RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 64 September 1885 March June ca 1885 1886 January ca 1886 ca 1886 1887 1889/1890 1889 23 January 1890 Lived in the Chang-fa Chen, an hotel in Shanghai His first child, Pin Mesny, also known as Hu-sheng, born in Shanghai Departed Shanghai aboard the Yangtze for Canton and appointed for service in both Arsenals [claimed that during the years 1884/1887 whilst living in Canton, he suffered from boils, eczema and prickly heat] Many of Mesny's notes lost in Chungking during the destruction of the CIM missionary premises. Mesny had left them for safe keeping with the Rev G Nicoll Office Bearer of the Keystone Royal Arch Chapter of Masons in Shanghai Promoted to the brevet rank of Lieutenant-General [ennobled for three generations: previously claimed to have been bestowed in 1879] In charge of the China Branch of the New York Life Office, in Shanghai Representative of the Lartigue Railway Construction Company in Shanghai Intention to publish a monthly magazine in Shanghai to be called Yüleh Pao together with Chiang Chao-ling (friend and sworn brother). to be the organ of the Reform Party Made two journeys through Anhui and northern Kiangsu in connection with famine relief Journey through Anhui, around Lake Chao from Wu-hu to Lu-chou Fu, returning 5 February 1889 Visited Wu-chang to warn Chang Chih-tung that he was erecting the Iron and Steel Works in Wu-chang in an unsuitable place 1891 7 September Typhoon destroyed the Olympia Skating Rink, his property in Lloyd 1892 January 1894 May 1895 September 1896 Mar/Sep 1898 May/June December 1899 Mar/Oct Road, Shanghai, ruining him financially. Mesny involved in the Mason case Invited to organise a naval brigade for service on the Hsiang and Han rivers Stormy interview with Li Hung-chang in Tientsin Visited Peking and had breakfast with Manchu Prince Su Claims to have volunteered for service in Manchuria [Sino-Japanese War] En route to Manchura: Visited Liu K'un-1, Generalissimo of Chinese Forces [afloat and ashore] at his headquarters at Shan-hai-kuan Mesny refused permission to visit camps of Wu Ta-cheng and Wei Kuang-tao at or near to T'ien-chuang-tai Liu advised Mesny to return to Tientsin. His second and only other child, his daughter, Marie Wan-er, born in Shanghai Began the publication of his Chinese Miscellany Volume 1 in Shanghai Publication of Volume 2 of his Chinese Miscellany Legally married to Lady Han, mother of Hu-sheng [or Pin] and Marie Wan-er Trip by chartered boat to Hangchou Visited Nanking Publication of Volume 3 of his Chinese Miscellany ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 97 the barrel resting on a second man's shoulder. Kang sì: a baked mud or brick bed used in northern Chinese homes, warmed in winter by hot air from the kitchen flue passing through it. Ko-ino Hul #₺★ : A powerful secret society; the Elder Brother Society, membership to which was strictly forbidden by the Ch’ing government and punishable by death. Kowtow : 'knock the head': The ceremony of prostration common in China, chiefly performed before the emperor, in religious ceremonies, and by inferiors to superiors as an humble apology. International Settlement together with the French Concession [Shanghai]: Colonial enclaves where privileges but not political control were enjoyed. The Municipal Council of the International Settlement, against which Mesny occasionally railed, eventually regarded itself as independent even of the UK and US Governments. Most foreigners regarded their presence in Shanghai, despite increasing Chinese nationalism, as in the best interests of the Chinese. Foreigners were divided socially and economically into businessmen, officials of all kinds including police officers and customs officials, missionaries and others such as be-shored seamen, refugees, later mainly White Russians and German Jews, and 'stayed-on' westerners who had married Chinese women or had nowhere better to go. Lartigue railway system: Mesny would appear to have been acting as the local agent for the Lartigue Railway Construction Company in China [in 1886] though whether authorised on a retainer or on commission we shall probably never know. The Lartigue system was invented during the 1880s by Charles Lartigue, a French inventor who, having observed how camel loads were balanced on either side of the animal, invented a monorail which after a tentative experiment in France was chosen as the system to be used for the Bally-Bunion to Lisowel Railway in a remote corner of Ireland in 1888. There is no indication that the line Mesny proposed between Wu-sung and Shanghai, ever got beyond Mesny's fertile imagination. Wu-sung, the town at the junction of the Yangtze and the river which leads up to Shanghai, was where ships first berthed before sailing up the Wu-sung River to Shanghai, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 295 regular aside about their breasts and occasionally their naked crotch. He also made much of his affairs with Chinese women and at this point, in 1864 had a 'romantic and intimate interlude' with a young Chinese widow. She did not appear to be short of money and, having sought Mesny's company, accompanied him up river from Zhenjiang to Hankou where they remained until she left to join her in-laws in 1865. He had been away for a fortnight to the cotton growing districts and on his return had been handed a very polite letter from the 'fair charmer' thanking him for all his attentions to her and informing him that she was continuing on to her late husband's home in Hunan there to rear her children and end her days in virtuous widowhood. She ended, wishing him joy and happiness, by saying that the Chinese banker would hand Mesny a little keepsake to be retained by him in everlasting remembrance of their unexpected meeting at Zhenjiang, their romantic adventures and intimacy on the voyage up the Great River, and their separation for ever at Hankou. Mesny's visit to Zhenjiang 1874 After he had left military service in 1874 Mesny made frequent and repeated egotistical assertions to prominence and repute within Chinese bureaucracy and commercial circles with his endeavours, so he claimed, concentrated on guiding and promoting what he described as the westernisation and modernisation in China. It is far from clear how he made a living after 1874 though later we read in his Miscellanies that he had obtained lucrative business in Guiyang at one stage; that in 1886 he had an insurance agency in Shanghai; and was also the representative for the Lartigue Railway Construction Company. He must have had many other irons in the fire to enable him to travel so widely and so far within China, of which only a few were described in his Miscellanies. In late 1874 he travelled down river to Zhenjiang and then overland through Shandong to Beijing, spending the winter in Jinan. From the dates he gives in his autobiographical notes Mesny must have left his bride fairly soon after their marriage as he travelled through Shantung province on his way to Peking from Chen-kiang' [Mesny does not explain why he was there though almost certainly it would have been no more than a port on his journey from Hankou to Shandong]. In Shandong he visited, amongst other places, the home and burial place of Confucius at ================================================================================