Onasted during the past year by the Legislative Council, the most important perhaps is that which extends the summary jurisdiction of the Police Magistrates, with reference principally to the Chinese population.
This Ordinance had been originally drafted (see Despatch No. 108 of 12th September 1846) with a view to mitigate the inconveniences arising from a vacation of nearly six months between the summer and winter sessions of the Supreme Court; but when this had been remedied, and the longest vacation reduced to three months, the peculiar habits and character of the Chinese population required that the smaller felonies, such as larcenies to a trifling amount, should be dealt with summarily by the Magistrate, instead of being reserved, as in England, for a Jury. With reference to the same population, accustomed universally to corporal punishment, instead of long imprisonment, it became necessary to adopt the same mode of punishment under proper limitations, and safeguards as to its nature and amount.
It had been found from experience that an English prison afforded them the three principal necessaries of life in a degree to which many of them had been strangers, and in fact tempted them to commit small crimes for the sake of being imprisoned.
Both the Chief Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police have reported most favourably on the working of this Ordinance in diminishing the amount of crime.
With reference to the Government of British Subjects at the five Ports of China, I have added to the efficiency of the Criminal jurisdiction of the Consuls, by merely coopting in the Consular Ordinance No. 122 of 1847 the provisions of an order by Her Majesty in Council for the Government of British Subjects in the Levant.
I have anticipated the wish of a...