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1877 from similar causes, doubtless accidental, to those which led to a similar decrease I observe indeed from in the years between 1867 and 1871 and between 1871 and 1876. your speech transmitted in your Despatch No. 122, of 22nd September, that on the 17th September the numbers in gaol were 382 as against 430 at the corresponding date of 1876, and you report in your later despatches that the diminution had continued throughout the month of September and the early part of October.

The decrease is highly satisfactory as tending to negative any inference of serious danger to the Colony which might have been drawn from the figures of 1876.

7. I have enquired how far the state of the population in different years might bear upon this question, and I find that by admitting that important factor to the calculation the number for 1876 is shown not to be relatively the largest of the ten years. For instance, in 1872 the population was 121,000 and the number of serious crimes 1,394, or 1 to every 86 persons in Hong Kong. In 1876 the population was 139,000 and the number of serious crimes 1,485, giving the proportion of I to every 93 persons.

8. For the character of those crimes which are classified as serious, I referred to the report of the Superintendent of Police, and I find that the actual increase over 1875 was due to 11 more cases of highway robbery and 121 more larcenies than in the preceding

year.

But it appears that of the 24 highway robberies reported, two were not substantiated and eight were comparatively trifling; I have not the means of judging how far the larcenies were important or of a trivial nature, and I now learn from Mr. Deane that the piracies were 5 in each year, that there were 4 murders in 1876 as against 3 in 1875, but that there was a diminution on each of the five remaining heads classified as serious crimes.

9. It is true as you state that in the five years 1872 to 1876 the annual number of offences of all kinds had increased to 7124 as against 5718 in the preceding period of five years, but this result would appear to be referable to the fact that the minor offences for 1872 amounted to 8,956, and in 1873 to 6164, as compared with 4,086 in 1875 and 5,061 in 1876. With the explanation which you furnished respecting the nature of the arrests in September and October 1876 and that supplied by Mr. Deane's Annual Report, paragraph 4, these figures appear to me not to be abnormal if compared with I also learn from the minor offences in any of the remaining six years of the decade. Mr. Deane's present Report that in the five years since 1871 the practice bas obtained of including cases of mendicancy and of street cries in these returns, and that these two items represent 566 of the 5,061 cases returned for 1876.

10. I have gone with some minuteness into these figures in order to satisfy myself whether crime has been in fact increasing, as you apprehend, in a "steady and dangerous ratio" (to quote your own words to the Chief Justice), and whether, if so, the increase is attributable, as I understand you to imply, to the alleged vicious nature of the penal system of the Colony. Taking everything into account I am glad to believe that the facts, so far as they are before me, do not appear to warrant so grave a conclusion, nor do I see, from the circumstances and figures stated, ground for thinking that serious crime, or indeed crime in general, was becoming unusually frequent in 1876.

11. I have no desire to underrate the energy with which you apply yourself to the prosecution of any administrative reform in which you are engaged; but you will on reflection, I think, agree with me that in undertaking and initiating changes, especially in a place and under circumstances which are new and unfamiliar, a governor will do wisely to secure the co-operation of those who, from long experience, are competent to lend valuable assistance, and thus to avoid undesirable conflict with individuals, no less than actual mistakes, as to the nature of the reforms which are expedient or practicable. For this reason I will frankly say that I should have addressed myself with more confidence to the consideration of the other points raised in the despatches under acknowledgment if I had perceived that your opinions were formed after consultation with the Executive Council whose special province it is to bring to the assistance of the Governor the experience acquired by their longer residence in a Colony in which every- thing must at first be strange to him; but, so far as I can gather from the papers, the opinions which you express are entirely your own, except in so far as they are supported by the medical opinion of the Colonial Surgeon.

12. I entertain the most anxious desire to abolish, as far as possible, all brutalizing punishments, and especially any punishments which may be proved to be injurious to the health of the criminals, but I cannot but feel that the general discontinuance of flogging as a punishment for Chinese criminals of certain classes is a question of extreme The barbarity of difficulty which should be very calmly and patiently examined. Chinese punishments is notorious, and no flogging inflicted in Hong Kong is able to compare with them in severity. It is the knowledge of this fact, and the admitted

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danger of attracting criminals from the Province of Kwangtung by a system of The comparative leniency, that has led to the establishment in Hong Kong of a penal system different from that adopted in other parts of Her Majesty's dominions. Colony under your government has been regarded hitherto in this office as a place per se to be dealt with on principles which might not be sanctioned elsewhere. The existing laws were indeed introduced with the express object of providing for the Colony a security for person and property which was wanting previously, and whatever the actual cause, it is not denied that that security has, since those laws were passed, been obtained. 13. I am, however, reluctant to believe that this state of security depends upon the greater or less publicity with which corporal punishment is administered. Whilst I am by no means opposed to the use of corporal punishment within proper limits, with the due safeguards, and when applied to particular offences, I personally entertain a strong opinion that the practice of flogging prisoners in public cannot be useful, and may easily become demoralizing. I am satisfied that this is the case in civilised, and I believe that it is likely to be so in partially civilised communities, living, it may be, under peculiar customs, and the influence of peculiar feelings and traditions, and as the question of its continuance at Hong Kong is now fairly raised, I have no hesitation in expressing my objection to the practice, and I shall be glad if it can be eventually given up.

14. I am at this moment engaged in considering this question in connection with all the Crown Colonies, and I do not, therefore, desire you at present to make any alteration in the law by amending any ordinance under which public flogging is inflicted. I feel satisfied that the foregoing expression of my views will be sufficient to induce the judges and the magistrates to refrain from sentencing offenders to be publicly whipped pending my consideration of the subject, but in addition to the information which will be asked for shortly in a circular despatch, I shall wish to be furnished at the end of June 1878 with reports by the judges, the magistrates, and the chief of the police, informing me whether the discontinuance of public flogging has been followed by any increase of the crimes for which it has hitherto been inflicted. In the meanwhile, I am confident that I can rely upon the judicial officers of the Colony for their ready co-operation with me in the manner which I have now indicated.

15. My attention has been drawn to the observations of the Chief Justice as reported in the China Mail of the 11th of October, when passing sentence upon two criminale convicted separately of highway robbery, accompanied in each case with gross personal

violence.

The very rare occasions (once in 1875, twice in 1876, twice in 1877) upon which of late years the Supreme Court has had occasion to exercise its powers make it only probable that the powers have not been strained or abused, while the case of Lan a Teun indicates that stringent laws are still necessary. The audacity of the crime and the possibility of such a highway robbery and wounding occurring in daylight in a frequented thoroughfare of the city may serve to show that occasionally, at least, the law is required to deal with no ordinary criminals.

The list of crimes also for which the magistrates may inflict a whipping under Ordinance 16 of 1875 is so peculiar that I am certainly not prepared to go further and authorise the discontinuance of all corporal punishment, nor do I find myself in a position to express definite approval of the adoption of the rattan as the only instrument of punishment.

16. As regards the physical effects of a flogging with the cat, I felt from the first considerable difficulty in accepting as conclusive the views of Dr. Ayres as reported in your Despatch, No. 98, of the 22nd of August, and its enclosures. I have read his report to you of the 23rd of June transmitted in your Despatch, No. 55, of the 6th of July, in which he states that An a Fu and Nu a Mau were convalescent for receiving their second flogging when the condition of their backs, as reported by you, indicates that they were then by no means in a fit state to receive further corporal punishment.

17. I have also read his letter dated the 6th of July inclosed in your Despatch, No. 98,† in which he refers to his last annual report and gives the reasons which he says induced him to recommend in that report that the flogging of prisoners should be carried out as in India. I have referred to that report, and find only the following passage "It appears to me a pity that the flogging Act is not in force the same as in India. I "think less harm is done to the prisoner by a good cauing than by starvation for 7, 14, or 21 days, as the case may be, on rice and water, which in many cases it is impossible " to carry out. I think a caning would be more effectual in preventing the return of "prisoners to gaol; anyhow it would make a considerable reduction in their numbers if

such au Act applied to petty thefts, &c.”

EL

• No. 2.

† No.6.

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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Reference:

C.O. 882

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4 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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