27-
Chinese Affairs and not more than nine directors nominated by the Governor, The actual management is entrusted to a committee elected annually by the members of the Society. The Society's buildings have been declared a Refuge under the Women and Girls Protection Ordinance, and almost all women and girls detained by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs under that Ordinance are sent to the Po Leung Kuk. During 1919 the number of persons admitted was 476 and at the close of the year 62 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 Convent, (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 a case of 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 total cost of maintenance was $45,363.83 for the year 1919. The Government makes an annual grant of $7,000, and the rest of the cost is defrayed by voluntary subscription. 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 10,542 being an increase of 2,093 or 24.77 per cent. as compared with 1918. There was in 1919 an increase in serious offences of 958 or 26.77 per cent. as compared with the previous year.
The number of