in face of its trampled rights and betrayed interests. Moreover, dependent as the Colony is upon China, it is made to suffer for every political upheaval there as well as for every great festival here. Curiously enough, market prices raised since the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh never declined, but went on rising after every subsequent royal fête. The China-Japan war made matters worse; and now the two million taels due as Kwangtung's share of the in- demnity to foreign Powers will in all pro- bability be made up from the ever-increasing price of commodities supplied to this helpless and sorely afflicted Colony. On the other hand, the landlords will very likely further fleece their tenants for the reform to be instituted by the Sanitary Commission, thus hindering any attempt to reduce the already abominable overcrowding.
Sanitary reform in Hongkong, to be effec- tive, should go apace with an amelioration in the condition of the working class economically. The newly acquired territory amply answers the purpose of improving sanitation in Hong- kong and rendering the colonists independent of arbitrary landlords and purveyors, Only when this is availed of may the actual state of affairs be justified in the principle of supply and demand. An appeal to the home Government may lead to the economical problem being studied conjointly with the sanitary problem. A class pre-emimently fitted for this appeal is the missionary class. Even in the China treaties they are recognised as men who do good. If they will only appeal to the Government and the humanitarian societies at home on behalf of the down-trodden working class of Hongkong, they will be on the way of achieving a triumph in the cause of civilisation and humanity which will render them blessed by the poor and much more appreciated than they are in ungrateful China.
CANTON.
[FROM A CORRESPONDENT.]
Canton, 2nd November, THE M.A. DINNER.
The Luk Meng Yin, the banquet to the new M.A.'s, was held on Monday, and as the whole scheme of examination is to be changed, this ancient and curious ceremony will never be repeated. The scene was the Governor's Yamen. The M.A.s, in court dress and with flowers of silver paper in their hats, were grouped under a bambou. awning in front of the main entrance. On each side were two long lines of little tables, each with a chair beside it and sixteen little dishes of food and fruit set out on it, The expense of this is borne by the Imperial Government, which makes a grant of 10 taels for every successful scholar, though this year rumour says only one tael has been allowed. "The hundred surnames" pressed as close to these tables as a handful of police would let them, but there was no attempt at pilfering or disturbance. About half past ten the tables and their contents were removed for consumption at home, and while this was being done the examiners arrived and were received by the Governor in person. The Governor, the examiner for the B.A. degree, and the examiners for the M,A, degree then kowtowed at a little altar on the right of the hall, and then with the Treasurer and another official took their seats at six small tables at the top of the hall and drank tea, while all the newly made M,A.'s kowtowed to them. The latter then formed into two lines and kowtowed to each other. Half a dozen players then appeared and first sang a song in praise of the kat yun, the first M.A., and then rendered the regulation ode: " Beautiful is the voice of the deer," from which the banquet takes its name. There was a great but good-humoured crowd, and though foreigners were present they seemed rather pleased than otherwise at it.
THE HONOURS LIST.
The first of the M.A.'s this year is the son of a man Lo Kao, who is said to be the richest from very Chinaman in Macao. He rose small beginnings and made his money as an owner of gaming-houses. He also has a lot to do with the Macao lottery and the Wai Sing lottery in this city. The gossip of the streets evers that he made previous arrangements to ansure his son's success, and fixes the amount at
?
[November 9, 1901.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
$16,000. The 163rd name on the list is that frequently experience a feeling not unlike of a boy of 13, a Chinese bannerman named seasickness. Among the phenomena observed Kam. This lad's father was also a candidate, at a recent visitation, a local newspaper men- There were three distinct shocks, and is credited with having done all his son's tions this:- papers for him. If so, a just Nemesis has over each of about three and one-half seconds dura taken him, for while he managed to get his son tion. A party of clerks in a certain part of the through be hiraself failed to pass.
city was playing poker when the first shook arrived. It scattered the chips all over the table. the result of which was that the boys who had been losing had huge stacks of blues and reds tipped over their way and the winners saw their piles disappear in an instant."
FRENCH ACTIVITY IN CANTON.
The French school at their yamen in the middle of the city, which was opened on the 13th September, has already 75 pupils, which is as many as they have room for. The staff consists of three teachers and a chaplain, and they say that had they more room they could get with ease 200 pupils. The students are chiefly of business families, though there are some whose fathers are officials, and vary in age from sixteen to forty. They are very eager to learn, and their system appears to produce better results than the Tung on Koon. Each student pays $2 per mensem, and a very fine school-house has been built by the French Government.
since the opening of a French post office in Shameen, which has apparently been successful, further developments have been made, and letter boxes have now been set up in several streets in both the city and the suburb. The Chinese appear to be using them, and it is said that stamps can be procured at the French Yamen.
Three and one-half seconds may not seem long even when multiplied by three, but testimony to the contrary could readily be gathered in a community exposed to an earth- quake for that period. The travel of dreams is not faster than that experienced by the mind alert at such a time. A resident in whom the imprint of fear was laid in his boyhood, in 1883, and whom the first tremor always ronses, no matter how soundly he may be sleeping, tells of an incident of last Spring, to illustrate the slow- Be awoke at once as usual. Ou ness of time. leaving the bed he struck a light, and looked at his watch, which lay open on the table, A bookcase in the room had creaked out of plumb. He gathered a wad of paper and righted that furniture by lifting one of its legs and weut stuffing the paper under. Then he to the window. Under a lamp outside stood The inhabitants of the Fung Neng Sei, a American police officer, to whom the street in the east of the city, attended a few resident remarked that the shock was rather Yes," the officer answered, reach- days ago at the wedding of a Buddhist priest. severe. The hero is a young priest of 20, very handsome ing for his watch, "and it is a long one according to Chinese ideas, and a well known too." The resident walked back to the table, rake. He has now openly married a wife with got his own watch, returned with it to the considerable ceremony, and as every Buddhist window. Motion ceased while he stood there, priest takes rows of celibacy and chastity, he 15 seconds after he had first looked at his watch. has thereby rendered himself liable to expulsion As the official report gave that time as the duration of the shock, the resident had evidently as soon as his abbot hears of it.
started from bet at the instant of the first com- motion. He says he was not conscious of special haste in the things he did while the shock lasted.
OTHER NEWS.
As the magistrate of the Pun Yu district was passing through the city the other day, his chair was forcibly arrested by an angry woman. She complained that his soldiers had jostled her so roughly that her hairpins were broken, and would not let him proceed until compensation | was mude.
Had the lady been Chinese she would immediately have been arrested, but being Manchu the magistrate did not dare to interfere with the jurisdiction of the Tartar General. The Chinese are now quoting this incident as an example of the extraordinary arrogance and boldness of the banner people.
BUILDING AGAINST EARTH- QUAKE IN THE PHILIPPINES.
FROM A CORRESPONDENT.]
Manila, 29th October.
It does not take a lifetime to learn Manila, but longer than Americans have been here; and many residents who hear it said, and hope it is true, that the new sovereignty is carrying the islands in a few years from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, read the building laws framed for the city with no little trepidation. The lawmakers in their wisdom and with mani- fest intent to make the city attractive and symmetrical, and to minimise fire risks, have designated zones of building called respectively the District of Strong Materials and the District of Light Materials. With the purpose of this plan no fault is found. The native likes pretty effects, and may be counted as quite ready to approve laws shaped to that end and for safety. But when lawgivers presume to set aside affairs of nature with as li tle consideration for things past as they reform things traceable to man, even the credulons and confiding native shakes his head. While not wishing at all for such earth- quakes as many have witnessed and of which all know, old residents wonder if nothing short of that calmity can curb American assurance, It is a safe prediction that until such a convul- sion shall pass harınless over the modernised city, the law's permission to build four stories into the air will not tempt natives to trust them- selves asleep in any landing of more than half that height.
Commotions which would disturb people not accustomed to involuntary rocking occur so frequently as to pass almost unnoticed. A new- comer beyond the cradling age is very likely to be awakened by the sway of the bed, first lengthwise and then across, and the timid
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At the Weather Bureau there is a pillar of stone sunk 10 feet into the ground, cemented as firmly as if it had grown there. It rises through the building wholly clear of the floors or frame- work, so that nothing can affect it except the earth itself. A wooden cylinder, like a thick pipe, is secured to the face of the pillar. With- in the cylinder hangs a pendulum, with moves only with the pillar. By a lens arrangement at the bottom of the cylinder, one may watch the swing of the pendulum. It is always in motion. The degree and rapidity with which it moves vary, but it has never been known to be quiet. That is an index of what is happen- ing to this island. A strong wind striking any part of the coast will set it in vibration and the furious storms that attack the island make it rock as if it might be blown from its anchorage. This motion might not be perceptible to the physical senses even if the people did not have enough other troubles without it at such times, but the Weather Bureau pendulum tells the story over and again of a foundation that may be safe but is certainly not firm. In earth- quakes, the pendulum catches fresh spasms of activity, describing every motion to which this part of Luzon is subjected. The simplest office it performs is to prove that the island is never at rest, and to warn the inhabitants that they should take that fact into serious account in building upon it.
Such data as are furnished by the earthquake record that has been kept and the continual perturbation of the earth's surface in this region, fail unhappily to point to the slightest prospect that disaster from earthquake will cease. There is no way of reckoning with The common tremors are matters for it, merriment, but those who have seen the climax of these warnings find them far from jocose. Probably every generation has had at least such experience, although accounts of one
are meagre and have been most of them handed down in fragmentary shape. Sever of the visitations were so violent as to have survived in story and incomplete writing, and there have been three additional in the last 50 years of which it is possible to hear from actual witnesses. Workmen are now busy tearing down the ruined walls of a Jesuit church in this city which an earthquake- des- troyed in 1852. The walls are of solid masonry,“ ten feet thick at the base and tapering-to3“ not less than four feet at the highest portion
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