14
7
comprising so many circumstances, not one of them is true. "In 1844 Sir John Davis's bed-room was entered by thieves, and among other things he had his watch stolen from him. All the efforts of the police to recover the watch were unavailing. At length the Opium farmer was applied to, and in a short time the watch was restored to His Excellency." The fact is that the bed-room was not entered by thieves, my watch was not stolen, there was no Opium farmer as the date of the Ordinance will show - until 1845, the following year. This gross misrepresentation is founded, I suppose, upon one of my servants having stolen something, not belonging to myself, in another part of the house. The watch was never recovered, but another was purchased by me in its place.
Though he does not venture to make the assertion from his personal knowledge, Mr. A. Matheson states he has "heard that the supply of provisions in Hong Kong is all monopolized by one individual, from whom the Government collects £1,500 a year."
Now there are four conspicuous Markets in four different parts of the Town, rented by four different persons, and so far from having any monopoly of provisions in Hong Kong, not one of these four separate Markets is debarred from selling any provisions whatever, except meat and fish, the indiscriminate exposure of which would be a nuisance. An honorable member of the Committee, Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, pushed Mr. Matheson on this point with searching questions, which sufficiently neutralized the mischievous tendency of the witness's first assertions.
The fact is, that one main reason
103