&C.,
"An inspector and a Chinese interpreter, were at once despatched with me to the spot; but it was impossible for me to do more than point out the place where the affair had occurred. As for recognising any one who was standing by, every one who knows the Chinese knows also the impossibility of distinguishing one from another, unless he is personally acquainted with one or both of them; and I was therefore unfortunately entirely unable to identify any of the numerous rogues who stood coolly looking on while the attack was being perpetrated. A number of men loitering about the spot were arrested as suspicious characters, and their tails being tied together they were carried off to the police station; but nothing could be proved against them, except that some of them were "old offenders."
429
:
"There is no denying the fact, therefore, that robberies with violence are by no means uncommon in the streets even at noonday; it is unsafe to walk alone in the suburbs; it is unsafe to go almost anywhere after dark without taking due precautions. A certain improvement, it must be confessed, has taken place recently. No Chinese is permitted to perambulate the streets after dark without a proper pass, which is a partial preventive; and again, every boatman taking a passenger off to a ship at night is obliged to show his number to a policeman, who also takes a note of the ship to which he is going—a regulation which ensures a certain amount of protection in what was a few years since a hazardous proceeding—for it was formerly highly dangerous to entrust oneself to the tender mercies of the boatman after dark; and even now from time to time sailors taking a boat without this precaution are robbed and thrown overboard by the miscreants into whose power they thus fall.
"I have known of an instance of a lady being torn from her sedan by a gang of scoundrels while passing through a quiet street, and of children stopped on their way to school; and of late, gang-robberies with brutal violence have once more become rife....
"Returning for a moment to the attack upon myself, the Governor, the Admiral, and many other leading people in Hongkong, were well acquainted with it, and I had conversation with them all upon the subject; but nothing was done which could have the slightest influence in abating the evil."
Happily, all that is now a matter of the past.
Beginning on January 10 this year, there were reproduced in these columns a series of drawings, executed in 1846, by Mr. M. Bruce, then practising as an architect in the Colony. The drawings had been lithographed in London many years ago, and came into possession of the Hongkong Government last year. Eight of these were reproduced by courtesy of H.E. the Governor, Sir William Peel, and the remaining four by courtesy of a well-known resident of the Colony.
At the time of reproduction, the lithographs aroused considerable local interest. Not only did they glorify the lithographer's art but they were living testimony to the genius of their creator.