AnnualReport-1931 — Page 245

## 15. Table IV corresponds to Table III in the 1930 report; but the writs issued during the year are shown in a separate table, No. VI, the list of offences has been re-classified and enlarged, the number of offenders previously convicted who have been sentenced during the year is shown, and under each head the number of juvenile offenders, i.e., those believed by the Magistrates to be under 16, is given. The figures for juveniles and for previously convicted offenders could not be collected in the Kowloon Magistracy, and those for the latter column in the Hong Kong Magistracy report should be accepted only with reserve, as they are certainly under-estimated. Before August 1931, previous convictions were not always noted on depositions. ## 16. Table V corresponds to Table II in the 1930 report, and is an analysis of the 'convicted and sentenced' column in Table IV, showing the penalties inflicted under each of the eight main heads of crime in that table. The number of penalty headings has been increased. Here again, the figures for juvenile offenders in Kowloon could not be collected. ## 17. Table VI gives the number of writs issued by the two Magistracies, and corresponds to part of Table III in the 1930 report. ## 18. Table VII corresponds to Table V in the 1930 report, and is an abstract of all cases brought before the various Magistrates' Courts of the Colony during the last ten years. ## 19. Table VIII shows the work done by the Magistrates sitting as Coroners. ## General ## 20. During the year, an attempt was made, so far as the existing state of the law allowed, to provide special treatment for juveniles by separating them from adult offenders in court and keeping them, if not on bail, in a side room instead of in the cells, by not putting them in the dock, and by hearing their cases, if possible, before or after adult offenders had been dealt with. ## 21. Proceedings were taken against five fugitive offenders during the year for crimes committed outside this Colony. They have been entered in Table IV under the headings to which their alleged crimes belong. ## 22. Summonses under the Married Women (Desertion) Ordinance, 1905, in Hong Kong numbered one, as against one in 1930. In this case, no order was made. In Kowloon, these summonses numbered four, as against one in 1930. In four of them, orders were made.

W. SCHOFIELD, First Police Magistrate.

26th May, 1932,