August 21, 1895,
There were 1,605 visitors to the City Hall Museum last week, of whom 146 were Europeans.
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The inquest on the coolie who was killed at the Central Market was concluded on Monday by Hon. H. E. Wodehouse. It was alleged that, Constable Macdonald, while he had a prisoner in custody, kicked the deceased down the market steps and inflicted fatal injuries. As a matter of fact the constable said that the distance from where he was to the point where the man fell was fifty-two feet. The Magistrate returned the following finding :-"The deceased died from injuries sustained by a fall resulting in fracture of the skull, such fall taking place down the steps of the Central Market, leading into Jubilee Street, there being no sufficient evidence to show what led to the fall."
was not
At the Magistracy on Saturday, before Hon. H. E. Wodehouse, the captain of the Memnon was charged with having taken kerosine on board at a prohibited part of the harbour. It was proved that the kerosine was shipped from cargo beats at the Kowloon Wharf instead of the kerosine anchorage. This the first tims the offence had been committed, and his Worship inflicted a fine of $25. Inspector Hanson asked for a heavier penalty. The maximum penalty is $250, but his Worship refused to alter his decision. Later he was appealed to by the Acting Captain Superia tendent of Police to inflict a more substantial fine, but the Magistrate declined to accede to the request.
The Colonial Surgeon, in his annual report laid before the Legislative Council on Friday, makes the following suggestion. which will be endorsed by everyone:-I would like to suggest that when coolies are licensed to carry chairs and ran in jinrickshas, some consideration should be given to their physical capacity for doing such work. At least a quarter of the coulies so em. ployed are quite unfit for it, and that they are so is patent to the most casual observer and needs no professional opinion. If they were horses their owners would be pounced upon at once for cruelty to animals and prosecuted. The unpleasant experience of having to get out of the vehicle and pay the coolie bзfore his con- tract is carried ont has occurred to many people frequently."
Our argument as to the basis on which the military contribution should be levied in Hong- kong is endorsed by the Singapore Free Press, which says:----- We shall be much mistaken if our Hongkong friends acquiesce very tamely in an application of the 173 per cent. principle to their own case without some clearer under- standing. The fact is that Hongkong is prac fically an important municipal community, having & Crown Colonial instead of a municipal administration] From the cirenmstances that is, to some certain extent, anavoidable. But it should be remembered that, a good deal of the Hongkong revenue is really of a municipal character and properly disposable only on town administration. For calculation of the true contribution percentage it seems to us that the Hongkong revenue should be carefully dis: criminated into municipal rates and general receipts. The ratio would only apply, neces- sarily, to the latter head, which would include excise, land revenue, stamps, and the other usual
heads of Colonial revenue.
Dr Eitel, in his Educational Report for 1894, says:-On 21st May, 1894, a panie spread, like wildfire, and emptied most of the Chinese schools in town owing to the rumour that the Government had resolved, in order to stop the plague, to select a few children from each school and to excise their livers in order to provide the only remedy which would cure plague patients. This silly rumour, accredited by the fact that Chinese national custom sanctions the medical use of excised portions of the living human body, gained general credence among the mothers of children attending purely Chinese rchools and served to show how little way has been made yet by the Government of Hongkong in the direc- tion of making their more enlightened aims understood by the Chinese population. Chinese women in Hongkong do not seem even now to have any more confidence in the Colonial Government than they had some ten years ago, when the girls schools of the colony were sud- denly emptied by the rumour that the Govern- ment was about to select a girl from each school to bury the children alive in the Taitamtuk tunnel to ensure the success of the aqueduct.
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
TIENTSIN.
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
5th August.
149
Five fishermen were found floating by the steamship Coptic while passing Kagoshima on the 25th ult, and taken to Nagasaki, They were kindly treated by the captain, who gave the food and clothes, besides 10 yen. They were the only survivors out of 29 who went out fishing on the 24th,
Chungking mentions, says the N. C. Daily News, A private letter of the 1st of August from that Mr. Davis, of the China Inland Mission at Wanhsien (on the Yangstas, below Chungking), had been badly beaten.
The local mandarin
refused to give either of the missionaries there an audience, and was encouraging a riot. But at Chungking, on receipt of the news, and the Mr. Tratman had an interview with the Taotai result was that the Taotai sont such instructions by wire as brought the Wanhsien official to his Chungking just now, but the officials are watch- The examinations are in full swing at ful and everything is quiet.
senses.
Our most striking news this week is the out- break of cholera, which threatens us from two sides, the native city and the shipping from Che- foo. The weather is abnormally cool and dry, and the mere fact that it is so is credited un- reasonably as the cause of the epidemic. There is a form of the disease differing a little from sporadio black cholera which is endemic to Tien- tain native city. It is quite as fatal to the natives as its virulent cousin. dietatios and conditions of life render them peen Their careless liarly susceptible to its attacks. Europeans on the other hand by very simple precautions can easily escape it. Abstinence from water which has not been boiled and filtered, from unsound frait and especially from melons, and great care in the presence of diarrhostic symptoms and in the conditions of sleep give certain immunity. The The N. C. Daily News says the lightkeeper Chefoo variety is black cholera; it has broken at the Saddles saw au exciting incident about a out in two of the Russian ganboats and in the week ago. It is, of course, known that the crews of some of the coasting steamers.
Saddles are the hunting-ground of tribes of Sir Nicholas O'Conor is expected in Tientsin men who are fishermen by profession and pirates immediately en route for Chefoo. With him by practice. will come the fag end of the Legation guard. junk came
What appeared to be a big salt sailing slowly along with one The Minister is of opinion that the guard may man at the helm and two or three sailors now be dispensed with. Advantage will be loafing on the deck. Two fast boats put taken of Sir Nicholas's presence to discuss off from the Saddles, with about ten armed some of the Laud Regulations and Municipal men in each. The junk. saw them and yawed the port and to limit trade facilities. It is hoped alongside and made fast one on each side of the questions which tend to hinder the expansion of about, trying vainly to escape. The boats pulled that a solution will now be found to the vexa junk. Instantly the junk's decks bristled with tious question of effecting permanent im soldiers, who poured a volley from their rifles provements by loans. At present the Munici into the boats, then jumped down, killed all
"bunding pality are doing all their
and whom the bullets had spared, and throw the wharfing" out of income, a policy which bodies overboard, after cutting off the heads of necessarily involves piecemeal work and in-the two leaders. The apparently harmless salt efficiency.
junk had been chartered by a mandarin who was out pirate hunting.
of
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of attention just now, the present Council hav- Municipal affairs are attracting a good deal ing very liberal and advanced views in municipal socialism. They are moving in the direction of a Public Recreation Ground and educational facilities for the foreign children.
The
Despatches received from Peking by the Shanghai mandarins report, says the N. C. Daily News, that at the special recommendation of the Viceroy Chang, the Emperor will appoint Mr. German Concession " movement goes and a first-class expectant Taotai of Kiangsu, Yung Wing, M.A. of Yale University, U.S.A., on apace. The Chine e inhabitants of the pro-to be the organising director of the rail- posed area have to-day. received verbal notice of compulsary sale in two months. The result was
way to be built between Chinkiang and a great flutter in the native dovecotes. There is eight years of age and a native of Hsiang-
Peking still some doubt as to the exact locality, some shan (near Macao), Kwangtung, but became a Mr. Yung Wing is about sixty-
thinking that it is co-terminous and continuous naturalised American citizen soon after graduat- of about three furlongs intervenes. This gap with the British concession; others that a gaping from Yale University in the fifties. and, on dit, is to be passed over so as not to was once proposed as an American concession, hurt certain susceptibilities.
After
successfully launching the China Educational became for several years deputy Chinese Minister Mission to the United States, Mr. Yung Wing
been for the most part residing in Hartford, at Washington during the seventies, and has Connecticut, U.S.A., but came to China a couple of months ago in obedience to a special edict of the Emperor. Mr. Yung Wing is now at Nanking. Its
If the Americans are not going to take it up, it will be a pity to refuse it to Germany, The extension of the foreign settlement greatly con facilities. corns public hygiene, to say nothing of trading
exact location is a matter of present discussion.
A Japanese concession is the next move. As a result of the war Tientsin is distinctly on the "boom."
Viceregal affairs are exactly where they were. the ills and follies of a double rule. Still the There are two kings in Brentford, and some of idea gains ground that Li Hung-chang will re- turn to power. Foreigners up here, who have the chance of gauging the relative ability and uprightness of Chinese officials, have a very de- sided preference for Li They do not endorse the view of the Southern foreign press, but re- gard bim still as immeasurably the best man. in China for dealing with thuntside world. A diplomatic enormity such as the late agreement with Russia would not have been run through so cleverly by Count Cassini had Li been at the helm.
Our last distinguished visitor was the Hon. T. II. Whitehead, from Hongkong; he is now to Peking.
MISCELLANERUS.
The Foochow Echo of the 10th inst. says: The premises of Mes rs. Maitland & Co., Limited, were set fire to at one o'clock this morning by some incendiary. Fortunately prompt action was taken to stop the flames, which was easily done on the river side, and only a few hundred dollars worth of damage was done.
As stated in the supplement to last week's issue, says the Nagasaki Express of the 7th, the Helene Bickmers was got off and came in to the Mitsu Bishi dock here, severely damaged. 36 feet from either end, is one mass of corruga- In point of fact her whole bottom, from about tions, and it speaks wonders for the makers of her plates that these latter stood what they doubtless have. On her port side, that which was on the landward side when she grounded, the steel plates are dinted in to a distance of some 12 inches in many places, and generally resemble a corrugated iron roof. On the star. board side things are not quite so bad, although they are bad enough there, some of the plates having been forced in about eight inches out of their general level. Rivets have been wrenched out in all directions and it speaks volumes for her builders, on the Clyde, that she did not go to pieces altogether. Amidships, right under her engines, her keel has a space in it like a bow, about 15 feet in length and, at its greatest height, about six inches above the level of the bow or stern. The fact of her having two skins was undoubtedly what saved her from total déstruction. Great oredit is due to the Mitsu Bishi Company for the manner in which they got her off. A few years ago the case of a vessed ashore in Japan was considered almost hopeless by European underwriters. Now, however, things have greatly altered and a better opinion of matters here will be un doubtedly formed,
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