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interpraters, permeate both the civil and the criminal courts, and
I regret to have to say that there are Solicitors in practice here
who are only too ready to shut their eyes to what they know is
going on, and who stoop to association with these men for the sake
of the business which they obtain or create.
3.
This state of affairs degrades the legal pro-
-fession, brings the administration of justice into disrepute, and
tende, in the eyes of the Chinese, to reduce our Courts to the
level of those of more corrupt and less civilised countries. I
give below some examples of the machinations of these persons
which have come to light, but there have been many other instances
in which their hand has been suspected. For the sake of brevity
I do not propose to go into the details of the evidence connect-
-ing these cases with particular interpreters.
4.
In 1897 a junk was run down and sunk by the
S. 8. "Rosetta". The owner was introduced to a Solicitor's
interpreter and an er Solicitor's clerk and he was induced to
enter into a chompertous agreement with these two men. The action
was compromised, but it was only after some pressure and with the
assistance of another firm of Solicitors that the omer recovered
his share. The interpreter and er clerk were prosecuted for
champerty and were conficted, but the cviction was quashed on appeal because the Magistrate had not found as a fact that there
had been my maintenance after the issue of the writ. The Court
said, however, that the appellants had been concerned in a most
iniquitous transaction and had grossly defrauded a poor ignorant man, and they refused to give the appellants their costs.
5.
A similar case occurred in 1908 in connection
with a collision between a fishing junk and the 3. 3. "Holstein".
The Court found that both ships were to blame and referred to the Registrar the question of the amount of the damage to the junk. The particulars of claim were purely imaginary and were prepared by the interpreter without any reference to the plaintiff. For instance, they included the sub-head of $1,020.50 for silk cloth-
-ing
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