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Witness.--I think that is better still and then if they come to register would they have to take someone with them to vouch for their behaviour?
Mr. Badeley. That is a very large question.
The Chairman. That is another difficulty, but then I am of opinion that we shall not require security.
Mr. Wilcox.-There would be no security demanded as the servant who is in your regular employ and who brings the substitute would be his guarantee. He would not bring a bad man knowing that he was going to be registered. He would not ven- ture to offer a bad character like they do now.
Mr. Badeley. They get the biggest rascals for substitutes in case they should be taken on in their place.
Witness.--If you ask your own servant to get you chair coolies and he does so and these coolies misbehave themselves would you attach blame to the servant who recom- mended them?
The Chairman.—No.
Witness.Well, if you don't, there is no occasion to license them, and if you do then you lose the services of your good coolie. I need to get someone to recommend them to me. I don't know who they are, and chair coolies have no characters.
The Chairman.--The fact of getting them to register will probably be a guarantee of their character.
Witness.-That is a difficulty unless you get someone to recommend them, but then if you don't, registration is not much worth at all.
Mr. Wilcox.--We think it would be a check and it would deter bad characters
from coming in because the l'olice would know them. At present, a great many men who have actually done time in the gaol are to be found serving in the households of respectable people.
The Chairman.-The Government has power to banish all these men.
Mr. Wilcox.—But a private individual has no means of knowing the characters of these people. They bring forged testimonials or rather testimonials that they have bought from other people. Do you see the difficulty?
Witness. But then, if we are to have registration, coolies will have to produce their photo.
Mr. Wilcox.--Are you aware whether there is a servants' or coolie guild in the Colony?
A.-I don't know except as regards those people who work on board ship-hung shun kun--that is sailors or stokers, and they have their own house that they go to in Hongkong to stay when they have been discharged from their ships.
Mr. Badeley. These are licensed boarding houses.
Witness. Yes, they are clubs. They have all kinds of houses in Hongkong, and if there is no business to do, they go to their own particular house for lodging or if they are sick they can go there and be attended to. I believe that every month they sub- scribe something towards the upkeep of that house.
Mr. Wilcox. It is a kind of organization. It may be a friendly society?
A. Perhaps that is so. I have no experience of them.
Mr. Badeley. You don't know whether they are bound by any rules?
A.-In Gough Street and, I believe, in Peel Street you can get some Chu-chan men, but what rules they are bound by, I don't know.