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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 25TH FEBRUARY, 1871.
"That keeping Gaming House being by English Law criminal it is at least very ques- tionable whether the Ordinance of No. of 18 authorises the Governor to license some Houses for Gaming, and that it is contrary to Law to create a Monopoly even in fair trade much less in Crime without an express and clear Enactment and that therefore such Licensing should be discontinued.
"That the sole object of issuing the Licenses was to decrease Gambling, whereas it has very greatly increased that vice.
"That it has caused and fostered very serious Crimes, and that Suicides have been hand to it. "That the Gambling Houses have been too numerous, Fifteen in Hongkong. At the worst times at Paris there were only Eight and in the few places in Germany in which Gambling is allowed One only usually exists.
"That as I have fully expressed in my Letter to you of the 8th August last, I deduce from the figures contained in Official Returns by His Excellency the Governor that over $5,000,000 were in Two Years only won by Gamblers before the Licensees were recouped the amount paid by them for their Licenses, that at least an equal sum was won from them making the total over $10,000,000 and that it is to be presumed, that the Gambling Licensees gained as much as they paid the Government in order to cover their expenses and to pay them a profit for their disreputable trade. The amount must therefore be doubled and over $20,000,000, has it would seem been lost and won across the Gaming Tables of Hongkong within the Two first years of the Licensing system. From like data if the Tables are open for 7 days in the week, I calculate that Asiatics have made over 10,000,000 of visits to these Houses within Two years.
There may be errors in these calculations, but under any calculation a mass of Gambling is represented unequalled according to population anywhere destructive to the honest labors of the Gamblers and withdrawing from time to time these large amounts from legitimate trade and commerce and thus tending to empoverish and destroy trade in Hongkong as all amit like practices have einpoverished and destroyed trade in Macao.
"That from my experience on the bench I infer that a tone of dishonesty has been engendered by Gaming Houses in petty tradesmen as well as the lowest class, and that this tone has infused itself into and demoralised the Police.
"That Gambling is a Crime in China as well as in England and that the actual licensing of it being a Crime, lowers the prestige of the English Government and name more especially seeing that it was actually put down by a good Governor, lately in Canton Province.
"That the due suppression if not eradication of Gaming has been successfully effected in the Straits Settlements as I was informed by a Police Magistrate and Superintendent of Police there--and that like care can without the Licensing system keep it under here. That the Licensing system introduced avowedly as in itself an evil, but a lesser evil than the evils then existing has not licensed those evils, whilst it has itself been an enormous evil--that as an experiment it has failed and ought to be suppressed which the Ordinance proposes to do.
"That Gaming in England has been effectually dealt with by stringent Statutes four in number not one of which has been made Law here. The proposed Ordinance proposes mainly to embody these Statutes making them Law here."
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"To Ilis Excellency
'Major-General WHITFEILD, Lieutenant-Governor,
&c., Sc., &c.
"I deem and am of opinion that the question raised by the Resolution following, that is to say:-
"Resolved that a Committee of this Council be now appointed to enquire into the state "of the Police and into the constitution and duties and mode of payment of the Force called "District Watchmen and of the body of men designated Mr. CALDWELL'S Informers and of "the causes why perpetrators of crime have in many cases remained undiscovered-that His "Excellency The Lieutenant-Governor is hereby requested to cause a copy of the first and "second or amended Reports of Messrs. SMITH, MAY and MrTCHELL, Commissioners appointed "by His Excellency the Governor, to be laid before such Committee, and that the Committee "do make a Report to this Council and that the consideration of the item 'Police Depart- ment $172,395.20' be postponed until after the receipt of such Report, is proper to be de- "bated at the Legislative Council, to be held on the 11th day of November, 1870."
that-
C
'My reasons upon which the above opinion is founded are among others because I believe
"The Police Force has become demoralised one main cause of which my experience as Judge leads me to trace to the debasing influence of the Gaming Houses and of Gaming therein on all the lower classes.
"That this demoralised state first forced itself on my attention as largely affecting the Police in the HoLWORTHY murder and Sowkewan murder cases, in both of which the hope of obtaining Government rewards led to conspiracies to convict innocent men of murder in which the Police were implicated and which they concurred in originating.