One Hundred Years' History Of The Chinese In Singapore: The Annotated Edition. Ong Siang Song
without one man being killed: not only Chinese engaged in planting in the country were attacked, but people on the New Harbour Road, or not far from Sepoy Lines, or on Mr Balestier’s35 sugar [60] plantation on Balestier Plain fell victims to these wild beasts. So serious was the situation that a deputation of Chinese planters waited upon the Resident Councillor for more drastic measures on the part of Government to deal with this scourge. The dread caused by the increased destruction of coolies employed in gambier and pepper gardens had become so intense that a number of plantations had to be abandoned. The Chinese in town, who formerly made advances to the cultivators and used to visit the plantations occasionally to collect their interest or instalments, no longer dared to venture into the jungle: and the value of these plantations very naturally began to depreciate. In one instance, a plantation which had cost the owner $300 was sold for $25 in consequence of the fact that the ravages from tigers had been so great there that the plantation had acquired a bad reputation and no labourers could be induced to live upon it. The Government reward of $50 for every tiger brought to the police station, whether alive or dead, was increased to $100 and later to $150. Tiger-hunting expeditions were organised, and Mr WH Read36 tells an amusing story of a tiger killed in 1843 in a pit not far from the present Botanical Gardens.
To earn the Government reward, Chinese, working in parties and sometimes singly, would dig pits or set traps, or arrange heavy beams of timber suspended from tree to tree over the tracks of these tigers, connected on the ground with springs. Often the tables were turned, and tigers killed the men when they went to see if their traps were successful. The Free Press of November 1843 has this paragraph:
On Tuesday evening, a Chinaman, while engaged in constructing a tiger pit at the back of Mr Balestier’s sugar plantation, was pounced upon by a tiger, who, after killing him and sucking the blood, walked into the jungle, leaving the body behind. We suppose the [61] tiger, knowing the object of the Chinaman’s labours, took the opportunity of giving a striking manifestation of his profound disapproval of all such latent and unfair methods of taking an enemy at disadvantage.
Major McNair37 tells us that in 1859, when he was Superintendent of convicts, the number of tigers on the island and the number of people killed by them were still increasing, and after discussing the matter with Governor Cavenagh38, it was arranged for certain of the Indian convicts who were good ‘shikarries’39 to patrol Bukit Timah, Changi and Chua Chu Kang districts, and these parties were successful in killing half a dozen or so in the course of the year.
The tiger scourge was frequently referred to in the columns of the Free Press of those days and was made the subject of a humorous paragraph in the London Punch of 27th October 1855, while the Friend of India, a Calcutta paper, suggested that so many deaths were scarcely likely to be caused by tigers, and that it was possible the Chinese secret societies might imitate tigers’ wounds on murdered persons!
In 1844 was commenced the Tan Tock Seng Hospital ‘for the sick of all nations’, the oldest and one of the most useful of Straits Chinese institutions. It replaced an earlier Chinese hospital or Poor House which had been built from the proceeds of the Government Pork Farm (which had been imposed for that special purpose), but the Poor House was never used as such because the Convict lines were not then ready and the building became instead the Convict Gaol. For the accommodation of the diseased and the poor, an attap building was put up, contrary to the expectations of the Chinese community, and for this and other reasons it was avoided by the very people for whom it had been meant.
There were comparatively few wealthy Chinese in the ‘Forties, but these few were public-spirited and keen to spend some of their hard-earned fortune for the [62] welfare of the general community. And so while the Press in 1844 complained that ‘a number of diseased Chinese, lepers and others frequent almost every street in town, presenting a spectacle rarely to be met with, even in towns under a pagan government, and disgraceful in a civilised and Christian country, especially one under the government of Englishmen’, it published also the good news that a Chinese merchant, Cham Chan Seng, then recently dead, had bequeathed $2,000 to the hospital and that another Chinese merchant had presented $5,000 towards the same object.
A public meeting was held on the 3rd February 1844 with Mr Tan Tock Seng in the chair, and several resolutions passed, the first being proposed by EJ Gilman and seconded by Tan Kim Seng and carried unanimously in the following terms:
That it appears to the meeting that the Government of Bengal is under a misconception in supposing that the proposed erection of a Pauper Hospital for the reception of the Chinese is to ‘please the European and quasi-European’ portion of the inhabitants, and that the Chinese are indifferent on the subject: that on the contrary it is the opinion of this meeting that the Chinese are, as a body, most anxious that the same should be carried into effect.
Mr Buckley truly says that:
… the Government had been slow to recognise the necessity for providing a hospital, and as the first introduction of anything like one was due to private enterprise, it was not thought to be astonishing that it was left to generous-minded individuals to do what they could to alleviate the necessities of the sick poor.
On the 25th May 1844, the foundation stone of the new Pauper Hospital at Pearl’s Hill was laid over a brass plate bearing the following inscription: [63]
THE FOUNDATION STONE
OF
THE CHINESE PAUPER HOSPITAL
SINGAPORE
WAS LAID ON THE XXVTH MAY, MDCCCXLIV
DURING THE GOVERNMENT OF
THE HON’BLE COLONEL WJ BUTTERWORTH, C.B.
GOVERNOR OF PRINCE OF WALES’ ISLAND, SINGAPORE
AND MALACCA
THE HON’BLE T. CHURCH, ESQR.
BEING RESIDENT COUNCILLOR AT SINGAPORE.
THE FUNDS FOR THE ERECTION OF THIS BUILDING WERE FURNISHED BY THE HUMANE LIBERALITY OF
TAN TOCK SENG, ESQR., J.P.
CHINESE MERCHANT IN SINGAPORE.
The foundation stone of the European Seamen’s Hospital was also laid at the same time on the same hill, and the two buildings, designed by the Government Surveyor, Mr JT Thomson40, were said to be handsome edifices, adding much to the appearance of the town.
Tan Tock Seng’s Hospital was placed in the hands of a Committee of Management, with Hoo Ah Kay Whampoa as Treasurer, and Seah Eu Chin41 looking after the food supply. The Government provided only medicines and medical attendance. The dieting was met by contributions and subscriptions from all classes of society.
In 1852, the accommodation in the Hospital having been inadequate for some time past, some of the principal Chinese residents interviewed the Governor, and after a discussion as to ways and means, Tan Kim Ching,42 the eldest son of the founder, offered to defray the whole cost of the additions, while his generous example was followed by other Chinese merchants increasing their monthly subscriptions. In 1854 the additions were completed, and the following inscription was engraved on stone and fixed at the hospital gate: [64]
THIS HOSPITAL FOR THE
DISEASED OF ALL COUNTRIES
WAS BUILT A.D.1844
AT THE COST OF
SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS
WHOLLY DEFRAYED BY
TAN TOCK SENG.
THE WINGS WERE ADDED
AND LARGE IMPROVEMENTS EFFECTED
AT THE COST OF
THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS
WHOLLY DEFRAYED BY
TAN KIM CHING,
SON OF THE FOUNDER.
During the Indian Mutiny (1857) the buildings at Pearl’s Hill were taken over for military purposes, and together with the European Seamen’s Hospital