Wild times in old Hong Kong?

Submitted by anonymous-01 on Thu, 05/31/2012 - 19:16

 

While browsing the web I came across the following description of Hong Kong in 1874 at http://www.shengjing.org/hart.html

It is written by a member of the Christadelphian religious group.

Wikipedia says the group traces its origins to Dr John Thomas(1805–1871), who migrated to North America from England in 1832. Following a near shipwreck he apparently vowed to find out the truth about life and God through personal Biblical study. Initially he sought to avoid the kind of sectarianism he had seen in England

Today the Christadelphian body is divided into "fellowships" (of which in the UK it is estimated that there are 23), the largest being the Central fellowship, named after the now-defunct Birmingham Central ecclesia, once its largest and most influential ecclesia – their name for church as far as I can see. Wikipedia says there remains a large number of Unamended Christadelphians, particularly in the US and Canada.

The writer of this letter is one Brother Hart and the year is 1874. He says: "There is no loop-hole into which the truth can enter, as yet, in any society in Hong Kong. The whole minds of the public are craving after pleasure. There is a sad cry when no
theatricals are in the place, and to take their place amateurs perform; want of pleasure seems to drive the people mad. A mania for drinking clubs has got up lately, and these are got up by the Protestant and the Catholic clergy and priests. There is the Royal Navy Club, got up by the Chaplain of H.M.S. Audacious, established in a building owned by Roman Catholic priests. The drunkenness and language used is dreadful; a lady living next door complains bitterly. There is the Roman Catholic Club, got up by the priests,
on premises belonging to themselves. The police force have two drinking clubs and two canteens; the Protestant clergy have organized a temperance club for merchant seamen, but it might as well be a drinking saloon; these same clergy organised a canteen for them in the Sailor's Home. There are four drinking and billiard clubs for the English public, one for the Germans and one for the Parsees. The Chinese seeing this, have established about thirty: these have all been established about a year. For some time there
has been two English theatres, one German theatre, one Garrison theatre and three Chinese theatres; also twenty hotels and beer shops, so that, dear brother Roberts, with the fact also that there are nearly one thousand Government licensed brothels, about one thousand private Chinese brothels and over a thousand other unmentionable dens, you will see what sort of a place Hong Kong is, and I alone in it. If Sodom and Gomorrah were worse thanthis, they were bad indeed. This is a true picture of the place; society is
rotten in every direction. Ministers and their church committees all work hard for what they term the "almighty dollar."

I wonder is Rev Hart exaggerating or was it that “wild” in Hong Kong?

 

Sean

Exageration to the point of religious propaganda, I would say. There were about 130 licensed brothels in HK in 1874, Chinese and European combined, not the thousands claimed. I'm no expert on the Church in 19th-century HK, but claims of the involvement of Protestant and Roman Catholic churchmen in the booze trade sounds highly dubious.

Google 'Race, space and the regulation of prostitution in Colonial Hong Kong' for confirmation of the brothel numbers. (Hyperlink doesn't work.)

Sean, I followed your link at the top and had a quick look for Hart and Lilley. There were two people of that name in HK, but the initials of those I found are wrong. But the coincidence is that one Hart was the Proprietor of the Oriental Restaurant in 1867 (Jury List). Any connection with your search for the same restaurant on another thread, I wonder?

I agree totally with your first assessment of Mr Hart's rant. It has all the hallmarks of that. For a time in the 1960s and early 70s I worked as a journalist in Northern Ireland when the now very respectable Rev Ian Paisley was given to calling the Pope "old red socks" which of course inflamed Catholics.

He certainly had more success than Mr Hart whose words I posted somewhat tongue in cheek.

Your second post though just amazes me. Is it safe to assume there was only one Oriental Restaurant in HK in 1867? For certain my great grandfather John Olson is shown as manager of it in 1867. Could this Hart be the same person and be proprietor? It seems unlikely to me as I don't thing my ancestor was much given to high morality and good living! Quite the opposite I suspect.

On the other hand Hart is not the most common name. Maybe somebody out in cyberspace can help clear this one up.

Thanks so much for your usual expertise and judgment.

Regards,

Sean

Hi Sean,

It's all a little confusing. Your ancestor and T. Hart are each on the 1867 Jury List as Manager and Proprietor respectively of the Oriental Restaurant. In 1868 T Hart has gone from the list and your ancestor is given at 292 Queen's Rd, which was well to the west, in the tavern district. (There are three Harts on the 1867 list, by the way.) I suspect there was only one Oriental Restaurant, and it was part of the Oriental Hotel mentioned in the other post as closing around 1867 to make way for the Hongkong Hotel.  Another Oriental Hotel appeared on Wellington St in the 1870s, but I'm pretty sure this was a separate entity and shouldn't be confused with its predecessor.

cheers,

Adam 

Thanks Adam. I agree it is a bit confusing. But though the Jury List of 1867 shows the information you have found we know from Carl Smith that my great grandfather John Olson was granted a licence for the National Tavern in the same year.

The answer may lie in the fact that when old John shipped out of his native Karlshamn in Sweden in 1858 he was signed on as a ship's cook. I have no idea how he got to HK as the ship he sailed on went to Sebutal near Lisbon to pick up salt and bring it back to cure fish for winter consumption. I think he probably jumped ship there and with the Portugese link to Macao probably found a ship going East without too much difficulty.

If he was a ship's cook he would have had some qualification to run a restaurant. Thus the Oriental. He was also what today it is fashionable to call an entrepeneur (he brought two brothers out to HK to work with/for him) so perhaps he saw a better opportunity with the National Tavern which eventually became the National Hotel which he was the proprietor of. The address of 292 Queen's Road is where the National Tavern stood in those days though the road has been re numbered several times since then. If you do a site search here for John Olson you will see that David has worked out the original site.

Also on my website www.thehongkonglegacy.com there is a picture of the building which stands on the site now.

As for the Hart person I agree he disappears and so does the Oriental Restaurant. Therefore, I think you are probably right that the Oriental Restaurant was an offshoot of the Oriental Hotel which was sold in 1867 to become the Hong Kong Hotel. One caution though the Jury Lists, while being most useful, are less than accurate. People drop in an out and in fact old John drops out in the 1880s and never reappears though he lived until 1918.

I suspect that is as far as we will get with this unless somebody turns up something more on either the restaurant or Mr Hart.

Thanks again.

Sean