9 112
5
In 1876 the
year before my
arrival, the number of prisoners
was 113. Since
flogged in Hong Kong then the number of floggings have
follows:-
been as
53
1874
1878
49
1879
18
1880
none
Furthermore, in 1877 I stopped all public floggings and the flogging of the natives with the "bat o'nine taill
on
pending
the back,
the decision of Her Majesty's Government. I also
put a stop, in 1874, to the practice of branding Chinese criminals and
then banishing them under what are called "Conditional Pardons." I took
the responsibility also of requesting the Police Magistrates to abandon the system of giving repeated short sentences to old offenders, and, instead of such a lax system, to commit them to the Supreme Court.
6.
No actual legislation was
to effect
necessary to enable me
reforms, but it required me,
these
as Governor,
to investigate and decide on each particular case where Flogging
branding
Secretary of
was recommended: the
State having been, of
course, diely notified by me
of
the
than