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The Payor hands in the money, with the License, or Rate notice, to the Shroff and in return he receives back his Licence duly receipted (for the monthly payments are recorded on the License) or his Rates receipt.
The Shroff has possession of neither. He obtains them from other Clerks who are not Chinese, and I am entirely unable to foresee how he could deceive either the Public or the Treasury Officers.
The Colonial Secretary is, I think, under a misapprehension as to the time when the payments into the Treasury are principally made, for my experience here teaches that the Chinese and others come almost without exception between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. as I have stated during the greater portion of that time I am in the Office.
Having had charge of this Department for nine months I may safely affirm that the duties are not such as to require the attendance of an important Officer of the Government during the whole day. Indeed, though spending but a comparatively short time in this Office, I should very frequently have to pass that time in idleness were it not that...