PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference
FICO. 882
سلسلنا
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
4PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
Month.
Name.
16.
Offence.
By whom sentenced.
No. of Lashes or Strokes.
Whether flogged before, and Date.
19 May 1877 Wong a Fuk
Using bad language and
Acting Superin-
12
No.
general disorderly
tendent of Gaol,
23
Ho Tim Hung
31
**
25 11
Lai a Kai
condnet.
Larceny
Do.
C. May, Esq.
10
Do.
10
**
29
Nga Kwai
Rogue and vagabond
Do. -
10
2 June
1.
5
"
6
19
17
Ching & Wai
Man a To
Chang a Lok
-
8
Thomas Louis
-
"
"9
5 July "
Hi a Lok
-
Disorderly conduct
Larceny
Do.
Do.
Assaulting prisoner.
Acting Superin-
tendent of Gaol.
C. May, Esq.
Do.
8
fellow
Do. -
H. G. Thomsett,
299 29*
No.
No.
No.
6
No.
10
No.
10
Yes; 8 May 1877.
31 Oct. 1876.
10
Yes 28 Dec. 1876.
10 Feb. 1877.
24
No.
Esq. and Acting Superintendent
of Gaol,
Victoria Gaol Office, 14 July 1877.
(Signed)
GEO. L. TOMLIN,
Acting Superintendent.
(True Copies.)
Cecil C. Smith,
Acting Colonial Secretary.
No. 6.
GOVERNOR HENNESSY, C.M.G., to the EARL OF CARNARVON. (Received
(No. 98.) MY LORD,
October 13, 1877.)
Government House, Hong Kong, August 22, 1877.
1. ADVERTING to the despatches noted below* respecting flogging in Hong Kong, I have the honor to lay before your Lordship copies of reports from Chief Justice Sir John Smale and Mr. Justice Snowden, on the question raised by the Colonial Burgeon as to the permanent injuries inflicted on Chinese prisoners by the use of the lash on the back, and his recommendation that no flogging should be administered except with a rattan on the breech.
2. Mr. Justice Snowden, whilst questioning the value of the evidence on which he imagines Dr. Ayres formed his opinion, appears to agree with him that no flogging should in future be administered on the back; and he also seems to think that an end should be put to the practice of public flogging.
3. Sir John Smale also doubts the soundness of Dr. Ayres' opinion that all the Chinese prisoners he has seen flogged on the back suffer more or less from congestion of the lungs, and in severe floggings from permanent injury to the lungs. On the other hand, Dr. Ayres, who has read the remarks of the two judges, assures me that his statement is literally correct; that the prisoners on being flogged go into hospital, where it is the doctor's duty to see them every day; that he has invariably observed by the breathing and the pulse, and frequently by the use of the stethoscope, the presence of congestion of the lungs in the case of the Chinese. Sometimes he says this passes off without leaving apparently any internal injury; but he is never surprised to find the same man return to the hospital in a few months with haemorrhage of the lungs.
4. I have also the honor to enclose a copy of the reply I caused to be written to the Chief Justice, in which, in referring to the general question, the instructions given. by your Lordship to Sir R. MacDonnell on the 22nd November 1866 are quoted, to the effect that flogging should be confined to cases of crimes which, by their violence or atrocity, disclose a brutal or intractable nature.
5. The Chief Justice's remark that crimes of violence coming before the Supreme Court have been decreasing is shown to be a misconception arising partly from the fact
• Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5.
17
that recent legislation has extended the power of the magistrates; and the reports of the Captain Superintendent of Police are quoted showing the increase in crimes of violence and in felonies generally of late years.
6. On this important question whether serious crime has or has not been increasing in Hong Kong, I am venturing to address your Lordship in another despatch, in which the actual facts for the last ten years are given.
I have, &c. (Signed)
The Right Hon. the Earl of Carnarvon,
&c.
&c.
&c.
J. POPE HENNESSY,
Governor.
(No. 480.) SIR,
MR. JUSTICE SNOWDEN to ACTING COLONIAL SECRETARY.
Supreme Court, July 19, 1877.
I BEG to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated July 9th, requesting, on the part of His Excellency the Governor, suggestions with reference to a letter of the Colonial Surgeon, in which it is recommended, for reasons therein stated, that the punishment of flogging should for the future be inflicted on the breech instead of the back.
The opportunities I have had of considering the details of this form of punishment are few, but I have heard before of the objections raised by Dr. Ayres.
If the Colonial Surgeon's opinion is well founded, it seems to me clear that flogging on
the back should be at once and for ever discontinued.
A punishment which permanently affects health is cruel, and its use is unjustifiable. The result of this would be to put an end to public flogging, which many persons of great experience consider very valuable as an example.
If they are right and the floggings in public are to be persevered with, I do not see why they should not be administered on the breech, as used to be the practice at Singapore, due care being taken against any unnecessary exposure.
Speaking for myself, I have long been of opinion that the public exhibition of painful punishments is of very doubtful value.
If the man punished suffers severely, the lookers on, imperfectly acquainted with the reasons for the punishment, see in him only the victim of superior force, and are apt to sympathize with him instead of with the law, and the spectacle hardens rather than deters. If he bears the punishment with hardihood and without flinching, the admiration of the crowd is excited, the pain is underrated, and the punishment thought lightly of.
It would, however, I think be very desirable to have some enquiry made into Dr. Ayres' facts before his opinion is accepted. The statement is not made with sufficient precision to be entirely relied upon.
That all the Chinese who are flogged on the back suffer more or less from congestion of the lungs is, I am pretty sure, much too large an assertion; that some do would be bad enough.
Dr. Ayres' opinion on the case of Wong-a-Kwai is clearly based on very inadequate knowledge of his previous health. The so-called admissions of the officers of the gaol that his broken-down health is entirely owing to the punishment he received years ago are of no value without much more information on many points. That Wong-a-Kwai is a man of powerful build is no ground for supposing that he may not be suffering from phthisis induced by exposure to weather and other causes without supposing the disease to be hereditary,
I cannot attach any weight to the objections of Dr. Ayres to flogging on the back based on moral grounds.
Those best acquainted with the Chinese character and most ready to recognize the presence in them of good feelings and qualities would, I think, scarcely credit Chinese prisoners with extreme sensitiveness at the idea of letting their comrades see their backs marked with the cat.
Beating with a bamboo is the most common form of punishment under their native laws, and most of them are habituated to the nature of the punishment and its results, if not by personal experience by the experience of others.
M 869.
C