Page G
THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1980. ·
THE SCUM OF
ON May 2, 1862, Mr William Quin took over the
command of the Hongkong Police Force. As his immediate assistant, he had James Jarman, Assistant Superintendent of Police.
It would be nice to say that he improved upon the work of Charles May, and erected a fine force
-The-
HONGKONG POLICE
-By John Luff-
upon the foundations constructed by May-but ing alt about the long weekend, During the nothing would be farther from the truth.
Quin was a failure.
It is, of course, a very well to criticise a mair long after his office is laid down, but the facts stlek out a mile.
With this Increase in crime, The Governor,
Hercules Sir Robinson, announced the pro-
LWO pose building of New Central police stations, one at
Kow- hard the other aeress at
Quin falled because he was absolutely unable to appreciate foun the forces lie was up against- cunning and audacity of quality unknown in the English Police; and corruption colossal scale among his own
ster
Bribes
}
the
some year, chuse their time nright. pirates became bolder, 10 BCR- Retweet Saturday evening ofteners were stiJened, February 4, 1865 and the follow- Three pirates were executed put the ing Monday morning. the Bank in publie, but if this
any pirates of Western India was robbed of fear of hell into
Into Hongkong, it is $115,000 In notes, and sliver and swarming goki bullion.
not noticeable from the reports, So bold had the criminal Government offered $500, and the Bank $1,000 for information classes became that open attacks made leading to the apprehension of in broad daylight were the robbers. This was bound in upon their victims, achieve results, and three of the lesser fry were put on the spot, but hitle of the proceeds of the mbbery was recovered.
named Wong Ah-tow un
in
The menace
In Hollywood Road, a footpad attacked another Chinese, beat him up and robbed him there and then, Wong was taken, and Govern- mont tried to make the punish- atient At the crime.
To criminal classes, as if to enter the Aprit of the thing stepped up Uzeir activities uho. Beskles the trifting affairs
to Hongkong at the The population of the Colony common had risen to 120,000 by this time-such as waylaying people time, and Kowloon had been in the street-they raided the
Wong was made to parade ackled to the Island of Hong- Sign Station on the Peak and
So crime piled up, and Quin policeman
crime shut down a
the street of his along kong.
was left helpless, not knowing So bold did the
with a board strapped to him Wanchal, criminals Ixcome that they what to do about it. So bad did ralded in organised parties, two it become that the Chinese cum-elling the nature of his vicious- munity held a protest meeting, ess. Ils head was shaved bare, chids bélmegan the
but at the same time informed and in his hand he carried the which he would be whip with lery Barracks and the godowns
that A
few of Messrs Holiday, Wise, & Co. invernment
An adverse report was made hundreds or so bail hats intend- Pogged. on both Captain Superintendent ed to sweep down from Canton Hongkong during the Year Holidays. Quin and A.S.P, Jarman in the and reid
Chinese New pring of 1864. The chief com-
jel 101 Registration plaints bring that they
were This unable to fashion a force from Ordinance No. 7 of 180G, which lashes as the first instalment of
the formation of the men under them. That is authorisert
The District Watchmen." putting complaints
Thirty WAR.
The Chinese villagers on the mainland celebrated this event by waging, among therusetves, a bitter and bloody butte the
the local Hakka settlers and Cantonese belg the malo divi- sion between the belligeTCEAS,
Shamship was the Hikka stronghohl, anet the spare-time warriors menneed surf: villages as Youmont, and smaille ments as far as Kowloon City,
Swindle
The Pallee were helpless be fore the very size of the war," and left the scrappers to knock one another about.
of
Artil-
on Way truth of the the rank and file of the Polloe were receiving bribes on a scale never imagined before. And the truth of the matter is the men On top at this campaign came one of the Colony's outtanding of the force were working kand Le criminal glove with ti deserves swindles which
take its place in the sochistes of classes,
Hongkong's rogues.
the
the
the
Then followed
cleverest robbery Colony has ever known,
snollation In improving the of the Colony, the P.W.D. dug
An Jin merchant art Engilshunon in charge of oplum revivint chip, Trojan." contrived alle same in which the merchant pretended to leave huge stacks of opium stored upon the ship, and this Barish ruan, entering wholeheartedly drains that took all the refuse into the game, issuert vertientes of central Victorla into the pen. to the effert that the merchant Perhiqe it was merely observa- have been in- did have huge Mocks of eptum. then, it cont The next thing was to und formation, but at any rate the bank, so they chose the Charter "Drain Gang," us they ed Mercantile Bank, and one or afterwards known, two singlier offairs. So with this oplum, as good as money' the banka advanced credit to the
DT $2,000,000, Sum shared by the crooks.
1
happily
TC- the
years later, these Watchmen were placed on under gular Police bents control of police Inspectors and sergeants.
were
The gambling houses the menace of this period, No: only because gambling was car- ried on, but that the houses be
the
of ciame
headquarters riminal gangs, and much crime was plotted under cover there. Richard The new Governor, Graves MacDonnell decided to gambling dens into brag the the upen by censing them.
#
When he reached the scene. of his crime, he was tied to a lamp post, and Blogged on the They gave him thirty stat his punishment.
Flogging
ENGLAND
The Kowloon Water Police in 1900 and their barracks.
J
Now it cannot be said with truth that the Chinese did not
in the Punjab Police. He was second case against him included They
watched with eloce appointed Deputy Superintend- the charge of rape of an relate all tals.
in Chinese woman or 60. hod they
the ent of Police on his arrival scrutiny:
Countri
young Chinese girl of 14 years. strokes. They enjoyed hearing this Colony,
Before going on with the work He pleaded guilty, and was sen- the wily Wong shout. But as deterrent, the logging was use carried out by these two officers, tenced to two years' hard labour, Now the very problem which less. To those who watched. I would like to tell of a strange
fuced the two new Police the Blogging meant this lesson- case that arose at this time.
were thos which Strange rumours were filtering Officers Thou shalt not be caught
Victoria from Aberdeen. render a Police Force absolute- into
ly usele In a few straight They told the most exirbordinary story of a white footpad who words, the Force, in the main, was living in a cave i the hills was absolutely corrupt. ahove Aberdeen.
and arrested Thomas Banbury, a
The scum
Their discipline was brutal Up to the moment, the man old too. Rape was punished with was made a policeman, he had the the rope, Read Kipling's Danny regarded himself outside Deever to find out just what rules which governed society.
201 acknowledg that was like, the refrain of the Society did
this him. The heroes of Waterloo second verse gees like
"They pro hangin' Danny were the young dashing Deever they are marchin' officers, Private Smith was is of him rond.
creature who was paid to do 'alted They fave
Danny what he would have chosen to Deaver by 'Is coffin on do, Booze and flight. So the ground;
thought society, So Private 'e'll swing in 'arf Smith did his best to live up
for
sneakin'
Ur down to the reputation society awarded him,
:
An'
*
minute abootin' hound-
If the
Than
Pirates
Things were In a hopeless mess. It is cogy to criticise Quin from the distance of years, a truth is, the Oriental criminal presented a method and
From all accounts, he was a The deep-romed · corruption problem absolutely beyond the
Arming
O, they're hangin' Danny of the police was revealed by ken of the unimaginative Quin.. nasty piece of work.
the It is very difficult for
Deever in the mornin'. huge himself with a club, he used to this nove, and it was pointed in January 23, 1007,
When and moderTI reader to parade of descend from his cave, nut at the time that such a plan identification
corporal punishment appreciate
was administered, the regiment The Oriental recruits, apart The Idea indulged in a one-man raping the situation, more especially
was drawn up in hollow from a few men planted by the when the terminology of that rould surced only if a different banishees was held.
616 looting expellition. were type, and better paid police offi- being that the police should re-
victim was pirates and Canton ns sptes, Why
The Military and Police time rings discordantly in our squire, while the discovered cers were avaliable. As a matter cognise these criminals.
While these дис who spread upon the triangle, and provided their own particular
The the Police his back was cut to bloody r problems.
age-old com- recruited to were that a lovely new wide drain of fact, the plan failed because they needed such a parade 1 do carried out, a search of the hills, vars.
defeated by increased not low-for these criminals ran near the vaults of the Cen- it was
bribes and the intimidation of were all branded with an arrow deserter from the 20th Regiment. Force were not those men des bons. It was, all part of the inusion of Asin, the tea money,
could, he comfort
money, and other tral Bank of Western fila,
The wesker elements in the on the left ear,
He had a shocking record of acribed by the Duke of Welling game.
covered which got hold of aration of rum, euphonisms The robbers, wise unto the
Force.
low cunning brute. Yet he was ton as "the scum of the earth,"
were nint regarded ways of Englishman, and know-
were the sons of those and rendered himself some im- bribery, sufficiently Intelligent to furnish they
munity from the agony at a askance,
be, argument would s. cave quite well and had it men so described. wonderfully stocked
seems an awful thing ruined pulp of flesh, The thing The
to was not
сту The man's "What is the use of becoming a crime, his brutal attack upon policeman if you don't use the Once he was taken, the police to say of man, but it
- citizens. the nost job to your own advantage?" The were overwhelmed with the truth. Those men were some
England, and shocking outrage meant ttle to growing spirit of citizenship now their own his comrades. But to cry was to downing in Europe is even now, evidence offered by the local the scum of
disgrace the regiment, So he bit only showing the first light of Chinese, especklly the village proud of it in wehches,
perverso fashion.
bullet, or a Cag of coarse dawn in Asta. The wars of those days were fought in squares, a man's So Banbury, at 20 years of moral courage drawn from the age went up to the Supreme fact that his shoulders touched Those Court. But on the day of his those of his neighbours. who had spent some years in trial, not one of the witnesses. His action was volley and then the Force, had learnt the langu- came forward, o Banbury had bayonet. It took courage age, and had acquired some to be discharged by proclama stond firm against a charge knowledge of Chinese criminal tion. proceedings, applied this know-
Mid Week Selection by Friell
"It has certainly shoken the Americans out of
NO {{WASTING)]
if all qua
their usual preoccupation."
"You want your breath tested!”
Grand Now
SKITTLE
AL
"All I know is that, they used to show a lot of
· horror films here,“? *-
The Governor carried out minor purge of the Force. Scots- men took the place of English- men, and in 1865, the first batch of Punjabi Sikhs took over from the Bombay constables,
Judging from polier records alone, to say nothing of the re- porls in contemporary news papers, things were neither bet- ter For worse under Captain Quin during the early years of his holding office.
Daylight
Maybe, thin was just the eviminal classes holding back until they had the measure of
their man.
Then, during the early hours of June 15, 1888, the wife and two-year-old child of a German skipwright named Mayer, were murdered in the hulk of an old ship in which they had mode a home.
one.
The motive was robbery, and Wong Qui Fook was the murderer. He was taken in his native village. brought back to Hongkong, tried and subsequent
public before an ly hanged in entirely unernational crowd.
The truth! Probably, Quin had called the parade as a lesparate encusure to put hlaselt right with authority.
The Governor put $1 guste. kindly. Sir Richatert: Mac- Donnell simply said that he did not think 11 advisable that Mr Quin should return to the Colony. He added out of Quin's hearing little and that the Tailer had imperfect control over the police.
That, unfortunately, nothing but the truth.
was
visions,
with pro-
Unpleasant
Banbury soon
this
Wis
от
rope.
Outside rules
Д
Read and mark what I have written. Do not fall into the error of judging events of hundred years ago becording
lights of today. Nor that the police officers
And if he came through his to the to ordeal without crying, and his aume
to
of unconscious body wan handed were of the kind we have to- recruited from turned to his cavalry, but the British Square over to his mates who poured day, who are
rum and salt into his wounds, home on reasonable salaries and from Waterloo to was famous ledge in self-interest and gain, old ways, and sellled in the hills
he was a sort of her. And even living conditions. Asin.
You Will understand the And an unimaginative Chief of at about the sl'e of the present
It was brute courage, and his officers would admit, "he
problems of the Police Chief Police was beaten before he Bowen Road just above Wanchal.
charge, was a game tm." placed his feet On Hongkong's A few Chinese men, fed up with white-hot rage in the
Now you might well ask, what only If you try to understand the waterfront.
brigand who threatened These men who did the nation's
outside, beyond, has all this to do with the Hong sxt of wretch he was able
veruit. Walter Meredith Denne was their homes and women, went in lighting were
ethics which kong Police?
And if you understand that, gazelted Captain Superintendent scurch of Banbury, and gave him away from the
governed the affluent and polite My reply is that you can un- of Police following the retire- a lively beating up.
derstand nothing of what fol- We can go on, Eventually, an Indian con- society they protected. ment of Mr William Quinn. But
the were, in They
main, lows unless you fully appro- unawares the outstanding appointment of stable look Banbury
appetites. their clate the kind of muITA this period seems, to the present and brought him down the hilll- brutes. Their
passions, their drinking, their whom the early 'ranie and Ale brate of the In
Hongkong Pulico were all writer, that of Mr Giles Van side.
WILM un wenching To show you what on dateur Creagh, who had been an
the fashion. Assistant District Superintendent pleasant character he was,
recruited,
Eton is under fire. Against the world's most famous public school the volume of criticism grows. A top Ching Mail writer, Donald Edgar has been examining this remarkable in- stitution. In his third
Certainly he has centred on the house in which It's nowhere near as profitable
as that today, report he asks the very much,
control of the house masters, they live. in
not the ease until the "which was question
recently. And he has certain minds of many. . .
powers over who enters the school.
Who really runs Eton? THIS MAN IS ONLY ONE
OF THE POWERS BEHIND THE SCHOOL
In the house each boy wil The pay of masters at Eton is Here he better than at any other school. have his own room. cala. Here he will do a lot of I think even his critics would his work. Here his loyalties in agree that the present head- But his pow CTE Are clrcum sport will be centred. Here he master, Mr Robert Birley, has TS Eton an anachron- serbed by the tremendous all- will form the closest friendships mainly been responsible for this.
ism? Is it changing pervading influence of Elonians of his life. fast enough with the and Old Etonians. times?
the school is falling behind. other public or grammar school
Who can these reformers hope
to influence? Who runs Eton?"
I am afraid the answer is as the English consti- obscure no
in the country.
The masters
seem.
overwhelming that. to-
wards the school,
7
I
The 'club'
MR. ROBERT
the headmaster of Eton
OIRLEY,
from
SATURDAY:
Spare the rod and-?
of Eton. Their power is collar you night just as well their influence all commit suicide if you are not a
member of "Pop"
founded sa
-
I asked a post-war Elonian how you were likely to becoma a. member of "Pop,"
"Well," he replied, "you must have charm, good looks; physical
of a good farmily,"
row...and the background
Lono that
Birley immense; understand
improve pervading. The house is a reasonably pushed through these His power has increased in the small community of adolescents inento in pay in the face of con-
The title "Pop" s nothing "Pop" through family con
It nections, is extraordinarily last century. But I should say with its own sense of morals, a siderable opposition from the There is a reforming set--both that the headmaster of Eton has own herden, His own likes and governing body. But his at to do with being popular.
debating powerful: At times I wonder if ut Elon and a powerful group of considerably less authority than its own dislikes. The house is illade 19 If you want the best wa
spolely in the last century. The it isn't more powerful than the Old Blonians which feels that the headmaster of almost any the primary loyalty of every you've got to pay for it.
name was the Eton Bociety. It house masters.
"pock Etonfan, even at times, it would
mot at a fuckshop. shop" in Etontan . and the Laun for an exitog house
Gladstone
nadd fo The hous master is, con- An assistant master would "popina.""" acquently, an immensely power- start at £100 a year more than deliver fervent lectures there. tullon
Then we came to the house ful man,
hla contemporary at, say Win There is the Provost and -a
But, gradually, it became R chester. By the age of 30 the governing body composed of masters. The housen started in
the One of
extraordinary differential would be around social club and acquired dieth eminent
the last century when so many KET. For example,
nwed the rest of the school, there is the Provost of King's, young men of wealth and title things about Eton is that the £250, and it increases to £500 torial power which have over
including the masters. Old Etonians who ward members Elon's sister foundation at Cam come to Eton to take advantage house feeling is so strong that a your at more,
education that the bridge, Lord Bridges, Cameron of the
of a house will keep in touch So those house masters are la
Meanbera havo tremendous if you had, brains you would Cobbold, of the Bank of Eng Foundation was providing for throughout their lives and make most formidable set of men. sartorial privileges a braided keep it quit. Otherwise you land, Lord Sallsbury and Lord its "pour scholars in college. sure that "the tone" is preserved.
coat, brightly coloured would be bound to be black- But there is another powerful täil John Hope.
But these distinguished men boarded with "damca" who were I used to be a very profitable body in Elon. It could happen waistcoat, chockt trousers, white balled.""
bow tie, and butterfly, collar. arem to play little or no part in maperler boarding-house keepers, thing to run a buso at Eton only In Elpa
The attitude of mind There is also some fantastle. It is "Pop" They say that tr the way Eton is run. Their mutn Then assistant masters started Oscar Browning, a farnbus house. concern to with looking after the to take boarders in. And out of master who was finally sacked you are president of "Pop" you business about who can have a pressed by this extraordinary finances. And in recent years this casual arrangement arose for being too much of a reform will never wield such power in rolled umbrella, who can turn a English litution "Pop" is one thin ham been done quite the whole house system of ing spirit, made between £3,000 your life again unless you be coat collar up or down. The of the things that are worrying ore, concerned Grilluntly.
English public schools.
and £4,000 a year in the late point: Prime Minister, be a opung rules olier a little from time to the people who
about Eton. time, Then there is the headmaster. Eton has 1,150 boys...But 19th century. Which would frien
But I gather that if you roll Tomorrow: How to Join But, 1, must say, after studying for meat of them that is all mean an incorto around £10,000 1 velforting city de
jonilor boys he hit the wholà, your unirália aut turn up your han [his pobition I do not envy him except for ", 7D, scholar-life is to £19,000 = year today.
1
At first these young men
Would brains help?" I asked. "Good God, naj" he replied,
ex-