2.
3
350
"Alfred"
was allowed to proceed
to Victoria.
It appears that the
"Alfred", which is said by the Emigration Agent
at Melbourne
to be 755 tons burthen, and
by
the Emigration Agent at Hong
Kong
to be 780 tons, was allowed to sail from Hongkong with
on board (including 569 persons the Master and crew) although
the number which she could
have carried under the legally Passengers Act of 1852, which
was
then in force in Hongkong,
would
have been on the smaller
computation of her tonnage
377 and on the
larger 390—it appears that the Harbor Master (acting
as it appears he did
in the capacity of Customs officer)
had
given a certificate that the ship had capacity for 476 Passengers exclusive of crew—that a large portion of the Passengers
were carried
on or off deck, which was
in itself
illegal—
and that to conceal the excess
of Passengers
and avoid
the
Passenger tax, 54 of them were
fraudulently placed
on
the
ship's
manifest
as
:
?