the Msdical Committee
chinere on the back.
on the
Hogging of
I have the honor to be,
Sir,
Your Mint Obedient Humble Servant,
Mong trong
The Daily Press. 30 May, 1879.
FLOGGING.
His EXCELLENCY-Gentlemen, I have now also to lay on the fable a paper which I think has already been distributed, the report of a Medical Committee appointed to investigate the physical effect of dogging the Chinese on the back, and the mode of flogging in the Hongkong gaol. The interest that you take as members of the Conusit in a paper of this doseription is of this character: we have upon the statute book of this colony certain Ordinances which proscribe the mode of flogging and those Or- dinances must be carried out. The question upon which the medical gentlemen report is really as to the effect of flogging upon the back of the Chinaman, and that involves, as you I know, the question of flogging with the cat or flogging with the rattan upon the breach or thighs. Now, as regards the interest of the legislature in this I will comind you that a good many persons appear to have been under the in- pression that the laws of this Colony prescribe flogging by the cat, and that for some mys : terious reason or the other the Governor of the Colony substituted flogging with a rat- tan for Blogging with the oat. Well, I must say that when I was shown in the Gaol an in- strument called the regulation cat, and when I ascertained that in one year something over two hundred floggings had been administered with that instrument upon Chinese prisoners for breach of prison discipline, I thought it my duty to tell the Acting Superintendent at that time, | Mr. Tomlin, that he hail better read carefully the laws of the colony, and when from, time to time, I saw it stated in the organs of the public press that the Governor had put a stop to flogging with the cat, that there was a time when magistrates had this power, and that they had been deprived of the power by the Governor, and that there was a time when it prevailed pretty extensively in the gaol and that the Governor bad interfered with this, it did occur to me that some of those who were criticising my conduct might have turned for instruction to the laws of the Colony. They would find Ordinance 6 of 1862 Clauss 6 to this effect:-
VI. Whenever Corporal Punishment shall be in- Bicted under this or any other Ordinance, such punish. mont shall in no case exceed thirty-six blows with a rattan, to be inflicted in the Presence of the Governor of the Gaol, or Superintendent of Police, or other Oficer of Police appointed for that purpose.
And the clause to which I thought it my duty to specially call the attention of Mr. Tomlio was Clause XI. of Ordinance 4 of 1863, which is to this effect -
II-It shall be lawful for the Superintendent of any gaol to punish by imprisonment in a Solitary Cell, for not exceeding three days on bread and water or rice and water, or, if the prisoner be under nouriction of Felony, to punish by moderate Corporal Punish- ment not exceeding twelve strokes of a rattan, any prisoner whom he may find after due investigation to have been gailty of any of the following offences or of any breach of prison regulation or discipline. And it is provided in a subsequent section that the superintendent.in conjunction with the Visit- ing Justices, may also punish by personal corree. tion not exceeding thirty-six strokes. In the pre- sence of my learned friend the Attorney-General I
·need hardly say I am justified in saying these two sections read together would render the in- fiction in the gaol of corporal punishment with the cat illegal. I have before me a return show- ing that 226 such illegal punishments were in- flicted in the goal in one year by the Acting Superintendent-that is. 226 prisoners were dogged with the cat for prison offences. The Attorney-General. who is present, will be able to inform you that that was illegal. But there some other irregularities to which att this moment it is no harm to refor. The Superintendent was given the power to punish for three days on bread and water. I discovered that Mr. Tomlin had a practice of sen- tencing a prisoner to three days' broad and water-we will say to-day for a certain offeace- and on the same day he would septance him to three more for another offence, to commence at the termination of the former sentence. That also, it occurred to me, was not lawful. I found, on asking the opinion of the Attorney-General, that ho agreed with me. I found also that Mr.
were
12/530
79.
Tomlin was in habit of ordoring prisoners to be flogged who were in the prison only for security. The Ordinance says he has only power to do so when the man is in for a felony. The Committee have printed in their Ap. I pendix a despatch which I felt it my duty to address in 1877 to Lord Carnarvon on the subject. In that a reference is made to some of these illegal floggings. I say these floggings wore inflicted with the regulation eat, whereas the local Ordinances say that all floggings must be with the rattan.-His Excellency quoted ex- tensively from the despatches printed in the re- port as to individual cases of flogging. Refer- ring to one of the cases. His Excellency went on-Her Majesty's Government are
3ware
of the fact that a Chinaman was five times flogged in this gaol, illegally according to the opinion of the Attorney-General, that he was flogged when he was suffering from phthisis, that he was flogged with the regulation cat on the back by the order of the superintendent in spits of provisions of our law. I am sure every Visiting Justice present will forgive me for saying I re gret that no one called attention to the case of this man until I myself."seeing the Coroner's in- quest, and seeing the records of the Gaol, felt compelled to do so. However, the facts such as they are, have been in the possession of Her Majesty's Government stuce 1877. They were laid before the Medical Committee. That Me. dical Committee was composed of Dr. Wells, a Deputy Inspector of Hospitals, and Dr. O'Brien, who I suppose I may say, without creating pro- fessional jealousy, is the most eminent physician in private practice in this Colony.-Having ex- prossed bis obligations to these gentlemen, Hix Excellency went on to say they were requested. to inquire into the physical effects of the punish- ment by the cat and also the provalence or otherwise of palmonary complaints among the prisoners in the gaol: also to make special inquiries into the cases of one or two pri- soners who had been flogged in the month of March immediately before his arrival. He also ¡ requested them to inquire as to the case of one man, Leong Aloi, whether the dogging he had I received bad in any way affected his health. He sald-I called upon them to do so because I was requested by Lord Carnarvon to do so, bat from that time to this I have not known why the Se- loretary of State selected Leong Aloi, who was flogged in 1877, as a case to be brought before this committee. His name was never mentioned in any dispatch of mine, and I have no idea how it was his case was brought to my special notice and I was instructed to bave the committee in- Įvestigate it. However, the committee express their opinion upon the subject. They state. which is very true, that the records in the gaol with respect to flogging were extremely meagre. they found it very difficult to find reliable statis. tics: indeed they say "in the absence of coliable statistics it is difficult tosay whether phthisis is pre- valent in this colony or not." They found a great absence of statistics, they say, in the gaol itself. With respect to this particular man whose case they were asked to investigate, they state that on examining him t' ey found that he was sufforing from phthisis. They go on to say that they cannot say whether the phthisis was excited by the dog- ging he received on the back or not. Dr. Ayres, to whom the report was sent, makos this minnte-- Mok A-Kwai, released from gaol in a dying condi. tion, and Leong-A-Loi still in gaol suffering from were both, when they entered, healthy. powerful, musenlar men, presenting no indications whatever of hereditary disciso. Leong A-Loi in his present condition weighs 18 lbe, and is 34 inches a weight and size far above the round the bare chest, a average of Chinese prisoners. After they arrived in the
clothing, and lodging were far
the gaol, their superior to anything they had before been seenstornad be as regards sanitation. To what then can the die- ease they were alimcked with be attributed? I can. not myself regard it otherwise than as caused by the punishment they had received, both of thorn were hor. rihly marked, their backs having sloughed from the sxtensive bruising.
Now the Commissioners had before them as they say very elender evidence indeed upon the sub joet. They say :-
Apart from the questions put by us to the Colonia? Sargoon and the examination of the four men who had bean Blogged on the back, with imperfect statistics |