CO882-(3-4) — Page 409

(Eastern, No. 33.)

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O. 882

Reference:---

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

4 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

No. 1.

GOVERNOR HENNESSY, C.M.G., to the EARL OF CARNARVON. (Received August 10, 1877.)

(No. 33.)

MY LORD,

Government House, Hong Kong, June 13, 1877.

I HAVE the honour to lay before your Lordship some of the results of my personal inspection of the gaol in Hong Kong.

2. The building stands in the centre of the town of Victoria, being bounded on three sides by Chancery Lane, Old Bailey Street, and Arbuthnot Road, and on the fourth side by the magistrate's offices and the Central Police Station.

3. Chancery Lane is 15 feet broad, and the houses facing the gaol wall rise to an elevation of 31 feet. As the gaol wall is only 13 feet high, the residents in Chancery Lane overlook the prison. From some of the gaol yards and from many of the cells the windows and verandahs of the opposite houses are readily seen.

4. This building serves the purposes for males and females of a common gaol, house of correction, convict prison, debtors' prison, prison for juveniles, and a place of custody for prisoners on remand. It is also the only lunatic asylum in the Colony.

5. On entering the prison the first person I saw in custody was a Chinaman who was fastened by a long chain to an iron gate. Mr. Tomlin, the acting superintendent, explained to me that this was a lunatic who had been sent to prison as there was no other place in the Colony for such persons. I found another lunatic, but not chained, in one of the upper cells. As a general rule the lunatics are, I understand, deported from Hong Kong to the mainland of China.

6. One part of the prison is appropriated to Europeans, another part to Chinese. At the time of my first visit (Saturday the 19th May), there were 362 prisoners in the gaol nominally classified as follows:-

1. Felons and misdemeanants convicted a second or third time (old offenders).

2. Felons and misdemeanants under first conviction..

3. Persons committed for trial or on remand.

4. Persons confined for want of sureties.

5. Juvenile offenders.

7. The male Europeans had separate cells and yards. The only female European,

a Portuguese girl who was undergoing a sentence of a few months imprisonment, being

her first offence, for an aggravated assault on her step-father, was associated with the female Chinese prisoners both before and after her conviction.

in

8. The male Chinese prisoners I found, as a general rule, in associated cells. In some cells there were three, in others five, in others seven prisoners. On proceeding 'to enter some of these cells I found the air so fœtid that I had to step back. There is no lamp any of these cells at night. There are no water-closets. There is a bucket in each cell. The dry earth system is not adopted. Mr. Tomlin explained to me that it had been tried, but owing to the alleged difficulty of getting a proper supply of earth it had to be abandoned. In another despatch relating to the sanitary state in which I found the gaol your Lordship will observe that the Colonial surgeon admits that the late warden's health suffered very much from the sickening stench over his quarters.

9. I requested the acting superintendent to furnish me with a memorandum showing the cubic contents of each cell in one of the wings of the prison, together with the number of prisoners we saw in each of those cells at the time of my first visit. I enclose a copy of this memorandum for your Lordship's information.

10. Taking the twenty-five cells in ward A 2, I found five prisoners in cell No. 1, which has 1,188 cubic feet of space. This gave 238 cubic feet for each prisoner. Cell No. 2 gave 278 cubic feet; cells Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 gave 258 cubic feet; cell No. 8,286, One cell only had over 300 cubic feet for each prisoner (No. 19, 314) and in cell No. 24 there were only about 206 cubic feet of space for each occupant. The

and so on.

M 649.

A