THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 4TH JUNE, 1879.
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of the matter with regard to Mr. ALEXANDER, for whom I always had great respect, though, perhaps, not much personal liking. With respect to a man who is dead and unable to defend himself, some of the evidence I would rather should not have appeared in that paper. Now, with regard to the audit, there was originally an audit by the Auditor General, but Mr. RENNIE cut us off and told us we were to audit our own accounts. I found that out just before I left for home, when Mr. HUFFAM told me that Mr. RENNIE had said so. I quite agree with all the recommendations by the Commis- sioners. I cannot say I do concur in all their findings, because that is a matter as to which I have not had sufficient information, but from No. 1 to 13, I don't dissent from anything. They say they are my views only rather modified. The moment I saw this letter I thought the time had come to make a very respectful application to His Excellency to carry out the views expressed. The way in which His Excellency has met that request certainly calls for my very warmest thanks, because now I do feel that, with the order His Excellency has given, we shall be able to carry out the proper management of the business, and it will be between the auditor and the officers if there is the slightest error in the accounts. I remember telling Mr. PLUNKET when he came here that four times my present salary would not induce me to become Registrar. I would loose the situation within six months certain. I am not an accountant, it is no part of my education to be an accountant.. Judge, it has been said, ought not to know that two and two do not make five. His Excellency has stated in the letter that whatever is now done shall be provisional and experimental only, so that if in the working out of this matter anything is found to go wrong, we shall be able to work without any vested rights or interests created until we come to a very clear understanding of how these things are to be done. His Honour then went into the details of the new arrangement, only taking exception to the new regulation as to the shroff, who he thought was wanted in the Summary Jurisdiction Court.
FLOGGING.
A
HIS EXCELLENCY.-Gentlemen, I have now also to lay on the table a paper which I think has ady been distributed, the report of a Medical Committee appointed to investigate the physical effect of The interest that flogging the Chinese on the back, and the mode of flogging in the Hongkong gaol. you take as members of the Council in a paper of this description is of this character: we have upon the statute book of this Colony certain Ordinances which prescribe the mode of flogging and these Ordinances must be carried out. The question upon which the medical gentlemen report is really as to the effect of flogging upon the back of the Chinaman, and that involves, as you know, the question of flogging with the cat or flogging with the rattan upon the breach or thighs. Now, as regards the interest of the legislature in this I will remind you that a good many persons appear to have been under the impression that the laws of this Colony prescribe flogging by the cat, and that for some mysterious reason or other the Governor of the Colony substituted flogging with a rattan for flogging with the cat. Well, I must say that when I was shown in the Gaol an instrument called the regulation cat, and when I ascertained that in one year something over two hundred floggings had been administered with that instrument upon Chinese prisoners for breach of prison discipline, I thought it my duty to tell the Acting Superintendent at that time, Mr. TOMLIN, that he had better read carefully the laws of the Colony, and when, from time to time, I saw it stated in the of
organs the public press that the Governor had put a stop to flogging with the cat, that there was a time when magistrates had this power, and that they had been deprived of the power by the Governor, and that there was a time when it prevailed pretty extensively in the gaol and that the Governor had interfered with this, it did occur to me that some of those who were criticising my conduct might have turned for instruction to the laws of the Colony. They would find Ordinance 6 of 1862, Clause 6, to this effect :-
VI. Whenever Corporal Punishment shall be inflicted under this or any other Ordinance, such punishment shall in no case exceed thirty-six blows with a rattan, to be inflicted in the Presence of the Governor of the Gaol, or Superintendent of Police, or other Officer of Police appointed for that purpose.
And the clause to which I thought it my duty to specially call the attention of Mr. TOMLIN was Clause XI. of Ordinance 4 of 1863, which is to this effect:-
my
XI-It shall be lawful for the Superintendent of any gaol to punish by imprisonment in a Solitary Cell, for not exceeding three days on bread and water or rice and water, or, if the prisoner be under conviction of Felony, to punish by moderate Corporal Punishment not exceeding twelve strokes of a rattan, any prisoner whom he may find after due inves- tigation to have been guilty of any of the following offences or of any breach of prison regulation or discipline. And it is provided in a subsequent section that the Superintendent, in conjunction with the Visiting Justices, may also punish by personal correction not exceeding thirty-six strokes. In the presence of learned friend the Attorney General I need hardly say I am justified in saying these two sections read rogether would render the infliction in the gaol of corporal punishment with the cat illegal. I have before me a return showing that 226 such illegal punishments were inflicted in the gaol in one year by the Acting Superintendent that is, 226 prisoners were flogged with the cat for prison offences.
The Attorney General, who is present, will be able to inform you that that was illegal. But there was some other irregularities to which at this moment it is no harm to refer. The Superintendent was given the power to punish for three days on bread and water. I discovered that Mr. TOMLIN had a practice of sentencing a prisoner to three days' bread and water- we will say to-day for a certain offence and on the same day he would sentence him to three more