopting the name Theological Seminary, they intended to let the world know their labours were all directed to one end, the preparation of Christian workers. This did not mean the abandonment of a general education in literature and science, but it did mean the inclusion of definite theological studies. If the name college had been too ambitious, so had the name Theological Seminary. From 1843 to 1847 there were no theological students. Now with the three young men Dr. Legge had brought back from England, the long delayed plans for his school could be realised. But the future was filled with disappointments. HIGH EXPECTATIONS, THEN DEFECTIONS AND SETBACKS Dr. James Legge returned to Hongkong from England in August 1847, renewed in health and with high expectations for the future of his school. He now could organise a theological class in addition to his other classes. The three boys, baptised during their visit overseas, would be the foundation for advanced studies. They showed every evidence of the sincerity and dedication necessary for the achievement of their announced intention to become preachers and evangelists. Their enthusiasm was infectious. The school took on new vitality. There was an increased interest in its religious objectives. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 173 misdeeds and asking to be received back. He was not immediately reinstated as a member in good standing by the church, but the missionary committee permitted him to teach again. His salary, however, was reduced from $20 to $15 a month, until he was granted full fellowship in the church. In reporting this, Dr. Legge says: "He continues to exhibit a humble and subdued deportment.” Some time after he was restored by the church, he was described as “a wiser and seemingly better man." ** In 1853 he was sent by Dr. Legge to Shanghai to investigate the possibility of missionaries taking up residence at Nanking, the capital of the Taiping Kingdom. The missionaries hoped to influence the Taiping movement and correct some of its mistaken views of Christianity which formed a part of its ideology. As a companion on the trip A-sow had another Hongkong mission worker, Keuh Agong, sometimes also called Wat Angong. He was the same man who years earlier had called Dr. Legge's attention to the boy A-sow as a possible object of Dr. Legge's benevolence. The investigatory trip of the two men from Hongkong was unsuccessful. Conditions created by the conflict between the Taiping and the Imperialist armies prevented their making the necessary contacts at Nanking. After his return to Hongkong, A-sow taught English to advanced students at a day school opened by the London Missionary Society in their rebuilt Bazaar Chapel. He also began to do some preaching, but not for long. Towards the close of 1855, Dr. Legge had this to report: "The young man A-sow, who had received so many advantages, turned aside in the course of the year to the world, and we had to declare his separation from the church.” He was again associating with bad companions and his conduct violated the standards of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 175 Just because Ng Mun-sow was implicated in dubious activities in Hongkong it does not warrant our accusing him of profiting by corruption that might have been operative in the Customs Service, but it does suggest the possibility. At any rate he remained with the service until his death in 1881. In 1850 he had married Oi-lin, the eldest daughter of Ho A-sun, also known as Ho Ye-tong. He had been a printer at the Malacca press and accompanied the mission to Hongkong in 1843. He was a devout and earnest Christian, an original member of the London Missionary Society's Chinese congregation in Hongkong. The waywardness of his son-in-law grieved him. Just as Dr. Legge had hoped A-sow had turned over a new leaf after the episode of the bills of exchange, so in 1859 his father-in-law had expressed a similar hope. At a prayer meeting, he arose and with tears in his eyes spoke in a voice trembling with emotion. “You know my son-in-law, A-sow. Formerly he was one of us, but we had to expel him from the church. Of the life which he has been living for several years I need not now speak. He has been very bad, and he was as hardened as he was dissipated, and repulsed me when I tried to advise him. Lately he was taken ill, and thinking his heart might be softened, I ventured to speak to him about his soul. He heard me quietly, and today he rose and came to this place of worship. "It is the first time he has been in God's house for years. Far as he was gone astray, and deeply as he was sinned, perhaps God will have mercy upon him yet. I feel it is in my heart to ask you all to pray with me that he may be brought back to the fold.” Dr. Legge remarked: “May it be done for the backslider as we asked.” Unfortunately, for all the interest and concern of those who had known A-sow as a boy and young man and had such high expectations for him, there is little evidence that his resolve to change his ways was permanent. One wonders what A-sow's life may have been like had... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 177 dismissed as he would be freed from the obligation to refund money. He became insubordinate and tried to excite the same feeling among others. ... After much expostulation and forbearance I was forced to dismiss him. This and public and private admonitions to others led all the rest to return to their duties with their usual alacrity. Thus the student rebellion had been successfully crushed, but at the cost of Ng A-fat, a student upon whom Dr. Happer had placed great hope of his future usefulness as a mission helper. After leaving the missionaries A-fat, like Ng Mun-sow, became an interpreter in the Chief Magistrate's office in Hongkong. Dr. Legge had similar trouble keeping his students. Some of their classmates who had left the school had already gone overseas. The reports sent back were full of the ease money could be made, especially for those who understood English. In 1852, Dr. Legge reported that one of his former students, Ho Cheong-kow, was in San Francisco working in a store where he made $100 a month or £250 a year, which Dr. Legge noted was the same salary as that of a married missionary. The boys were not only tempted by reports from former classmates, but their friends and relatives urged them to leave school and, as Dr. Legge phrased it, “engage in the race for gold.” He particularly mentioned Ng Mun-sow and O Soey-cheong as having rejected large sums offered to them by their friends if they would become partners in overseas business ventures. O Soey-cheong was especially under pressure from both family and friends. A-cheong's father had brought him to Dr. Legge's school in 1848 with the idea that if his son were taught English he could get a good position, make money and contribute to the support of the family. When several years later, A-cheong had wished to be baptised, the father did not oppose for he was sure it was but another step towards financial advancement. As soon as A-cheong was taken on as a theological student and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 182 CARL SMITH the opening of consular offices. A competent staff of translators and interpreters was needed. Qualified people were very scarce. A request was made to Mr. Brown to supply interpreters from his students. He was most reluctant to interrupt the boys' education, but official pressure, reinforced by reference to the yearly Government grant the school received, was strong. He agreed to send Tong A-chick and Wong Tin-sau for a limited period. The latter had only been in the school for a few months, but was an advanced transfer pupil from Singapore. They were to serve for six months and then to return. The boys proved invaluable. The British Consul, Mr. Balfour, reported to Mr. Brown that he was quite pleased with the reliability and the conduct of the boys. He had found them so useful that he was not willing to send them back after the agreed six months. When A-chick finally returned to Hongkong after serving for a year and a half in Shanghai, he brought a note from the consul giving a favourable account of his conduct and expressing the consul's obligation to the Morrison Education Society for the assistance of its pupils. A-chick's fellow student remained in Shanghai where he later met a tragic death during the uprising of the Small Sword Society. Returning to Hongkong in 1845, Tong A-chick resumed his studies. In November 1845, six essays written by members of the senior class of the Morrison Education Society School were published. One of these was entitled “Chinese Government.” The essay appears to reflect impressions made upon A-chick in his post as interpreter, pointing out the injustice and corruption of late Ch'ing Dynasty. While critical of the malpractices, the author clearly described its administrative structure and procedure. The Morrison Education Society School was closed in the spring of 1849. The students were distributed among other schools. Along with seven of his schoolmates, Tong A-chick con- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 188 CARL SMITH ty. He received us in his office attached to the hall of the company whose chief he is. His dress is the native silk gown, close pants, and embroidered shoes. His address impresses strangers as both dignified and courteous. His education is perhaps defective in the Chinese classics, but he may reach powers under his own government, on the basis of wealth, and hereafter wield an important influence over the undisclosed but portentous destinies of the vast empire of whose subjects he is begotten.” Mr. Speer, the ever-hopeful missionary, envisaged A-chick playing an influential part in the future of China. Actually it was a brother, Tong King-sing, who played a rather important role in the modernisation of China. However, Tong Mow-chee, or as we have been calling him A-chick, was associated with his brother in some of the enterprises. As hopeful as Mr. Speer was, he was not able to get A-chick as one of the charter members of the congregation he organised. He did, however, assist by raising money within the Chinese community for building a mission house for the small Christian group. Already recognised by the Chinese as a leader, A-chick took around the subscription paper. Some US$2,000 was raised. The Chinese associations as well as business firms contributed liberally. Tong K. A. Chick and Company is listed for US$100. Though not a member of the first Chinese Christian congregation organised in America, A-chick retained the goodwill of the Christian community. In 1853 when he returned to Hongkong for a brief visit, he took with him a letter from the Rev. Mr. Van Mehr to the Bishop in Hongkong. He was still impressed by the young man. “It is impossible not to appreciate his sociable disposition, his kindness, his gentlemanly behaviour, his Christian deportment." The Bishop welcomed him back and listened with interest to his account of both religious and political developments in the Chinese community in California. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 199 might have been a member. Hence her appearance at Tong A-chick's place. The husband came in search of his wife. He was told that Tong A-chick had been seen handing some clothes to her in the basement of his house. The pursuing husband got a writ of habeas corpus from the court demanding that Tong A-chick restore his spouse to him. He charged that she was being kept against her will. A-chick in his testimony said that to his knowledge he never saw, knew, or spoke with the woman in question, and did not know where she was stopping at present. He might have handed the coat spoken of to some person in the basement, but he did not know the wife of A-lai was there at the time. The judge believed A-chick was telling the truth and discharged him. The incident had two consequences. Too A-sung brought divorce proceedings against her husband and Tong A-chick sued the proprietors of the Town Talk for libel. He claimed $5,000 damages from the publishers, P.P. Hull and company, charging that they had published libellous statements about him in commenting on his appearance in court in the case of the fleeing wife. He contended the newspaper article was intended “to bring him into public scandal, disrepute, infamy and disgrace, and for the further purpose to harass, oppress, impoverish and entirely ruin the plaintiff.” In denial, he said he was "a good, true, honest, just and faithful resident of the State of California and had always been respected, esteemed, and known among his neighbours to be a person of good name, fame and credit, and never been suspected to have been guilty of perjury, nor of abduction and extortion, nor of the sin of trafficking in human flesh, or of any other such crime.” The account of the case did not report the judge's decision, but it is probable that A-chick emerged vindicated, as he had in his other appearances at court. News of some of his troubles got back to Hongkong. The editor ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 205 "There were, of course, the usual crowd common to native processions present. Following those on foot came 100 riders in official robes, two abreast, followed by a detachment of native troops from the camp near the Arsenal, provided by the colonel, who was a friend of the deceased gentleman. Then came Chinese musicians and the town band, and then what is not often seen except in funerals of the highest officials, bands of Buddhist nuns and bonzes as well as Taoist priests. "After them came the chief mourners in sackcloth, while surrounded by a white panoply, screened from the gaze of the crowd, walked the sole surviving son of the deceased. Then came the coffin on a red bier with a dragon's head in gold and red, and after it some 200 chairs containing the female friends and relatives of the family and over 80 carriages.” Our story of Tong Mow-chee, alias A-chick, has taken us far from the lad of 11 taken by his father to meet his future schoolmaster, the Rev. S.R. Brown in 1839, but his position of wealth, influence and honour had its foundations in the schoolrooms of Macau and Hongkong. FROM A HONGKONG CLASSROOM TO ALTAR OF HEAVEN Closely associated with the Rev. Dr. Legge throughout his life in Hongkong was Ho A-sun, or, as he was also known, Ho Ye-tong. Actually they had first met when Mr. Legge first arrived in Malacca. By trade Ho A-sun was a book block-cutter. He was one of some half dozen people Dr. Robert Morrison had sent from Canton to work at the Ultra-Ganges Press the London Missionary Society established in Malacca. It was at a time when the Chinese authorities were strictly enforcing the prohibition against Chinese being employed by foreigners at Canton. Only those who had been granted special permission were allowed to work for the foreign traders. For this reason the printing of Morrison's translation of the Bible in Chinese at Canton could only be done secretly and at some risk to the Chinese printers. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 209 The fifth brother, Ho Wooi-shang, became an assistant in the business of A-tick, Hongkong's most successful tailor at that time. In addition he had a business at Honam in Canton. While visiting there he was wounded by a Chinese tax officer. He lingered long enough to make his will but died not long after leaving a family of small children. In the collection of the Legge family, which was deposited in the Archives of the London Missionary Society, there is a photograph of Ho Shun-chee, alias A-lloy. On the back is written: “To Miss Legge with kind regards from her sincere friend,” and an added note by Dr. Legge's daughter, Edith: "He told me he had attended the emperor when he went to pray at the Altar of Heaven." It is indeed a long step from a Hongkong classroom to the Altar of Heaven at Peking. TO THE GOLDFIELDS DOWN UNDER IN SEARCH OF CONVERTS Among the students of Dr. Legge's school in Hongkong were a number of boys from the Ho clan. Two orphaned brothers, Ho Low-yuk and Ho Mei-yuk, were near relatives of the Rev. Ho Fuk-tong. Both went to Australia after finishing school. They were part of an exodus of Hongkong-educated boys seeking their fortunes in overseas communities. As English speakers in a place where their countrymen were cut off from the general community, they served to bridge the gap. At the same time, government officials and Christians interested in the conversion of the Chinese needed someone through whom they could communicate with the immigrants. A-low and another young man from the school were urged by Dr. Legge to emigrate to Australia. Because of the unsettled conditions in China created by the Taiping rebellion, Dr. Legge felt it was not a good field for these two young men he had trained as religious workers. So provided with letters of introduction to a Congregational minister in Melbourne off they sailed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 219 year from Chan Kan-to, whom he called the owner of the island. Having done so, he then applied to the provincial government for permission to work it. He was about to send off a sample of the ore to England, when a mineralogist, Professor Milne of Tokyo, happened to be in Hong Kong. Ho A-mei arranged for him to visit the mines at Tam Chow and Lantao. The professor took some specimens back to Japan for analysis. He found the Tam Chow ore with 13 per cent silver, the same as the English report had been, and the Lantao specimen with five per cent. A-mei then proceeded to float a company for the development of the two mines. He imported machinery and brought from England a geologist, Mr. T.B. Chandler, as general supervisor, and an experienced Cornish miner, Mr. Phillips, to train and oversee the workers. A-mei tried to persuade the Kwangtung officials by pointing out that the development of mines would provide work for a large number of unemployed. Instead of going off to America, Australia and other places, the Cantonese people could be kept at home. His Australian experience had convinced him, however, that mines would only be operated profitably if modern machinery and methods were introduced from the West. With these arguments he persuaded the Viceroy of Kwangtung to establish a Bureau of Mines. In March 1866, the Lantao Island mine was formally opened. A launch party composed of interested Chinese and Europeans went over from Hongkong. It was, of course, necessary to get the favour of the earth god if the mine was to be a success. A small mat shed had been erected as a temporary temple. The sacrificial ceremonies were conducted by Chan, the owner of the land, the mandarin in charge of the island and his assistant, one of the directors of the mining company and Ho A-mei, the promoter of the mine. All of them were dressed in their official mandarin robes and the European observers were suitably impressed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 227 The whole matter was one that was not really for public discussion and the chairman suggested it be dealt with by the Standing Committee of the chamber. After some discussion this mode of dealing with the matter was approved. Ho A-mei may have been a little bold in speaking up at his first meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, but he was not one to shrink from expressing his opinions. His outspokenness received the approval of the press, which in its comments on the emigration resolution said: "It was a novelty that it was put forward, not without ability, fluency and clearness by a Chinaman. The fact is reassuring, as an indication of the interest in public events which is being developed amongst the Chinese." Ho A-mei, as "a Chinaman," was to speak out about public questions on many other occasions. HO DABBLES IN THE REALTY BUSINESS Ho A-mei's link with the distant past of Hongkong was a housing scheme he was promoting in 1895. The scheme was financed by the wealthy Li Sing family of Hongkong. They had purchased through a Hongkong-based company, Fuk Tin, the remaining rights of the Tang clan in the area between Laichikok and Shamshuipo. There are also references to the Fung Fuk and Tin Fuk firms in connection with the deal. The Tang's claim to the land extended back many centuries, most likely to the Sung dynasty, when members of the family first came into the region. There is well-substantiated evidence that the family once owned Hongkong Island, British Kowloon, much of New Kowloon, Tsing Yi Island and a substantial part of the New Territories. The original grant had been broken up through the centuries. It was divided among various branches of the clan, portions had been sold outright to others, certain tracts had been perpetually leased with the Tangs retaining their right to annual payments. The Tang family received no compensation for their claim for ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 233 question. The reply was properly evasive and noncommittal. In 1881 when Ma Kei-chung, Li's representative to India, passed through Hongkong, he was most anxious to confer with Governor Hennessy. According to local notices, the Governor played hard to get, though it was rumoured that they had discussed the formation of a syndicate which would buy opium in India, bring it to Hongkong and from there distribute it throughout China. It is here that Ho A-mei enters the story. According to Eitel's history of Hongkong, Europe in China, A-mei was to arrange for the $20 million proposed as capital for the new syndicate. Just which capitalists would back the project was not stated. Undoubtedly a number of wealthy Chinese in Hongkong were interested. Not long after Ma's stopover in Hongkong, Sir John Pope Hennessy, Governor of Hongkong, made a trip of a “private” nature to Peking. A John Pitman went to Peking at about the same time. He was a financial adventurer who became involved in several big schemes backed by Chinese capital. In one of these, the bid for the Wei Sing gambling monopoly at Macau, Ho A-mei had been associated with Pitman. Pitman was an intimate friend of Sir John Hennessy and it is possible that the Governor was presenting a scheme in Peking in which his friend had an interest. In January 1882, a report was circulated that Li Hung-chang had done a turnabout and appealed to the Emperor not to establish an opium syndicate. Fast upon this news came the rumour that the Tsung-li Yamen (the Chinese Foreign Affairs Bureau) was so pleased with Ma Kei-chung's negotiations, after his return from India, with Sir Thomas Wade, the British Minister, that it was going to recommend him for the post of superintendent of the syndicate should it be established in Hongkong. The authenticity of the report was put in doubt by the comment that a British Minister had never previously negotiated with anyone under the rank of a Viceroy, a position ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 250 CARL SMITH tions between the Government and the Chinese. He believed Chinese views on matters affecting public welfare should be known and taken into consideration in decisions made by the Government and its officials. He was a strong advocate of equal treatment of all groups within the Colony and was opposed to class legislation. These policies were not welcomed by a large part of Hongkong's expatriate population. When Ng Choy was named to the Legislative Council there were murmurs of displeasure. The choice, however, was a happy one. Ng Choy, a barrister educated in England, was a diplomat by nature. During the period he represented the Chinese on the council, he steered successfully the treacherous course of cooperation with Governor Hennessy's "pro-Chinese policy" and cross currents of opposition it aroused among the European colonials. All of his good sense, ability to relate to people, integrity of character and humour were needed, and these did not fail him. In 1882 he resigned to join the staff of Viceroy Li Hung-chang at Tientsin as a legal adviser. It was not easy to find someone who would fill the seat so capably. Ho A-mei, never backward, was willing and eager to compete for the high prize. His competitors were only a handful. Prominently mentioned were Dr. Ho Kai, Wei Yuk, Leung On and Wong Shing. Ho A-mei aspired to join their ranks. Who were these men and what were their qualifications? Wei Yuk had been educated in Scotland and was compradore of the Chartered Bank, having succeeded his father in that position. Governor Hennessy had made him a Justice of the Peace in one of his bids to tie the Chinese more closely to the Government. The editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph described Wei Yuk as "a gentleman of great intelligence besides his wealth and position, exercising vast influence in all local matters appertaining to the Chinese." He served on the Legislative Council from 1896 to 1914 and became known after receiving a knighthood as Sir Wei Po- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 252 CARL SMITH He had received a mandarin's degree from the Chinese Government. His education was limited to the years in Dr. Legge's school. He was not a scholar, but a promoter and financier. He sometimes expressed himself too bluntly on public occasions and was quick to engage in controversy. The hostile attitude of Ho A-mei toward Dr. Ho Kai may not have rested entirely upon his ambition to be a Legislative Councillor. It possibly might go back to the days when they met as boys in the home of the Rev. Ho Fuk-tong, Ho Kai as a son of the family, A-mei as the poor relative. Whatever the foundation for A-mei's critical attitude towards the doctor, the Chinese deputation of 1883 provided the opportunity for him to express it. The controversy within the Chinese community created by Dr. Ho Kai's remarks not only revealed that the Chinese were torn by parties and factions, jealousies and rivalries, but that Dr. Ho Kai, while eminently suitable from the foreign standpoint, might not be altogether acceptable to the Chinese as their representative and hence frustrate the purpose of having a Chinese on the council. This possibility was acknowledged by the English press. In commenting on Dr. Ho Kai's remarks to the Acting Governor, an editor said: “Granted that the learned barrister had been a most successful student, and admitting that he is a person of great attainment and doubtless of some ability, it is only fair to remember that he is a young man who can have but a very imperfect knowledge, whether of his countrymen or of the political and social exigencies of Hongkong." It concluded furthermore that the views he expressed “are merely the opinions of himself and perhaps a few of his immediate friends and supporters, but do not represent in any way the voice of Chinese public opinion in Hongkong." Perhaps it was unfortunate that Dr. Ho Kai assumed the responsibility of speaking for the Chinese before he had become thoroughly reacquainted after his long absence with the Chinese community in Hongkong. In terms of intimate knowledge of Chi- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 xiv 1986 LIABILITIES Accumulated Fund H.K. Currency ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH BALANCE SHEET AT 31ST DECEMBER 1987 1986 ASSETS $ 87,358 Listed Investments, at cost H.K. Currency $ 90,913.60 $158,173 34,247 $123,926 Balance as at 1st January, 1987 Less: Excess of Expenditure over Income in 1987 Balance as at 31st December 1987 $123,926.21 36,403.59 Accounts Receivable 87,522.62 Balance at Bank 75,000 Sundry Creditor - Printing Charges for Journal 90,000.00 100,000 Fixed Deposits Subscriptions (1988) received 7,810 Current Account 60,868.36 54,990.66 115,859.02 in advance $198,926 29,250.00 $206,772.62 $198,926 $206,772.62 Notes: (1) Listed investments at 31st December 1987: 1,140 shares Hang Seng Bank Limited 4,620 shares Hong Kong Electric (Holdings) Company Limited 5,081 shares Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation Add: Cost of Rights issued.. 4,620 shares Cavendish International Holdings Ltd.. (2) Subscription and interest incomes are accounted for on cash basis. Dated: February 1988 D.A. Gilkes Honorary Treasurer Cost Market Value $34,272.00 $31,350.00 24,192.00 34,881.00 28,893.60 32,449.60 3,556.00 13,629.00 $90,913.60 $116,697.25 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 120 doubt that such a man would be sympathetic to their views about the Chinese and Chinese matters. Ho A-mei was of a different sort altogether. He had served the Kwangtung Government for a number of years in an official capacity. He had received a mandarin's degree from the Chinese Government. His education was limited to the years in Dr. Legge's school. He was not a scholar, but a promoter and financier. He sometimes expressed himself too bluntly on public occasions and was quick to engage in controversy. The hostile attitude of Ho A-mei toward Dr. Ho Kai may not have rested entirely upon his ambition to be a Legislative Councillor. It possibly might go back to the days when they met as boys in the home of the Rev. Ho Fuk-tong, Ho Kai as a son of the family, A-mei as the poor relative. Whatever the foundation for A-mei's critical attitude towards the doctor, the Chinese deputation of 1883 provided the opportunity for him to express it. The controversy within the Chinese community created by Dr. Ho Kai's remarks not only revealed that the Chinese were torn by parties and factions, jealousies and rivalries, but that Dr. Ho Kai, while eminently suitable from the foreign standpoint, might not be altogether acceptable to the Chinese as their representative and hence frustrate the purpose of having a Chinese on the Council. This possibility was acknowledged by the English press. In commenting on Dr. Ho Kai's remarks to the Acting Governor, an editor said: "Granted that the learned barrister has been a most successful student, and admitting that he is a person of great attainment and doubtless of some ability, it is only fair to remember that he is a young man who can have but a very imperfect knowledge, whether of his country or of the political and social exigencies of Hongkong." It concluded furthermore that the views he expressed “are merely the opinions of himself and perhaps a few of his immediate friends and supporters, but do not represent in any way the voice ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 122 order the suspension of the ordinance. When the crisis passed the measures it provided to control the Chinese population would no longer be needed, however, they would remain on the statute books to be reintroduced by the Governor in Council if a future situation warranted it. Once enacted, however, they were never officially suspended. Instead they came to be regarded as a way of reducing crime at night, though for long periods there was great laxity over its enforcement. The introduction of the rule that the Chinese must carry lights and passes at night was the result of the outbreak of the Sino-British conflict, sometimes referred to as the Second Opium War. The spark which set fire to the smouldering tensions created by the frustration of the foreigner in his desire to force open China to unrestricted trade was the seizure at Canton in October 1856 of the crew of a Hongkong-registered vessel, the Arrow. The Chinese authorities claimed the crew members were pirates. Their detention and the alleged hauling down of the British flag provoked an escalating series of demands, threats and incidents between the British and Chinese. These eventually climaxed in the looting and burning of the Imperial Summer Palace at Peking in 1860. The Chinese would not meet the demands for an apology for "the insult to the British flag" nor the return of the crew in a manner satisfactory to the English. To force the issue, the British breached the walls of Canton, penetrated to the Viceroy's stronghold and then withdrew. They met no resistance. Then boats were seized, forts were shelled, troops marched back and forth. For the British it all seemed like a military lark, with their superior power meeting no resistance from the Chinese, but only threatening proclamations issued by the Viceroy urging the destruction of the barbarians, with a price set upon the heads of certain prominent foreigners. Affairs took a more serious turn when the area along the river at Canton, where the foreigners lived and did their business, was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 128 Equality would mean the abolition of “class legislation.” According to the papers the rumour of the Governor's intention to repeal such laws was "the topic of conversation at almost every dinner table, and wherever people assemble for business or recreation." The uneasiness among the Europeans as to Governor Hennessy's next move presaged rough times ahead. A colonial, who titled himself "Diner Out," expressed his opposition to Governor Hennessy's liberal policies. The writer viewed the rumours of the Governor's intention to abolish flogging and the pass system as a sure licence for crime. He predicted that foreigners "enjoying frequently the hospitality of friends, it may even be at Government House, (will) find themselves obliged either to go armed to the teeth, as was the case only a few years back, or else remain unwilling prisoners in their own dwellings from dusk to dark.” Although it would not have served his cause, he could have added as the Chinese must under the present regulations. A correspondent “Grundy,” adding his bit to the discussion, suggested that if the night pass system was abolished “all invitations to dinner, if sent at all, shall thereafter bear the following P.S. - 'Please bring your boy and your revolver'." Some feared there were rough times ahead under Governor Hennessy's administration. “Anti-Bumptious" wrote: "I feel the storm clouds are gathering, and although there is very little likelihood of rioting as there was in the Barbados (where Governor Hennessy had formerly been) still the same stormy petrel spirit is at work, and will produce mischief.” Furthermore, according to a local editor, the Chinese really had nothing to complain of and there was no need to change the Government's relation to them. An editorial in the China Mail expressed this view: "With Artemus Ward of the negro, we may fairly ask 'Who trod on him?' and the answer will readily be found in the growing wealth and commercial importance of the native community of Hongkong, the amount of weight now attached to their utterances ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 155 legal system. This, the memorial claimed, China did not have. It was for this reason that foreign nations had demanded extra-territorial rights. By insisting on this protection for their subjects in China, the Treaty Powers showed, it was affirmed, that “in one most important particular they consider it (China) outside the pale of modern civilisation.” The foreigners easily recognised that the Chinese legal system was different from theirs, but they did not appreciate the traditional values and procedures it embodied. These had enabled China to survive as a united nation for more than a millennium. On the other hand, the administration of the law in Hongkong was sometimes arbitrary and unfair. There was special legislation affecting the Chinese only; and an examination of nineteenth century court cases leads me to conclude that it often did not properly ensure the life, liberty and property of the Chinese who were under its jurisdiction. Nor was every European in that day convinced that the Chinese received fair treatment in Hongkong. In 1863 a traveller, probably a missionary, reported the following incident at a village near Shumchun just beyond the present border: A Chinese, when he saw the stranger, took off his coat and showed his back to the assembled villagers. It bore the marks of a severe flogging. The victim called upon all to observe "how the foreign devils in Hongkong treat a respectable Chinese.” The traveller was sympathetic. He observed: "I strongly disapprove of the way such punishments are carried out by the police. It used to be a most horrid spectacle to see, as often one might have done, a poor wretch, with his back all raw and bloody, exposed in Queen's Road, trembling with pain, shame and cold." He thought it was natural for the Chinese to bitterly resent such treatment, especially those who "had suffered unjustly, or from some trivial offence such as three hairs from a horse's tail, for which I have known flogging with a rattan afflicted.” Page 180 Page 181 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 161 BLOCKADE FINDS A CHAMPION The Chinese petition to the Queen concerning the evils of what was called the Chinese “blockade” of Hongkong was followed by a public meeting held at the City Hall in September 1874, to draw up resolutions to present to the Government in Britain. The meeting began with the calamitous forecast by the chief manager of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, Mr. James Greig, that Hongkong's junk trade was threatened with complete extinction and the acts of China in patrolling the waters near Hongkong were an outrage. He proposed the first resolution: "That this meeting regards with feelings of amazement and alarm the organised invasion by the Hoppo of Canton of the freedom and sanctuary of the port and harbour of Hongkong." There was one person at the meeting who had not been carried away by the ground-swell of indignation which pervaded the mercantile section of the community. The unofficial member of the Legislative Council and senior partner in Hongkong of Jardine, Matheson and Company, Mr. James Whittall, stated his opinion that the commerce of Hongkong was not suffering from the blockade. Indeed, he claimed that trade had improved after some recent sluggishness and was as large as it ever had been. Furthermore, China had a perfect right to levy and collect duties on cargoes. Several speakers questioned the accuracy of Mr. Whittall's estimate of the progress of Hongkong trade. One drew attention to the Harbour Master's report for the previous year which showed a decline in junks entering and leaving the harbour. But Mr. Whittall stood firm. He reminded the meeting that his company did a very large business and he ought to be fully acquainted with the situation. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 171 In his memorandum to the Foreign Office, the British Minister at Peking, Sir Thomas Francis Wade, reviewed the whole problem of customs collections as it related to Hongkong from the time of the treaty revision in 1868. He remarked: "The sum of my propositions from first to last was that we should either retrocede Hongkong to the Chinese Government or that we should allow the Chinese Government to establish a branch of the Customs Inspectorate in Hongkong; either concession, of course, to be purchased of us by a counter-concession to the general advantage of British trade with China, the particular advantage to Colonial Trade being the reduction to a minimum of the interference of the Chinese Revenue Service with native craft.” Hongkong residents naturally would have considered the British Minister's suggestion of giving Hongkong back to China as a betrayal and sell-out. In their view it would totally discredit British prestige. One wonders if Wade was really serious in his suggestion. He interpreted the conclusions of the Hongkong Commission as a denial of the right of the Chinese Government to search vessels of its own people on the high seas, or in its own waters if such vessels were within 10 miles of Hongkong. As a diplomat, Wade believed some concessions were needed. Britain should do what it could to ensure that China received whatever duties it might levy on goods leaving or arriving on its shores, even though they passed through Hongkong. Robertson at Canton also advocated conciliation. He charged Hongkong with viewing the problem too narrowly: "There are other interests of more importance than the interests of local trade which seem to be forgotten in the battle for local interests, and I fear if the report of the committee be published the Chinese authorities, knowing it was appointed by the Colonial Government, may consider that the strong expressions of opinion it contains are sanctioned by the Executive, and this may tend to interrupt the entente cordiale which is so important to maintain." He was ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 207 Here lay the difficulty, however, to get the community to agree on a definite proposal. The presiding officer volleyed the ball back into the court of the community. He explained that there had been no move by the Government to propose definite plans because "His Excellency considers that any steps that may be taken with this object would no doubt be more fully appreciated by Her Most Gracious Majesty if they were the spontaneous act of the loyal community of Hongkong," though he definitely wished to reassure the public that the Government was ready to co-operate. Hidden in the phrase "spontaneous act" was the seed of the muddle Hongkong got itself into over the jubilee plans. Behind the scenes there had been planning strategy to promote a particular scheme. The plan for the park had the backing of influential people. Many, however, considered it inappropriate and wished to promote their own proposals. There was some delay in holding a public meeting after the Government announced that it would wait for the public to make suggestions. Mr. Chater had raised the question in the Legislative Council on February 11, 1887. At the time Hongkong was caught up in racing fever. In those days the annual race meeting was restricted to three ordinary days and one off day during the last week of February. The days preceding were busy ones for owners, riders and punters. Many felt it obligatory to attend the early morning practice runs at the track. Many of the leading figures of the community were absorbed in these preparations and had little spare time for arranging a public meeting. Mr. Chater had one of the largest stables in association with his partner, Mr. Hormusjee Mody. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 210 loving wife, as a devoted mother, and as an excellent grandmother to her children's children. Her Majesty's life was a model for all, for "in her private life she has been almost irreproachable and her conduct has been such as to draw forth the admiration of nearly the whole world (applause)." The meeting began with sentiments no loyal son of the Empire could deny. After the chairman's stirring tribute there was no doubt that the meeting would be of one mind on the resolution he proposed: “That the Jubilee of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen should be celebrated by her loyal subjects in Hongkong.” About halfway through the meeting the Acting Attorney-General, Mr. E. J. Ackroyd, again expounded patriotic reasons for the proposed celebrations. He extended the sentiments expressed in the chairman's introductory speech. Though he had arisen to second a resolution made by Mr. Chater that the permanent memorial in Hongkong to the celebration be in the form of a park in the Wongneichong Valley, he seized the occasion for a bit of oratory which was only indirectly related to the resolution. He began: "This is a special occasion which ought to call forth the loyal sentiments of all Her Majesty's subjects, for on June 20 next we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Her Majesty's accession to the throne of the British Empire." It was an occasion for reflection on the achievements of a glorious half century of Britain's history: "If we look back on the years that have passed since that event, I think we must do so with feelings of great pride in view of the immense progress made on all sides during this period." The speaker then enumerated various areas in which progress was particularly notable: "If we consider the expansion of the empire itself, we shall find it has been wonderful, both as regards the extent of territory and of population. During these years trade ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 227 The chairman of the public meeting had attempted to avoid these difficulties. He sensed that the community was about to launch itself into a stormy sea if it decided too quickly on a project. He suggested that they might like to have more time to consider the matter. If so, he said he would be quite willing to entertain a motion for the meeting to be postponed until there was sufficient time for mature reflection. Or, as an alternative, if there was no wish for another meeting, the official committee which was to be named could be instructed to ascertain the views and wishes of the whole community. These suggestions were wise, and much discord would have been avoided if they had been heeded. Following the meeting, one writer listed all the schemes which had come to his notice. He had heard of "the enlargement of the already too large City Hall, of the removal of the Clock Tower to another site, of transporting the Dent Fountain to Wongneichong (to be buried there, perhaps) and of its replacement by a statue of the Queen in front of the City Hall, the addition of a ballroom to Government House, of a statue of the Queen anywhere or everywhere, of a subscription to the Indian and Colonial Institute, of the balance of subscriptions for a fete and rejoicings being handed over to the local charities, of a high school for girls, a home for the Protection of Young Girls, and (most wonderful of all) of a Poor House." To put his own stamp of foolishness on the affair, the writer said: "It has likewise been breathed softly, but not yet openly proposed, that a Home for Decayed British Merchants who have subscribed regularly for charities for say twenty years back might be suitable, as it seems likely to be a necessary mode of celebrating the historical event of Her Majesty's jubilee." A few of the proposals are of special interest because they reflect some of the social problems of the period. Two of them were concerned about the needs of girls in Hongkong. The proposal for a middle school for girls would satisfy an ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 228 unmet need. It was pointed out by one speaker at the meeting: "We are turning out and shall continue to turn out young men more and more advanced, I hope, as the years go by" here he was referring principally to Central Government School (later Queen's College). "But," he continued, "we are not providing in the same ratio suitable wives for them." In his view educated men would profit by having educated wives. There was also another dimension to the education of females. "We must also consider that the wife is mother of the future generations, and it would be a great thing, if we were sufficiently ripe for it, to educate the mothers of the future generations who are to dwell among us, and a great thing for the people of the country." In his day, education for women meant preparation for their lives as wives and mothers, not as in our day for careers in business, the professions, industry or the arts. In 1893, the Hongkong philanthropist, Emanuel Raphael Belilios, gave money to establish a middle school for girls. Today it is located on Tin Hau Temple Road. Another memorial scheme discussed was a home to care for girls and women rescued from brothels. Many of these had been purchased and their status was not far from slavery. The buying and selling of children and women was prohibited in Hongkong, but its control was difficult. The demand for girls was great enough to encourage kidnapping in China and their transportation to Hongkong or to overseas Chinese communities. In an effort to check these abuses and protect women and girls, the Po Leung Kuk had been organised in 1880. It was promoted by leading Chinese merchants and had been approved by the Government. No provision had been made at that time, however, for the housing of those who came under the Society's protection. The intention was to send them back to their homes in China. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 230 public meeting, had to be abandoned after the official committee wrote to the Government about it. In order to get an estimate of the cost to the public to complete the park, the committee asked "to be furnished with a plan of the proposed park, with an estimate of probable cost and what proportion Government was willing to contribute.” The Government rejected the offer of assistance from the public. The committee was reminded of the reply the Governor had given back in February, when the question of the jubilee was first raised. The Government expected the public to initiate its own plans for the celebration. Now, however, it appeared the community was looking for a Government decision before it acted. The public should plan and carry through its own scheme independent of the Government. As for the park, the committee was reminded it had already been approved by the Secretary of State as a Government venture, therefore, “His Excellency thinks it would not be right for him to suggest any alteration of that original proposal which was estimated to cost $25,000 and will be carried out as soon as the financial position of the Colony warrants the expenditure.” The committee had little alternative but to resign, as it was impossible in the face of the Government's position to carry out the mandate given them to create a park as a jubilee memorial. CHINESE GO AHEAD WITH THEIR OWN MEMORIAL As Hongkong's expatriates plunged into confusion over their plans to observe the jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, the Chinese moved steadily forward with plans for their own project and bringing it to fruition. One major reason the foreigners had reached an impasse was because they had not included the Chinese in the initial planning for the celebration. The co-operation of the Chinese was essential Page 255 Page 256 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 248 had been heard saying as he left: “Anything more idiotic than a public meeting in Hongkong I never saw." The editor felt the whole affair had been a ridiculous farce reflecting little credit on the common sense of the community. It was also reported that the published account of the meeting upon which I have based my account gave but "a faint idea of the vast amount of meaningless talk and the playing at cross purposes which took place." The paper was particularly critical of Mr. Ryrie's refusal to have a recount on a disputed vote. It pointed out that he himself had spoken in support of the motion, then when the vote on the motion he had supported was challenged, he paid no heed to a request for a recount or a statement regarding the number of votes cast. The editor graciously excused Mr. Ryrie from "a desire to catch a vote by a trick, rather than to hold the scales fairly and impartially." He believed that “in the case of Mr. Ryrie, whose love of fair play is proverbial, it is impossible to draw such an inference, and we are driven back on the supposition that the extraordinary course he adopted was due simply to testiness of temper." The news writer regretted that Bishop Burdon's suggestion of a committee to consider plans was not adopted. He viewed as remote the possibility that the next meeting would arrive at a definite opinion regarding a memorial. A committee would have been able to give considered deliberation to each scheme, as it was, he said that "a scheme would likely be adopted by a 'flukey' vote." Not only Mr. Ryrie but also Mr. Crow came in for criticism. In the 1880s there were strict social divisions in Hongkong. Stepping out of one's place upset the social order. One newspaper correspondent intimated that Mr. Crow had been presumptuous in speaking out at the meeting to propose his suggestion for a memorial. At public meetings it was customary that resolutions and remarks were made only by well-established community leaders. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 2. LISTED INVESTMENTS The Society's listed investments are stated at cost and comprise the following: 1988 1987 HK$ HK$ 4,620 shares in Cavendish International Holdings Ltd 9,365 9,365 1,425 shares in Hang Seng Bank Ltd 34,272 34,272 5,589 shares in Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd 32,450 32,450 4,620 shares in Hong Kong Electric (Holdings) Co Ltd 14,827 14,827 90,914 90,914 The market value at the balance sheet date was HK$124,050 (1987: HK$116,697). xxii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 220 stock of the company was $1,000,000, and it was all needed before the end of the first year's business. Prior to the appearance of Rennie as a miller, the chief obstacle to milling with a profit in China was the lack of a market for the offal. Practically all of the profit enjoyed by the Pacific coast millers came from the high prices at which they were able to market millfeed, for which there was no demand in the Orient. Rennie, without much investigation, decided that the offal from his two thousand barrel mill could be fed to pigs at a profit and he established a “piggery” with several hundred animals at the start. But millfeed for Chinese hogs was but little more nutritious than poison, and they died by hundreds; the experiment proved a flat failure. This was the beginning of the trouble, and as there was no market for millfeed in the Orient, it became necessary, in order to dispose of it, to ship it to Honolulu. Here it was sold at a very low price in competition with the Oregon mills. As Rennie secured most of his wheat from Portland and Puget Sound, the bran and shorts that finally found a consumer at Honolulu, had to stand a freight rate across the Pacific, and thence half way back again, compared with a short mileage between the Pacific coast ports and Honolulu, paid by the American millfeed. While the pigs were dying, the Chinese were refusing to buy the flour. Mr. Wilcox had spent a large sum of money in working up a trade throughout the Orient for particular "chops", as the fantastic brands are known. The Chinese by years of experience had learned to have confidence in these “chops". So long as Rennie had them for sale, they bought from Rennie, but when Rennie, with his new mill, attempted to sell something "just as good", the Chinese buyers politely but firmly refused. The Orientals are conservative in the extreme and they steadily refused to take up the new brands put on the market by the Hongkong mill. With slow sales for flour, and no profitable outlet for millfeed, matters were far from bright last winter when a cargo of weevily wheat from India distributed the industrious weevil throughout the mill and warehouses so thoroughly that Americans who have since visited the mill express the opinion that it will be impossible to rid the plant of the pest. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 79 Commandant of the near-by Gendarmerie post promised us protection, he took no steps to implement his promise, and we had a number of invasions from parties of Japanese soldiers, on and off duty, sometimes searching for arms, sometimes frankly looting watches, jewellery and other small valuables. My wife had a polite but firm way of dealing with these intruders, and in the end they got nothing from us but some cigarettes. On January 3rd Mr. Gimson (the Colonial Secretary) and Mr. Alabaster (the Attorney-General) came up the hill to find out what had happened to us. They told me that they had spoken to Mr. Yano (who had come back to Hongkong temporarily as Consul-General) and the Gendarmerie people about us and the other Embassy and Consular personnel who were in Hongkong (Mr. and Mrs. Martin, Mr. and Mrs. Rich, Evans, Herrett and Miss Howkins) and we were to be given special consideration. This was comforting but in the event did not mean very much as there was the usual confusion between the different Japanese authorities, none of whom seemed to pay the slightest attention to the others. Then on January 5th notices were posted up in different places instructing all enemy aliens to report at the Murray Parade Ground between 10 a.m. and noon for internment. The notice said they could take what luggage they could carry in their hands and that they must leave the rest of their property in charge of some responsible person. This notice only came to our knowledge on the Peak at 9 a.m. People didn't know what on earth to do. If they started off immediately, walking down the Peak, they could get to the Murray Parade Ground in time. But there were old people, babies and invalids. Most people thought it would be dangerous to disobey a peremptory order like that, and they struggled down the hill as best they could, taking a suitcase or pushing a pram and abandoning everything else to the looters. For my wife and myself there was no problem as we couldn't walk, so we decided to stay and hope for the best, and a good number of others followed our example. As it happened, things turned out all right, as Sir Arthur Macgregor called later in the day to say that he had arranged with the Gendarmerie that the people still on the Peak might remain temporarily but must be ready to move at a minute's notice. However, the Police post had gone, we were in difficulties about food and water (we had eaten the last crust of three-weeks-old bread that morning), and we had had an unpleasant visit from a party of Japanese soldiers at 2 a.m. We were completely alone in the flat, other flats in the building had already been looted, and generally the situation was unpromising. So we asked Sir Atholl to try ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 84 anti-aircraft fire, but as far as I could see, they were completely unscathed. The bombing seemed to me to be directed entirely against what were, or might be taken to be, military objectives, and this indeed may be said of the artillery fire also. During the 18 days fighting Queen Mary Hospital, 400 yards from Mt. Davis Fort, did not receive a single direct hit. The two hospitals on the Peak (i.e. the Matilda Hospital and the War Memorial Nursing Home) were repeatedly hit by shells, but I think this was due to the fact that the Japanese were searching for two field batteries which were located uncomfortably close to the two hospitals: this, at any rate, was the explanation given by a Japanese officer who came to the War Memorial Nursing Home while I was there after the surrender. One point which struck me very forcibly was the small size of the bombs and shells which the Japanese were using. I saw many direct hits by bombs on buildings on the Peak but in no case did I see any building completely demolished as my house in Chungking was; and the shells, which I am told were mostly from field guns and trench mortars, did not seem to have much penetrating power: they hardly scarred modern reinforced concrete buildings such as the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank building and the block of flats where my wife and I were living. I am told that the Japanese were using heavier weapons elsewhere, but my general impression was that the Japanese were mainly using what I think Mr. Hore-Belisha called “Woolworth” material. As regards the behaviour of the Japanese in Hongkong I think I must distinguish between two phases, i.e. the actual attack and afterwards. There are many well-authenticated stories of the shooting or bayoneting of British prisoners during the attack, though how general the practice was I have no means of judging. (A Commissioner of Customs, Mr. Flanagan, who is in the "Narkunda", told me he had seen a number of corpses of British soldiers still with their hands tied behind their backs). There was also a very nasty affair at Stanley where two doctors, three nurses and a number of Canadian officers and possibly others were massacred. There were also apparently numerous cases of rape including a few European women and girls. The situation however was quickly brought under control and there was nothing at all resembling the licensed disorder which followed the capture of Nanking in 1937. We were indeed told by people who were in Kowloon when the Japanese came in, that the behaviour of the latter towards European women was good though numbers of Chinese and half-caste girls were taken off, obviously for ... * The staff repatriated via the "Kamakura Maru" were transferred to the "Narkunda" in Lourenço Marques. (Editor's Note) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 118 1 left by steamer for Canton, the great southern Chinese town, which sprawls along the shore of the Pearl River; and spent a few days on the Shameen mud-bank, just off the city, where the small British and French Concessions are. The Concessions were untouched; but, across the narrow creek that separates them from the shore, the city had suffered heavily from bombing, and from the fires which raged furiously in the congested native districts after each raid. One morning I crossed to the South bank and took the branch line to Samshui on the West river, where I caught the steamer for Wuchow in Kwangsi province. Although owned by a Chinese company, the small river steamer flew the British flag. That was a phenomenon common enough on the inland waters of China. The foreign flag protected the ship from being commandeered by the local war lord. Sometimes for months on end steam traffic, on this water-way or that, would be completely disorganised. The Chinese ships would be impressed to carry the troops of the various armies contending for power. It was only under a foreign flag that they could find the security which would justify their remaining in operation at all. The British government did not welcome this use of the British flag, and introduced regulations to control abuse of the privilege. In order to qualify for British registry a ship must at least carry a British captain and a British chief engineer, and must comply with the Board of Trade regulations in regard to safety measures. But even so, the Chinese owners would make every effort to obtain British registry for their ships, thus in one direction taking advantage of the treaties between Britain and China while, in the other, probably contributing to the Kuo Min Tang party funds, which were used to denounce the iniquities of those very same treaties. In order to comply with the letter of the regulations, the particular ship I now found myself on carried three British officers, whose aggregate age exceeded 200 years. They were, of course, mere figure-heads, the actual work being done by the Chinese officers and crew. These river-boats kept communications open and provided a measure of security for travellers - owing to the presence of British gunboats these small ships moving on inland waters were seldom attacked by bandits which otherwise would have been lacking. ― In Kwangsi the road system had been extended to connect Wuchow with the other large towns of the province and I left by car for Kweilin, the capital. An American aviator, who had been down to Hongkong on a shopping expedition, travelled with me as far as ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 121 day to Changsha. The capital of Hunan, the province with a long history of anti-foreign fanaticism, is situated on the Siang river, which flows down to the Yangtze above Hankow. In summer the middle-river steamers come up as far as Changsha, but in winter the level over the sand flats where the river passes through the Tung Ting lake, near its mouth, is so shallow that even the specially designed river gunboats cannot pass. One British gunboat generally wintered at Changsha. There was no concession, and in the course of time the foreign community had congregated on a long sand bar, which made an island in the river, opposite the city. The few bungalows were grouped round the Club. It was a simple life with tennis and walks for relaxation. Normally Changsha connected with the outer world by ship through Shanghai, but now for over a year that channel had been closed by the war and the number of the foreign community, usually not more than a couple of dozen, was reduced. It did, however, include two British tank officers, loaned to the Chinese army, whom I had last seen in Nanking. They now depended for their supplies on the new railway to Hongkong. I left my car here and went on to Hankow by train. It was nearly twenty years since I had last been in Hankow, years crowded with change, not only material but also intellectual. Hither junks from the far north-west of China, in Shensi Province, came down the Han river. From here they could sail a leg up the Yangtze, and proceed along the Siang river, until their mast-tops showed a view towards Kweilin. To the west, through the famous gorges, the small steamers fought the current to Chungking 700 miles distant; and 600 miles downriver, past Kiu Kiang, Wuhu, and Nanking, lay Shanghai and the sea. The railway in normal times ran north-east to Peking and south to Canton and Hongkong. On the opposite bank, a kilometre away, the provincial capital, Wuchang, showed; larger than Hankow and, across the Han, where that river made an angle with the Yangtze, the industrial town of Hanyang belched its smoke. Of the Concessions along the water front, only the French retained its status. The British Concession had been returned at the time of the Chen-O'Malley negotiations ten years previously; the German and Russian Concessions had reverted to China after the Great War, and the Japanese Concession had been evacuated soon after the Lukouchiao (Marco Polo Bridge) incident. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 122 Our office had removed to a new building, a tall building with lifts and American plumbing. But the old office was still there, a little way down the Bund, in the French Concession, built of red bricks in a style which can only be described as Sino-Edwardian, though decked with a hangover of that rococo embellishment, which was not one of the glories of Queen Victoria's reign. It was in that office so many years ago that a dear old Chinese merchant had patiently explained to me how in Hankow the yolks of all the eggs were in the centre of the egg, because Hankow was in the centre of China. Not a little bit up the egg, or a little bit down, but just in the centre. I asked him where the yolk of the egg was up in the north at Tientsin, but he said he did not know as he had never moved far from Hankow; and, I fear, he attributed my ill-concealed scepticism to callow youth. I do not suppose all those young Chinese officers who now walked briskly along the road worried where the yolk of the egg was. For since the fall of Nanking, eight months earlier, Hankow had been the capital of China, and also the headquarters of the army. The Japanese were held up at the Mateng bluff, where the Yangtze narrows some miles below Kiu Kiang, but the pressure was increasing and it was thought that Kiu Kiang might fall soon. Before leaving Hongkong I had taken the precaution of providing myself with six bottles of whisky, as I had heard that supplies were running short in Hankow. My information was not quite accurate. I found there was plenty of whisky, but it was a green colour, derived from the solder-flux of the Kerosene tins in which it was despatched from Hongkong. Freight on the railway was reserved for war material, and it was easier to bring up an odd tin of whisky than to find space for a case. The green whisky, it was discovered, could be taken, in the usual small doses, with impunity. Nevertheless my six bottles, containing liquid of a more agreeable shade, were acceptable. They unfortunately did not go far. I heard afterwards that an enterprising chemist found a way of removing the green colour from the imported whisky to the joy of patrons who had qualms regarding the effect of solder-flux on gastric juices. Hankow was a very busy place. Amongst other things the rolling stock, which had been salvaged from the north China railways, was being ferried as quickly as possible over to the south bank. Locomotives of diverse size and vintage were shunted down to Hengyang onto sidings where they were held for spare parts or for... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 128 is an immense shortage of persons qualified to fill the professions; doctors, engineers, chemists, and even lawyers. In the interests of the future all students are automatically exempt from conscription; so are all those of whatever station in life who have escaped from Japanese occupied territory. There would be no inducement to escape otherwise. Under the circumstances we can appreciate the necessity for these exemptions. When recruits are required for the army, a quota is allocated to each district: the magistrate in turn calls for a levy from each village to fill his quota. Those with money or influence can buy off their sons; it is the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden who are taken. They are roped together, with a loop round the left forearm, so that they can still use the bamboo pole to carry a load, and marched off to the training centre. There many die, and others desert. Indeed, there is now a class of professional deserter. If recruiting is going on in a district, these men will turn up and offer to serve in the place of anyone who has the price. They collect their money, march off with the conscripts, and desert at the first opportunity, to repeat the performance elsewhere. There are means in China of tracing missing men back to their families, but amidst the confusion caused by years of war it is easy for the vagabond to give a false name and address. There are so many millions of displaced, homeless, nameless people in China now; we should not be too critical of these methods. The wonder is that the Chinese government has been able to carry on at all under such immense difficulties. Instead of an insistence on saving face, and thus misleading world opinion, had there been a reasonable relaxation of the iron censorship in order that the world could learn of the prodigious efforts the Chinese have made, there would, I think, be a better understanding of, and greater sympathy for, China's problems. The afternoon of the third day we rolled over the iron bridge that spans the North river, a tributary of the West river, into bomb-shattered Kukong. Here I waited for the train and was fortunate to find a carriage, which had been reserved for a party of British sailors from the crews of the gunboats at Hankow; they were being evacuated to Hongkong, and kindly made room for me in their compartment. The track near Canton had been broken during a recent raid. We had to alight there and make our way to the city as best we could; riding through in a rickshaw I had leisure to observe the extent of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 ― 129 damage. The war caught many Chinese towns in a state of transition. The new urge for progress had overcome the financial reluctance of shopowners, in their dark narrow alleys, to allow the authorities of the town to tear down their shop fronts without compensations. For where was the money for compensation to be found and put back the frontage twenty or thirty feet. It was a double loss. Not only were the shop owners faced with the cost of rebuilding the shop front, but the ground surrendered was irretrievably lost. Often, the depth would be cut down by half, leaving only a fraction, inadequate to the continuation of the business on that site. When that happened, it was just too bad. There was nothing that could be done about it. The process of road widening was in full swing when the war started: it was even continued during the war, and often a bombing raid saved the cost of pulling down a street length of shop fronts. The new Chinese towns will be rebuilt with wider streets, and the houses will be of improved design. The Chinese are learning the advantages of sunlight and fresh air. Kiu Kiang was captured in July: in October the Japanese landed in Bias Bay and marched through, apparently with little opposition, to Canton: there was yet another surge of refugees into Hongkong. Shortly after, Hankow fell, and the capital removed to Chungking. The Japanese continued their advance up the Yangtze until they reached Ichang at the foot of the Gorges; but, some local incursions apart, those were the limits of their advance for the next four years. The railway connection was cut. No longer was I pressed by the insistent Chinese officials to load cargo onto lighters to be ferried across the harbour to the Kowloon railway jetty. In the past only too often were the promised railcars not available at the appointed time, and the cargo would have to come all the way back into the godowns on the Hongkong side, at considerable cost in lighterage and coolie hire, unrecovered. The shipment of supplies was now diverted to Indo-China. From Haiphong they were sent by rail to the Kwangsi border for transfer by lorry to Kweilin, which became the distributing centre for Western China. Substantial supplies for Eastern China could still pass in, under a foreign flag, through the unoccupied eastern ports, such as Ningpo, Wenchow and Foochow. Japan was not at war with China, and so was unable to declare a blockade; but such trade was mainly confined ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 130 to commercial goods, as it moved under the Japanese shadow. Under her conception of “incident” Japan had methods of applying pressure to foreign shipping companies, a pressure which in the existing atmosphere of appeasement it was difficult to resist. Following on the occupation of Canton, the Japanese mopped back towards Hongkong, but they left only a small garrison to watch the border. A heavy smuggled trade sprang up, not only over the border, but also by junk through the countless small inlets and bays of the neighbourhood. The Japanese exerted themselves to coerce the Colonial Government to suppress the trade. Their efforts met with failure: until Hongkong was itself submerged in a wider conflict, the Chinese war effort continued to benefit. Hongkong is one of the world's great ports, the offspring of British administrative practice and Chinese commercial fecundity. Every year twenty-two million tons of shipping were entered and cleared. In the harbour the flags of many nations could be seen, from those of the great Western Powers to that of the little republic of Panama. The flags of the Scandinavian nations, of Norway and Denmark, were particularly in evidence, so far from home, witness to the freedom of the seas for which Britain stood sponsor. The volume of trade which passed through Hongkong was naturally restricted by the Japanese occupation of Canton. Cargo vessels called less frequently, but the great liners on fixed passenger schedules continued to go alongside the Kowloon wharves, often two or three at a time, ships of the American President line, the Canadian Pacific line, the Peninsular and Oriental, the Nord Deutscher Lloyd, the Nippon Yoshen Kaisha, the Dutch J.C.L., the Lloyd Trestino, the Blue Funnel, the City, the Messageries Maritimes and many other lines. I was due for home leave and sailed in the new P.& O. liner, the R.M.S. "Canton", on her maiden trip, in December 1938. The passengers lined the rails as we steamed towards the Lyeemoon passage. Did they realise what a remarkable monument to Sino-British co-operation was that lovely green hill side at which they gazed? Hongkong bears happy testimony, in a difficult future, to the benefits that flow from cordial relations between China and the British Empire. Shanghai and Eastern China 1939 Shanghai was the splendid stronghold of foreign interests in the Far ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 137 Maru was blown ashore at Hongkong during a typhoon, and the British without fuss readily agreed to allow the Japanese to salvage her themselves from right under the guns of one of the major forts of the Hongkong defences. They were hard at it when I was in Hongkong in 1938. Now, of course, all that unilateral courtesy was forgotten by the champions of Greater East Asia. In May we were faced with Dunkirk, in June France collapsed. The Japanese applied pressure to both Britain and France to discontinue transfer of supplies to China over routes under their control. America gave no support. France agreed to close the Indo-China railway to such supplies. At the height of the negotiations with Britain, Mr. Stephen Early, the President's Secretary issued a statement asserting "...the complete absence of any intention whatever on the part of the United States to interfere with territorial questions involving adjustments in Europe or Asia. The United States Government want to see, and thinks there should be, application of the Monroe Doctrine in Europe and Asia, similar to its interpretation and application for this hemisphere." Japan saw the green light. On July 18th Great Britain agreed to close the Burma road for three months to supplies of arms, ammunition, petrol, lorries, and railway material for China. Other supplies, of which there was an abundance, continued to pass through to the extent which the landslides, frequent during the summer rains, allowed. A week later America placed an embargo on the shipment of oil and scrap to Japan. America's anxiety to emphasize her determination to retain her independence of action thus created embarrassments for Britain in the Far East at a time when the British back was to the wall in Europe, and operated to the disadvantage of China. Had the American embargo been announced ten days earlier the Burma road would not have been closed. Timing is of the essence of warfare. "Time, only give me time", said Napoleon. It was not Germany, who missed the bus in the spring of 1940, as Mr. Chamberlain claimed, but Japan. In July, when the negotiations about the Burma road were in progress, the situation was very tense; I thought Japan would declare war. I was on the Reserve of Officers, and I was anxious not to be caught in Shanghai. From my Chinese contacts I had learnt a good deal about the guerilla organisation which was operating in the environs, and I thought I ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 140 sometimes visited by H.M. ships, and further inland Snow Valley, high up in the mountains, was a popular resort for the more enterprising of Shanghai week-enders. Now the motor roads round Ningpo had all been destroyed by the Chinese lest the Japanese advance and make use of them. The roadhead was twenty miles away at Kikow, the Generalissimo's native village, where tourists used to leave their cars to make the ascent to Snow Valley. I had to get back to Shanghai somehow and decided the best way would be to make for Hongkong overland, a distance not far short of a thousand miles. You reached Kikow partly by boat and partly on foot, and I arrived one evening, to find I should have to wait a couple of days for a seat on the crowded bus service. The next morning I was strolling by myself along the village road when the alert sounded. This was such a common event that I took no notice, and almost before I realised what had happened two Japanese light bombers were circling over the village to locate their targets. The police hustled me into a nearby house, from the courtyard of which I watched the planes fly around and make shallow dives each time they placed a bomb, of which they dropped a dozen. Besides myself there were only women in the house, an old lady, a daughter, and a small child with their amah. They told me that only two houses away was the Generalissimo's ancestral home, at which it was probable that the Japanese were aiming. The daughter was very concerned that I should be standing in the courtyard with my sleeves rolled up displaying my wrist watch to the Japanese pilots. She feared it might attract their attention and asked me to take it off. In my halting Chinese I tried to explain to her that the pilots, who were flying about two thousand feet up, there was, of course, no defence of any kind could neither see me nor my wrist watch, and each time the aircraft commenced to dive I signalled to the women to crouch down and comforted myself by the realisation that they were going for the other end of the village. The planes flew off after half an hour. When they were satisfied it was all over, the women collected the clothes they had been washing, and made their way, as if quite accustomed to it, across the road, down the steps to the mountain stream to resume their work. Fortunately no buildings caught fire on this occasion, and there was not much damage; the village was burnt out in another raid a week later. ― Next day I started on my journey. Laboriously, on the overcrowded ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j ports. He received a lot of honours from many countries including a baronetcy and other decorations from Britain and China. He was said to have been a “leading expert in insurance, shipping and the import and export business,” and also "director of eighteen of the leading companies in Hong Kong and Shanghai, chairman and largest shareholder of a number of them." We know little of the details of his investments in the modern business in Hong Kong, Canton, or Shanghai, but we understand that he had an investment in some guandu-shangban enterprises and had close relations with Chinese officials. He was probably a multimillionaire by the turn of the century. It was known that when he worked in Jardines, he had been the manager of Jardine's affiliates, the Hong Kong Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. and the Canton Insurance Co., Ltd. He had invested in refined and raw sugar in Shanghai and most of the Yangzi and northern ports of China. He owned a lot of landed properties in Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Tsingtao (Qingdao), and London. He was a director of Humphreys Estate and Finance Co. Ltd., Hong Kong Reclamation Co., Ltd., and Hong Kong Hotel Co., Ltd. at the end of the nineteenth century. Law Pak Sheung was the first comprador to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank when it opened in 1865, and remained the chief comprador until his death in 1877. Law came from the port of Whampoa in Canton. His life in Hong Kong proved very successful. He was an organising director of the Tung Wah Hospital from 1869 to 1871. It became the leading Chinese charitable institution in Hong Kong. Page 10 Law died in 1877. He had interests in at least five businesses as mentioned in his will. He might also have had other business interests which were in the name of his sons or other relatives. The five firms mentioned in the will were a ship chartering office, a store, a gold dealer's shop, a native bank, and a general trading company. These he left to his third son Lo Hok Pang (Luo Hepeng), who succeeded him as comprador. In 1879, two years after the death of Law Pak Sheung, his son was said to have had connections with Chinese banks and had invested in a number of firms. He was regarded as one of the leading businessmen in the Chinese community; this was in addition to his position as a comprador. Law might also have had business interests in Canton or elsewhere which were not mentioned in his Hong Kong will. The testator's shares in insurance companies and a Chinese newspaper are signs of one who has moved away from strictly Chinese business enterprises, though the insurance shares were not large, but these were ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j in a period when Chinese were only allowed to invest in European insurance companies. But at the same time, he still had large interests in traditional business. Cantonese compradors in Hong Kong, of course, should not be considered as only a few persons; they could probably be identified from archives of the firms they worked for. However, we are limited by sources, which make it quite difficult, but not impossible, to assess compradors' wealth which they had accumulated when they were in office. Furthermore, most of the wealthy Chinese in Hong Kong, including compradors at that time, had investments or property in China. From their business activities, a Canton-Macau-Hong Kong linkage is shown in their wills deposited in the Hong Kong Public Records Office. Names of the Cantonese compradors in Hong Kong were probably Cheang Hoong of Philips Moore & Co., Wong Kong and Kwong A Hang of Smith, Archer & Co.; Ng A Cheong of Douglas Lapraik & Co., Law Pak Sheung of Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Wai A Kwong of Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London & China, Law Sai Nam of McBain & Co., Lau Cheong of Gilman & Co. (Fuzhou), Au Yeung Shing of Russell & Co., Sung Chin Tseung of Messrs. Turner & Co., Tong Mow Chee (Tang Maozhi) of Jardine, Matheson & Co. (Tianjin), and Choa Chee Bee of China Sugar Refining Co., Ltd. They all left wills in which some indicated business connections with Canton, Macau, and Hong Kong. For example, the will of Wai A Kwong written in 1866 reads: I am a native of Tsin Shan in the District of Heung Shan, Empire of China, at present residing in Victoria, Hong Kong, and holding the office of compradore of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China. At the age of eleven years, I left my native place and proceeded to Macau, where I obtained employment as a domestic servant to a Portuguese; at the age of thirteen, I was sent down to Singapore by the Reverend E. C. Bridgman, missionary to the Chinese, and became the first pupil of the Morrison Education Society. I returned to Hong Kong in the year 1843, and I have ever since lived under the just and equitable rule of the British Government. I married in Hong Kong and have several children, all born in this colony. By industry and thriftiness, I have acquired and am possessed of sundry houses, lands, shares in business, and other property and effects. Knowing Page 30 Page 31 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 11 that all men must die and not knowing when I may be called away, I deem it right while still in bodily health and full possession of mental faculties to make my will. Wei A Kwong, the father of Wei Yuk, had a typical story of success. He was a Zhongshan native; he left his hometown and worked in Macau as a teenager. His father was a comprador to two American merchants, Benjamin Chew Wilcocks and Oliver H. Gordon. It was known that Wei was forsaken by his family and had to resort to begging on the streets of Macau. He was later sent to Singapore where he studied under the auspices of the Morrison Education Society in a school of the American Board of Commission for Foreign Missions. This changed his life. He returned to Hong Kong and began his career. He served as comprador in Bowra & Co. and then in the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China until his death. Wei wrote his will in 1866. He prefaced it with a brief account of his life, particularly mentioning that he was the first student of the Morrison Education Society and that he first came to Hong Kong in 1843. He had "ever since lived under the just and equitable rule of the British Government." Though we cannot prove to what extent his exposure to Western culture was related to his Christian education, he succeeded in becoming a leading member of Chinese society in Hong Kong. This contrasts with the will of Sung Chin Tseung, which reads. Sung Chin Tseung, otherwise literary appellation Sung Ching, otherwise Ngok Shan, native of Kat Tai village, of Kong Sheung Division, Heung Shan District. I followed my deceased father, Mr. Shau U, to Hong Kong in 1842 to trade in foreign business as compradore. Further, in 1854, thanks to the kind support of Mr. Ryrie and others of Messrs. Turner and Co., Hongkong, I took over the office of compradore and up to the present thirty odd years. Both Wei and Sung were natives of Zhongshan. They came to Hong Kong for business in the early 1840s when Hong Kong was already a British colony. Though they lived in Hong Kong, they maintained connections with their hometown, as Sung's father, Soong Ke, stated in his will written in 1864: In the 21st year of Tao Kwong (1841), I came to Hong Kong and employed myself in business all the time with foreigners, always being diligent and making little profit sufficient to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 30 enterprises," but also challenged their foreign counterparts by planning, organising, and managing most of the modern Chinese enterprises. As Thomas Rawski has pointed out, Western firms in Chinese treaty-ports such as Shanghai were ineffectual on their own; they had to rely on Chinese compradors to conduct business with their Chinese associates. Cantonese compradors were in such a position that they could dominate the main business in Shanghai during the nineteenth century where they had fully shown their special entrepreneur genius." Notes Assessment of recent studies of Chinese ethnic groups is mainly quoted from Emily Honig (1992) pp. 6-7 2 As Yen-p'ing Hao mentioned most of the Cantonese compradors came from the coastal prefectures of Guangdong province as Zhongshan, Nanhai and Panyu See Hao (1970a). p. 13 1 For sample of letter of recommendation for comprador used in the 1870s, see Appendix + HKRS#144-245 Wong Kong (August 1867) 4 Hao has explained why Western firms in Japan employed Chinese instead of Japanese compradors. See Hao (1970a), pp. 51-9 6 The first three British firms opened were Dent & Co. (first established Canton, 1832), and Gibb, Livingston & Co. (1836 in Canton) 7 Wei came from the Zhongshan prefecture, his father was a comprador to two American merchants Benjamin Chew Wilcocks and Oliver H. Gorden. He followed a missionary and moved from Canton to Hong Kong. In 1852 he entered Bowra & Co. as a comprador and five years later when the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China established a branch in Hong Kong he joined the Bank as its first comprador. See Smith (1985), pp. 62-9 and Wei A Kwong's will, HKRS#144-368: Wei A Kwong (October 1866), Wei Yuk's brother Wei Long Shan went to Shanghai to learn business in 1871. He returned to Hong Kong after twelve years and then became comprador to the Eastern Extension and Great Northern Telegraph Co. from 1882 to 1902. He was also assistant comprador at the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank from 1885 to 1895. In the absence of sufficient sources, it is difficult to assess Wei's wealth accumulated during his comprador's years. The Ho family, beginning with Ho Tung, was called a comprador family. Ho introduced his two brothers Ho Fuk and Ho Kom Tong as assistant compradors to Jardine who later succeeded him; his adopted son Ho Sai Wing was the Hong Kong Bank's comprador through thirty-four years from 1912 to 1964. Ho Sai Wing's brothers: Ho Sai Iu was comprador of the Mercantile Bank of India, Ho Sai Kwong of David Sassoon & Co.; Ho Sai Leung of Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ho Sai Ki of Arnhold & Co. Ho Sai Wa, son of Ho Kom Tong was an assistant comprador in Mercantile Bank. See Group Archives of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Comprador Files. Ho Sai Wing. Ho Fuk (Ho Fook)'s son was said to have assisted him in Jardine's work. 10 This company was said to have close business relations with Shanghai's Ting Tai firm. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 31 Lo was suspected to have cheated an amount of 20,000 taels as bad debt from the Bank See Group Archives of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Comprador Files Law Pak Sheung || Ibid. Lo Hok Pang was said to be involved in certain bankruptcy cases See Comprador Files Lo Hok Pang 12 For an important article that explores the studies on early Chinese in Hong Kong, see Carl T Smith (1993), Hong Kong Chinese Wills 1850-1890 13 See HKRS#144-98. Cheang Hoong (December 1856), 245 Wong Kong (August 1867), 254 Kwong A Hang (January 1872), 268 Ng A Cheong (October 1870), 349 Law Pak Sheung (February 1877), 368 Wei A Kwong (October 1866), 457 Law Sai Nam (December 1881), 470 Lau Cheong (June 1880), 661 Au Yeung Shing (December 1886); 733, Wong Shi Lai (June 1888), 734 Sung Chin Tseung (January 1888), 1161 Tong Mow Chee (December 1894), and 1465 Choa Chec Bec (June 1890) HKRS#134-144; Soong Ke (December 1864) 15 See Zheng Guanying. Da Guangzhou shangwu zonghu yi bingting zhuamban zhangcheng ershisi tiao (To draft the twenty-four opening ordinances of the General Chamber of Commerce of Canton), in Xia Dongyuan (1988a), pp 593-6 16 HKRS#144-273 O Kee Cheong (October 1872) HKRS#144-1504: Leung Kiu (April 1887) 18 HKRS#144-394 La Hing (January 1879) 19 See Carl T Smith (1993), p 11, 15-6 20 For Western merchants who came with their Cantonese compradors to Shanghai, see Hao (1970), pp 51-3 21 According to Leung Yuen-sang's study, Wu Jianzhang came to power because of the rise of mercantile power in post-1843 local politics when there was an absence of official-gentry leadership during the British invasion and capture of Shanghai in 1842 The vacuum was filled by Cantonese merchants and compradors They were sought because of their foreign language skill and foreign knowledge During Wu's office, nearly all the jobs in the government were filled by Cantonese See Leung (1990), pp. 53-6, 147-50, Toyama Gunji (1994), Shanghai dotai Go kensho (The Shanghai Taotai Wu Jianzhang), pp 45-54. and Zhang Wenqin (1989), Cong fenguan guanshang dao maiban guantiao, Wu Jianzhang shilun (From Feudal Official Merchant to Compradorial Bureaucrat), pp 31-54 21 Leung Yuen-sang (1982), Regional Rivalry in Mid-Nineteenth Century Shanghai: Cantonese vs Ningpo Men, pp 34-6. 21 Though Li Hongzhang was a central bureaucrat, through the guandu shangban enterprises in Shanghai and Tianjin, he had successfully extended his influence in this region discussed through the "Shanghai-Tianjin Connection" See Leung Yuen-sang (1986), The Shanghai-Tientsin Connection: Li Hung-chang's Political Control over Shanghai during the Late Ch'ing Period, pp 315-30 24 Ibid, pp. 45-6 24 Wang Gungwu (1990). China and the Chinese Overseas, pp 175-6 HKRS#144-1152 Li Chu (December 1896) 27 HKRS#144-1087. Lee Chak (May 1894) 8 HKRS#144-1093 Chan Kin Tong (April 1896) ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 37 history) Hong Kong, Xinya Yanjiusuo Rawski, Thomas G. 1970. Chinese Dominance of Treaty Port Commerce and its Implications, 1860-1875. In Explorations in Economic History 7/4, 451-73. Redding, Gordon S. 1991. Weak Organizations and Strong Linkages: Managerial Ideology and Chinese Family Business Networks. In Gary Hamilton (edited), 30-47. Rhoads, Edward J. 1975. China's Republican Revolution: the Case of Kwangtung. Cambridge and Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. 1977. Merchants Associations in Canton, 1895-1911. In William Skinner (edited), 97-117. Rowe, William T. 1984. Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796-1889. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Sekkó Zaibatsu (The Zhejiang financial clique). Edited by Mantetsu Shanhai Jimusho. Shanhai, Mantetsu Jimusho, 1929. Shanghai duiwai maoyi (Shanghai foreign trade, 1840-1949). Compiled by Shanghai Shehui Kexueyuan Jingji Yanjiusuo and Shanghai-shi Guoji Maoyi Xuehui Xueshu Waiyuanhui. Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1989. Shanghai Sojourners. Edited by Frederic Wakeman and Wen-hsin Yeh. Berkeley, Institute for East Asian Studies, University of California, 1992. Sinn, Elizabeth. 1989. Power and Charity: The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital. Hong Kong, Hong Kong Oxford University Press. Skinner, William G. 1974 (edited). The Chinese City: City Between Two Worlds. Stanford, Stanford University Press. 1976. Mobility Strategies in Late Imperial China: A Regional-System Analysis. In Regional Analysis, Volume One: Economic Systems, 327-64. Edited by Carol A. Smith. New York, Academic Press. 1977 (edited). The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Smith, Carl T. 1983. Compradores of the Hongkong Bank. In Frank H. H. King (edited), 93-111. 1985. Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press. 1993. Hong Kong Chinese Wills, 1850-1890. Unpublished paper presented at the International Conference on Folk Documents and Regional Society in South China, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Su, Waigong. 1933. Xianggang, Shanghai, Guangzhou shangye mingrenlu (Prominent business characters of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Canton). Shanghai, Shangye Bianshu Gongsi. Topley, Marjorie. 1964. Capital, Savings and Credit among Indigenous Rice Farmers and Immigrant Vegetable Farmers in Hong Kong's New Territories. In Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies: Studies from Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean and Middle America, 157-86. Edited by Raymond Firth and B. S. Yamey. London, George Allen & Unwin. 1968. The Role of Savings and Wealth among Hong Kong Chinese. In Hong Kong: A Society in Transition, 167-227. Edited by Ian C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi. New York, Frederick A. Prager. Toyama, Gunji. 1944. Shanhai Dota: Go Kensho (The Shanghai taotai Wu Jianzhang). In Gakkai 1/7, 45-54. 1945. Shanhai no shinsho: Yo Bo (A gentry-merchant in Shanghai: Yang Fang). In Toyoshi Kenkyu 1/4, 17-34. Tsai, Jung-fang. 1975. Comprador Ideologists in Modern China: Ho Kai (Ho Chi, 1859-1914) and Hu Li-Yuan (1847-1916). PhD thesis, University of California, Los Angeles. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 148 normal form of exercise was the evening stroll. There is, perhaps, nothing which so readily distinguishes the Chinese from their lugubrious neighbours to the west, the Indians, as their cheerful spirit. That evening the scene was more animated than usual. I could read in the happy faces of the crowd the joy they felt at finding themselves at last no longer alone in the struggle. Arrangements had been made to send the officers of our little group to various parts of the Chinese front to study war conditions. The others had already left, and I was due to leave by air for Kweilin next day. I went down to the island air-strip early in the morning to find several planes just in from Hongkong, with the families of the C.N.A.C. staff who had been living there. The American crews had flown to Kaitak from a field in China, loaded up, and flown out again all at night. Over a cup of bad Chungking coffee they described the events in Hongkong, the bombing of the airfield and the destruction of the majority of the C.N.A.C. planes, caught on the ground by the sudden Japanese attack. By and by the covers were taken off the three engines of the old Junkers 52 plane, in which I was to fly, and mechanics started them up. The plane was the last of those belonging to the Eurasia Aviation Corporation, a Sino-German company, the only competitor of the C.N.A.C. The German pilots had been replaced by Chinese. There were a dozen passengers; we clutched our seats a little nervously as the heavy-looking machine accelerated down the runway towards the river only to rise from the ground just before we hit the water. We spiralled up above the Chungking escarpment and flew away over the Szechuan mountains at a steady hundred miles per hour, until we dropped back through a gap in the clouds to see below us the sabre-toothed hills of Kweilin. I was taken in hand by an efficient "Fu kuan" (Adjutant) of General Li Tsung Jen's staff and motored into the city, where I found Michael waiting. My destination was the 3rd War Zone, the most important of the nine war zones in China. It covered the greater part of the richest provinces, Kiangsu, Chekiang, Anhwei, Kiangsi and Fukien: bounded by the Yangtze to the north, the sea coast in the east, Fukien to the south, the area of the 3rd War Zone reached west as far as the Kan river. General Ku Chu Tung, famous for his defence of Shanghai in 1937, was the Commander. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 155 foiled the third Japanese attempt to take that city. Mac was full of energy and good cheer, spoke fluent Chinese, and had a supply of good stories, which had by no means been exhausted during our stay at Maymyo. Over the next eighteen months in China he added to his fund of stories in English, another fund in Chinese of no less lurid a nature. Our plans were advancing slowly, and we decided to pay a visit to Kinhwa, the temporary capital of Chekiang and the largest shopping centre at that time in eastern China. We needed stores and supplies of various kinds and thought to fill in time by laying those in now. The intention was then to go on to Chin Ya to make all the necessary preparations for opening the school. Unfortunately I was taken ill and had to enter the hospital in Kinhwa kept by the American Presbyterian Mission, where I was given every attention. My symptoms were complicated and it was impossible to decide whether I was suffering from appendicitis or malaria: however, a regimen of alternate sulfanilamide and quinine - I am told they cannot be taken together - gradually restored my health, though it took a month. Meantime Singapore had fallen and I think my Chinese friends must have thought I was so mortified that I was feigning a diplomatic illness, which of course I was not. General Ku sent his Adjutant General to enquire after my condition and the Army Commander in that area also took a kind interest in me. Mac went off to Chin Ya with Michael and they engaged carpenters, masons, and furniture makers to provide for all the needs we could foresee. By the beginning of March I had recovered and was back in Shangjao awaiting the arrival of the small convoy which was due with the first of our personnel and military stores. Part of a much larger contingent, destined for other purposes, they had driven in by lorry all the way from Burma, over the Burma road, through Kunming and Kweiyang, to the Hunan-Kwangsi railway, where the lorries had been entrained, to conserve petrol, already a rare and precious fluid. The contingent had detrained in south Hunan, from where our party had sorted out their stores and come on with four lorries. This advance party consisted of two officers, Leo and Cyril, and a stalwart warrant officer of the Royal Engineers, whom we shall call the Chief. They had with them several Hongkong Chinese, who had joined the British army in Burma, and some tons of explosives and gadgets calculated to cause the enemy unexpected discomforts. The sight of these lorries, however few, with Union Jacks painted ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 162 ammonal, 50 lbs, if properly placed under the track will lift a locomotive ten feet into the air and throw it far enough off the track will lift a locomotive ten feet into the air and throw it far enough off the track, to make it difficult for the usual type of railway repair-crane to reach it to lift it back. While in Hunan, information came through that the Japanese had started to advance from Hangchow in the direction of Kinhwa and it looked as if they might cut off our part of the front. I made hurried arrangements to return; but before we left I was disconcerted to learn from the Chinese general, X....., under whom the British contingent in Hunan worked, that I was to come under his orders. General Ku had placed us under an Army Group Commander, whose headquarters were in the village next to ours; and I could not understand the advantage of now being placed under a General whose headquarters were 1600 kilometres away and, moreover, in another war zone. It looked as if the work we had commenced in Eastern China was to be wrecked; I saw General X...... and he assured me the change was a mere formality and would make no difference to the work we were doing. Later events, however, were to show that my uneasiness was fully justified and that we had become a pawn in high level politics. The news of the Japanese advance on Kinhwa got worse. I loaded the lorry with all the stores we could beg or borrow, and we set out on a return journey which was to prove exciting. In addition to Michael and Doctor Petro, and the driver and a mechanic, I had been able to collect two Chinese medical orderlies, who had escaped from a detention camp in Hongkong, and a Hongkong wireless operator. I still hoped I might one day have a wireless set. The lorry was grossly overloaded and we nearly lost it next day when crossing on the Siang river ferry. We had to collect volunteers to help us to unload it hurriedly, as the ferry arrived on the far side with such a heavy list that we could not drive the lorry off. Further on a tyre blew out; we also received news not only that the Japanese were on the point of occupying Kinhwa, but that they had commenced a push from Nanchang to the east along the Kiangsu-Chekiang railway to meet their troops who were advancing from Hangchow. It became a race to see if we could reach Yingtan before the Japanese, and as we had no more spare tyres, we could not risk continuing with an overloaded lorry; we had to dump some of our previous cargo. We were not to see it again for six months. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 123 Headquarters of the C.E.F. was stationed. The British Assistant Military Attache from Kun-ming went with me to introduce me to the Chief of Staff, from whom we were to receive our passes. The Chief of Staff was not particularly affable. There was some talk of wireless and he stated we would have to supply photographs in duplicate for every member of our party: no easy matter in a small upcountry town in a land which had been closed to foreign imports for many years. However, we were lucky and found a small photographer in the place who still had some film and undertook to produce the required photographs. Next day when these were presented at the Headquarters we were informed that after all they would not be necessary; all that would be required was my own photograph in duplicate, a contingency for which I had been well prepared having armed myself with a dozen before I left India. Even then there was delay in preparing the pass and it was not till late on the afternoon of the second day that I was able to leave. The reason for the various delays became apparent later. The parachute party had reported that the Myosa was held a close prisoner by the Chinese at Tetang. My route lay through Tetang, but when we arrived there we found the Myosa had already been removed further into China. They were evidently anxious I should not meet him and wished to allow sufficient time to get him out of the way. They were holding him for trial on a charge of treasonable relations with the Japanese. On arrival at Paoshan we found our parachute party living in the American officers' mess; the Colonel in charge was our old friend from Kun-ming. He went out of his way to make us all feel at home; he found us quarters, he fed us, and he sent our signals for us. After talking the position over with the parachute officers, I decided to send one of them back to report: that left us a party of twelve. Stan, the chief parachutist, was an expert in many lines: Bren gun, Tommy gun, machine guns, he had even taken an armourer's course, an additional accomplishment which turned out most useful. Jack had spent most of his life in Burma; he not only spoke Burmese fluently, but he also spoke Kachin, an important point, as we were to enter country bordering on Kachin land and we were anxious to enlist the co-operation of those doughty tribesmen in our work. They had already acquired a great reputation for their fighting qualities further north. We were three British officers and three Chinese interpreters, one Burmese-Chinese interpreter, two Hong Kong wireless operators, a medical orderly, and Rogue and Lao Teng. The interpreters were all men who had escaped from Hongkong and had registered with the British Relief Organisation maintained at Kweilin to... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 100 빠 in the schools of Hong Kong, although the strength of traditional attitudes is reflected in the failure to admit female students to the University of Hong Kong at its inception. Dr. Sibree's relationship with the LMS in Hong Kong was permanently soured, although in a letter to Dr. Thompson in 1910, she said: 'I assure you I felt leaving the LMS very much and am anxious to help the Society as I ever was'," and she corresponded warmly with Miss Rayner, the Matron of the Alice, during the 1920s. Mr. Pearce advised against her being invited back to run the maternity work in 1922, claiming that she wherever possible undermined the mission's work." She is seen as the most significant figure in the development of maternity services and midwifery training in Hong Kong, yet the most successful part of her career appears to have followed her resignation from the LMS. The dominant position of the Alice group of hospitals in the development of Western medicine for Chinese people, and in particular the provision of midwifery and training of Chinese midwives was itself undermined in later years, overtaken by secular progress in provision of maternity services, and the lack of continuity in its own service, as Dr. Gibson had feared. Dr. Perkins resigned in 1913 to marry Dr. Mitchell, returning to Hong Kong and the hospital in 1919, and a new Lady Doctor was not in place until Dr. Turner arrived in 1921, but she also resigned to marry in 1922, the year in which the Drs. Mitchell also took leave. A long-term woman doctor was only found in the arrival in 1925 of Dr. Annie Sydenham, who developed the maternity service until her retirement in 1954. Dr. Gibson served as Medical Superintendent from his arrival in 1896 to 1918, and again from 1924 to 1935, in all 33 years, during which the hospitals expanded, including their maternity work, It is ironic that the much vaunted factor in preventing Dr. Sibree's satisfaction with her work, the fact that she was unacceptable to students and hospital doctors, backfired. With the professionalisation of medicine, the Hongkong College of Medicine was transferred to the University of Hong Kong in 1911. Dr. Gibson was proud of his role in lecturing to the College students and was concerned that the Alice should maintain a role in clinical teaching after the establishment of the University faculty. An Endowment Fund had been set up in 1907 to support the growth of the Hongkong College of Medicine in a separate building. At the opening of the University, Dr. Thomson, the former Medical Superintendent of the Alice, and Dr. Gibson were appointed life members of the Court. Subsequently, Dr. Gibson's teaching was removed. In 1913, he reported Page 120 Page 121 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 196 for fishermen in the north-east New Territories for the Year 1936, p. J11, where the District Officer notes that "dealers were further encouraged by a reduction in the duty on dried fish" It seems likely that the trade in both fresh and dried fish was affected 31 This is a reference to a scheme introduced by the Customs in 1937 (see Jiulonghaiguan Bainian Dashiji, op cit., sub anno), by which every cow in the border area was to be registered and branded, and a record kept of every time it crossed the frontier All this was part of an attempt to control "smuggling" of cattle—i.e. the buying of new plough animals in the market, and bringing them back to the New Territories villages without paying export duty on them The animals had been taken across the frontier on the pretext that they were crossing the frontier to work fields on the New Territories side 32 Shatoujiao de Lishe, op cit ch 2 I have heard very similar comments from elders in Wo Hang in the New Territories Fees of $20 for a seed-pig, and $20 for a new wok were quoted to me 33 Petition translated in Enclosure 22 to Item 204 (pp. 272-273) in File No. 66 Extension of the Boundaries of the Colony, op cit 34 Shatoujiao de Lishe, loc cit 35 Elder at Wo Hang village 36 Administrative Reports for the Year 1924, Appendix J. “Report on the New Territories for the Year 1924", p. J2 37 The Jiudonghaiguan Bainian Dashiji, op cit has no records of events in the Sha Tau Kok area from 1925-28, suggesting that the Customs records for this period have been lost 38 The District Officer had this to say "Conditions on the frontier, however, gave rise to considerable trouble and anxiety, the undisciplined and licentious conduct of the armed strikers' pickets extending to acts of violence and robbery committed even within our Territories British Sha Tau Kok suffered especially in this respect, so much so that on two occasions at least armed forces had to be summoned to assist, in the first case in August when H.M.S. 'Foxglove' was despatched to recover two junks, laden with merchandise, which had been seized by the "strikers", and later, in November, when troops of the Punjabi regiment were stationed at Sha Tau Kok in order to discourage the armed pickets who were terrorizing the inhabitants of British territory The close of the year brought more peaceful For the history of the Kowloon Customs, see SF Wright, Hongkong and the Chinese Customs, Inspectorate Series, No 7 (Confidential), Statistics Dept, of the Inspectorate-General of Customs, Shanghai, 1930, SF Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs, Belfast, 1950, and Jiulonghaiguan Bainian Dashiji, op cit. The arrangements of the Patrol Districts and duty Stations were constantly re-ordered; the arrangements mentioned in the text are the standard arrangement for most of the 1920s and 1930s As for staff, establishment and strength figures varied widely, depending on funds—levels of manning were particularly low in the early 1920s, when the Customs were starved of funds, but greatly improved in the 1930s ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 24 the business in 1876 and died at Dresden in June 1886 (DP 17 June 1886, 31 Dec. 1895). Bernard Harkort established a firm of his own at Shanghai in 1857 when he took over the business of Trautmann and Co (FC 30 June 1857). He retired in 1863 and returned to his home at Leipzig where he died in 1865 (CM 5 Feb. 1863, 7 Dec. 1865). Gustav von Hitzeroth became a partner of Carlowitz and Co. in 1864. The importance of the firm in the German trade with China is indicated by the presence of successive partners of the firm on the Board of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation from 1879 to 1914. A branch of the firm was opened at Shanghai in 1877 under the management of Alfred F.O. Krause (DP 3 Apr. 1877). Mr. Krause and Bernhard Philipp Schmacker became partners in the company in 1881 (CM 3 Jan. 1881). Chemical dyes have long been a specialty of the German trade. In 1880 Carlowitz and Co. advertised themselves as the agents for the Aniline Dye Co. of Berlin (DP 30 Apr. 1881). The company represented German financiers in arranging a five million mark loan to His Excellency Li Hung-chang in 1887 (DP 28 Feb. 1887). It also represented the Krupp armament firm in 1912 for a loan of six million marks with the head of Chekiang Province (DP 15 May 1912). The enlarged business interests of the firm were accompanied by the admission of additional partners: Charles Von Bose 1883, Eduard Jean Mac Paquin 1887, Gustav Adolph Degenes, retired 1899, H. Caesar Erdmann, retired 1900 but remained a dormant partner, Friedrich Carl Paul Sachse 1893. This list is not exhaustive. When the firm was placed under liquidation in 1914 the partners were M. March, R. Lenzmann and A. Schultz, all of Hamburg, T. Rusmore in New York, B. Rosenbaum and R. Laurenz in Shanghai, A. von Bohuscewiez in Tientsin and C. Landgraf in Hong Kong. Siemssen and Company Pustau and Co. was the first German firm to open an office in Hong Kong. Siemssen and Co. followed them from Canton some nine years later (FC 31 Mar. 1855). George Theodor Siemssen had established himself at Canton in 1849. In 1855 he bought a lot on Queen's Road near the present Hongkong and Shanghai Bank building. Until the building he Page 45 Page 46 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 25 erected on the lot was completed, he moved into temporary offices. Two marine lots were bought in 1858 in Sai Ying Pun on which extensive godowns (ware-houses) were built (Hong Kong Land Office, Memorial 1477, 21 Sept. 1858). He soon after left Hong Kong to assume management of the firm's affairs in Hamburg. There he married in 1859 a Miss Wagner (North China Herald 6 Aug. 1859). He continued to reside at Hamburg until his death on 24 November 1886 aged seventy-one (DP 6 Dec. 1886). When Mr. Siemssen left Hong Kong his partners were Ludwig Wiese and Woldemar Nissen (FC 31 Mar. 1855). Mr. Wiese was a Norwegian by birth but subsequently became a naturalized British citizen. From 1849 to 1855 he had been an assistant in the office of Carlowitz, Harkort and Co. at Canton. At various times he served as Consul for Hamburg, Lubeck, Sweden and Norway and was acting Consul for Prussia and Austria. His connection with Siemssen and Co. ended in 1863 (CM 5 Jan. 1865). He located in London, where in 1871 he joined the Board of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (CM 24 July 1871). Though no longer a partner he represented the interests of Siemssen and Co. in England. He died in England on 22 March 1887 (GG, Probate Calendar 4 July 1887). His widow Joanna died in the City of Westminster on 10 May 1904 (GG, Probate Calendar 25 Apr. 1906). Agathon Friedrich Woldemar Nissen — usually known as Woldemar — was a partner from 1855 until his death in Hamburg on 28 December 1896 (DP 7 June 1897). He was a member of the Provisional Committee for the organisation of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1864. He was Deputy Chairman of the Board in 1866 and Chairman in 1867. He left Hong Kong in October 1867 (CM 31 Oct. 1867). In Hong Kong he was Consul for the Hansa Towns of Bremen, Hamburg and Lubeck as well as for Sweden and Norway. The business of the firm increased rapidly. New branches were opened and new partners admitted. Rudolph Heinsen was transferred from the Canton office to Shanghai to open a new branch there in January 1856 (FC 1 Jan. 1856). He later became a partner and his interest in the company ended in 1868 (GG 9 Jan. 1869). George Wilhelm Schwemann was the managing partner at Foochow in 1861. Friedrich Adolph Joost was a partner from 1864 to 1873 (CM 1 Jan. 1864, Daily Press 28 Jan. 1874). When Messrs. Schwemann and Heinsen retired from the firm in 1868, they were replaced by Ferdinand Nissen and Heinrich Hoppius (GG 9 Jan. 1869). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 51 They had then shop at 10 Queen's Road until 1869 when they closed out their business (DP 17 Mar. 1869). They moved to Macao where A. Muller and Co. is listed in the Macao Directory for 1877 as a naval and general storekeeper at 75 Rua Praia Grande (Macao Boletim, 12 Dec. 1868). Gunmakers Wilhelm Schnudt Wilhelm August Ferdinand Schmidt opened a gunsmith shop on Wellington Street in 1865 (DP 2 Jan. 1866). After several changes of location and some years later he advertised his firm as a commission agent in arms, machinists and artists in general, scientific mechanics and inventors of spring mountain chains. He assured the public there were trained native assistants at the shop. In 1885 he moved his store to Beaconsfield Arcade in Queen's Road. Mr. Schmidt died in 1895 leaving his widow Caroline Johanne Georgine Schmidt to carry on the business. She died in 1923 at the age of eighty-one. They had two children, a son Hermann Hugo James, who died at the age of fourteen in the same year as his father, and a daughter Henrietta A. Schmidt, who married Capt B.R. Branch in 1917 (DP 5 Oct 1895). The daughter was the proprietor of the firm in 1914. As she had been born in Hong Kong in 1884 she was not considered an enemy alien and was allowed to continue the business, though the name of the firm was changed to something less Germanic, the Hong Kong Sporting Arms and Ammunition Store. It was for many years in business at the Beaconsfield Arcade. German Banks The Deutsch Bank had branches in China from 1873 to 1875 (Frank H.H. King, The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Cambridge University Press [1987, Cambridge, England], 1, p. 151). In 2, Chapter 11, p. 603-27, Dr. King discusses the Hong Kong Bank's relations with Germany. As a result of the Franco-Prussian War, the French bank Comptoir d'Escompte dismissed its German employees. These dismissals provided management for the newly organised Deutsch Bank. A notice in the Daily Press of 29 April 1872 states that: "Mr. Seligmann, formerly of Comptoir d'Escompte, arrived here [Hong Kong] and will proceed to Shanghai to... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 52 establish a branch there of the new Deutsch Bank. Mr. Mammelsdorf to take charge in Yokohama. A special branch will be opened in Hong Kong. Both of these gentlemen were formerly in the Comptoir as was also Mr. Wallach who will take charge at Berlin. Mr. Probst, formerly of Pustau and Co. takes the branch at Hamburg. At Bremen will be Mr. Van der Heyde, formerly of Behre, Meyer and Co Singapore." At the same time as the Deutsch Bank was in the process of opening offices in China, the Deutsche National Bank of Bremen was organised and appointed Melchers and Co. their agent in Hong Kong and Siemssen and Co. their agent in Shanghai (DP 29 June 1872). The Deutsch-Asiatische Bank was registered at the Imperial German Consulate in Shanghai on 15 May 1889. In 1905, M. Hemann, the manager of the Hong Kong branch of the Bank was succeeded by Hugo Suter (DP 17 July 1905). The Bank redeveloped in 1913 the property on Queen's Road which it had occupied since 1901. The building, of modern renaissance style "on chaste and simple lines", was occupied for only a few months before it had to shut its doors with the outbreak of hostilities between England and Germany (SCMP 14 Aug. 1913, HKT 6 Jan. 1914). The building was purchased from the liquidators in 1917 by Sir Paul Chater for $355,000 (SCMP 14 Aug. 1917). From the time of the organization of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1864 to 1914 there were Germans on the Board of the Bank. Woldemar Nissen of Siemssen and Co. was on the Provisional Committee. Another member of the Provisional Committee was Waldemar Schmidt, whose name sounds German, a partner in the English firm of Fletcher and Co. In May 1868 Julius Menke of William Pustau and Co. joined the Board. With the failure of William Pustau and Co. in 1877 the firm was no longer represented. But in the meantime Hermann Melchers of Melchers and Co. was elected to a seat on the Board in 1872. The bank was watchful that the British interests should not be swamped by German and American, Arnhold, Karbegg and Co. had a representative on the board from 1888 and Carlowitz and Co. from 1875. In 1914 all the firms mentioned, but William Pustau and Co., had a partner on the Bank (Dr. King's detailed history of the bank has lists of the directors for each year). ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g ARTICLES CHINESE CUSTOMARY LAW IN HONGKONG'S NEW TERRITORIES. SOME LEGAL PREMISES. EDWIN HAYDON Last year [1961—Editor] the legislation regulating the New Territories of Hong Kong was amended1 and jurisdiction was conferred on the Supreme Court of Hong Kong and on the District Courts subordinate to it. "to hear and determine all questions and disputes at law or in equity in connexion with or in anywise arising out of or regarding any land in the New Territories." At the same time the Land Officer was divested of his former powers to decide questions of land in the New Territories summarily,3 and District Officers were divested of the summary jurisdiction, which for many years4 they had exercised in Small Debts Courts, in actions or matters where the claim, debt or damages sought to be recovered did not exceed one thousand dollars. Since 1953 the District Courts had exercised a concurrent jurisdiction with the Small Debts Courts in such actions. The effect, therefore, of this amending legislation was to confer from henceforth exclusive jurisdiction in all proceedings arising in the New Territories on the courts of law staffed by the professional Judiciary. Section 17 of the New Territories Ordinance reads: "In any proceedings in the Supreme Court or the District Court in relation to land in the New Territories, the court shall have power to recognize and enforce any Chinese custom or customary right affecting such land. So much is clear in respect of land cases, but in respect of other proceedings which may involve Chinese custom or customary right one must search further back to the source from which the British Crown's rights in the New Territories spring. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 340 commander's residence. Indeed, its present use is a naval canteen. The sleepy staff were somewhat surprised to see an invasion by foreign tourists, but they allowed us to wander all over the house as if it were our own. Later research pinned this house down as being the governor's residence, as opposed to "Government House". From this vantage point it is possible to look into the naval base. There is not much of interest, except for one smart but small building towards the northern end of the base that looks as though it could have been the former customs house. It has a four-storey tower with a very tall flagpole and a large verandah overlooking the sea. My previous visit in 1996 afforded me a closer look at this well-preserved building, but only by gaining unauthorised entry to the naval base. The front gates were, naturally, guarded - but a door into one of the external walls had a sign that a canteen was doing business up the stairs. Up I went - and then down I went on the other side, but only very briefly. Much as I liked what I saw, I did not fancy spending a few years there. Back at the governor's residence, comparing notes and old photographs with a naval officer who had just strolled up the hill for lunch, we established that the actual Government House still exists, but that it is firmly inside a military compound. Nothing daunted, we found the place - inland and a mile or so to the west of where we were. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, no amount of pleading with the guards at the gate could get even a foot inside. But we could get a glimpse of the roof of the building in question - just through the gate and to the right - about 100 yards away, partially hidden by trees. The details that we could see confirmed it as being the former British governor's residence. During lunch, Jessie and a few others wandered off in search of the King's Hotel, the Hongkong Bank building and a few other places from her past. Unfortunately they did not find any. The only other point of interest that we saw was an obelisk, in the middle of a traffic island near the seafront, commemorating "the taking back of Wei Hai from the British after years of pain." Lucky, I suppose, that Wei Hai was not subjected to as much pain as Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 120 向你們致謝，同時亦期望在我回來之後，大家的共同合作可以延續下去。你們也提及教育問題，亦是我十分關心的問題。我關心的不單是大學教育，還有整個殖民地境內全部學校的教育。我希望最近構想的步驟能如期實行，能有效地減低各學校裡擠迫的情況和增加教師的數目，從而提高教育質素，並提供更多獎學金，使窮境的孩子能與富家子弟一樣，從教育中受益。 至於我們的大學，得到華商與位於太古的大商號的慷慨捐贈，經濟上已足夠設立三間學院，我希望在大學建築物落成和學生入學以前，我們能夠得到更多款項，能把學院數目增加一倍，並為舊學院設立教授職位。（鼓掌） 剛才何啟博士說，希望我在英國時能為大學的捐贈事宜做點事，我當然會盡力而為。（鼓掌聲）為大學取得捐贈，也是這裡各人要面對的一項集體任務，我亦放心把它交托給你們去辦，因為我知道你們對此都十分熱心，而且已有華人慷慨解囊，我相信我不用多說，我本人對興建大學的熱忱，已是眾所周知的，諸位先生，對於你們所表達的心意和送給我的演說，我誠懇而高興地向你們致謝。 現在，我要和你們說再見，不愉快的日子很快便會回來重續我們的友誼，我在此祝願，在我離開的一段日子裡，本地社會欣欣向榮，公眾衛生環境良好、貿易蕭條告一段落、百業興旺，社會繁榮昌盛，我的妻子亦盼望能早日返港，希望到時我倆能身心康泰地回來，和你們見面。 increasing the teaching staff so that the education will be better, and in providing an increased number of scholarships so that the children of the poor may reap the benefit of our education equally with the children of the well-to-do class. As regards the University we have, by the generosity of the Chinese, and by the generosity of a great firm at Taikoo, succeeded in getting sufficient funds to establish three faculties. I hope before the University buildings are finished and the doors opened to students that we may double the number of faculties for which we are providing chairs in the University, with, of course, a corresponding increase in the amount of the endowment. (Applause). Dr. Ho Kai has said he hopes I shall be able to do something in England to raise subscriptions for the University. Well, I shall do my best. (Applause). At the same time it is a matter which primarily affects us out here, and a matter which I can leave with confidence in your hands, because I know all your people are interested in it and I have had examples of Chinese generosity. I need not say how personally keenly I am interested in the project. That is already well known. Gentlemen, I thank you most cordially and heartily for the kind sentiments which you, sir, have expressed, and for the address you presented to me. I say good-bye now, only for a short time, and hope soon to be back again, and to renew my friendships here, and during my short absence I trust that the colony may in every way prosper, that the health of the colony during this summer will be good, that the trade depression will cease and that with increased trade you may have increased prosperity and that I shall return in good health to you and with my wife, Lady Lugard, who is most anxious to return to Hongkong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 275 11-4 THE CHINESE CEMETERIES QUESTION, The China Mail, 12th July 1901. Lau was listed after Ho Kai and Wei Yuk in the Board, see Arnold Wright (ed) (1990), 20TH CENTURY IMPRESSIONS OF HONG KONG, Singapore: Graham Brash, p. 174. (The book was first published in 1908.) us The Hongkong Weekly Press and China Overland Trade Report, 17 April 1909. 116 HKGG Notice 229 of 25 July 1913. The rules and regulations of the cemetery are given in the same notice. This may partly be due to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. 18 Davis, S.G. (1949). HONG KONG IN ITS GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING. London: Collins, p. 96. 119 HKGG Notification 12 of 20th January 1911. 120 The first Japanese burial in the Colonial Cemetery was a young second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army who died in Hong Kong in 1878 while on the way back to Japan. His grave lies in §27 section in the cemetery. 121 A small number of Japanese were buried at Caroline Hill Cemetery, whose remains were later reinterred in the Colonial Cemetery, when former was cleared. 122 Between 1878-1945, there were about 465 Japanese buried in the Colonial Cemetery. For details of the Japanese burials, see £#✯ (1988), #* • * 人基地一船員墓碑中心,港日關係之回顧與前瞻,香港日本文化協會二十五週年紀念特集,香港:香港日本文化協會,pp.132-141.(The article was originally written in 1973 when the author was posted to the Japanese Consulate General in Hong Kong.) Also see a local Japanese newspaper, WEEKLY HONG KONG, 5 October 2000, p. 7. 123 A highly interesting article on the subject, titled THE EXHILARATING TOPIC OF GRAVES', can be found in The Hongkong Telegraph, 10th November 1909, p. 4. It was also reported and discussed in The Hongkong Weekly Press and China Overland Trade Report, 20th February 1909, p. 142 and 17th April 1909, pp. 311-312. 124 Hong Kong Hansard 1909, pp. 168-169. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 300 Silver Island forts. I did not answer his letter, but noted the date thereon and the date on which I received it. I was requested to send an answer to someone in Zhenjiang. I gave the letter to Consul Mowat.35 As I did not answer Mason's letter he called early one morning and I asked who he was and what he wanted. He replied that he was the United States consular marshal at Hankou and had come down to see the machine gun I had offered to sell to the Municipal Council at Hankou and wished to know if my machine was a single action or double action gun. I showed him the gun and how to work it, and he decided to buy it. He then wished me to send it somewhere on the Yangzi, I said I could not let it go out of my house until it was paid for, and would not deliver anywhere outside the limits of a treaty port unless provided with a special passport or huzhao. Mason then said that he was going to Ningbo and would call for the gun on his return. He did not do so. He went to Hongkong engaged a lot of foreigners, instructed them to come and report themselves to me for duty, etc., etc. On Mason's return to Shanghai he brought a lot of firearms he had bought in Hongkong. They were seized, and the men he had engaged were looked after. He himself was introduced by Mr R.E. Bredon, Shanghai Commissioner of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, to the Daotai of Shanghai who invited him to dinner and to witness a theatrical performance as if he, Mason, had been a popular hero. He lived in the Central Hotel and was a frequent visitor at the Shanghai Club where he had been introduced by Mr Bredon. Meanwhile all sorts of tricks were being practised to inveigle me into a trap. Conch shells were blown at all hours of the night about my house under the direction of Mason. A host of extra police officers and detectives were placed on special duty on my property, at the switch-back railway. I suddenly remembered the letter that had been sent me. I thereupon called on Mr acting-consul Mowat and insisted on his reporting the matter to H.M.'s Minister at Beijing. Mowat pooh-poohed the whole thing as a farce and so it proved in reality though very costly and dangerous to me. Instructions were soon received from H.M.'s Minister at Beijing and Mason was removed from the Central Hotel on the Bund to H.M.'s ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 472 lacking in balance and discrimination: luckily, this is not true of the vital central three-quarters of the book. But readers should beware of the lack of balance in these two sections. There are a few other minor flaws as well. Thus, while, of the two main Hong Kong Chinese-language newspapers, one is spoken of as the Wah Kiu Yat Po, the other is spoken of as the Xing Dao Ribao (Star Isle Daily), thus disguising (very effectively) the Sing Tao. It is difficult to discern any pattern here. There are also a few errors of fact, particularly in the first and last chapters. Thus, inter alia, nowhere near 20,000 villagers were displaced for the Japanese extension of the Airport - there were no more than a tenth of that number living in Po Kong, Sha Tei Yuen, and Kak Hang. The demolished tenements in the Kowloon City area in the 1930s were not inside the Walled City, but outside, in the Kowloon Market area. Sir Thomas Jackson was not the founder of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank (1864): he was its General Manager from 1876-1902. These flaws, however, are minor, in comparison with the immense value and interest of the bulk of the book. It is, despite the flaws, confidently and wholeheartedly recommended to anyone interested in the history of Hong Kong. PATRICK H. HASE Jane Hutcheon, From Rice to Riches, A personal journey through a changing China Sydney, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2003. This book delivers. Its coverage is broad but deep, it has the right mix of passion and detachment, with impish but biting humour, and is quietly but cleverly constructed by the author who, for five years from 1995, was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's correspondent in China. The author is well-suited to her task. A “China-coast" background on both sides of her family over several generations, her Hong Kong birth and upbringing, her family's devotion to journalism, plus a genuine interest in China and its people, combine with her own independent and questing spirit to make this a memorable account of their recent and current history. It is, indeed, a tale of 'China's wrestle with ================================================================================