[v]
(d) Because it would not be satisfactory, on obvious grounds, that the services of an Official Visiting Justice should be sought to assist a brother officer in assessing the punishment for a prison offence.
(e) Because, owing to the large number of committed offences which incur flogging, it would be most inconvenient to adopt the English practice of holding over inquiries till the weekly visit of the Justices which is in the nature of a surprise visit. (f) Because, if the practice of holding over the cases were adopted, the check on prison officers supposed to be exercised by the visit of the Justices for the week would vanish, and because the inquiry would consume the better part of a working day,
(g) Because it is dangerous, in dealing with Asiatics, to give them grounds for thinking that any officer has incurred the dis- pleasure of his superiors: better dismiss the officer and maintain a wholesome system than retain the officer and weaken his position by abandoning that system.
(h) Because, if the power of flogging vested in the Superintendent is not maintained, the Chinese will erroneously ascribe the cur- tailment or abolition of the power to their past persistent refusal to labour, and will persist in refusing to labour in the future in the hopes of again obtaining an amelioration or repeal of the punishments to which they would be subject.
(vii) Had abuses resulted from the power possessed by the Superintendent, we think it highly probable that such abuses would have attracted the atten- tion of the weekly Visiting Justices; but we are unaware that any protest or comment by them on the subject is extant.
iii) Whilst strenuously urging the preservation of the present power of the Superintendent in respect to flogging, we sec no objection to the substi- tution of a birch for the rattan, and recommend that an experiment in this direction should be made, as we are not sure that the effects of the rattan on a Chinaman may not in some cases be more far reaching than the purely punitive effect striven after.
(ix) It follows from our views as to the arming of the Superintendent with independent flogging powers that we are a fortiori in favour of the main- tenance of flogging to be inflicted by order of the Superintendent and a Visiting Justice; but in this connexion we think that, if the rattan is retained, the maximum number of strokes to be inflicted at one time should not exceed twenty in any case, and we are further strongly of opinion that a system of fewer strokes more frequently imposed would prove a greater deterrent than the present system. If this view be adopted it would be necessary to amend the law conferring on Judges and Magistrates the power of ordering corporal punishment.
(x) We see no reason why it should not be made a duty of the Superintendent
to attend in person at all floggings, as it is the duty of the Governor of an English gaol to do.
(xi) The Committee recommend that provision should be made for retaining in hospital until his wounds are healed, any prisoner laid up in consequence of a flogging whose time for discharge from Gaol falls due before he is fit to be discharged from hospital; such retention should be optional with a prisoner and in the discretion of the Medical Officer.