29th 4156
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To the same effect in that governors on leolimay desfalch off the both as to the purport. Supplementary to the above ordinance for obtaining information as to the movements and character of all native craft in these waters, I introduced Ordinance No. 7 of last year, for the purpose of placing the Executive in possession of the same sort of Information as to native householders and residents on shore which Ordinance No. 6 was intended to procure of native proceedings on the water. The working of this ordinance was entrusted to the Registrar General, Mr. Cecil Smith, who has discharged his difficult duties under it with great ability, and a success which would have been impossible without the knowledge which he possesses of the Chinese language.
36. That ordinance divides the town of Victoria into districts, and renders compulsory the registration of all Chinese householders, who are, moreover, held ultimately responsible if certain violations of the law specified in Section XVII., and which, with ordinary vigilance, they can prevent, occur on their premises.
37. Considerable powers are given to the Registrar-General, enabling him to summon householders and tenants of portions of houses before him, and to insist on their furnishing him with all particulars respecting themselves and their pursuits. All Chinese servants of every degree in the employment of foreigners were likewise obliged to obtain a certificate of registration, specifying for each his or her native domicile, age, and such other particulars as might assist in tracking servants implicated in any offence. In a word, the ordinance provides means for keeping the Government informed of the character and proceedings of the Chinese residents ashore, just as the Junk Ordinance ensures similar information in reference to persons and vessels in colonial waters.
38. It may be interesting here to give the results of last year's legislation, in the number of persons registered as householders (Chinese), and also of servants in the employment of foreigners. The total up to the 30th of last month was-
Householders 3,950
Servants 7,033
39. The Ordinance likewise contained some provisions for enabling the Chinese themselves to organise a police force auxiliary to that in Government pay (Sections 12 to 15), and it gives me much pleasure to state that the Chinese have within the last few months organised, at their own expense, and under the immediate surveillance of the Registrar-General, a small body of thirty constables, who have already given proofs of alacrity in preventing and detecting crime that contrasts most favourably with the former indifference of the natives. Your Grace cannot but perceive that this small commencement is capable of a very wide and useful extension hereafter.
40. This seems a suitable place for drawing attention to the Registrar-General's returns as to the population of the colony, which has been the object of the recent legislation described. He puts it down at a total of 115,000 on the 31st December, of which 29,459 were females. These numbers are exclusive of the military and naval forces, and include 2,113 European and American civil residents, of whom 673 were females.
41. I have every reason to regard this estimate as considerably under the truth, though some allowance must be made for the temporary desertion of the city at the date of the census, through apprehension of the probable operation of the new Registration and Harbour Ordinance. Those apprehensions, it may be as well to remark, have long since disappeared, and the harbour is more than ever crowded with native craft; whilst the excess of immigration over emigration since the 1st of January would probably not be less than 15,000. At the time I have no doubt that nearly 1,500 indifferent characters have left the city, a large proportion of that number having sought refuge in Macao, the present principal haunt in this part of the world of pirates, kidnappers, and mauvais sujets generally.
42. I may also observe that the heading of "coloured" is ill chosen as descriptive of the Chinese in the Registrar-General's population returns. As a race, they are fairer than many inhabitants of Southern Europe, whilst in North China they are as fair as Europeans generally. I may also add, that I place no reliance on the returns given of mortality amongst the Chinese, and still less on the contents of the singular column headed, "Mortality out of the Colony," which described as amounting to such a return which is evidently absurd, and I have directed its omission in futuro, though it appears to have formed one of the regular annual returns here for a series of years.
Lectory this son the Duke of Buckingham's Thani Pacas 3
Phase capry 36.37.38.39
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40
extric & International Telegraph Company;
MAR 1869
Incorporated 184467
Secretary's Offices
Br. Telegraph Street, London:
jeft Lebury 1869
glucony
Int. Ser
'I have the honor to reply to your letter of yesterday's date.
I beg to inform you that no answer has yet been received from the foreign authorities respectively on the subject of the tone of April 1868.
I beg leave to state that we will do all in our power to bring about an early settlement of the complaint, but as the matter has to pass through the hands of all the different Governments of countries through which the message passed, the enquiries necessarily
R. Sandford Esq
Foreign Office
Downing Street.