2
confined on the set of October 1877 with the daily average of the preceding month; the other is the weekly report prepared on the 8th of October.
2.
The first return shows that the daily average fell from 412 in September to 405 on the 1st of October; and on the 8th of October, the number in prison had still further declined to 387. Your Lordship will have seen from my despatch No 131 of the 9th of October that at this date last year the number of prisoners in the Hongkong Gaol was 544.
3.
In connection with the number of prisoners in Gaol, two facts are perhaps worthy of attention. The first is that whenever I visited the Gaol, I took the opportunity of letting it be thoroughly understood that I had put a stop to the practice of liberating prisoners who had only served one half or one third of their sentences. Some months ago, when the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Gardiner Austin, put the names of a large batch of prisoners before me as being eligible for remission of sentence and "conditional pardon having served one half of their sentences", I declined to recognize such eligibility. I had the prisoners paraded, and I informed them that I would not consider the such eligibility.