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Officer in the Department next to the Registrar General should know Chinese, and should be able to relieve them.
Several of a portion of the work which now falls upon him individually. In the cases the work has, of late, increased exceedingly much. These are (1) the prevention of brothel slavery, (2) Kidnapping connected with female emigration; and (3) the carrying out of the provisions of the Contagious Diseases Ordinances in regard to clandestine prostitution. It is of primary importance that the Registrar General should, when there is a press of such cases, be able to depute someone in his office to give him assistance with them.
3. Under ordinary circumstances I should have recommended the appointment of Mr. Osmund, the present Acting First Clerk, to be Mr. Gerrard's successor. Mr. Osmund, whose proper office is that of Registration Clerk, has had upwards of twenty-five years' service. He has been, in the opinion of previous Registrar General, a most efficient and faithful officer, and I am glad to avail myself of the present opportunity to add my own testimony to that of my predecessors. Mr. Osmund speaks Chinese. Mr. Osmund is the son of an Englishman by an Indo-Portuguese mother, was born at Hongkong, and has lived here all his life.