Hong Kong Blue Book

This is a Hong Kong Blue Book for 1938-1939, an official government directory and administrative record of the British colony. The contents comprise extensive tabular and regulatory information rather than narrative prose: statistical returns on agriculture, shipping, criminal records, and population; listings of civil establishments, ecclesiastical institutions, and government officials including foreign consuls; details of colonial infrastructure including railways, roads, telegraph, and harbor facilities; accounts of revenue and expenditure; hospital and asylum statistics; and comprehensive schedules of government fees, licenses, duties, and taxes covering everything from admiralty court procedures to dog licenses to liquor import duties assessed per gallon. The document is organized as a dense alphabetical index preceding detailed regulatory specification sections.