To the Finance Committee for their consideration.
Petitioner, in consequence of her husband's death, finds herself in circumstances of great distress, being entirely without means, and having a family of ten children on her hands, the youngest being only two months old, and the eldest but sixteen years of age.
That your Petitioner respectfully requests that you will be pleased to lay her case before His Excellency the Governor, with a view to such relief being granted her as the circumstances will admit of, trusting that her late husband's long and faithful service to the Colonial Government and her own great needs will receive due consideration.
And your Petitioner will ever pray.
Hongkong, Febuary, 1881.
(signed) Idalina M. D'Almada e Castro
Minute by His Excellency the Governor.
With the concurrence of the Finance Committee, I should be prepared to ask the Secretary of State to grant Mrs D'Almada a compassionate allowance of one year's pay of her late husband, that is $2,000.
It was my intention, in submitting Mr D'Almada's pension papers to the Secretary of State, to have recommended that he be allowed to retire on full pay, looking to his long services to the Government.
And this case appears to me to be one coming within the very exceptional circumstances referred to in Sir Michael Hicks Beach's despatch.
In B.S.D. No. 344 of 1881-
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