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Larger and better building in Battery Road on the ground granted by His Excellency Sir HERCULES ROBINSON. Before proceeding further, however, we must first remark that we use the word Reformatory not in its strict meaning, but in a broad one. When we obtained the ground from Sir HERCULES ROBINSON we asked His Excellency what power had we of coercion on the boys who should be taken to the Reformatory. His Excellency said that we had no power of coercion, nor could he himself give any such power to us. Guided by this clear declaration, we built and framed our rules more after the shape of an Industrial School than of a Reformatory. On the other hand, it has always been our conviction, that it is not punishment that does away with crimes, but the preventing the youths from becoming criminals. We, therefore, constituted as a rule, first not to use coercion, but always to try to reform the boys by kindness, instruction, and work; second, to receive in our Establishment, not only the boys who have been already in Gaol, but also the young vagabonds in the streets or those who were not taken care of by their parents, to prevent them from becoming criminals.
Although from the beginning it was known that the Government had not and could not give us any power of coercion, the Magistrates used to send to us the youths who had been brought before them, provided they had first undergone their punishment in Gaol, and, after having their terms completed, a chance was offered to them to enter the Reformatory; some remained, some left it after one or two days. To these two classes, namely, boys taken there by the Police, and destitute boys who applied for admittance the Reformatory was always open. To provide for the maintenance of these boys the Magistrate would give us a small allowance from the Poor Box. It was later on that the Government, recognising the good done by the Reformatory, voted a grant for it. The first mention made in public of the working and progress of the Reformatory was
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on the occasion of the distribution of prizes held on the 22nd March, 1869, at St. Saviour's College. We will cite some lines from the different Reports of the Roman Catholic Schools and Charitable Establishments, from which one can see the working and progress of the Institution.
In 1869 the Report gives to understand the nature of the Establishment. "The boys of the Reformatory," we read therein, "are made to learn a trade" that is, it is a kind of Industrial School. More than once, when a favourable occasion presented itself, we insisted on the great want of Industrial Schools in Hongkong. We cannot pretend that all boys should be called to be clerks or to follow the mercantile profession; the Chinese are very good artists, and, if applied to learning trade, they would succeed. We have, however, to confess that we met with some difficulty in carrying on our system of teaching trades to the boys. We think that the reasons are: - 1st, the want of European teachers; 2nd, the difficulty of getting work; and 3rd, the competing with the shopkeepers who are, especially in these last years, united in the form of guilds and do not allow any one to work who does not belong to their societies. However, we did not lose courage, and succeeded in having a certain number of boys learning carpentership, shoemakership and tailorship, besides gardening. The cost was heavy, especially in the beginning, the Directors of the Establishment having to sink a large sum of money in raising terraces, facilitating irrigation in the garden, and ameliorating the ground; but lately, it has given a good result. We read in the report of the year 1869 published in 1870 that the inmates of the Reformatory were fifty-two in number, that trades were taught and the behaviour of the boys remarkably good.
In 1869 the Government made a grant to the Reformatory, through the recommendation of the Right Honourable Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies,
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