[XCIV ]
MOR FUI (caretaker at the Tung Wa Hospital)-I showed the rooms to the last witness. The door of the room in which the defendant was confined was not locked. I did not tell the Inspector that it had been locked, nor that the uprights had been bolted. He asked me about it. The prisoner was at liberty to go any time he liked. He did not go.
Inspector STANTON, recalled-I have not made any mistake. The last witness did tell me about the room being locked. Inspector QUINCEY was present and heard the conversation.
Inspector QUINCEY-The witness Mox Fur told us that the door of the cell in which the prisoner was confined had been locked. He also showed us how the upright bars and the door were locked.
LI YIK CHI, recalled-The letter shown is the one which was sent to the Registrar-General about this case.
NG KUM SING, Police Court interpreter-The letter in question contains a statement by the com- plainant and one by the prisoner.
LI YIK CHI, recalled-I told the men before they made their statements that they must speak the truth and not tell any falsehoods.
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This concluded the evidence.
Mr. WODEHOUSE said—I shall not call upon the prisoner to make his defence. The complainant who brings the original charge has varied his statement so much from time to time that it is impossible for me to attach credibility to what he says. The whole case bears the appearance of the complainant having voluntarily come down to Hongkong on the promise that employment would be found for him there by the prisoner, and of his having changed his mind upon the arrival of the steamer and finding it was possible that he was going to be kidnapped and sent abroad. Had he made that statement in the box in all probability the prisoner would have been convicted. But I am bound to take his evidence as be gives it, and if he chooses to give me some other story, which he thinks is better calculated to secure the This is an conviction of the defendant, but which is not true, the defendant must get the benefit of it. ordinary case of a man being brought into the Colony-whether for an improper purpose or not is not in question now-and its chief interest lies in the part that has been taken in it by the Pó Leung Kuk. In what I am going to say now I have not the least intention of saying anything against the motives by which that Society is actuated nor against the organisation of the Society. I confine myself entirely to this case.
And I am sorry to say that the impression left on my mind is a very disagreeable one. I consider that the action of the Society has been altogether irregular, and I may say that in their efforts to make out that they have been proceeding in a legal way I think the truth has not been adhered to. The simple facts of the case appear to me to be that a detective of the Society, in what he no doubt considered to be the discharge of his duty, found this man on board a steamer, being brought into the Colony by the prisoner, and that he thereupon arrested the prisoner and took both men to the Pó Leung Kuk; that there the prisoner was locked up, and, the day being Sunday, was kept there until the following day, when be was sent down to the Registrar-General's office, and from there to the Police Station. I am extremely doubtful as to the existence of the other two men. They have disappeared. Nobody has seen anything of them. In the statement contained in the letter which was forwarded to the Registrar-General there is not a word about anybody except the prisoner and the complainant, and it seems to me rather as if the detective MoK CHI, thinking he might have exceeded his duty, has tried to resolve the matter into a squabble between four parties, with the view of giving the impression that they remained in the Tung Wa Hospital at their own pleasure and were in no way detained. It is most important that the Pó Leung Kuk should understand that action of this kind that I am supposing to have taken place is wholly illegal. They have not the slightest right to detain anybody on any charge. Their duty was to hand the man over to the Police at once. The more direct the road to justice the more probable it is that justice will be done; and if this kind of tortuous course is pursued and a circuitous road taken to bring a man to justice the difficulties in finding out the truth of the matter are greatly increased. I gravely doubt whether the detective has any right whatever to make these arrests. The fact that be is a detective of a Society organised for certain charitable purposes does not in the least give him the functions of a policeman. Whatever he does in the detection of crime must be in the direction of assisting the Police and not as an independent act of his own. Had the detective, on suspecting the defendant of bringing the complainant into the Colony for an improper purpose, immediately handed him over to the Police the case would have been disposed of without any difficulty. As it is, a great deal of evidence has had to be taken irrelevant to the main issue but at the same time having an important bearing on the case, and I think it would be well that the Pó Léung Kuk should clearly understand that the performance of Police and semi-judicial functions of this kind is beyond their powers, and that, while they might be of great assistance in aiding the Police in the detection of special crime, if they ignore that body and exercise irregular functions in the manner indicated in this case, their action is calculated to do more harm than any good that might be derived from their charitable intentions. They must know perfectly well for what objects the Police Force exists, and they must also know perfectly well that the ordinary course of things is that the man should as soon as he is arrested be taken straight to the Police in order that he should be at once charged. Not only do they detain him for more than twenty-four hours, but even then, when they consider that a charge is made out against him, they do not hand him over to the Police but send him to the Registrar- General. This further increases the irregularity of the proceedings. The Registrar-General had no more