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were set on fire; the mat barracks of Wong-nei-chung, and the Market Place Act, were attempted to be burned; and at noon a number of Chinese armed with knives entered the Market Place, threatened all around, assaulted a man, & then walked off.
2 European Police were consequently molested.
The number of prisoners in the jail of Hong Kong averaged during 1843/44 from 20 to 90 a month: nearly every prisoner was Chinese, and the crimes with which they were charged were generally piracy, robbery, and murder. Burglary was also common.
There has been no diminution of crime; the number of persons in the jail have increased; and the nightly robberies are as frequent, if not more so, than they were three years ago.
The shop-keepers do not remain more than a few months on the Island when another set takes their place.
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There is, in fact, a continual shifting of a Bedouin sort of population whose migratory, predatory, gambling and dissolute habits unfit them for continuous industry, and render them not only useless, but highly injurious subjects to the State.
A few take such employment in shops as they can get; the European inhabitants, independent of those in the employ of Government, consist of: members of about 19 Mercantile Houses, and their clerks. A few persons have arrived here from New-South-Wales to buy, and better their fortune, many of whom would be glad to return.
The Principal mercantile firms are those engaged in the Spicers trade who have run hither from Canton, as a safer position for an opium depot, and ...
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