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the city of Victoria and Kaulung by means of a regular service of steam-launches; the increase in the number of European-built houses, in which a large number of Chinese find employment. There has also been a great development within the last 10 years of the boat-building and timber trade at Táikok Tsui and Mongkok Tsui. At the former place there are no less than 14 boat-building sheds, several with patent slips, and four large timber yards. At Mongkok Tsui not only is there a large boat- building trade carried on, but steamers and steam-launches are also constructed there.

New soy factories have also been established at Mongkok Tsui, Hunghom, and Yaumati, and new tanneries at Mat'au Ch'ung and Tókwa Wán, while a good deal of ground has been reclaimed at Yaumati and many new houses built there. If the railway between Kaulung and Canton, which is so often talked about, becomes an accomplished fact, the growth of the Kaulung peninsula, which has already been rapid, will be still further accelerated.

14. The increase at Shauki Wán is due almost entirely to the establishment at Quarry Bay of the Sugar Works of Messrs. BUTTERFIELD & SWIRE, at which are employed from 1,500 to 2,000 hands, and which have given rise in their immediate neighbourhood to quite a flourishing community, where ten years ago there was not a single house.

15. The boat population (see Return I A and I B) now amounts to 32,035 as compared with 28,989 in 1881, which represents an increase of 3,046. The only place where there is a decrease in the boat population is at Stanley. In 1881, the boat population there was 981. It is now only 568. The largest increase is at Kaulung, where the boat population has risen from 4,472 to 6,447.

16. The number of vessels has increased from 4,226 to 5,220. In Return VIII A and VIII B will be found a description of the various vessels. From this table it would appear that trading junks have decreased from 72 to 15, but the small number returned is due to many of the junks having been absent from the Colony on the day on which the Census was taken and to some of those which were here having been confounded with some other class of boat. That there has been no great falling off in the junk trade of this Colony up to the end of 1890 is shown by a return (Return IX A) which has been kindly furnished by the Acting Harbour Master, and which shows the total number and tonnage of junks entered in the Colony from 1881 to 1890. In 1881, the junks entered numbered 28,806, and the tonnage amounted to 1,819,390; in 1890, the figures were 28,018, and 1,958,855. The number of steam-launches which was in 1851, 23, has now reached 81, a number of which few harbours can boast. To complete the statistical account of the shipping of this Colony during the past ten years, a return, IX B, also supplied by the Acting Harbour Master, is attached showing the number and tonnage of steamers and sailing vessels entered in the Colony from 1881 to 1890. The number of steamers has increased in ten years from 2,750 with a tonnage of 2,599,460 to 3,989 with a tonnage of 4,791,839, and the sailing vessels have decreased from 464 with a tonnage of 253,819 to 125 with a tonnage of 101,894.

17. One of the most interesting features in connection with the Census is the increase in the number of Chinese families. In 1868, when forwarding the annual Census returns for the year 1867, the Registrar General, Mr. (now Sir) CECIL SMITH, wrote as follows :-

"I would next draw attention to Return No. 3 which shews that during the past year a fair "increase in the number of buildings for the Chinese, and in the number of families, "viz., 189, over the previous year, which settled in the Colony. This latter point is, I hold, "of considerable importance as evincing a gradual surmounting of old prejudices on the part of native residents-formerly deemed insurmountable by many-against bringing "their wives and families to live in a British Colony, or indeed in any place out of their "own country."

To judge from the figures of the present Census, the prejudice may be said to have almost entirely disappeared, for whereas in 1881, the returns showed a total of 11,859 families, the present. returns show a total of 17,349, or an increase of 5,490 families in ten years, or about 550 a year (see Return XI B). The increase in the number of women in the Chinese population also tends to show that the objection on the part of the Chinese to take their women with them when they emigrate, a point which Anti-Chinese agitators in America and Australia are ever ready to avail themselves of as an argument against Chinese immigration, does not extend to Hongkong, which may be due in a great measure to the proximity of this Colony to the mainland of China. In 1881, the women, land population, numbered 21,640; they now number 33,523, an increase of 11,883, or 54.9 per cent., and bear the proportion of 1 to 3.37 of the adult-male, land population, which amounts to 113,241.

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18. In his speech on the Census of 1881, the Governor, Sir JOHN POPE HENNESSY, stated “that as the Colony makes progress, the revenue should improve without the imposition of any new taxes. The principle laid down by Sir JoNH POPE HENNESSY is fully borne out by a comparison between the figures showing the increase of the population and the growth of the revenue since 1876. No new taxes have been imposed since that date, though since 1885 the municipal rates have been fixed at 13 per cent. of the annual rateable value instead of at 12 per cent. as formerly, and since 1886 at 7 per cent. instead of 6 per cent. in the villages. This will account for some of the increase in the revenue, after 1885 and 1886, but for only a comparatively small portion, as may be seen on reference to Return