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3-Your Petitioner has reason to believe that the representation made to the Honourable Superintendent about Petitioner's alleged implication in money-lending transactions was made in the shape of an anonymous petition, by evidently interested parties for their own aggrandisement, hug your Petitioner does not mention this circumstance with a view to underestimate the due consideration that the Honourable Superintendent may have given before ancepting such a representation. Your Petitioner only begs to state the circumstance with a view to point to the jealousy subsisting in the Indian Section of the Force against success and promotion, and your Petitioner respectfully submits that for that very reason greater As your Petitioner was never opportunities of inceting the charges alleged against him was due to him. definitely informed of the exact nature of the charges made against him, he respectfully submits he had not had those opportunities of meeting those charges as could have thoroughly exculpated him in the eyes of his superior officer. So far as he has been made aware of such charges, your Petitioner honestly avers that no such offence has been proved to have been committed by him as should have lol to the swamary dismissal of your Petitioner, and to the entire extinction of the rewards and emoluments to which he was entitled after his eighteen years' unsullied service.
6.---The only definite charge your Petitioner has been able to ascertain was made against him, was to the affect that about three years ago your Petitioner lent a sum of $50 or thereabouts to one Da Rocha, who was at the time a Telephone Clerk in the Central Police Station of this Colony.
7.-Your Petitioner respectfully begs to deny that he ever lent any money to the said Rocha To the knowledge of your Petitioner, the money was lent by one Gunda Singh, an excise officer, as was stated by the said Da Rocha to the said Captain Superintendent, and as could be proved by your Petitioner, Your Petitioner cannot deny that the transaction took place in bis pressace, but the presence was, your Petitioner verily now believes, inveigled by the said Guada Singh, probably with a view to secure testimony of the transaction. Quanda Singh is well known in the colony as a money-lender --he is a professional money- lender-and under the pretext of inquiring of your Petitioner about Da Rocha's credit whilst giving the loan, your Petitioners presence, it can never be gainsaid, was to his great disadvantage unfairly pressed in.
S.---Beyond that your Petitioner most respectfully pleads not guilty to the money-lending attributed to him, and that he is likewise innocent of ever having received a single cent of interest or any other commission in Guada Singh's transaction.
9.--Your Petitioner regrets that barring an intimation of his alleged implication in some money- leuding transaction, as conveyed in the Certificate embodied from the Honourable the Captain Superintendent dated the 6th December, 1896, as also to some extent conveyed through some verbal inquiry, partly made in his presence and partly in his absence, as to the transaction alleged to have taken place with Da Rocha some three years ago, your Petitioner cannot, but with due deferenco submit that he has been kept altogether in the dark as in the enlpability of his conduct, and that he has not been given any fair opportunities of meeting any definito charges. As to the particular transaction attributed to have been effected with the said Da Rocha, your Petitioner camot but lay stress on the significant fact that when questioned by the Honourable Captain Superintendent in Petitioner's presence as to his having received any money from your Petitioner, Da Rocha subverted his story altogether and told a radically different story from that which he told under that officer's previous inquiry in Petitioner's absence, and as the Captaiu Superintendent was not slow on that occasion to tax him severely for thus acting, this fact could well be corroborated by him, and the question arises as to how fur any reliance can be placed on, and as to what eredance can be attached to, one or another version of Da Rocha's story in dealing with the conduct of a Police Officer who had been assiduously and honestly serving in the Force for us less a duration of years than eighteen years, and daring which period not only that he served in a very unique mauner, without even so much as a month's absence on leave, but also even without so much as a single black mark against his conduct in the official record, so much so that the Captain Superintendent has himself done your Petitioner justice to certify on the 6th of December, 1896, after the order of dismissal, that Petitioner was " for four years under my personal command, during the latwo of which he filled the post of Indian Sergeant-Major. He performed his Police duties to my entire satisfaction and hore a very good character.”
10. Your Petitioner cannot but apprehend that, prejudged and prejudiced as the matter with Dr Rocha has been from the outset, nudder the prejudice created by the anonymous representation referred to in paragraphik as received by the Captain Superintendent, it has been further prejudiced by certain cases that have cropped up recently against some men of his nationality about money-advances; but your Petitioner unflinchingly believes tut his conduct in the matter of the alleged transaction with Da Rocha will bear thorough investigation, and that he also confidently believes that he will come out of that inquiry without the slightest tar or tanish on his character, and he will thereby he saved from the ignominy attaching to a dismissal.
1. Your Petitioner, therefore, earnestly petitioned and prayed Itis Excellency the Governor, first on the 11th day of March, 1807, as per Petition herewith attached, marked I, and secondly on the 24th day of April, 1897, as per Petition herewith attached, marked II, thut, taking all the circumstances equally narrated in those Petitions as in this, His Excelloney would be graciously pleased not to condemn a servant of the Crown in the position of your Petitioner unheard, and that His Excellency would be pleased to appoint an independent Commission of Inquiry to formally investigate the conduct of the Petitioner in the transaction attributed to him with Da Rocha, inasmuch as an informal inquiry conducted by the Captain Superintendent had not been sufficient enough for cliciting the facts of the case from Da Roc, and that the safe-guards instrumental in guarding against deliberate prevarication had been altogether wanting in such inquiry.
12. Your Petitioner unfeignally regrets that beyond the informal procedure of inquiry adopted by the Captain Superintendent, not only was Petitioner never definitely informed of the exact nature of the charges, but that he was also deprived of the opportunities of substantiating his plea of not guilty by being not provided with a copy of the different statements of Da Rocha, as also those of Gunda Singh, as taken down by the Captain Superintendent.
13.-Your Petitioner further unfeignedly regrets and respectfully subaits, that the exceptional soverity with which he has been condenmed and dealt with almost unheard, and the extent of the punishment inflicted on him by distoissal and the entire extinction of his pension dre after eighteen years' services, have not been fully appreciated by His Excellency the Governor.
14. Your Peritiouer, therefore, ventures to approach you with a respectful prayer that you may be pleased to review the considerations urged with all due deference by your Petitioner, and graciously to grant thar redress and that justice to hint which the merits of his case, in conjunction with the consideration of his long and faithful service of eighteen years, entitle him to as a servant of the Crown.
15. Your Petitioner begs to append to this a Petition, marked III prosented to His Excellency the Governor on his behalf by several Indian Merchants and Traders of this Colony, as that Petition bears ample testimony of the general character of the Petitioner, as also advances considerations having weighty hearings on the subject matter of this Petition.
16-And Your Petitioner will ever pray, &c., &c.
Ilongkong,
1597.
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