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114 There were 17 post offices in Hong Kong in 1919; Revenue, postal and telegraphic, 460,893 dollars; expenditure, 138,225 dollars. Telegraph lines, including cables, 1918, 283 miles; telephone wires, excluding military lines, 10,850 miles. There is a wireless telegraph service under the Post Office, besides a military and naval wireless station.

Money and Credit.

The British banking institutions in the Colony are the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, whose head office is at Hong Kong, the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, and the Mercantile Bank of India, Ltd. There are also several Chinese and foreign banks.

Money, Weights, and Measures.

The currency of the Colony consists of the notes of the above-mentioned banks, and of British, Hong Kong, and Mexican dollars, besides subsidiary coins. The British Dollar is of 416 grains of silver 900 fine, as compared with 417.74 grains of 902.7 fineness of the Mexican dollar.

Subsidiary coins are 50 cent pieces (209.52 grains 800 fine), 20 cent pieces (83.81 grains 800 fine), 10 cent pieces (41.90 grains 800 fine), 5 cent pieces (20.95 grains 800 fine), and 1 cent copper pieces of 115.75 grains of copper or mixed metal.

The circulation of foreign copper coin was prohibited in 1912, and similar action is being taken with regard to foreign silver and nickel coins and bank notes.

Weights and Measures are:

Besides the above weights and measures of China, those of Great Britain are in general use in the colony.

Statistical and other Books of Reference concerning Hong Kong.

1..

Administrative Reports. Annual. Hong Kong.

Annual Report on Hong Kong. London.

Convention between the United Kingdom and China respecting Extension of Hong Kong Territory. Treaty Series, No. 16. 1898. London, 1898.

Government Gazette. Published weekly on Fridays.

Historical and Statistical Abstract. Hong Kong.

Names (Chinese) of Islands, Bays, Hills and Passes. Hong Kong.

Notes upon Climatic and General Conditions of Living. Hong Kong.

Sessional Papers. Annual. Hong Kong.

Street Index. Hong Kong.

Trade and Shipping Returns. Quarterly and Annual. Hong Kong.

2..

Bentham (G.), Flora Hong Kongensis. Hong Kong, 1902.

Eitel (E. J.), Europe in China. [A nistory of Hong Kong.] London, 1895.

Ireland (A.), The Far Eastern Tropics. [Studies in the administration of Dependencies]. London, 1905.

Kyshe (J. W. Norton), History of the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong. London, 1899.

Lucas (C. P.), Historical Geography of the British Colonies. 2nd ed. Vol. I. London, 1906.

Morse (H. B.), Currency in China.

Oxford Survey of British Empire. Vol. II. London, 1914.

Skertchly (S. B. J.), Our Island. Hong Kong, 1898.

Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports