suggestion, and think that the English Act - not yet extended to Hongkong - will, when I have revised
it (for it is a most unskillful and unsuccessful one) - furnish the powers sought:
If His Excellency allows me at once to prepare the Draught it may be read a first time Thursday.
But I should much wish to take this opportunity to abolish the useless and mischievous formula,
which we vainly supposed, when we introduced it into our Administration of justice, to be the Chinese judicial Oath. There is no such thing, I believe, as a judicial oath in Chinese Courts; - certainly No burning of papers of malediction! It has failed at Singapore and Penang, according to Lowe, - And since it was imported thence into this Colony, its failure has not been less conspicuous. I propose to substitute