132
419
418
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 22xD SEPTEMBER, 1877.
In preparing the usual report on such documents, I could not avoid seeing that what had been described in 1876 as au " apparent outbreak among the population of Hongkong," could not entirely explain a serious increase of crime, which bad really been going on for the three preceding years.
For instance, in the returns of the number of cases of felonies in Hongkong for the last three years, as given in Table C of the Police returns submitted to my predecessor on the 31st of January, 1877, and which I laid before your Lordship on the 15th of June, the following figures could not fail t attract attention :----
Murder,
Description.
SERIOUS OFFENCES,
Number of Cases.
1874
1875
1876
3*
**
15
Burglary or Larceny in a Dwelling House,
69
107
Assault with Intent to roh,.
Kidaspping,
Piracy,
Unlawful Possession,.
!
Robbery with Violence from the Person,
Larcenies,
Felonies not already given,
*Doo came also given muler Piracy.
Total,
51
1:|: ཁ བཿ ལླུ ཀླུ སྒྱུ ལ
77
203
251
802
10
55
13
239
1,059
8
1,165
1,395
1,485
I found also that the average number of prisoners in gaol had been steadily increasing since 1874; and that the number of re-committals of old offenders had also been increasing.
Convinced that the first duty of Government in a small and wealthy community like this, is to down lawlessness and to protect persons and property from the depredations of the criminal class, put
instituted searching enquiries with the view of making myself acquainted with the cause of this increase of crime so as to check it promptly and effectually.
In pursuing my enquiries, it became manifest, as your Lordship will have observed from the despatches noted in the margin of paragraph 2, that one of the sources of the growth of crime in this Colony is evidently the want. of that sound systein of Frison Discipline which your Lordship now instructs me to establish.
I need hardly say I shall do my best to carry out your Lordship's wishes: and perhaps in course of time it may be possible to render the prison system, on the one hand more deterrent, and on the other
found it to be. more reformatory in its operation, than
I have, &c., (Signed) J. POPE HENNESSY,
Governor.
His Excellency Governor Pope Hennessy to The Right Honourable the Earl of Carnarvon.
HONGKONG, 6th July, 1877.
MY LORD,-In my despatch No. 33 of the 13th of June, 1877, paragraph 19, I reported to your Lordship that there seemed to be an excessive use of the lash in this Colony. As far as I am aware, there is no Code of Laws in any part of Her Majesty's Empire in which the power of flogging is s extensively given to Magistrates and Judges as in Hongkong.
Looking, however, to the theory held by intelligent Europeans here as to the specially criminal character of the native population of the Colony, and to the views of experienced European Official and other gentlemen, who have lived in Hongkong for many years, that flogging is one of the ve best mode of dealing with Chinese criminals, I am not prepared, without careful enquiry and mud greater consideration than I have yet been able to give to the subject, to recommend a more human code of laws, or to make any attempt to assimilate in this respect the Ordinances of the Colony with the general practice of the British Empire.
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 22nd SEPTEMBER, 1877.
A few days after I arrived in the Colony, two other Chinese were sentenced to three years' penal servitude and to receive three public floggings each. One had been convicted of kidnapping, and the other of larteny and wounding. In accordance with what I understood to be the usual practice, paragraphs appeared in the local newspapers announcing that two men were to be flogged at the public whipping post, near the Harbour Master's office---that is, in the busiest thoroughfare of the Colony at 41.M. on the 10th of May.
I did not think proper to interfere with the sentence; and, accordingly, the mert were marched through the several crowded streets between the gaol and the Harbour Master's office, and there publicly flogged.
Nine days after this, I paid my first visit to the prison. On entering the hospital, two attenuated patients, apparently very weak, grovelled at my feet and cried. On sending for an Interpreter, I found they were the men who had been flogged on the 10th of May. They complained that their flesh had heen torn so much that the wounds would not heal and they could not sleep. Mr. TOMLIN, the Acting Superintendent, counted, in my presence, the number of wounds, still open. In a memorandum he made on the 21st of May, he thus records the facts:-
"Au-A-Fu, sentenced on the 23rd of April, 1877.** Received the first flogging at 4 P.M. on the
10th of May. Had twelve wounds still bleeding on the 19th instant."
Received first flogging on the 10th
IN-A-MAN, sentenced on the 26th of April, 1877.***
"instant. Had eight wounds still bleeding on the 19th instant,”
In about ten days more, l'again visited the prison with Mr. CECIL SMITH, the Registrar General, and Bishop BURDON, when we saw the blood still flowing from the torn backs of those prisoners.†
I made some enquiries with a view of ascertaining whether there were any special reasons why the prisoners should have appeared so weak when I saw them, and why their wounds had been so slow to heal. The explanation I found to consist in the fact that they had been, as it were, prepared for the flogging by a course of penal dict--rice and water and that the new regulations of the Gaol Com- mission of last year respecting the diet of Chinese prisoners, to which your Lordship objects in despatch No. 45 of 7th of May last, had been strictly enforced.
Having called for further information from the Colonial Surgeon on the general question of the new dietary, he reported on the 4th of July, against the changes made by the Gaol Committee. With reference to the reinoval of Chutney from the dietary scale of the Chinese prisoners, he says:-
"The condiments in the Chutney were necessary to enable the prisoners to digest the enormous "mass of rice. As a consequence of the loss of the Chutney, there have been many more
'complaints than usual of the digestive organs,-Dyspepsia, Colic, Diarrhea, &c., &c."
He also points out that the dietary, established in opposition to his advice, is the same that in India is believed to be one of the causes of Leprosy.
I have, &c.,
(Signed)
J. POPE HENNESSY,
Governor.
His Excellency Governor Pope Hennessy to The Right Honourable the Earl of Carnarvon.
GOVERNMENT HOUSE, HONGKONG, 13th July, 1877.
MY LORD,On one of my first visits to the Hongkong Gaol, in the month of May, an old man
were killing him. Mr. TOMLIN, the Acting Superintendent, pointed out, however, that he was an old offender, that he was constantly complaining, and that he was regarded as a very bad character by the prison officials. Neither Mr. TOMLIN, nor the Turnkey who was present, could understand the Chinese language, and it was through an Interpreter that the complaint was made.
But, whilst I note this state of the law, without at present being able to lay before your Lordshamed WONG-A-KWAI, who was in the prison hospital, complained that the punishments he had received any scheme for improving it, I have seen quite enough of the mode of its administration to feel justific in asking your Lordship to sanction an alteration in some of the details of the punishment.
Your Lordship will have seen by Mr. GARDINER AUSTIN's despatch No. 56 of the 14th of Mard last, that one of my predecessor's (Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY'S) last acts was to remit the public flogging imposed on two Chinese prisoners who had also been sentenced to five years' penal servitude - Robbery in a boat in the harbour being armed with an offensive weapon."
1877.
↑ According to a report from the Colonial Surgeon, the wounds were not closed until thirty-two days after the public flogging of the 10th of May,