CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Customs Service: Officers in Charge, 1859-1921. First edition thus, with the Canton library's ink stamp and bookplate. Though unmarked as such, this valuable reference was subsequently owned by Lester Knox Little (1892-1981), a commissioner in Canton in the 1930s and later the service's last inspector-general, and was acquired by a private collector from his family in 1999.The service's list of officers, first compiled in 1880, was periodically revised and updated; this was the fourth iteration. Tables give Western and Chinese names, salaries, current titles, dates of appointment, and the Chinese colleagues with whom each officer worked.At the time this copy entered the library - September 1926 - the service's Canton operation was led by Francis Hayley Bell (1877-1944), the commissioner officiating. In 1936, he became the defence security officer in Singapore.

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