II. As to the illegality of Gauntlet Romanu offer.
Henry Bing 3. Sirten 71 of 1843. whole body etc. No.1.9.
By the first Ordinance of the local legislature, the law of England, as far as it was applicable, was adopted for Hong Kong.
By the Supreme Court of 1856-7, it was solemnly decided that the English common and statute law of 1843 was quite applicable there as in England, and ought to be enforced.
"It was considered an ordinance of love," Sir John Davis wrote on 4 July 1844.
By local Ordinances, financial powers as well as powers for the better suppression of crime were given to the Police Magistrate and other justices. Unfortunately, one such Ordinance was so ill-phrased as to be very difficult to commence. Unproportionally, it has been assumed of late that this Ordinance contains the only penal provisions at the disposal of the Government for the suppression of gambling.
Still more unfortunate, there has been for at least 12 years a pitched battle between the gambling house speculators and certain Governors, negotiations which extended to the date of Buckingham's dispatch of 3 December 1867, and which, by 1866, were repeated by the Imperial Government in the deplorable measure of that year.
X.