for ten (10) weeks at some time in the spring of next year 1877, during April, May, and June, such leave being contingent on the state of the business in the Supreme Court and the circumstances of the Colony.
I venture to make this application on the following grounds:
I shall have been in the Colonial Service in February 1877 five years; resident at Singapore for 3 years, and Hongkong for 3 years, and during that time I have only had vacation leave on one occasion for 4 weeks and on the other for five weeks.
These two absences happened in the Straits, and during the 3 years of my residence at Hongkong I have had no vacation leave, and have been only absent from the Colony for 4 days (at Macao in 1875) and 6 days this season.
During the ordinary vacation periods of the Supreme Court, I have had to take the work of the Summary Jurisdiction side of the Supreme Court as usual. It is kept open all the year round; and also the Equitable jurisdiction side is for many purposes never closed.
The circumstances of the Colony render it so inconvenient to suitors to close the Court at all that the Chief ...