654, and to the increased leniency shown here in the infliction of corporal punishment for crimes of violence;
a leniency which serves to display in strong relief the difference between the Chinese and English ideas of punishment. For it may, I think, be broadly stated that the Chinese idea of punishment is the infliction of physical pain; while the modern English idea is the imposition of restraint, coupled with reformatory discipline.
As an efficient means of checking the prevalence of crime and checking the growth of the criminal classes in Hong Kong, it has been strongly recommended by successive Governors, Judges, and Attorneys-General in this Colony, and approved by successive Secretaries of State, that the Penal and Reformatory discipline in force in the principal prisons in England, should be introduced into this Colony. It was with this object that I have repeatedly submitted to Your Lordship the necessity of appointing,