496 THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 17TH NOVEMBER, 1877.
only laid down that reformation was impossible, but also gave up the idea in toto of anything like useful prison labour. What is the result? A man is sent in with a knowledge of some handicraft. Has he the opportunity of practising that for the good of the State and himself? No; he leaves the prison probably ignorant of the little he knew before going in.
Gentlemen, I have said that Her Majesty's Government have an extensive experience, and there is no doubt whatever that no greater mistake can be made than to imagine the local knowledge of any gentleman exceeds or can outweigh the universal experience of Her Majesty's Government in dealing with prison discipline. The principles I have laid down are well established principles; they have been proved almost with the accuracy of a proposition in Euclid, and it is no wonder when those principles were not acted upon, that you have an overflowing gaol, and prison offences increasing in this rapid ratio for the last three years, 426, 1,085, and 2,726.
It has been asserted that the number of prisoners at present in our gaol is actually greater than it was in 1876. Here is a return from the Acting Superintendent, Captain DUCAT; I find, according to this return, the total number of Chinese and Coloured prisoners in Hongkong Gaol to-day is 382. What was the number of Chinese and Coloured prisoners at this time last year in the prison? It was 430. That is, however, a matter of small importance: The fact that we have less criminals in the gaol to-day than on the 17th of September, 1876, is of itself of little moment, for in the first place, the regulations which I hope ultimately to introduce are, except in some urgent but minor points, not yet in force, and the slight changes I have made are trivial compared to those I will have ultimately to propose. I attach no great significance, therefore, to the fact that at this date there happen to be fewer criminals in the gaol than at this time last year. I have mentioned Captain DUCAT, and I may say I had not the honour of his acquaintance beyond that of any other gentleman who may do me the favour of coming to Government House occasionally, but I sent to His Excellency the General commanding the troops and asked him to select from the officers under his command a strict disciplinarian, for I wanted a man of the kind to deal with the gaol until Mr. TONNOCHY came out. I had no idea who would be selected, but it proved to be Captain DUCAT, who came with strong recommendations of being the strict disciplinarian I wanted. The returns I receive every day, as well as the weekly reports, are satisfactory as compared with what I noticed on my arrival, and I hope, when the measures I intend submitting to the Council shall have been sanctioned, more will be done to make this gaol a proper engine for the suppression of crime.
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With regard to the branding and deportation of prisoners, such as the branding of fifty prisoners in January last, it is not only opposed to all sound principles of dealing with criminals, but Mr. DOUGLAS, a former Superintendent of the Gaol, had pointed out in a minute to one of my predecessors that the branding of a prisoner on the cheek or the neck had a bad effect, because the Hongkong brand is well known at Canton and at Macao. They know the meaning of that mark; and the consequence is that the branded man is hunted away by all honest people; he cannot get employment; he is rendered for life ineligible as an Emigrant, and he is driven back again to prey on the property of this Colony, because he has no other means of getting a livelihood. On this subject my honourable friend on my left (the Acting Colonial Secretary, Mr. CECIL. SMITH) drew my attention to what a Secretary of State had written to one of my predecessors. He said an indelible mark on the check of a criminal is evidently objectionable as fastening on the delinquent a stigma from which he could never be rescued; it consigns him to permanent infamy. Well, I think it must be admitted there is a good deal in what that Secretary of State--it was the late Lord DERBY-said. The views Lord DERBY expressed to the Governor of Hongkong, were subsequently confirmed by the practical experience of Mr. DOUGLAS, the Superintendent of the Gaol. My perusal of the prison archives of this Colony-for not a month has passed for many years without its quota of branded prisoners being deported to the mainland--has convinced me that Lord DERBY was right. I think the Chief Justice and others will agree with me the time has come when we may fairly re-consider this odious part of our prison discipline. Mr. KESWICK'S views and those of the Police Commission have been carried out, and we have a Police force chiefly of Chinese. Not a deported man comes back now but he is very soon known. Formerly we had all Europeans and Indians, but they could not distinguish the Chinese prisoners one from another; now things are very different. It was only the other day a man was brought up before my honourable friend here (Mr. MAY), or Mr. RUSSELL, for returning from deportation. The constable said, “I knew the man perfectly well without the branding.' I believe there is not one of those criminals the Chinese constables could not detect without the branding; and if even in a small number of cases we are convinced that it prevents men from obtaining honest employment, and drives them back to petty piracies along our shores, or night robberies in Victoria, I think we might give up the branding system.
Gentlemen, I think when a Governor submits despatches to his Council, he should make a statement of this kind. It is a general statement. I have not gone into full particulars with respect to any measures I may think it necessary to take. There is one that will involve expense, and that is the establishment of the separate system in the prison.
When I visited the gaol for the first time, I found three, five, and seven prisoners in the same sleeping cells, overcrowded in every way. Such a system ought not to exist. On making inquiry from Mr. TOMLIN, I found that it had been even worse in 1876, when the number of prisoners was larger; during the greater part of that year, the Chinese prisoners had only 190 cubic feet of air allowed for each person in the sleeping cells; the Government having over and over again laid it down that