Whipping to all Pirates
Ordinance applies
We cannot help wishing that some encouragement had been held out to bona fide informers. Knowing, as we do, the peculiar nature of the Chinese character, we do not hesitate to say that, in our opinion—and we are not at all singular in entertaining it—the greatest importance should be attached to, not only rewarding informers, but making proper and ample provisions for their safety. They should in fact be encouraged to the utmost of our power. Who can tell how many cases would have been discovered, or how many prisoners brought to well-merited punishment had proper and sufficient inducements been offered to those who could—and would if well rewarded—give the necessary intelligence? This, however, is a matter capable of being remedied, and we trust that due attention will be given to it hereafter.
We are, moreover, of opinion that the provision, in clause 10, for the public flogging of scoundrels of tender years (under 16), might with immense advantage be extended to the backs of the more matured rascality, and that older miscreants should make acquaintance with the whipping post, where they will positively and literally have driven the young ones to adopt piracy—as a profession, with intention to murder if necessary or advisable.
On the whole, we consider that the Government has performed a most necessary and popular act in thus introducing the text of an Ordinance so comprehensive and calculated to be so practically and beneficially effective as this. We congratulate them, and we congratulate our readers that something is really being done with a view to clearing Chinese waters of the crime and barbarity floating about.
Hong Kong Mercury 27th July 1866
We publish the estimated Expenditure for the year 1867, as also that of 1866, by which it will be seen that our expenses are steadily on the increase.
Our little police arrangement, which last year was down in the estimates for $154,020, has been estimated at $162,978 for the present one, being an increase of say nine thousand dollars. Now, if anyone should suppose that that sum, enormous as it is, is the actual cost to the community of the police establishment, he would be most woefully mistaken; for if we include all the squeezes, hush-money, extortions, and bribes which increase the income of these social vampires, and the extra watchmen employed to make up for their inefficiency, the total cost to the community will not be one cent less than a quarter of a million of dollars. Surely with so exorbitant an outlay, the utmost efficiency might be looked for; but what are in reality the facts of the case? They are these: that, with five hundred and fifty regular policemen and a host of private watchmen, there is no safety for life or property in the Colony—no person is safe from being murdered in his own house any night, and no property can be said to be protected. Street robberies with violence are of daily occurrence, and strangest of all, whatever is stolen is rarely if ever recovered.
The extension of the town is even rendered impossible by the inability of the police to protect any resident in the outskirts, even not more than ten minutes' walk from the Central Police Barracks. The value of property throughout the island is depreciated one half at least from the simple fact that there is not the remotest protection to either life or property outside the gas lamps of Victoria. Of what utility would a road through the Wong-nei-chong Gap be at present, with no better police than the present quarter of a million dollar police? It would certainly afford us an extended and agreeable drive; but who would venture to enjoy the refreshing breeze in summer on the windward slope without being able to afford to support a garrison within his doors? And even with a garrison, so long as our police hide themselves in nooks and corners instead of rushing to the rescue, who is going to risk being murdered for the sake of enjoying a villa residence? We think the community are paying altogether too much for their police "whistle," and that they have a right to complain loudly of the inefficients who are now in that body, being allowed to continue a burden on the public purse.
In that immense drain upon the Colonial revenue, the Gaol expenditure, there is the small decrease of $2,000, which is so far satisfactory, as it may be taken as an earnest of the decreased expenditure in store for us. The Governor has laid the axe to the root of this evil by initiating a policy calculated to make Hongkong a less desirable refuge for the scum of the mainland. If this beneficial policy is persisted in, we have no doubt but that the estimate of Expenditure for gaols in 1868 will sink to $30,000, instead of $58,000, as at present.
There has been, however, in this year's Estimates an extraordinary leap made in reference to "special services," which from $5,966 last year have increased to $28,000 in this year.
We are curious to learn the nature and extent of these "special services" that have more than quadrupled the expenditure under that head.