Introduction.
Author's Notes.
This book contains the biography of the late Quong Tart, and was begun on the seventh anniversary of his death. For two years before I married Quong Tart, I kept many of the newspaper cuttings referring to him, and after marriage continued to do so. Sometime in the year 1900 I showed him a bundle of clippings. He said: “Very good; keep them safely; some day I shall have them put into book form to hand down to the children and let them see, although their father was a Chinese, he could be creditably compared with thousands of European fathers.” The opportunity to carry out that idea did not present itself till this month, when I found I had leisure, for, at the time of my husband's death, I was left with six children, whose ages ranged from sixteen years to three months, so that my time was fully occupied in giving them a mother's sole care, and striving to bring them up to be a credit to their father's name, for Quong Tart had won from all classes, by his natural and genuine kindness, a character and name impossible to be bought for money; in fact, he so endeared himself to rich and poor alike, that his name became a household word, for, as the “Daily Telegraph” of October 10th, 1897, said: “Quong Tart is as well known as the Governor himself, and is quite as popular among all classes,” and this remark, I think, will be fully verified by the perusal of the following volume.
MARGARET TART.
“Gallop House,”
Ashfield, July 26th, 1910.
Photographs following Introduction: Margaret Tart
Photographs following Introduction: Quong Tart
Photographs following Introduction: Quong Tart at home
Photographs following Introduction: Quong Tart at home
