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Memorandum.
C. C.
35243 RECEIVED 351
Under section 7 of the Foreign Jurisdiction Act 1890 and Article 66 of the Order in Council 1904, a person sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour by a Consular Court in China can be sent to serve his sentence in Hongkong. This course may be thought expedient for various reasons, but the most common are the length of the sentence and the fact that the British Prison in Shanghai does not provide an organised system of hard labour. In practice, we now send all persons sentenced to nine months or more imprisonment with hard labour to Hongkong. On the scale of punishment followed here, these men have all been convicted of serious crime, such as manslaughter, rape, &c.
I need not point out that it is very undesirable that such persons should, as a matter of course, be sent back here - to an exterritorial jurisdiction - as if this were their place of settlement. They are usually Indians or beach-combers who have been here a few months or years only.
The following is the first instance of a convict returned by the Hongkong Government. Peter Sydney Hyndman was indicted for murder, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced on September 21st, 1906, to eighteen months imprisonment with hard labour in Hongkong. On March 19th, 1908, the Hongkong Government paid $40 for his passage to Shanghai, and