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reward. Section XXIII of Ordinance No. 8 of 1858, which by its title applies to Chinese only, reads mildly enough "mendicancy in the public highways or streets is hereby forbidden," but Section XXVIII provides the following penalties for every offence against Section XXIII," a sum not exceeding five dollars; or the offender shall, at the discretion of the Court, receive not more than thirty-six blows nor less than five blows with a rattan, and be deported to his native country, or, with the consent of such offender, to any other place, if His Excellency the Governor shall so decide.” Ordinance No. 6 of 1866, Section XXI of which also applies to Chinese only, provides that every master of a junk bringing into the Colony any persons who shall, in the opinion of the Court before which the offence shall be tried, have come to the Colony for the purpose of mendicancy, or any person suffering from leprosy or any other contagious diseases, shall be liable to pay a fine not exceeding ten dollars and not less than one dollar for every such person so brought by him as aforesaid." Ordinance No. 8 of 1876, Section XV enacts, "any person convicted before a Magistrate of mendicancy in this Colony shall be liable to a fine not exceeding five dollars, or, in default thereof, to imprisonment with or without hard labour, not exceeding twenty-one days, or, in the discretion of the Magistrate, shall be liable to be whipped thirty-six strokes and be sent to his native place.”
This is therefore all that the Law of Hongkong offers to destitutes, fine and imprisonment with or without hard labour, and, in the case of Chinese, also whipping and deportation to the destitute's native country, or, if the destitute be a native of Hongkong, to that delightfully vague region designated by the Ordinance as "any other place."
None of these Ordinances defines its terms as relating to the destitute. Some are professedly class legislation, leave it to the Magistrate's discretion to decide what mendicity may be, with what intent a pauper may come to Hongkong, or what purpose a man with a canker in his face may have in walking through the streets, and finally leave it also to the Magistrate's discretion, which practically means his temper, to say when it may please him to fine and imprison or to whip and deport.
This condition of the law regarding Chinese destitutes, being exclusively repressive and deterrent, is certainly not humane. But it is not even rational, unless poverty and destitution are to be considered as a crime. For if destitution is considered as what it really is, viz. a misfortune, and if we remember that all the world over, whenever the poor are left to private charity, a certain amount of mendicity is inevitable, it will be apparent that it is neither humane nor reasonable for the Government to have no other remedy to offer for the misfortune of its Chinese subjects nor for the natural consequences of such misfortune but that of fine, imprisonment, whipping and deportation. Hongkong was once supposed to be likely to serve as a model Colony to exhibit before the view of the benighted so-called semi-civilized pagans of China the bright example of a Christian Government and a civilized community.
And indeed when we compare the state of things in Hongkong with that of England we seem to have something to boast of by way of the blood-bought results of this unchristian mode of dealing with the poor and the destitute. Whilst according to the Statesman's Year-Book for 1880 (p. 243) the number of paupers, exclusive of vagrants and casual poor, in receipt of public relief in the several unions and parishes of England and Wales in 1879, amounting to 800,426, is such that there is at present one pauper to every thirty persons in England and Wales, we have in a population of over 140,000 Chinese in Hongkong not one pauper in receipt of Government or Colonial relief, and the actual number of paupers in the Colony may safely be estimated not to exceed a few hundred.
3.—Dangers to be avoided in dealing with destitutes in Hongkong.
As regards foreign destitutes, who are aliens, it is obvious that with the aid afforded by the private charity of the various nationalities represented among the residents of Hongkong, under the guidance of their respective Consuls, Government interference would be entirely uncalled for. In the case of non-descript foreign destitutes, disowned by their respective Consuls, and in the case of British destitutes, anything done by the Government over and above what is now being done in furnishing such destitutes with board and lodging in the Gaol, would tend to make the situation of a "beach comber" destitute here more eligible than the lot of a hardworking seaman or stoker, and consequently put a premium on loafing and idleness. Portuguese destitutes also may well be left to the care of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul which, in case of special need, will know how to apply to Government for aid.
As regards Chinese destitutes it may fairly be conceded, that, barbaric as the provisions of such local Ordinances are as those of No. 8 of 1858 and No. 8 of 1876 which authorise whipping and deportation in simple cases of mendicancy, they were no doubt prompted by the danger which does lie near, on account of the proximity of the Chinese frontier, that indiscriminate and lavish aid afforded in Hongkong to destitutes, be it by the Government or by private charity, would practically act like a magnet attracting from all the nooks and corners of the Canton Province swarms of professional beggars and lepers to a Colony like this where money is more plentiful than anywhere in the province of Canton.
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