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the New Territory it would be better to allow the Stamp Ordinance to apply. The same consideration applied to the Rating and Probate Ordinances.
4. With reference to the Gambling Ordinance, I consider the question most carefully and by the light of experience acquired since my arrival in the Colony. There was nothing between extending the Gambling Ordinance, allowing unrestrained gambling, and adopting a system of licensed gambling houses. To the latter course I think there are very great objections except we are prepared to adopt that system in Hong Kong. The Ordinance was therefore extended and at the same time the police were instructed not to interfere except so far as to prevent public disorder.
In a short time the respectable inhabitants of Kowloon and Sham-shui-poo, both situated close to the late Kowloon boundary, made complaints to the police that all the bad characters in the district collected at the gambling dens and that their safety was imperilled. They therefore begged that gambling should be stopped. Thereupon the ordinance, so far as gambling houses were concerned, was acted upon in those places. The gambling there had been stopped for the past two or three years by the Chinese authorities at the request of this Government, but the houses were opened on our occupation.
Later on, representations were made by the Captain Superintendent of Police that the gambling houses were doing