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Ordinance are subject
may be
• subject to heavy penalties and any opium seized under the ordinance is liable to forfeiture for the benefit of the Opium Farmer
The said ordinance contains no limitation whatever as to the quantity of opium that may be sold to any person by the Opium Farmer or by his licensees,
as to the persons to whom or the purposes for which it may be sold and no prohibition or restraint whatever on the export of prepared opium from the Colony of Hong Kong in any quantity whatsoever.
On the 9th December 1891 Advertisements were published in the Hongkong Government Gazette and in all the local papers English and Chinese calling for tenders for the purchase of the "entire privileges known as the Opium Farm established" under the "Prepared Opium Ordinance 1891" for "three years from the 1st March 1892" and your Memorialists tendered therefor and were successful in obtaining the Farm for the said period of 3 years from the 1st March 1892 at a monthly rental payable in advance of $28,400, and, in compliance with the requirements of the said ordinance they gave security for the due and faithful performance by them of all the terms stipulations and conditions annexed to the said Farm, by the deposit in the name of the Colonial Treasurer of a sum of $85,200. Upon the first day of March 1892, by a deed poll under the hand of His Excellency Sir William Robinson K.C.M.G. Governor and Commander in Chief of the Colony of Hong Kong