1904-1919
HONG KONG, 1916.
377
19
year 78 remained under the care of the Society. The inmates are under the immediate charge of a Chinese matron, and instruction is given them by the matron and a Chinese teacher in elementary subjects and in needlework.
The Eyre Diocesan Refuge is an institution, under mission auspices, founded for rescue work among the Chinese. It was housed in the Belilios Reformatory up to the outbreak of war, but the work is at present carried on at Kowloon City. A small grant is made by the Government.
The City Hall receives an annual grant of $1,200 from Government. It contains a theatre, some large rooms which are used for balls, meetings, concerts, etc., a museum in which are some very fair specimens, and a large reference and lending library, to which new volumes are added from time to time, as funds will allow. The building was erected in 1866–9 by subscription.
Small grants are also given to the Italian Convent, the French Conconvent (both of which take in and tend abandoned or sick infants), the West Point Orphanage, the Seamen's Hospital, and other charitable institutions,
The Chinese Public Dispensaries are institutions maintained in order to provide the Chinese with the services of doctors, whose certificates will be accepted by the Registrar of Deaths, and with the services of interpreters, who can assist the inmates of houses where an infectious disease has occurred. Coolies are engaged and ambulances and dead vans provided in order to remove cases of infectious disease to the Infectious Diseases Hospital and dead bodies to the mortuary. The Dispensaries receive sick infants and send them to one or other of the Convents and arrange for the burial of dead infants. Free advice and medicine are given and patients are attended at their houses. There are eight Dispensaries in existence; the one for the boat population on a hulk in Causeway Bay was dispensed with and amalgamated with the Yaumati Dispensary. The total cost of maintenance, which is defrayed by voluntary subscription, was $39,766.07 for the year 1916. The Dispensaries are conducted by committees under the chairmanship of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs.
VIII-CRIMINAL AND POLICE.
The total of all cases reported to the police was 11,319, being an increase of 1,859 or 19.65 per cent. as compared with 1915. There was in 1916 an increase in serious offences of 396 or 12.68 per cent. as compared with the previous year. The number of serious offences reported was 49 over the average of the quinquennial period commencing with the year 1912. The number of minor offences reported shows an increase of 1,306 as compared with 1915 and was 497 over the average of the quinquennial period.
The total strength of the Police Force in 1916 was Europeans 165, Indians 463, Chinese 587, making a total of 1,215 (as compared with 1,289 in 1915) exclusive of the five superior officers and staff of clerks and coolies. These figures include police paid for by the Railway and