the omission of which, indeed, I was not aware till my attention was called to it by the despatch of the Secretary of State of the 3rd September, 1894.
3. The alteration was made in the Legislative Council - opposition was raised and no objection was made at the time to the amendment nor am I aware of any complaint having been made of the present state of the law either by the European or Chinese sections of the community.
4. A single magistrate was allowed to sentence to 12 months in certain special cases by Sect. 6 of Ord. 16 of 1875, by Sect. 4 of Ord. 8 of 1882 (on plea of guilty), by Sect. 6 of Ord. 28 of 1889, and by Sect. 12 of Ord. 11 of 1890.
5. Section 80 of Ord. 10 of 1890, however, while reserving the discretionary power of committing for trial, gave the Magistrates power to convict summarily except in the scheduled offences, and to sentence for a term not exceeding 12 months.
6. It must be borne in mind that in this Colony, the Chinese are numerically in proportion to all other nationalities combined, and that probably 95 cases out of every hundred which come before the Magistrates are cases of Chinese, mostly of the Coolie class.
7. I have no hesitation in saying that the Chinese would prefer that the Magistrate's jurisdiction should remain as it is.