5. But although there may be no doubt as to the superiority of the Plantation over Treen, it must be confessed that to build a gaol on either place will be to deprive the European Community of the Colony of a very favourite evening health resort, for it is generally in the direction of Bowrington that Europeans take their evening walk after the labours of the day.
On a tropical rock like Hong Kong, with so little level ground for walking exercise or recreation, with a climate so trying to European constitutions, and with so few resources to vary the monotony of life, it is almost impossible to overestimate the boon to the English public of an open green tract like Bowrington; and its alienation for gaol purposes would therefore be a great misfortune, and would doubtless lead to strong remonstrances which the Secretary of State would scarcely disregard.
6. Looking to the extreme undesirability of depriving the public of any of the ground at Bowrington, it only remains to build the gaol on Stonecutters Island where it would not be in anybody's way. It is true there will be certain disadvantages in a gaol on the north side of the harbour, but I don't see how these are to be avoided or what other choice is left to the Government. The objections to an outlying establishment of the kind in such a quarter as Stonecutter's Island would lie mainly in the necessity to maintain a small standing garrison for its protection from attack.
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