36
258
39. I therefore, observe with pleasure that, in the interview between Your Lordship and the Memorialists on the 8th of February, Your Lordship expressed anxiety to know whether there was any practical way to the suppression of Gambling in Hongkong by penal means, because the Authorities there said they had exhausted those means and yet failed, whereas the Memorialists asserted that no real attempt had been made to suppress gambling. As all the collateral issues raised in connection with this subject are immaterial in comparison with that raised by Your Lordship, I first rose to examine carefully the positive assertions on that head advanced by the Memorialists, and think that no portion of their case is so weak, capable of direct refutation.
40.
I need scarcely observe, that what difficulty an English Statesman may naturally find in dealing with the revenue derived from gambling Licenses, although such Revenue irreparably arises from efforts to regulate a great evil, thought to be otherwise beyond control, such difficulty partakes rather of sentiment than principle, whereas the open establishment in a British Colony of a system of vicarious punishment, such as that of punishing ten men or a hundred men alike for something done by...