Jul- 10
THE JURY SYSTEM
Respect for the jury system is not likely to be enhanced by the verdict given in a
[July 24, 1895,
inasmuch as he started under the disadvant
almost equal chance. The field, however case tried at the Criminal Sessions ontion and methods of working of the Brigade
is a limited one, and from a national point of view perhaps barely worth cultivating In hard physical labour, on a plantations or in mines, the natives of the Land of the Rising Sun are not likely to be able to
1HE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND likely to prove very successful outside their of the treaties are carried out in their own country. For skilled artisans, however, integrity. The French Minister is pushing age of knowing nothing about the business
of his command interests of with a small capital to establish themselves the
his countrymen and In the earlier years in shops of their own, we should think insisting on reparation for their numer- fires happened to be unusually frequent, many favourable openings might be found ous wrongs. It is the business of the Re- and they were very badly managed. The in the large towns of the Far East where presentatives of England and the United Insurance Companies and all concerned foreign communities are established. In States to see that similar justice is done to suffered severely, there was much hostile deftness of handiwork the Japanese are far British and American missionaries and criticism, and a demand was set up for a fire master. Mr. WODEHOUSE, ahead of the Chinese. To take one humble proper reparation made for the outrages | trained
however, stuck gamely to his work, studied occupation as an example, in shoemaking committed.
carefully the theory and practice of fire ex- the Japanese can give many points to the
tinction, and with such good result that it Chinaman and if Japan se shoemakers were
may be doubted whether there are many to establish themselves in business in
more efficient fire brigades to be found any Hongkong they would probably very soon
where than the Hongkong Fire Brizade of monopolise the whole of the foreign custom.
to-day. Not only have the general organiza- Tailors, joiners, and others would have an
also be accorded credit for the invention of been improved, but Mr. WODEHOUSE must the fire despatch box, which he himself cor- rectly says is the most effective means we have at present for utilising the excellent water pressure from the reservoirs at Tytam and Pokfulam. In the improvement effected in the methods of fire extinction during the dozen years that Mr. WODEHOUSE Was in charge of the Brigade the increased water supply takes a prominent place. Formerly, pumping from the harbour had to be relied upon as the main source of supply for use at fires; now that source is looked upon as subsidiary to the service from the mains, except in periods of drought, and with the recent addition to the capacity of the Tytam reservoir it may be hoped that even in un- usually prolonged droughts such as have been experienced during the last two or three years it will be found possible to maintain constant pressure in the mains. With the improved water supply and the improved working of the Fire Brigade the colony may future from those disastrous conflagrations to not unreasonably expect immunity in the which in former years it was subjected owing to the inadequacy of the arrangements for checking fires at their outbreak.
compete with theChinese
and cannot be
expected to establish flourishing con
munities abroad, such as the Chinese have established in the Straits Settlements.
Friday last. In the Yaumati arson case the jury returned a verdict of guilty by four to three, but the Acting Chief Justice ex- plained that whereas a verdict of four to three used to be sufficient, last year an amending Act was passed and no verdict by a majority of less than five could now be received. Thereupon the jury again retired and after an absence of five minutes returned with a unanimous verdict of guilty. The three dissentients had been speedily converted and under the circumstances MORE ANTI-FOREIGN RIOTS,'
not much value can be attached to their The immunity from all punishment en opinion. The time they were absent was \joyed by the mandarins of Szechuen for the not sufficient to allow of any exhaustive dis- riots and destruction of mission property cussion of the case and it would seem that they recently in that province is already bearing turned round simply for the sake of getting fruit elsewhere. The British and American rid of it and without much careful weighing Ministers, who appear between them to of the evidence. If they had a doubt, as they possess neither moral influence nor power of must have bad in the first instance, it effective remonstrance at Peking, have been was their duty to give the prisoner the Ha the old law been in unable to do more than talk, and, the Chinese benefit of it.
verdict by four to three officials are of course laughing at them with force and their tongues in their cheek. Encouraged been acceptable, the verdict would have by the success of the raid on missions made commanded respect as the honest opinion at the instigation of the late Viceroy of of the jury; but what is to be thought Szechen, the mandarius in other provinces, of the opinion of three being all more or less imbued with hatred a space of five minutes will change their and contempt for the missionaries, are now verdict from one of not guilty to one of avidly eager to carry on the crusade, and guilty? It certainly cannot be taken as thus secure the final ejectment of the detested adding any force to the verdict of the four foreigner from the sacred soil of the Celestial jurymen who originally found the prisoner Empire. No wonder, considering the guilty. When the law was altered the apathy of Great Britain and the United Attorney-General, Hon. W. M. GOODMAN, States, that the mandarins should take at present Acting Chief Justice, in moving heart and presume on what to them natur-the second reading of the Bill said that he ally appears to be pusillanimity. When had called for a return for the information of will the British Foreign, Office Tarn that hon. members, and he found that in three the Chinese do not understand and still less years there had only been one case in each appreciate forbearance? When will the year in which a verdict by four to three Washington Covernment become alive to had been given, so the alteration would its duty to protect the lives and property of not be very important, and he thought it its citizens abroad? The one event seems would improve the administration of justice. as remote as the other, and meantiine Speaking generally, that opinion is pro- British and American, interests in the bably correct, but in the first instance in Far East are daily imperilled by this which the point has arisen the administra- fatal indifference. The murders and out-tion of justice has certainly not been im- rages in the Yaugtsze Valley were natur-proved. "There can be little doubt, we think, aily followed by the outrages in Szechuan, that the verdict of guilty was the correct from which murders alone were absent, pro- one, but the means by which it was arrived bably from prudential considerations on the at, to bring it within the law, are not
These satisfactory. part of the unprincipled Viceroy.
outrages have now been succeeded by riots
men who in
THE FIRE BRIGADE.
at Pingyang, about 100 li south of Wenchow. THE HON, H. E. WODEHOUSE AND A chapel was first burnt to the ground on the 29th ult., and after that one house after
The recent transfer of the Fire Brigade to another was destroyed until twenty domiciles belonging to converts were razed and the Police Department has severed the con. The uection of the Hon. H. E. WODEHOUSE with as many families rendered homeless. mob are urged on to these acts of violence that body and his retirement has been by the hit rati, and the officials secretly marked by a presentation made to him by encourage them by refraining from all in the past and present members. Mr. WoDE- terference. This outbreak at Pingyang is HOUSE is to be congratulated on the success just another evidence of the fact so repeated with which he carried out his own education ly insisted upon, that if missionaries do not as a fireman and the state offficiency to receive effective protection they should not which he afterwards brought the Brigade, be allowed to reside in the interior. But which he leaves in a very different condition they have been admitted under the French from that in which he found it. There has Treaty, and it is not likely the privilege will been a general advance all along the line, be rescinded. It is the duty of the Treaty for which the chief credit is due to Mr. Powers therefore to see that the stipulations | WODEHOUSE. The credit is all the greater
|
instances
occurs
| PERSONALITIES IN JOURNALISM.
It is proverbially a thankless office to mx oneself up in other people's quarrels, but in the interests of public decency and for the sake of the good name of Englishmen among the native races an appeal may fairly be made to the conductors of some of the news- to air them papers of the Far East to keep their private animosities to themselves or elsewhere than in the columns of their journals. The Japan papers, more especially those of Yokohama, have long been no- torious for the personal rancour with which One of the latest in a recent issue they are conducted. of the Japan Gazette; which, alluding to the feeling of the Irish towards Eng- land, says: This malignant hatred to- "wards England betrays itself in many ways. The most prominent local instance "is that of a Tokyo journalist who has practically sold his pen in order to inflict upon Englishmen. in Japan the greatest injury that could possibly befall them, and exults in anticipation of the destruction of "their industries." The allusion is to Cap- tain BRINKLEY, the able editor of the Japan Mail, one of the most accomplished writers who have ever been engaged on the Far The editor of the Japan Eastern press. Gazette is also an exceptionally capable journalist, which makes it the more sur- prising that he should allow his professional jealousy to run away with his pen as in the above quoted extract, for it is usually only amateurs in journalism that are sinners in that respect. The Bangkok press, however, in the matter of personalities, puts Yokohama altogether in the shade. There are three Eng
$5
医药
A