October 13, 1897.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. approved by His Excellency the Governor, be placed on deposit with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, in the name of the Jubilee Committee.
C. P. CHATER,
Chairman of the Jubilee Committee, To Honourable J. H. Stewart Lockhart, Colonial
Secretary, &c., &c., &c..
Pun Ting for some such name] promoted to be acting Magistrate and his ladies want
and to keep bank notes
do not wish to get silver." The second letter was sent from East Gate, Canton. It said On the Will you be good enough to inform His Ex- 13th day of the fifth moon I received two $5C | cellency the Governor that the Committee is notes. They were brought here by a friend.now engaged in preparing terms and conditions On the 21st day of the fifth moon one of them for competitive plans for the Victoria Hospital was passed off in Fatshan. One was left as it could, and Home for Training Nurses, and as soon as not be passed. Now I send you back that note be- plans are selected they will be submitted for cause it is badly altered and because I fear that a His Excellency's approval and work commenced. woman who knows writing will not take it." At Iwould further respectfully request you to present I deduct $10 for commission. The ask His Excellency the Governor to kindly give third letter said-" I beg to inform you that I directions, in accordance with his promise on now send you one $50 bank note which was the occasion of the celebration of the Jubilee, to brought here last week by your son, because that have the Victoria Jubilee Road commenced at $50 note was badly made, and I now hand it both ends.-I have the honour to be, sir, your back to your son to be brought to Hongkong most obedient servant, for you. Written under the lamp on the night of the 1st of the ninth moon.' The fourth letter reads as follows:-" On the 27th day of the fourth moon I received four $25 bank notes which were brought here by- They have been disposed of and I now deduct $20 for commission and hand $50 to be brought to you. At other times only when you have $50 or $109 notes send them here be- cause the ladies of the big house dislike the trouble of changing" A paper also found in the house stated that if the business was success- ful it was clearly stipulated that the money, $100. should be divided into five shares and that there should be no dispute. Mr. C. R. Scott, sub-accountant at the Chartered Bank of India, Australia. and China, prored that the $50 note found in the prisoner's house was a forgery. It was originally a genuine $10 note, but the figure "1" in each corner had been altered to "5." Mr. Chan Kai Ming, second elerk at the Magistracy, gave similar evidence and further stated that the Chinese characters had been altered and shaded over so as to make them all alike.
The prisoner said he knew nothing about the letters or the notes and suggested that they had been placed in the house by a man with whom he lived, and that he bad informed the police in order to get prisoner into trouble.
His Worship committed the prisoner for trial at the Criminal Sessions on both charges.
THE MASONIC ADDRESS TO
HER MAJESTY,
The following despatch is published in the Gazette-
Downing Street,
2nd September, 1897. Sir, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 154 of the 14th of July last forwarding an address to the Queen from the Freemasons of Hongkong congratu- lating Her Majesty on the occasion of the completion of the sixtieth year of Her reign.
2. The address has been laid before the Queen, and I am commanded by Her Majesty to request you to convey to the Freemasons of Hongkong an expression of Her thanks for their loyal congratulations and good wishes.
3.-The Queen was pleased to admire the beautiful manner in which the address is bound. -I have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
JOHN BRAMSTON, For the Secretary of State. Governor Sir W. Robinson, G.C.M.G., &c.,
&c., &o.
THE JUBILEE MEMORIAL.
COLONIAL SECRETARY TO CHAIRMAN, JUBILEE COMMITTEE.
Colonial Secretary's Office. Hongkong, 4th October, 1997. Sir-In reply to your letter of the 22nd ultimo, I am directed to state, for the informa- tion of the Jubilee Committee, that a vote for the amount of the Government contribution towards the Jubilee Fund will be brought before the Finance Committee when the Legislative Council next meets.
The Acting Director of Public Works bas promised a preliminary report on the proposed Victoria Jubilee Road in the course of a few days, which, after it has been received, will be duly submitted to the Committee.-I have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient servant,
J. H. STEWART LOCKHART,
Colonial Secretary. Honourable C. P. Chater, C.M.G., Chairman,
Jubilee Committee.
COURT MARTIAL IN HONGKONG.
ALCOHOLIC OR CONSTITUTIONAL NERVOUSNESS?
Rather an interesting medical battle has been fought at a Court-martial which was held at the Headquarter Office, Queen's Road, on Friday, Saturday, and Monday. The prisoner was Sapper McClintock, of the 25th Company of the Royal Engineers, and he was charged with conduct to the prejudice of military discipline and good order in that he, when liable to military duty, indulged in excessive drinking of alcoholic stimulants, thereby inducing alcoholism and rendering himself incapable of performing his duty, between the 14th and 28th ultimo,
291
For the defence sappers were called to prove that the prisoner was a temperate man and that he had suffered from nervous- ness for a long time past. Dr. Stedman was also called to give scientific testimony, an M.D. of the London He said he was University and had been house physician for over a year at the special hospital in London for the treatment of nervous diseases. The prisoner was suffering from simple tremor, which was no more a disease than stammering; it was a nervous condition and was well known to be unconnected with nervous disease or alcohol- ism. He first examined the prisoner on the 8th inst. The tremor of the tongue was slight, but perfectly distinct, and the tremor of the hand was slight in range but very marked in character. It would, he thought, be impossible for the prisoner to voluntarily keep up so fine a tremor the length of time the examination In his opinion the symptoms were lasted. constitutional and not alcoholic. He thought they might easily be mistaken for alcoholio symtoms, as the conditions were almost alike. The reasons why he thought the tremors were not alcoholic were (1) because it was very un- usal to have chronic alcoholic tremor in so young a man; (2) because he believed alcoholic tremor was always accompanied by other marked symp- toms, such as a blotchy face, bleary eyes, and general alcoholic appearances, which were not present in the prisoner; (3) because the his- tory pointed to the tremors having been present as long as prisoner could remember; and (4) be- cause it required a considerable amount of alcohol to induce alcoholic tremor, and the history did not point to the prisoner having had sufficient. It was well recognized that the condition of simple tremor did not affect a man's efficiency for work or service; it was not usually even shown in the handwriting. Wit ness did not think the prisoner's nervous con. stitution was shattered,
In answer to the prosecutor Dr. Stedman said he could not speak about the prisoner's condition between the 14th and 28th Septem- ber, as he did not see him until 8th October.
Mr. Robinson addressed the Court for the defence, after which the Court considered the evidence.
The prisoner was found guilty. The sentence will not be made known until it is confirmed by the General Officer commanding.
REVIEWS.
China Coast Tales. By LISE BOEHM. Shang-
bai, Hongkong, Yokohama, Singapore: Kelly and Walsh, Limited. 1897. THIS, the second volume from the same writer's pen, contains two tales, In the Sixties" and Playing Providence," the former occupying over two-thirds of the book. Both are graphi
"
The Court consisted of Major Hanham, R.A.cally told and have a strong interest, but neither is (President), Captain Simmonds, R.A., and Lieut. Ingpen, W.Y.R, Lient. Denis de Vitre, acting adjutant, R. E., prosecuted and Mr. E. Robinson conducted the defence.
The following correspondence is published in 28th, suffered from a nervous disease which was the Gazette:-
CHAIRMAN, JUBILEE COMMITTEE, TO
COLONIAL SECRETARY.
Hongkong, 22nd September, 1897. Sir, I beg leave to inform you that the Jubilee Committee have collected the sum of ninety-eight thousand eight hundred and ninety- two dollars and twenty-eight cents, amount sub- scribed by the community wherewith to provide a permanent memorial of the completion of the sixtieth year of Her Majesty's reign. I have now to ask the. Government for a cheque for an equal amount, in order that the whole sum of $197,784.56 may, in accordance with resolution 3 passed at the meeting of the Jubilee Com- mittee held on the 26th April and subsequently
The evidence for the prosecution was that on the morning of the 13th inst, the prisoner was found drunk at Lyemoon, where he was sta- tioned, and he was placed under arrest in the gnard room. His wrist was badly cut as the re- sult, he said, of the bursting of a lemonade bot- tle. He was taken to the hospital and detained there until the 28th September, from which date he had been under armet. According to the evidence of Surgeor-Major Johnston, Sur- geon Captain Whitty, and Surgeon Captain Prynne, the prisoner had, between the 16th and
the result of alcoholism. His bands were shaky, and his tongue was also tremulous and furred, and Surgeon Captain Prynne was of opinion that the prisoner's nervous system was utterly shattered. The result of this nervous condition was that the prisoner was unfit for service. In cross-examination Mr. Robinson asked Surgeon Captain Prynne to make an examination of the prisoner. The witness did so and said there was still a tremor of the prisoner's tongue and hands, but the symptoms were not so aggravated as they were when he was admitted to the hospital. Witness could not say, not being a nervons diseases, whether the specialist in symptoms observed by him were the result of malingering or not,
so redolent of the Chinese coast as either of the tales in the earlier volume-" Dobson's Dangh- ter
" and "Of the Noble Army "--in fact, with an alteration of the local colouring the scenes. of the present tales might have been laid almost anywhere, whereas the events narrated in the previous ones could have occur. red only in China.
*
In the Sixties" opens "Long-long ago, in the good old days, before France began to think of Tonkin, before Germany began to think of ousting England in the Far East, before Rus sia dreamt of a Pacific ice-free port; half-way and more through the sixties, when dollars were worth the getting and bimetallism a fancy topic of conversation; when fortunes could be marle in a decade, if at the peril of one's life, some thirty years ago, in short.' The characters are Customs and mercantile men and their women-kind; the motive is mis- placed affection ending in elopment and ship- wreck. The annual visit of Mrs. Ratcliff to the unmarried Commissioner of Customs at Amoy seems rather an extravagant idea, eren for China in the sixties, but otherwise the situa tions are all very cleverly arranged and the characters well drawn.
4
Playing Providence," the second tale in the book, is concerned with the shipwreck made of two lives by an erring wife, the title being suggested by the intermeddling of a Commis- sioner's fussy wife, who brings the separated husband and wife together again,
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