Modest birth of a bold new century
A WEEKLY look at events from the archives as the century unfolded January 1, 1900: Hong Kong entered the new century. And despite all the ads in previous weeks for cigars and champagne (Roussillon Champagne at Lane, Crawford & Co for $25 a case) by all accounts it had been a fairly sober affair, in comparison to preparations 100 years later.
'At midnight,' reported the China Mail, 'a number of the ships in the harbour rang their bells heartily, and the gun at East Point was fired and a few rockets were fired from houses in the high levels. At several of the churches watch night services were held.' The British were more interested, it seems, in the events of the Boer War, whereas for most of the Chinese the turn of the Western New Year was simply not worth noting.
January 1900: Revolutionary newspaper Zhongguo Ribao (China Daily) published its first Hong Kong issue. It was founded by Chen Shaobai at the request of Sun Yat-sen, and later was the first Chinese newspaper to publish a literary section. Such sections became a popular way for other papers to push for revolution.
November 11, 1903: The South China Morning Post was launched as 'an independent British journal, free from party or political control' under editor Douglas Story. There were 107 European names and 14 Chinese on the list of shareholders, and one board member was one of Sun Yat-sen's revolutionaries.
News priorities were rather different from those today. The first page was full of advertisements: page two included an invitation to a Smoking Concert at the Bowling Club, several columns of reminiscences of the Derbyshire Regiment and a notice of a meeting for the Sanitary Board - important because of the plague that was rife in those years.
The board - made up of seven Europeans, one Indian and two Chinese - considered the application for a licence of an opium divan at No 7 Upper Lascar Row. They decided to deny it, not because of the proposed activities, but because the premises did not have a concrete floor.