"Numbers of deported criminals frequent this neighbourhood; on the 5th instant, fifteen men who "had been branded and banished from Hongkong, were counted in the streets of Chinese Kau-lung "and Sham-shui-pò."
53. On further enquiry, I ascertained that the places where these old offenders were seen were not a hundred yards from the boundary of the Colony, and on sending for the gentleman who was acting as the head of our Police Force, he assured me that the night robberies and the serious crimes that were causing alarm, had been committed by branded men, some of whom had been flogged and deported more than once. Some of them had committed felonies half a dozen times. Others were well known burglars. Others had been simply branded and deported as rogues and vagabonds, and thus rendered permanent outcasts.
54. Knowing the strong feeling that existed in certain quarters in favour of treating the Chinese with exceptional severity, I submitted the facts to the Legislative Council, so as to elicit a full expression of their opinions on the subject before I made any suggestions to Her Majesty's Government. In September 1877, in laying certain returns and papers before the Council, I quoted the opinion of the late Lord Derby, who, when Secretary of State for the Colonies, in refusing to sanction an application from Hongkong, in 1845, for the branding of the Chinese, had said: "An indelible mark impressed on the cheek of a criminal, even if unattended by pain, is yet "evidently objectionable as fastening on the delinquent a stigma from which he could never be "rescued by any future course of good conduct. It would consign him to permanent infamy, and "would finally obstruct his return to virtue and his admission into reputable society."
55. The returns and papers I printed for the information of the Council, showed but too clearly the soundness of Lord Derby's judgment, and the inconvenient consequences of turning out batches of criminals with indelible marks that tended to consign them to a life of permanent shame, and, by an act of the State, to render their reformation difficult, and sometimes impossible.
56. As to the alleged economy of the system, I found that some of these branded, flogged and repeatedly deported criminals had, by their night raids in the Colony, destroyed property, in a few months, to a greater amount than the whole cost of their maintenance in gaol would have been in ten years, had they been kept in prison under the rational system established by Sir Hercules Robinson and Lord Cardwell.
57. Furthermore, I ascertained, beyond all doubt, that the negation of prison discipline, the excessive use of the lash, and the illegal punishments that had become mixed up with this system, had created and fostered a criminal class in the Colony and the neighbourhood, instead of diminishing the number of criminals. In short, a system devised for the suppression of crime had increased crime.
58. Before, however, venturing to deal with what seemed to be blemishes in the penal legislation of Hongkong, I was able to make some changes in the Hongkong prison. As a temporary measure, until a new prison on a new site could be built, I ordered some of the large associated wards to be converted into separate cells. I was able to appoint a trained warder and a trained head turnkey, selected from the Convict Service in England, and to employ a few trusty Chinese Assistant Turnkeys instead of some unsatisfactory Europeans of a low class, who had been repeatedly fined for drunkenness and for beating prisoners.
59. With respect to this latter reform, which has undoubtedly tended to establish a better system of prison discipline, I take this opportunity of correcting a misconception into which the Daily News and some other London newspapers fell in referring to the despatches on Flogging in Hongkong, laid by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach before Parliament in 1879. Those journals dwelt on the selection of some trained warders from the English Convict Service, and the appointment of Chinese Turnkeys, who would know something of the language and habits of the prisoners, as reforms in Hongkong for which I deserved credit. But, in point of fact, the entire credit of those appointments is due to Lord Carnarvon. Having received a despatch from my predecessor describing the misconduct and incompetence of the gaol subordinates, His Lordship, in writing to me, a few weeks after my arrival, said: "I would suggest, for your consideration, whether it would not be expedient to select two "trained warders from the Home Service at £150 each, to be on an equality with the Officer as present styled Head Turnkey; to weed out from the present class of turnkeys the most unsatisfactory "members of the class, as occasion may justify their removal, to reduce the total number of the class, say "to six or eight, and to employ some trusty Chinese as Assistant Turnkeys, under strict European "supervision."
I was, therefore, only the medium of carrying into effect the Secretary of State's suggestions.
60. The two warders selected in England, came from the staff of the convict prison at Chatham. One of them is now the Warden, with a salary of £255 a year; and he is competent to act as Deputy Superintendent. He has done good service in reforming the gaol discipline. But Lord Carnarvon's idea of having some Chinese turnkeys, has been one of the most interesting and useful reforms effected in the Hongkong prison.
"Numbers of deported criminals frequent this neighbourhood; on the Sth instant, fifteen men who "had been branded and banished from Hongkong, were counted in the streets of Chinese Kau-lung "and Sham-shui-pò."
53. On further enquiry, I ascertained that the places where these old offenders were seen were not a hundred yards from the boundary of the Colony, and on sending for the gentleman who was acting as the head of our Police Force, he assured me that the night robberies and the serious crimes that were causing alarm, had been committed by branded men, some of whom had been flogged and deported more than once. Some of them had committed felonies half a dozen times. Others were well known burglars. Others had been simply branded and deported as rogues and vagabonds, and thus rendered permanent outcasts.
54. Knowing the strong feeling that existed in certain quarters in favour of treating the Chinese with exceptional severity, I submitted the facts to the Legislative Council, so as to elicit a full expression of their opinions on the subject before I made any suggestions to Her Majesty's Govern- ment. In September 1877, in laying certain returns and papers before the Council, I quoted the opinion of the late Lord Derby, who, when Secretary of State for the Colonies, in refusing to sanction an application from Hongkong, in 1845, for the branding of the Chinese, had said :----
"An indelible mark impressed on the cheek of a criminal, even if unattended by pain, is yet "evidently objectionable as fastening on the delinquent a stigma from which he could never be "rescued by any future course of good conduct. It would consign him to permanent infamy, and "would finally obstruct his return to virtue and his, admission into reputable society."
55. The returns and papers I printed for the information of the Council, showed but too clearly the soundness of Lord Derby's judgment, and the inconvenient consequences of turning out batches of criminals with indelible marks that tended to consign then to a life of permanent shume, and, by an act of the State, to render their reformation difficult, and sometimes impossible.
56. As to the alleged economy of the system, I found that some of these branded, flogged and repeatedly deported criminals hal, by their night raids in the Colony, destroyed property, in a few months, to a greater amount than the whole cost of their maintenance in gaol would have been in ten years, had they been kept in prison under the rational system established by Sir Hercules Robinson and Lord Cardwell.
57. Furthermore, I ascertained, beyond all doubt, that the negation of prison discipline. the excessive use of the lash, and the illegal punishments that had become mixed up with this systein, had created and fostered a criminal class in the Colony and the neighbourhood, instead of diminishing the number of criminals. In short, a system devised for the suppression of crime had increased crime.
58. Before, however, venturing to deal with what seemed to be blemishes in the penal legislation of Hongkong, I was able to make some changes in the Hongkong prison. As a temporary measure, until a new prison on a new site could be built, I ordered some of the large associated waryls to be converted into separate cells. I was able to appoint a trained warder and a trained head turnkey, selected from the Convict Service in England, and to employ a few trusty Chinese Assistant Turnkeys instead of some unsatisfactory Europeans of a low class, who had been repeatedly fined for drunkenness and for beating prisoners.
59. With respect to this latter reform, which has undoubtedly tended to establish a better system of prison discipline, I take this opportunity of correcting a misconception into which the Daily News and some other London newspapers fell in referring to the despatches on Flogging in Hongkong, laid by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach before Parliament in 1879. Those journals dwelt on the selection of some trained warders from the English Convict Service, and the appointment of Chinese Turnkeys, who would know something of the language and habits of the prisoners, as reforms in Hongkong for which I deserved credit. But, in point of fact, the entire credit of those appointments is due to Lord Carnarvon. Having received a despatch from my predecessor describing the misconduct and incom- petence of the gaol subordinates, His Lordship, in writing to me, a few weeks after my arrival, said :—
"I would suggest, for your consideration, whether it would not be expedient to select two "trained warders from the Home Service at £150 each, to be on an equality with the Officer as present styled Head Turnkey; to weed out from the present class of turnkeys the most unsatisfactory "members of the class, as occasion may justify their removal, to reduce the total number of the class, say "to six or eight, and to employ some trusty Chinese as Assistant Turnkeys, under strict European "supervision."
I was, therefore, only the medium of carrying into effect the Secretary of State's suggestions.
60. The two warders selected in England, came from the staff of the convict prison at Chatham. One of them is now the Warden, with a salary of £255 a year; and he is competent to act as Deputy Superintendent. He has done good service in reforming the gaol discipline. But Lord Carnarvon's idea of having some Chinese turnkeys, has been one of the most interesting and useful reforms effected in the Hongkong prison.
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