J shall thereby be able to gather experience of a valuable kind from their working. Nevertheless, as I never suggested any plan for merely opening gaming houses, unless to ensure Chinese co-operation conditions calculated in putting down all illegal gaming, and with it the existing corruption of the Police - I mean to close them on the 12th of next January, and therefore the revenue derivable thence, though imposed for merely Police purposes, cannot bring the collateral relief it might have afforded to the finances of the Colony during next year.
35. And here I may explain that in computing a revenue of $100,000 as derivable from that source during 1868, I did not thereby calculate the gambling licenses necessarily producing a regular monthly receipt between $5,000 and $9,000. On the contrary, I freely confess that, as it is a new experiment, I felt entirely at a loss to ascertain what sum would suffice to meet the legitimate Police requirements of the measure.
34. I have received offers...
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