personating a Policeman on the 3rd August 1867 and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment with hard labour, which term he served out.
Collusion between the two men is therefore impossible.
The live statements corroborate each other in a remarkable degree, and besides implicating Stanton and Quincey furnish evidence of corrupt practices on the part of Detectives Tung Chung, Jeding Fat, and Mi Cheung, who made declarations before H.M's. Consul which Stanton and Quincey used for the purposes of their Petitions, and on the part of the following signatories of the Petition to the Secretary of State by number of the Chinese detectives who were in connection with the Wa Lane affair: Wong Pen-lak (No.2), Leung Thing (No.3), Au Aing (No.7), Thing Man (No.8), The Chung (No.10), and Thi-Leung Kwai (No.19).
My reasons for not communicating the Statements made to me by Thing On and Leung Iu to government at an earlier date were that Leung Iu's statement, which was made without reservations, was useless without the corroboration of Thing On's, and that I was unwilling to break the promise under which I obtained the latter.
I am still very reluctant that Cheng On's statement should be made public (although he has given me permission to forward it to Govt. and to allow a copy of it to be sent to Stanton and Quincey), for it will expose him to recrimination, and may result in his losing his post at the Opium Farm.
3. Wong Kwok's declaration.
On the 30th of November last, I reported to the Colonial Secretary that having received information that a man named Wong Kwok, who had been banished in 1894 for promoting gambling in the Colony, was willing to give evidence of having actually paid bribes in respect of certain gambling houses to Inspectors Quincey, Blanton, and de Silva, I had sent P.C. 137 Haw Hang to Canton to interview Wong Kwok and take down a statement of what he was prepared to swear.
I forwarded a translation of the statement made to the P.C. by Wong Kwok. I added that the latter had, however, intimated that he was not prepared to give evidence against either of the Inspectors in Court.