405
1841-1886
PAPERS RELATING TO
gaol is highly satisfactory, and it is gratifying to find that the health of all classes in the gaol is good, while some are better on a system of lower diet and more deterrent labour.
24. Up to the period at which I write no change in dietary or labour of Europeans has been found necessary.
Lock Hospital.
25. The Contagious Diseases Act continues to work well. I hear of no hardship or abuses. Hong Kong, without such a law, instead of being comparatively free from sexual disease, as it now is, would be a perfect pest-house, spreading disease and death among the tens of thousands of British and foreign seamen who frequent the harbour.
Works and Buildings.
26. Though the roads are few, the cost of their up-keep in this climate must always appear disproportionate.
27. A great deal remains to be done in public buildings. A Harbour Master's Office (in process of erection), an enlarged Central School buildings, extended and improved police accommodation, increase of water supply to the town, and a new road, to the eastward, in continuation of Caine Road, to relieve the East Praya, which is daily required more exclusively for quayage and mercantile purposes, are more or less pressingly required. I am of opinion that the expense of these permanent works, together with two projected light-houses, cannot, and ought not, to be borne by the current revenue of the Colony. On this subject I shall have occasion to address your Lordship separately on the arrival of the new Surveyor-General.
Police.
28. The Report of the Captain Superintendent of Police deserves careful consideration.
29. This force, which at no very remote period was openly accused of every discreditable shortcoming and inefficiency, is now, as a body and individually, respectable, and as efficient probably as any colonial police force. The inspectors are, I think, far above the average to be found in colonial police, and many of the men are qualifying themselves to fill any vacancies which may occur.
30. The crime which at one time disgraced this Colony was (here as elsewhere), for the most part, committed by a few professional criminals; these have been effectively hunted down, and driven from the Colony.
31. British Kowloong will always afford a supply of bad characters, but the establishment of a new police station there has, to a great extent, cut off the supply at its source.
32. I feel confident that the police force of Hong Kong (which is improving daily) is now fully equal to the maintenance of order, and the suppression of crime, aided as it is by two police magistrates of great judgment and firmness.
Post Office.
33. The Post Office of Hong Kong, connected as it is with so many outlying branches, and the large amount of business trans-