April 12, 1909.1
We have had to admit that our lady friends by residence here have lost the bloom on their cheeks which first charmed our masculine eyes, but we may yet hope to see the rosy red suffusing the faces that are so pallid I read that a beauty doctor has discovered a means of tattooing a blush by an injection of harmless vegetable colouring under the skin. The process suggests in its effect that the patient has been spending weeks in the sunshine, and, unlike rouge, the blush will not wash off. No need to send the wife for a trip to Japan now when she looks pale. Operate the tattooing needle and when she looks as healthy and as beautiful as the blushing Hebe she cannot have the hardihood to ask the "man wot pays" to give her an excursion. We have a fellow feeling for the hero of the story told by Sir James Dewar, and though he is Scotch we cannot help regarding him as a brother, Sir James relates how when in the Highlands of Scotland one summer, he stopped at a farmhouse for a cup of milk. "What a superb place to live in,"The remarked to the farmer. "On, aye," he answered, it's a' right; but hoo wad ye like to have to walk fifteen mile ilka time ye wanted a wee glass o' whisky?'
Why don't you get a bottle and keep it in the house?" Sir James suggested. The farmer shook his head sadly and said, "Whisky won't keep." Aye, we've all realised that, even in this part of the world.
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Can a woman lie? It would be a brave man who would answer the question in the affirmative in the presence of one of the fair sex, though it does not require so much courage to make the assertion in the columns of a news- paper as is being done in America. An Italian professor is quoted as having said that " woman can get along without lying at least a hundred times a day," bat chivalrously adds "I never could bring myself to condemn lying, for in doing so I would condemn women: their prevarications are part of the delicate comedy of life." But the courtesy of the Italian is far eclipsed by the Attorney-General of Tenessee. When a woman swore that her husband charged with murder had been at home on the night in question, afterwards, on being confronted with her husband's confession, admitted that she had said the thing which was not and begged leave to amend her testimony, the Attorney-General gallantly repudiated the insinuation of a barris. ter that she must have told an untruth and declared "I want to go on record as saying that a woman cannot lie. It is abhorrent to nature to believe that she can she may be mistaken or misled." With such conflicting opinions, the mere man may wonder are," but it seems to me that though no lady would like to be described as a prevaricator she would not object so seriously to being told that her infirmity is not dishonesty but merely mental obliquity.
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RODERICK RANDOM,
HONGKONG.
At the Magistracy on the 3rd inst. Mr. F. A. Hazeland fined a native $100 for taking two boxes of dynamite on board the U.S.S. Helena without distinct marks.
At the Magistracy on April 5th a Hungarian clerk was charged with having embezzled seven thousand guilders within the jurisdiction of the Netherlands Indies. The offence was committed it is alleged, in Batavia. The case was re- manded for a week.
It is perhaps not well known that in Hong- kong it is prohibited by Ordinance to offer for sale from the month of March to the month of September inclusive any pheasant or partridge. On April 8 at the Magistracy a stallholder in the Central Market was fined $5 for having sold a brace of pheasants.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT
The appointment of Mr. Ho Kom Tong to be Wa-Chun is gazetted. a member of Sanitary Board vice Mr. Fung
Management of the Union Church it was decided At the February meeting of the Committee of
church hall, and the seatholders were asked by to erect new coolie quarters on a site behind the circular to provide by special contributions a sum of $1,200 for this purpose. There was a ready response, the whole sum requisitioned being subscribed.
At the annual business meeting of the Union Church Literary Club the following gentlemen were elected to constitute the new Committee:- Bellamy Brown, F. Browne, A. S. D. Cousland. Messrs. E. F. Aucott, W. D. Braidwood, A, C. C.. Hickling, P. H. Holyoak, J. C. Jonghin, J. R. Wood, and Dr. J. C. Thomson, with the Rev, C. H. Hickling, ex oficio, President.
Mr. R. Mitchell, chief manager of the Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company, has resigned his position after 25 years service Mr. T. I. Rose, the Secretary, has also resigned, Other important changes, in the staff impending, in consequence of recommendations made by Mr. Dyer, the expert from Home,' engaged by the Directors to investigate the working of the Docks with a view to the more economical and efficient working of the, establishment.
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The Committee of Management of the Union Church had before it at the January meeting ing his retirement from the Government service a letter from Mr. J. Dyer, Ball, 1.8.0., intimat-
It was felt that Mr. Ball's long connection with and his consequent non return to the Colony. Union Church, the very special services he has rendered in almost every office that may be held in the hurch, and the leading share he has Congregation for the benefit of both Europeans taken in very many undertakings outside this and Chinese, demanded special recognition; and a resolution was placed on the minutes recording Mr. Ball's services to the church and the Colony in this respect. A copy of the resolution was sent to Mr. Ball in the form of an illuminated address.
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It is well known that many of the Chinese
fishermen in the neighbourhood of Hongkong use dynamite for purposes of fishing. The dymanite is exploded in the water and the fish are stunned, being easily gathered in then by means of netss. The other evening Police Sergt. followed in a small fishing boat the fleet which Gordon attracted by the noise of explosions was working between Cheung which were using torches to attract the fish and Lamma Island and came upon about 120 boats
Chan and,
aged to get into the middle of the fleet and discharging dynamite in the water. He man- captured seven of the owners of boats and brought them to Hongkong. They were placed before Mr. Hazeland at the Magistracy on April 5th and were each fined $50, the alternative being two months' imprisonment.
A SHOOTING ADVENTURE.
and
ran in
Magistracy on the 5th inst. when a Chinese was An interesting story was told at the charged with bathing in
the reservoir at Shaukiwan. It appears that Mr. Pendlebury, the overseer of the reservoir, and his friend reservoir looking for birds. Mr. Pendlebury Edwards, were in the neighbourhood of the took aim at a bird which he saw on a tree but missed. Accordingly he discharged the second barrel. This was followed by a loud yell which certainly did not come from a bird. Mr. Pendlebury dropped his the direction of the sound where he came
gun upon a frightened Chinaman who was bleeding from several shot wounds. Inquiries were at once made and it transpired that the Chinaman, who was guilty of trespass, had gone to the re- servoir to bathe himself, though he denied this his clothes, & statement which of course did not improve his position. Hearing the shot fired it appears that he rather indiscreetly attempted to raise himself from behind the rock where he was unseen in order to see what was happening. the second discharge. Mr. Kemp, before whom Then it was he received part of the contents of the case was heard, imposed a fine of $75 or three months' imprisonment.
THE ABERDEEN MURDER.
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The brutal murder committed on the Peak The additional evidence gained by the police Road last week is still shrouded in mystery.
will in all probability prove a hard one to has not afforded any valuable clue, and the case unravel. The murdered man was last seen in a barber's shop at Aberdeen, where he called for a shave, and another strange Chinese followed him into this shop, leaving again just after the alleged to have stolen a razor from the barber, visitor from Shanghai. The second man was but this the latter denied. The murderer chose
distance in either direction. It also happened Peak Road, from which he could see a long as the place of attack an elevated part of the
to be a quiet part, and on one side of the road was a steep precipice. There were indications that the assailant had attempted to throw his victim over this precipice, but finding the task more difficult than he had expected owing to the dense scrub, and probably being in a hurry to depart from the scene of his crime, he left stones. The motive of the murder appears to the body by the roadside, partly, concealed by have been revenge rather than robbery, for a number of subsidiary coins and two pawn tickets from Canton were found on the dead man.
A gruesome discovery was made on the Peak Road, near Aberdeen, on Apl. 2nd when the body of a Chinese was found lying by the roadside with his throat cut and his head battered in. Shanghai, and was dressed partly in European The murdered man was apparently a visitor from
more than one assailant, and that the victim clothing. Appearances indicate that there was put up a desperate fight for his life. The palms of both his hands were deeply cut, show- ing that he had attempted to seize the knives he was overcome by superior force, and his with which the murderers attacked him. Then bloodthirsty attackers completed their ghastly task. head and ripping the abdomen of the victim After cutting the throat, hacking the they battered in the head with stones, and when the body was found a mopad of stones covered the head. Little information regarding the crime could be gleaned yesterday, but the police are now busily engaged on the case.
JAPANESE AND JIUJITSU.
before Mr. F. A. Hazeland at the Magistracy A Japanese clerk named Shosaki appeared on the 2nd inst. on charges of disorderly conduct,
he had been celebrating the third year of his uniform. The defendant told the Court that assaulting the police and damaging a constable'
not wisely. The evidence showed that as he shop', and apparently he celebrated the occasion
he surprised a lukong by embracing him and giving him a gratuitous lesson in jiujitsu. The was proceeding along the road at Wanchai
lakong attempted to arrest Shosaki, but find- ing himself unable to cope with the boisterous Japanese he summoned two European constables to his aid. P. C. Wilson was the next man to lay hands on the defendant who again showed his skill in the Japanese art of self-defence by nearly breaking the constable's arm. With the assistance of the other European, however, Shosaki was taken to No. 2 Police Station and deposited in a cell. There he continued to shout and
his Worship imposed a fine of $5 or fourteen scream for some time, bat eventually calmed down. After hearing the evidence yesterday days' imprisonment on each of the first two charges, and ordered the defendant to pay fifty cents compensation for damage done to the lukong's uniform.
strikingly instanced at Batavia by a native The folly of not letting well alone has been
assassin who, made for a sum of money, murdered a schoolmaster who had made many enemies by practising the black art. The guilt, held that the sum promised proved too great a temptation to be resisted by the assassin whose greed had been aroused, and that this should count as a mitigating circumstance The sentence passed was only 20 years' hard labour. appealed. and the court, finding that the criminal The assassin hoping for a lighter sentence, court had erred in taking the blood money into account, sentenced the assassin to death.
A verdict of accidental death was returned suggestion and said that he went there to wash criminal court/before which he confessed his on April 8 by the jury which sat with Mr Kemp at the Magistracy to conduct an inquiry into the circumstances of the death of an excavating coolie who was killed on tha 23rd March at Hunghom railway heading by a fall of stone which crushed him. It appears that he was en- gaged filling waggons of the railway when the stone fell from the hillside and crushed him, death being instantaneous.
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