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I do not disagree with His Lordship's views but with his reasoning.
When he says "if a misdemeanour be entitled to notice much more should his life be so entitled." To illustrate this, a person exercising lawful but offensive callings happens to come so near to me as to be a nuisance, and I indict him, although perhaps he may be a public benefactor and I his customer, but I object to living near to one carrying on his offensive business under my nose. The law provides in Hong Kong, and did formerly in England, that such offenders were entitled to notice of trial.
But take the other case - A man breaks into my house dead of night and murders my wife or child, stabs and wounds those who attempt to secure him, and is at last bound by the police, captured, flogged, and convicted without the faintest doubt of his guilt. This outlaw, if the arguments of the Chief Justice are sound as they are merciful to the criminal, would be entitled to greater consideration than the ploughterman, who secretes a slaughtered cow in my dwelling, and receives beef and mutton supply at my table.
I could read the Reg. Gen of 1 March 1847, 5, 38, 39, 141, and 45, as I hear they have been read and acted on, without being struck with the absurdity of holding that they apply to felons, that a prisoner is entitled to a polite warning to come and surrender, and on non-compliance to be taken into custody.
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