HONGKONG.
149
No. 11
98
REPORT OF THE CAPTAIN SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE FOR 1897.
Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government.
No. 34.
POLICE OFFICE, 10th February, 1898.
SIR,I have the honour to forward for the information of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government the Criminal Statistics and Report on the Police Force for the year 1897.
2. The total of all cases reported to the Police was 9,629, being a decrease as compared with 1896 of 3,346 or 25.78%.
In the division of these cases into Serious and Minor Offences, there appears an increase as compared with 1896 of 582 cases or 25.15 % in the former, and a decrease of 3,928, cases or 36.84 % in the latter.
3. Table 4. shows the number and character of the serious and minor offences reported to the Police during the past year, and the number of persons convicted and discharged in connection with those offences.
4. The increase as compared with 1896 in serious offences of 582 is shown as follows:—
Robbery,
Burglary and Larceny in Dwelling,
Assault with intent to rob,
Unlawful possession,
Larceny,
Felonies not already given,
14
8-388
125
309
97
585
Deduct decrease in kidnapping,
3
582
All Robberies have again, as was the case in the returns for 1893 and 1894, been classed together. In 1896, 6 gang robberies were classed under the heading "Felonies not already given." The total of robberies for 1896 was therefore 14, and the increase in 1897 in this particular offence 8 instead
of 14.
The increase of 39 in Burglaries and Larcenies in Dwellings, and of 97 in Felonies not already given, is principally due to greater care in the technical classification of offences.
The total of Felonies not already given, for instance, is swelled by 98 cases of House-breaking, whereas the return for 1896 shows only 20 such cases.
The value of property reported stolen in the 98 cases of House-breaking was only $1,805.
The majority of these cases are cases in which Chinese locks are broken off doors in Chinese tenement houses during the absence in the day time of the occupants of a floor or cubicle.
The year 1896 cannot be regarded as a normal one, for the existence of Plague here diminished the population, and the constant visitations of the house-to-house search parties, and the cleansing operations in the houses carried out by the Sanitary Board, tended to prevent crime.
Comparing the returns for 1897 with those for 1895, which was a normal year, it will be seen that there are only 129 more reports of serious cases in the latter year than in the former.
Such an increase may well be accounted for by increase in population alone.
5.
MURDERS.
Eight cases of murder came under the notice of the Police during the year.
(1.) On the 12th February KwOK SHU MUI, 21 years, boatwoman, Aberdeen, was found murdered on the beach at Aplichau. She was last seen alive leaving the wharf at Aberdeen with two men in her boat at 11 p.m., on the 11th February. Two men were arrested and discharged. The motive for the crime was apparently jealously.