418.
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 22nd. SEPTEMBER, 1877.
66
In preparing the usual report on such documents, I could not avoid seeing that what had been described in 1876 as an apent outbreak among the population of Hongkong," could not entirely explain a serious increase of crime, which had really been going on for the three preceding years.
For instance, in the returns of the number of cases of felonies in Hongkong for the last three years, as given in Table C of the Police returns submitted to my predecessor on the 31st of January, 1877, and which I laid before your Lordship on the 15th of June, the following figures
attract attention:-
not fail to
SERIOUS OFFENCES.
Number of Cases.
Description.
1874
1875
1876
Murder,
3*
3*
Robbery with Violence from the Person, Burglary or Larceny in a Dwelling House, Assault with Intent to rob,.
15
13.
24
69
107
90
51
Kidnapping,
63
55
7
5
Piracy,....
Unlawful Possession,,
203
251
289
Larcenies,.
802
938
1,059
Felonies not already given,
16
13
Total,..
1,165
1,395
1,485
* One case also given under Piracy.
I found also that the average number of prisoners in gaol had been steadily increasing since 1874; and that the number of re-committals of old offenders had also been increasing.
Convinced that the first duty of Government in a small and wealthy community like this, is to put down lawlessness and to protect persons and property from the depredations of the criminal class, I instituted searching enquiries with the view of making myself acquainted with the cause of this increase of crime so as to check it promptly and effectually.
In pursuing my enquiries, it became manifest, as your Lordship will b. e observed from the despatches noted in the margin of paragraph 2, that one of the sources of the gro th of crime in this Colony is evidently the want of that sound system of Prison Discipline which your Lordship now instructs me to establish.
I need hardly say I shall do my best to carry out your Lordship's wishes; and perhaps in course of time it may be possible to render the prison system, on the one hand more deterrent, and on the other more reformatory in its operation, than I found it to be.
I have, &c., (Signed) J. POPE HENNESSY,
Governor.
His Excellency Governor Pope Hennessy to The Right Honourable the Earl of Carnarvon.
HONGKONG, 6th July, 1877.
MY LORD,-In my despatch No. 33 of the 13th of June, 1877, paragraph 19, I reported to your Lordship that there seemed to be an excessive use of the lash in this Colony. As far as I am aware, there is no Code of Laws in any part of Her Majesty's Empire in which the power of flogging is so extensively given to Magistrates and Judges as in Hongkong.
Looking, however, to the theory held by intelligent Europeans here as to the specially crimi character of the native population of the Colony, and to the views of experienced European Offic and other gentlemen, who have lived in Hongkong for many years, that flogging is one of the y best mode of dealing with Chinese criminal, I am not prepared, without careful enquiry and much greater consideration than I have yet been able to give to the subject, to recommend a more humane code of laws, or to make any attempt to assimilate in this respect the Ordinances of the Colony with the general practice of the British Empire.
But, whilst I note this state of the law, without at present being able to lay before your Lordship any scheme for improving it, I have seen quite enough of the mode of its administration to feel justified in asking your Lordship to sanction an alteration in some of the details of the punishment.
Your Lordship will have seen by Mr. GARDINER AUSTIN'S despatch No. 56 of the 14th of March last, that one of my predecessor's (Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY's) last acts was to remit the public floggings imposed on two Chinese prisoners who had also been sentenced to five years' penal servitude fr
· Robbery in a boat in the harbour being armed with an offensive weapon.'