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Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
STATE OF HER MAJESTY'S COLONIAL POSSESSIONS.
relieving the sheriff of the custody of the prisoners, and placing them under the care of Mr. Inglis, the present governor. I should occupy far too much space were I to attempt to enumerate the changes for the better; and I will therefore confine myself to saying, that the gaol, up to the early part of 1857, had every possible defect of management save one, and that want of cleanliness, and now it is as well regulated as it can possibly be, considering its deficiencies in accommodation and want of security. It must, however, be again repeated, that whereas, according to the rules of prison areas in England, (far too limited for a climate like this,) there is only space for 190 prisoners at one time in Victoria gaol, the average has been 70 per cent, in excess of this. The smallest number on the returns gives 245 and the largest 384 occupants at any one period; and I cannot but feel considerable regret that the state of the colonial finances compels the continuance of a system so dangerous and so much to be lamented. As, however, there appears to be a promise of funds available hereafter for enlarging the gaol, I would respectfully suggest to your Excellency that the best course then to be pursued will be, not to extend the present premises, but to construct a separate prison elsewhere for the prisoners under long sentence, and to reserve the existing gaol for the short sentence men of all descriptions. Now the European seamen sent in for refusal of duty or intoxication herd at least all day with the European transports of every dye of crime, running the risk of making themselves worse, and alleviating in an improper manner the severity of the punishment of the felon convict, by giving him an unceasing change of companionship, and enabling him to convey messages out should he wish to attempt to escape. Now, also, the same evil exists to a still greater degree from the admixture in the hospital and the common yard and at meal times of Chinese transports with the minor vice and crime of the native population, who, coming in merely for days, weeks, or months, convey to the lifer or the twenty years' man all the petty details of the most recent robberies or remarkable burglaries or piracies, to the deeper contamination of all parties. It is evident that we are unable to rid ourselves of our European transports, and can only at rare intervals draft off batches of our Chinese to Labuan. I would, therefore, wish to see the construction of a convict gaol, to be reserved solely for that purpose. It could, I believe, be erected at hardly more expense than is required for the enlargement of Victoria gaol, a work otherwise of indispensable necessity. Were that done hardly any money need be spent on the last-named building, which would be sufficient for the accommodation and custody of all the less aggravated form of offenders.
4. The Surveyor General.
The aggregate amount of expenditure debited to this department during the year 1857 amounts to the large sum of £17,021. 16s. 6d., which is divisible into £10,757. 6s. 11d. for works and buildings, and £6,262. 9s. 7d. for roads, streets, and bridges.
Works commenced in former years and completed in this have demanded an outlay of £5,291. 7s. 7d., and works still in progress £1,730. 8s. 11d.
The principal buildings which have occupied the attention of the Surveyor General have been the Central and West Point Police Stations, both of them important additions to the efficiency of the force, the one in the centre of the town and the other at its western extremity. The markets, of which the two principal are being rebuilt, and four new ones constructed, as are also two substantial slaughterhouses. This will, perhaps, be the most fitting place for me to recall to your remembrance how the large amount of funds have been provided (exceeding £14,000) required for these alterations. The old market system was perhaps as faulty a one as could have existed. Portions of Crown lands had been granted to lessees, on condition of their erecting markets thereon and paying a certain annual rental. But it had not been provided that the whole of such land should be devoted to market purposes, and consequently the lessees appropriated a considerable portion of it to building houses thereon totally unconnected with the market, but which paid them very remunerative rents, while the markets proper remained in a disgraceful state of dilapidation, were carved out into separate monopolies, and were but of secondary importance to the lessees. One of the leases falling in in September last, it was resolved to take the whole market system into the hands of the Government. It was further resolved to sell such of the above-mentioned houses as were distinct from the only two then existing markets, the central and western, and apply the amount thereby realized in perfecting the new market arrangement. That sale realized the singularly large sum of £14,822. 14s. 4d. or thereabouts; and when I mention that the amounts received from the markets notwithstanding such sale, and before the additional markets have been opened, considerably exceeds the old market revenue, the wisdom of the change demands no comment, for we shall exchange the old markets, such as I have