I am not decisive about this matter. It is singular that the effects of the cat upon Chinese criminals should only be discovered after 12 years' employment of it, and at a time when its disuse is desirable. Dr. Ayres' report is in contrast to his readings to allow An-a-fu & M-a... to receive second floggings although the new skin was still tender.
But accepting the report as well-founded, the use of the Cat might be exchanged for the rattan - as in India and The Straits. I presume that a regulation of the Governor in Council would suffice to effect the change. But on the floggings in India & The Straits - public?
As regards Long-a-Kwai, the floggings in previous years, given in Hongkong on the best authority?
As regards the abolition of public flogging, which is part of the judgement of Competent Courts, the opinion of the Judges is required.
The bracketed reply to this is approving of remitting the second flogging in that particular case - mere deferment & passing an opinion on the general question. Others think the punishment of judicial flogging was introduced many years since for the especial object of checking crimes of violence, and that it has led to the belief that the security of the colony was obtained by this means.
It is argued that the remission of any particular flogging is an interference with the judgements of the Supreme Court, or of a competent magistrate's Court; and the total abolition of it introduces a great change in the administration of criminal justice. It does not appear whether this Committee or the Judges of the Supreme Court, or the magistrates with whom the power of inflicting such a punishment lies, and Sir John Bowring and Mr. May's long experience of the Chinese criminal code are of great value in this matter.
By all that Mr. Hennessy has taken the advice of his Council, which he has consulted before issuing the dispatch; and he is directed to procure reports from the Judges & from the magistrates, and at the same time to report what punishment is to be substituted.
As to Hong Kong, he is directed to report the present age and sentiments of the persons who were flogged in previous years, which are said to have reduced him to his present state.
The dispatch implies that they were inflicted at Hongkong, but I am unwilling to believe that such was the case, and as the only prisoner of this name in either of the Enclosures to GR1178/1922/32(III) appears in cell 13, undergoing 6/12 months H.L. Jsc., it will appear possible for him to have been also under the hands of the China authorities when treatment of this criminal is notoriously barbarous.
I might also ask whether Dr. Ayres' opinions on the effects of the cat upon the lungs of prisoners are shared by other medical men, or whether he has formed his own judgement.
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