Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 892

[ XVII]

(Minute by The Governor.)

On the understanding that the intended hospital will be used for relief and cure of sick and destitute Chinese, I am unwilling to withold my sanction from a project which is creditable in its object. Therefore if by building on piles or otherwise a suit- able and safe building can be erected on the ground applied for, and be certified as safe by Surveyor General, I shall give the ground.

29th June, 1866.

R. G. McD.

(Minute by the Acting Colonial Secretary.)

The Acting Registrar General should communicate to the Petitioners the views of His Excellency the Governor and should, if the ground is accepted, take care that the men to whom the Lease is granted are responsible people.

W. H. RENNIE, Acting Colonial Secretary.

2nd July, 1866.

(Enclosure 5.)

No. 2.

SIR,

SURVEYOR GENERAL'S OFFICE,

VICTORIA, 11th January, 1851.

I have been requested to submit the accompanying Petition, from several house- holders and other Chinese residents of the City, to His Excellency the Governor praying that a grant of land may be made for the purpose of building thereon a temple for the reception of tablets to deceased persons.

The ground applied for is situated in a most appropriate place in Taipingshan ou the summit of the small hill west of the general location and about fifty feet from Hollywood Road. I see no objection to the application, and as the ground is unsuit- able for Chinese or others engaged in trade, and quite unsaleable, I beg to recommend it to the favourable consideration of His Excellency the Governor.

I have &c.,

CHAS. ST. GEO. CLEVERLY, Surveyor General.

The Honourable

MAJOR W. CAINE,

Colonial Secretary.

Lu A-LING, TAM A-TSOI, CHEUNG SAU, TONG CHIU, WONG HO ÜN, WONG PING AND 8 OTHERS.

Petition that a piece of ground be granted to them to build a common ancestral Chinese temple. People of other nations and persuasions have had similar grants; but the Chinese who frequent the Colony being workmen, servants and the like, if they die here have no temple in which their ancestral tablets may be placed. Many of them come from a distance and if, when they died here there was a temple to receive their tablets, their fellow-villagers or connections visiting Hongkong could carry them home.