CO885-(6-7) — Page 562

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Occasionally appear.

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For instance, there was recently in the Singapore Gaol a great increase in the number of the breaches of the rule which prohibits prisoners having tobacco in their possession, and it was only checked after a few offenders had been whipped. Prisoners will be much more easily controlled, if they know that the Superin- tendent, when he tells them that for the next offence of a certain nature corporal punishment will be inflicted, has the power to make his words good. If the power of inflicting corporal punishment were taken away from the Superintendent, his influence would be diminished. As matters now are, a caution from him often brings a man to his senses and saves the necessity of inflicting bodily pain.

3. So long as the Superintendents of our prisons are, as they are now, officers of high standing, there is no reason whatever to fear that their powers will be improperly used. Besides, the system here protects the prisoners from injustice, by securing that due enquiry is made; and to prevent any sentence of whipping being inflicted in a moment of thoughtlessness or irritation, it is provided that at least 24 hours must elapse between sentence and execution, except by special order in case of emergency.

4. The Superintendent and Medical Officer are present at every whipping.

5. Reference need hardly be made to the power of whipping vested in the Visiting Justices. They are merely a tribunal for determining cases of a nature too serious for the Superintendent to deal with personally. Still greater safeguards are provided than in the case of punishment inflicted by the Superintendent, for the hearing of evidence must be on oath. The interval between the sentence and the whipping is the same.

6. With officers of high standing at the head of each prison, and with the safeguards above mentioned, it is unnecessary that each case where corporal punishment is awarded should first be submitted to the Governor, and in many ways it would be undesirable. In the first place, it would do away in great measure with the effectiveness which a punishment accomplishes by its promptness; and this would especially be the case where references had to be made from Penang and Malacca. I do not mention the greater punish- ment which would thereby be inflicted on the prisoner by having the pain of prolonged suspense added to the physical one. The practical effect would also be that in some cases offenders would get off scot free. An instance of this kind occurred, when on the He was last day of his sentence a prisoner was guilty of gross insubordination. punished by whipping. To have had the sentence previously approved by the Governor would have rendered it non-operative.

7. The following statistics will show with what moderation sentences of whipping are inflicted in our prisons-I take the figures for the past two years.

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10. As to the general question, we can only endorse what is stated in the Secretary of State's Circular Despatch, that "it does not follow that what experience has shewn to be right and expedient in this country is right and expedient all the world over," but I think that this opinion is somewhat modified when the despatch goes on to state "it "becomes a duty to scrutinize very carefully any deviation from the lines which public "criticism and expert advice have combined to lay down in England as being "reasonable," &c.

11. We take it that public opinion on any question should be the opinion of the public in whose midst the subject of opinion exists. If public opinion were taken here on the question (and by public opinion I include that of the respectable native population and especially of the Chinese) I should say that there would be almost a general consensus that the punishment of whipping should be extended rather than restricted.

12. The Acting Inspector of Prisons states his absolute conviction that the taking

away of the power of whipping from the Superintendent would be to tie his hands to a

great degree in the maintenance of order and discipline in regard to Asiatic natives, and especially Chinese, the more hardened offenders of this nationality being, comparatively speaking, insensible to the lighter forms of punishment such as degradation, loss of marks, solitary confinement, and extra penal labours such as crank.

13. We must recollect that the peculiar circumstances of this colony must unfortunately and unavoidably tend to make the object of punishment here to a great extent deterrent rather than reformatory.

for.

14. The large majority of our prisoners are Chinese-part of the scum of China, cultivated criminals raised in the hot-beds of that country. We are not responsible for their immoral propensities, and they come here to prey upon us and have no fixed dwelling-place in our midst. Reformation in such circumstances is hardly to be hoped Our object should be to deter them from looking on this place as a happy hunting- ground for malefactors. Gaol to them would simply mean, without the possibility or certainty of the punishment which, as a rule, they dread most, a place where they were assured of regular and sufficient food and shelter, conditions to which under ordinary circumstances they are not accustomed.

It would be different if they were subjects of our own, born and educated in the colony, but they come here when grown up, with no tie to us of race, language, or loyalty, and the most we can do is to protect the community against them in the most efficient manner possible.

4th August 1897.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.885

7

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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

Year.

Number of Prison Offences.

Percentage

Whipping.

of Whipping!

to Offences.

1895

Singapore

2,534

140

51

Penang

957

Malacca

11

Nil

1896

Singapore

3,101

165

51

Penang

Malacca

895

47

18

Nil

8. In the prisons of the colony in the past two years the maximum of 30 stripes has been inflicted only in a single case, sentences of as high as 20 stripes only five times. In the Singapore Gaol the number of stripes most commonly inflicted has been eight; while in Penang Gaol it was five in 1895 and 10 in 1896. Taking the year 1896 only, there has been only one infliction of so many as 20 stripes, while in Penang the

maximum was 12.

9. Returns of whippings are sent in monthly and are closely scrutinized by the Governor.

19903.

No. 8.

CEYLON.

GOVERNOR SIR J. WEST RIDGEWAY to MR. CHAMBERLAIN.

(Received September 13, 1897.)

(No. 290.)

SIR,

[Ser No. 36.]

Queen's House, Colombo, Ceylon, 21st August 1897.

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Circular Despatch of the 25th May 1897, relating to the question of flogging as a punishment for crime, and more especially as a punishment for prison offences.

2. In order to satisfy you that your instructions in this matter will not merely command, as in duty bound, my loyal official compliance, but also my cordial personal acquiescence, I may be allowed to express my entire concurrence with the views expressed in your despatch, and more especially with the opinion that "if flogging becomes the rule "and not the exception, there is apt to grow up a perverted public opinion satisfied with "keeping order by the lash, as being apparently an effective and inexpensive method of enforcing discipline, and opposed to sounder and healthier views as to deterrence and "reform."

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