14. Proceedings were taken under the Extradition Acts against five persons for crimes committed outside the Colony. Of these one was committed to prison to await the Order of H.E. the Governor and the others were discharged.
15. Summonses under the Separation and Maintenance Order Ordinance, 1935, in Hong Kong numbered four as against five in 1936. Order was made in one of them. In Kowloon these summonses numbered five as against four in 1936. In one of them order was made.
16. The year under report marked a fresh high level in the number of persons before the court both in Hong Kong and in Kowloon; 40,391 and 31,169 respectively as against 37,974 and 26,172 in 1936.
17. In Hong Kong revenue and expenditure again show increases, while in Kowloon last year's tendencies are reversed; revenue has risen and expenditure declined.
18. In table IV the following sub-heads show important increases; simple larceny, increased by nearly 1,000 cases; stealing from the person; robbery; receiving and unlawful possession; trade mark infringement; food and drug offences; offences against public health; and street hawkers offences. In Kowloon, increases are shown not only under the heads of larceny and receiving but under obstruction, begging and offences against public health.
Decreases in both courts appear in opium and drug offences, returning from banishment, traffic offences (except in Kowloon) and dog summonses.
A very large proportion of the increase in receiving and possession is accounted for by the numerous cases of unlawful possession of tree wood, brought from September, 1937 onwards, after the typhoon.
19. In the Juvenile Courts, similar trends can be observed, in the increase of offences against property and of hawkers' offences, principally hawking newspapers without a licence, which has since July almost superseded the selling of vegetables as the mainstay of the child breadwinner. It even seems to have attracted the young tobacco smugglers on the water front, for defendants in such cases have sunk from 39 to 9, and the same decline occurred in Kowloon where, however, larcenies and hawking offences have also declined. Girl hawkers, who number 9 out of 10 girl offenders, have increased both sides of the harbour.