Treasurer and his orders to abate these evils.
Measure
The squatters have been warned to remove their huts. I request sanction to expend £30 instantly in lime to be thrown on the burial ground as a temporary measure to prevent the spreading of sickness and to construct a sewer of large size for the Stream in the Valley.
I venture to bring to notice a proposition I have long much thought on — that Government do provide two large boats and suitable crews to convey the dead Chinese to the mainland. I mention this not with a view to discuss its adoption (for one time or another that is inevitable) but to urge the early commencement of the system, it being useless to order the Chinese to bury elsewhere in this island as there are no police to enforce it, and even if there were it would be but procrastination.
I recommend that each coffin maker should mark "Kowloon" in Chinese Characters at both ends of each coffin under penalty of its forfeiture to this Department and that every one taking a coffin from the manufactory be bound to place it and its occupant in the Government boat within two hours.
I have the honor to be,
Dir
His Obedient Servant,
William T. Mercer
Page 254
The same to the same.
34 May, 1856.
I have the honor to request that you will bring to His Excellency's notice the fact that yesterday appeared prosecutor of various individuals offending against Act of 1856 when the Magistrates refused to entertain the charges, ruling that the word "or" in Paragraph XX was conjunctive and not disjunctive and that the Act did not apply and does not apply to any work whatsoever commenced previous to the passing of the Act.
I therefore beg that I may be excused from summoning any other offenders or that the opinion of the Attorney General be solicited on this decision of the Magistrates about the meaning of the word "or".
I enclose a summons which I found in my dressing room yesterday and request that His Excellency will cause the punishment of this attempt to extort money under false pretences as also to prevent any similar proceeding, for if I am liable to be summoned before the Supreme Court for carrying out Paragraph XIX of Ordinance I of 1856, it follows that I may be summoned for carrying out any other, and a vexatious combination for this purpose would cause my almost daily attendance at the Court, hence, frustrate all attempts to carry out the Ordinance of the Governor and Council and deprive the Government works in progress of my attention and superintendence.
I have the honor to be,
Dir
His Obedient Servant,
William T. Mercer