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"provisions of the local law No. 6 of 1866 which the Law-Officers and Magistrates had so long permitted to be broken with impunity by the Opium smugglers, and I reported that the due enforcement of the existing law seemed to have put a stop to the complaints connected with the illicit traffic.
I also laid before Your Lordship the opinion of Mr. Lereagh, the Acting Captain Superintendent of Police, showing the evil effect, from a police point of view, of the system by which those opium smugglers, - a dangerous and criminal class of men, - had been so long permitted to make their refuge and base of operations. In my despatch No. 45 of the 30th of June, I said :-
"Believing that one of the first duties of the Executive in a Colony like this is to discourage the growth of a criminal population, I shall certainly employ all the authority the existing laws give me to put a check to this system."
Some returns which I have called for in connection with another subject show that the daily average number of prisoners is less this year than last year. Comparing the months of June, July, and August of this year with the corresponding months of last year...