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12 RETROSPECT With the vast uoheaval of the Chinese revolution a new chaoter in the Colony's history opens, and before we turn the page it is approI!削e 削們o provide in some detail a picture and desc句 tion of Hong Kong as it was then. For this purpose 1 offer the reader the recollections of an eyewitness of the period. It is a reconstruction made after a quarter of a century and more,l and in details the memory may sometimes play false. But in the main 1 claim reliability for the portrait. This is no casual cro88-section made at random in the stream of time, but the clear image ßashed on the receptive gaze of the stranger on first arrival and printed firmly on the mind. To complete the picture one should, perhaps, provide also the parallel portrait of ‘Hong Kong today'. But 1 make no apology for not doing so, for Hong Kongstill grows and 1 prefer to 1揖.ve it to the reader, at whatever date he reads, to draw for himself, by reference to his own latest recollection or most up-to-date information, or the immediate evidence of his own eyes, the con- 甜甜 between 曲.en and now. The west end of Victoria presents in 1911 much the same appear~nce_ as it does today,a though one observes the old steamships Cha,les Ha，dl叫你 and Paul Beau plying to Canton under the French _ ßag. The central district snows-some changes. His M勾個ty's ship Tamar is moored in the stream. One looks in vain for the Queen's Pier. The vacant site opposite the Hong Kong Club, known as ‘the finest site', is the subject of much discussion 細細 the purpose to which it ought to be put. Today the cenotaph occupies it. The Cricket Club pavilion, a single-storeyed buildirig, is at the south-wωt corneroftlie ground,its back to the City Halt~ T)1~ Hongkong _and ShanghaiBank, occupying the westérn half of its present site, consists of a circular banking hall under a copper dome and quarters for its officiaIs-a su侃ciently sumptuous structure but utterly dwarfed by the sky-scaper which has replaced it. Across thé road is Beaconsfield Arcade' with ‘Beaconsfield '一斗once RussianConsulate and latterlyGovernment offices5on the bluff above. At the point where Ice Housc Street starts to Retrospect 105 as臼nd (and the National City Bank now stands) stood the Grand Hotel, and thence westward to Flower Street a row of humble stuccoed buildings with shops on street level and verandahs over the footpaths. The old Club (where now the King's cinema stands) provides premises for a Chinese drapery estabfishme肘， and the old bowling alley a few steps up the street will shortly accommodate Hong Kong's first cinema-the Coronet. Those few steps are bright with colour, for here is the pitch of Victoria's flower sellers. Acro8S the way is the old Land Office and the old Supreme Court, both under notice to quit. The Hong Kong Hotel, embradng the site now occupied by the Gloucester Building, extends from Queen's Road to Des Voeux Road. Facing it is the old Treasury and Post 0伍ce. At the top of the street the Clock Tower still survives. The Exchange Building will not come into the picture for another ten years. Here Café Weissman (re-christened Wiseman after 1914) offers coffee and light refreshnients. At the junction of Pedder Street and Chater Road, opposite the new Post Office, is Kruse's,the tobacconist. At the north-west corner of the junction of Chater Road and Ice House Street, Lane Crawford's has settled itself.oIÞ The P. and O. has-not yet bui1t its new premis包， though a vacant strip adjoining the Post Office and a dinghy on derricks on the Praya indicate where it has staked its claim. For the present its local 。假ce remains in a pseudo-gothic building in Des Voeux Road two doors west of Jardine池.5 Up the hill, the Colonial Secretariat lacks a storey, and where the Public Works Department annexe now stands there is an open stretch leading to Murray Battery. The small range of buildings in Lower Albert Road opposite the Secretariat has for some years now been converted from its original purpose of stables to an overflow office. Between this and the Peak Tram station stand the spacious residences of the manager and assistant manager of the Hongkong Bank-No. 1 and...

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