Room with Stocks and lock up cells should be built within the Cantonment limits, for the confinement of all persons taken up for offences committed within the Cantonment until the charges against them can be inquired into, and in cases where the punishment includes imprisonment for any period longer than a few days (which will be denoted in the Ordinance or Regulation already adverted to) the Prisoners may be sent under a Warrant of the Commanding Officer to the jail at Victoria.
I have to
(Signed) Richard Womniam.
Mr Richard Oswald.
Victoria, Hongkong.
January
No:46
Sir
January 26th 1844.
630
I am directed by His Excellency the Governor in Council to acknowledge the receipt of your memorial dated the 23rd Instant.
In reply I am to refer you to the notifications published in the Hongkong Gazettes of the 21st of August and 14th December 1843, by the former of which you will learn that Her Majesty's Government do not recognize the validity of any Grants of land made by any authority whatsoever previous to the ratification of the Treaty with China, and that a Committee was specially appointed under instructions received from Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies to investigate all claims to former grants