Nearly three columns of reports on June 15 on the Legislative Council meeting gave an interesting snapshot of Colony matters dealt with 103 years ago. 'Financial minute No 38 is for $470 for the post office. This vote is to enable government to do away with the 'hong' system of correspondence with Canton. By that system, private shops gathered letters, posted them to private shops in Canton at so much an ounce to the bag. It was necessary, so long as the Imperial Post Office in China would not undertake to deliver letters regularly in Canton. They have now undertaken to do that.' In financial minute No 35, 'the sum of $400 in aid of the vote for ... meals for prisoners in cells. This excess on the sum originally voted is due to the large number of deportees from Singapore and Saigon ...'.
'A patent for a paper waistcoat, specially suitable for motorists, which is shortly to be placed upon the market, has been taken out by Herr Schaer, a native of Bale, who has discovered a process for making paper pliable and soft, yet difficult to tear. The waistcoat which can be folded and placed in an ordinary waistcoat pocket, cost twopence each,' according to a small report on June 15.
The committee of the Wah On Kwong So (Guild of Australian, American and Canadian Merchants) gave a banquet on June 14 in the Connaught Hotel in honour of Frederic Jones, trade commissioner of the Queensland government and Mr Chu Wan Man, Chinese secretary at the Mexican consulate. 'The tables were elaborately laid and there seemed no end of good fare, composed mainly of the products of Chinese culinary art and the farms of Queensland,' the report said. The guild comprising 114 members were honouring Mr Jones' efforts to help Chinese merchants and scholars. Guild chairman, Chan Cheok Ping presented Mr Jones 'with a Morocco leather case illuminated with symbolic designs'. Mr Chan's speech revealed that 'strict exclusion laws absolutely prohibited the entrance of the Chinese into Australia' and it was through Mr Jones' 'weighty consular influence' that he was able to present the matter before prime minister Alfred Deakin, 'with the result that duly certified officials merchants travellers and students of the Chinese race were now permitted to visit' Australia. Mr Jones replied, saying 'I was struck at that time with the class of men who met me [when he first came to Hong Kong two years ago] ... There are 30,000 of your race in Australia, of whom some 8,000 are located in my state of Queensland, and gentlemen, these strangers in a strange land are treated with every consideration ... and I can most positively assert that their treatment is neither harsh nor oppressive'.
Under the Indian Sport column of June 19, a report detailed the governor of Bombay, Lord Lamington, out on a hunt. The Maharajah of Kolhapur along with Colonel Forbes and Colonel Grantham were among his guests. 'His Excellency's camp was pitched 40 miles east of Kolhapur ... where the prospects of tiger shooting seem to be bright. But His Excellency was unfortunate. He was afforded an opportunity to pot a fine tiger. When the brute came within range, however, Lord Lamington fired, but slightly wounded him and he disappeared never to be seen again. Shortly after, a beautiful black panther came within range of Colonel Grantham's rifle and [he] at once bowled him over. This is the first black panther that has ever been encountered within the Kolhapur territory. The beast measured seven feet and six inches. An interesting feature of the camp was that the Maharajah's two daughters ... were as keen on the shikar [a form of hunting in colonial India] as anybody else ... Colonel Grantham brought is trophy to Poona.'
In the Life in the Police Court column on June 21, three farmers were fined $10 each for manuring their gardens with night soil.