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414 THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 22ND SEPTEMBER, 1877.
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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 22ND SEPTEMBER, 1877. 415
with prison discipline. The principles I have laid down are well established principles; they have been proved almost with the accuracy of a proposition in Euclid, and it is no wonder when those principles were not acted upon, that you have an overflowing gaol, and prison offences increasing in this rapid ratio for the last three years,-426, 1,085, and 2,726.
It has been asserted that the number of prisoners at present in our gaol is actually greater than
in prison; his mind as well as bis body is affected: he may be physically altered by prison treatment There is nothing an Executive can so too he may be rendered a fierce, desperate, irreclaimable man. make a greater mistake in than in assuming inedical knowledge they cannot be expects to have The Colonial Surgeon of Hongkong has had experience in other parts of the East, and in his first conversation with me he told me in connection with his Indian experience that there was not a docto in India who would for a moment countenance the flogging of Orientals on the back with the cat at was in 1876. Here is a return from the Acting Superintendent, Captain DECAT; I find, according they were flogged in this Colony. I cannot pretend to know what the physiological reason is, but the to this return, the total number of Chinese and Coloured prisoners in Hongkong Gaol to-day is 382. highest authorities tell us that in this respect Orientals differ from Europeaus; we know a slight blow What was the number of Chinese and Coloured prisoners at this time last year in the prison? It was 430. That is, however, a matter of small importance. The fact that we have less criminals in the will sometimes kill an Oriental when it might not injure a European.
Dr. AYKES made a report of grent gravity to me with respect to flogging the Chinese on the bagal to-day than on the 17th of September, 1876, is of itself of little moment, for in the first place, the in this Colony. In the gaol hospital I saw one man, an old man, who had been a long time in prison regulations which I hope ultimately to introduce are, except in some urgent but minor points, not yet This man was pointed out to me by Dr. AYRES as being in hospital for incurable lung disease. in force, and the slight changes I have made are trivial compared to those I will have ultimately to I attach no great significance, therefore, to the fact that at this date there happen to be fewer had been a tall, strong man when he came into prisou, now he is on the edge of the grave.
I have mentioned Captain Ducat, and I been punished twenty-three times, including three floggings. The Colonial Surgeon assured me the criminals in the gaol than at this time last year. the incurable hæmorrhage of the lungs from which this prisoner suffers is entirely due to those flogging had not the honour of his acquaintance beyond that of any other gentleman who may do ine the favour We have returns here of persons who have been recommended to the Governor for clemency by the of coming to Government House occasionally, but I sent to His Excellency the General commanding Dr. AYRES gave it as has the troops and asked him to select from the officers under his command a strict disciplinarian, for I I had no idea who medical officer on the ground that they had not much longer to live. professional opinion that in every case where a Chinaman is flogged on the back with the cat symptom wanted a man of the kind to deal with the gaol until Mr. TONNOCHY came out. of congestion of the lungs follow, and he says he is never surprised when that congestion passes away would be selected, but it proved to be Captain DUCAT, who came with strong recommendations of and the man is apparently cured at the time from effects of the flogging that the same man in a f being the strict disciplinarian I wanted. The returns I receive every day, as well as the weekly reports, months comes back to the hospital spitting blood. He drew my attention also to the fact of the seas are satisfactory as compared with what I noticed on my arrival, and I hope, when the measures I remaining on their backs for the remainder of their lives, so that when liberated from prison and intend submitting to the Council shall have been sanctioned, more will be done to make this gaol a working on a day like this, their backs are seen, and they are branded amongst whatever honest me proper engine for the suppression of crime. they may be among. The prisoner carries such punishment with him to the end of his life. The la never intended that.
propose.
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With regard to the branding and deportation of prisoners, such as the branding of fifty prisoners in January last, it is not only opposed to all sound principles of dealing with criminals, but Mr. Dr. ATRES having made that report, I felt bound to communicate with the Chief Justice, and at DoveLAS, a former Superintendent of the Gaol, had pointed out in a minute to one of my predecessors I had considered His Honour's observations, I felt it my duty to point out that I could not allow a that the branding of a prisoner on the check or the neck had a bad effect, because the Hongkong brand man to be flogged on the back in the manner Dr. AYRES mentioned; and I said the only corpo is well known at Canton and at Macao. They know the meaning of that mark; and the consequence punishment I would permit was that sanctioned by the Colonial Surgeon. Since I assumed this that the branded man is hunted away by all honest people; he cannot get employment; he is Government of this Colony, the Visiting Justices have sometimes sentenced prisoners to be floggel rendered for life ineligible as an Emigrant, and he is driven back again to prey on the property of this On this subject my honourable friend prison offences, in every case I have approved that flogging, and upon the whole I have approved, Colony, because he has no other means of getting a livelihood. say it with regret, of something over twenty floggings since my arrival; I say it with regret, because on my left (the Acting Colonial Secretary, Mr. CECIL, SMITH) drew my attention to what a Secretary of having administered Governments in other parts of the world, I can recollect the fact that during the State had written to one of my predecessors. He said an indelible mark on the cheek of a criminal is four years I had to deal with the worst classes of Singapore and Hongkong convicts at Labuan, not evidently objectionable as fastening on the delinquent a stigma from which he could never be rescued; single lash was applied, and crime declined in that Colony. The sixty Chinese convicts that wit consigns him to permanent infamy. Well, I think it must be admitted there is a good deal in what sent from Hongkong to Labuan, and the hundred Chinese convicts I got from the Straits Settlement that Secretary of State-it was the late Lord DERBY -Suid. The views Lord DERBY expressed to the enabled me to study for four years the mode of treating Chinese prisoners. I visited the prison eve Governor of Hongkong, were subsequently confirmed by the practical experience of Mr. Douglas, the week. I substituted Chinese Turnkeys for Malay Warders. I made your very worst Hongkong crime Superintendent of the Gaol. My perusal of the prison archives of this Colony-for not a month has amenable to strict discipline. I found that Chinamen could be made to conduct themselves in price passed for many years without its quota of branded prisoners being deported, to the mainland-has agree with me the and that it was not hopeless to attempt to improve their moral condition. By the aid of your convi convinced me that Lord DERBY was right. I think the Chief Justice and others will I made the Labuan prison pay all its expenses; and with this, as 1 have just said, there was no floggie time has come when we may fairly re-consider this odious part of our prison discipline. Mr. KESWICK'S views and those of the Police Commission have been carried out, and we have a Police force chiefly of and crime declined in the Colony.
Within the last few months, I have received some printed despatches in which reference is ma Chinese. Not a deported man comes back now but he is very soon known. Formerly we had all incidentally to the gaol system in the Bahamas. The previous Governor differed with me and thong Europeaus and Indians, but they could not distinguish the Chinese prisoners one from another; now It was only the other day a man was brought up before my honourable that the negroes could only be influenced by the lash. He said Europeans, Chinese, or Hindoos things are very different. might deal with in another way, but not negroes. When I went there Lord KIMBERLEY said to friend here (Mr. MAY), or Mr. RUSSELL, for returning from deportation. The constable said, “I knew giving you a troublesome post; owing perhaps to wrecking, crime is excessive." I endeavour the man perfectly well without the branding." I believe there is not one of those criminals the Chinese constables could not detect without the branding; and if even in a small number of cases we are to see what could be done, and while I applied with strict severity the laws for the protection of and property, I endeavoured to rectify the prison discipline. I endeavoured to give the prisoners convinced that it prevents men from obtaining honest employment, and drives them back to petty useful labour and had them informed that the only way in which they could regain their liberty be piracies along our shores, or night robberies in Victoria, I think we might give up the branding system. Gentlemen, I think when a Governor submits despatches to his Council, he should make a their full sentence expired was by steady good conduct and hard work. That system was carried o
I have not gone into full particulars with respect and what was the result? Not a single lash was applied in the Bahamas from that time, and statement of this kind. It is a general statement. Governor ROBINSON writes: "I am happy to inform your Lordship crime declines," and he adds, to any measures I may think it necessary to take. There is one that will involve expense, and that is am very happy to say that I have not allowed a single case of flogging." That able Governor has car the establishment of the separate system in the prison.
When I visited the gaol for the first time. I found three, five, and seven prisoners in the same out, not my system, but the system of the British Government, the system laid down by the Secreat
Such a system ought not to exist. On making inquiry of State, that you must combine the two things, severe punishment with reformatory training. sleeping cells, overcrowded in every way. best attempt at reformation is to keep the prisoners employed at useful labour and let them underst from Mr. TOMLIN, I found that it had been even worse in 1876, when the number of prisoners was that remission of imprisonment will depend upon that labour and on steady good cond: larger; during the greater part of that year, the Chinese prisoner's had only 190 cubic feet of air allowed Unfortunately the opposite experiment was tried here; the gentlemen who framed the Gaol Report for each person in the sleeping cells; the Government having over and over again laid it down that only laid down that reformation was impossible, but also gave up the idea in toto of anything each prisoner ought not to have less than 600 cubic feet of sleeping space. It might be asked, how comes What is the result? A man is sent in with a knowledge of some handia it to pass that the Government have not noticed this, that you had 190 feet only instead of 600 feet? useful prison labour. Has he the opportunity of practising that for the good of the State and himself? No; he leaves In the Blue Book for 1876, in answer to the usual printed question, which comes out from the Colonial Office, "How many cubic feet of space are there for each prisoner during the hours of sleep?"--there is this prison probably ignorant of the little he knew before going in.
Gentlemen, I have said that Her Majesty's Government have an extensive experience, and the answer: "The daily average number of prisoners during 1876 was 432, as against 374 in the previous is no doubt whatever that no greater mistake can be made than to imagine the local knowledge of year; the cubic space for each person was 86-4 feet as against 982 feet in the preceding year."
But it is not only that. Certain gentleman exccels or can outweigh the universal experience of Her Majesty's Government in deal space of passages and corridors had been included in the estimate.
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