TRADE AND COMMERCE.
643
According to a report of the Registrar-General of Hong Kong, the population of the colony had decreased, on th9 31st of December 1866, to 115,120, of whom only 29,459' were females. The number was exclusive of the military and naval forces, and included 2,113 European and American civil residents, of Avhom 673 were females.
About one-fourth of the Chinese poprdation of Hong Kon" live in boats on the river, as shown in the subjoined table, which gives the numbers of both sexes, dwelling on land and water, at the end of each of the years 1863,. 1864,. and 1865.
Description of
Native population
dwellings
Males.
Females
Total
Houses . . 1 Boats . . <
Total. . 1
1863 1864 1865, 1863 1864 1865,
60,148. 56.80a 73,653 21,124
20,004 18,366.
23.385
22,779
24,966
9,413
9,330
8,519
83,533 79,579 98, 61 a 30,537 29,334 26,885.
1863 1864 1865.
81,272
76,804, 92,019
32,798 32,109 33,485
114,070,
108,913 125,504
It will be seen that in the two years from 1863 to 1865, the boat population kept on declining, while there took place, at the same time, an increase of natives.
The criminal population of Hong Kong is reported to be exces- sively large, owing mainly to the fact of the colony having been since its establishment a place of refuge for Chinese malefactors...
Trade and Commerce.
The commercial intercourse of Hong Kong — virtually a part;of. the commerce of China — is chiefly with Great Britain, the United .States, and Germany, Great Britain absorbing about one-half of the total imports and exports. There are no official returns of the value of the imports and exports of the colony, from and^o ajl countries, but only mercantile estimates, according to which the lornier average four, and the la.tter two, millions sterling.
The extent of the commercial intercourse between Hong Kong and the United Kingdom is sh,ovvn in the following table, which gives the value of the total exports from Hong Kong to Great Britain and Ireland, and of the imports of British and Irish produce and manu- factures into Hong Kong, in each of the five years 1865 to 1869 : —
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