Ordinances are
I think sufficiently fully explained in
the reports of the Acting Attorney General, and I will
only add a few observations
lay before
me the reasons which
induced me to introduce them to the Council-
To deal first with Ordinance No 4 of 1872. Upon
this measure I have to remark that it
affords legislative sanction to a
system introduced by myself
and pursued by me with uniform success until
my departure from the Colony in the
year 1870. Shortly
after I had taken my leave, the Government, acting upon
an opinion of the Attorney General, abandoned that
system without substituting any other in its place for
the identification of prisoners discharged from the gaol-
As soon as the
cessation of the measure had had
time to make itself felt in the Colony crime began
to gather to a head, until by
the Summer of 1871
it had assumed proportions probably hitherto unknown.
A number of desperadoes, whose education in
the arts of crime had been perfected by contact with other scoundrels in the gaol, having served
out their time, collected in
gangs in the City. These men were daring and
cunning as daring,
baffled the police
by the frequency and audacity of the
burglaries and highway
robberies accompanied by
violence committed in all parts of the town, while
the whole general community took alarm. This
panic found expression
in the general meeting which
resolved on
a memorial addressed and forwarded to Your Lordship. But upon my return to Government in December 1871, I satisfied myself
that it had been far from groundless, and I at once set inquiries on foot to ascertain the causes
which
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