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"Pardons, &c., had been discontinued. He would inform the Council what had been done with reference to the branding of Criminals. There was a very excellent opinion of Mr Pauncefote given in May 1870 shortly after His Excellency left the Colony. For a long time it had been considered that there was no objection to branding a Prisoner and giving him a pardon on condition that if he came back to the Colony he would receive a certain number of strokes of the lash. The Minute from Mr Pauncefote put concisely together the action taken on the subject; and it was this very important (for the Colony) as there was no doubt that nothing diminishes crime so effectually as flogging and branding. Mr Pauncefote's minute set forth that in 1866 an Ordinance was passed, providing among other things for the branding of returned Criminals, but Lord Carnarvon, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, objected altogether to this clause, and ordered it to be expunged. In point of fact, it was a matter of the greatest difficulty to impress on the English Authorities the exceptional circumstances existing and that there is a difference between Middlesex and Hong Kong in the difficulty of keeping criminals at bay.