ABSTRACT
A considerable proportion of the three-million-odd Chinese, who form the bulk of the population of modern Hong Kong, are now domiciled in that Colony. Yet the truth is that no such statement exists, and one can hardly read a page of a Hong Kong legal publication without becoming aware of the obscurity which still enshrouds the Chinese doctrines. In the Chinese law and custom of 1843, which we must consider to be the starting point of Chinese law in colonial Hong Kong, there were a number of these topics, where the statute law, applied by the Chinese courts, laid down one rule, and custom, followed by the great mass of the people, persisted in another. The chapter aims to discuss some features of that law which pose a problem for the Hong Kong courts today, and to illustrate the subject by reference to a particular Hong Kong legal institution.
