J 3
There was the usual crop of assaults—a courtful of bandaged heads and righteously indignant voices. The causes were usually trivial—a gambling debt of a few cents, a pail of water more or less accidentally knocked over, a woman's quarrel. In one case an infuriated father, using formidable fighting irons, set about his spendthrift hefty son, who asked for a large loan to go and enlist as a soldier. A potentially murderous quarrel over water rights between two villages was luckily nipped in the bud. By prearrangement the men of both villages met after breakfast in the nearest market town, on market day, to have it out with carrying poles. The police arrived in sufficient force to separate the contestants before much blood had been shed. Three men from each village were promptly (comparatively) heavily fined, the Elders lectured, the site of the dam in question visited, and the dispute (which was of at least 10 years' standing) settled, for the time being.
Towards the end of the year a civil-and-military forage contractor was the victim of several cases of arson by setting fire to his rice-straw stacks in various parts of the district. Steps taken by the Police, the contractor, and the District Officer were however successful in stopping what threatened to become a general practice, though only one of the culprits was caught.
4. In 41 cases the accused were committed for trial to the Supreme Court, as against 22 in 1936. These comprised 16 cases of robbery, 9 of coinage offences, 7 of homicide, 5 of possession of arms, 3 of returning from banishment, and 1 of throwing corrosive fluid.
In one case a man of 44 was attacked in an isolated spot, and robbed of $65, by two companions who were ostensibly taking him to Sai Kung to buy wolfram. They left him for dead in a little cave; but he recovered, and managed to get to Sha T'in Police Station, several miles away, and make a report sufficiently coherent to lead to the early arrest of the culprits in Kowloon. At the Criminal Sessions each was sentenced to 5 years hard labour.
The acid above-mentioned was thrown at a waitress, a town girl, at Yuen Long by one of a group of men who resented her having, on a previous occasion, scolded them for drinking more tea than they had paid for. Luckily she escaped permanent disfigurement.
Of the homicides one was a case in which an old woman was strangled by her adopted son and a woman accomplice. In another case a foki of a large isolated trading depot on Deep Bay, suspecting (wrongly, it turned out) that a boat approaching on a stormy night contained robbers, fired several shots at it with a shot gun, killing one man. The depot had been successfully robbed on previous occasions. The foki was sentenced at the Criminal Sessions to 7 years hard labour, for manslaughter, and the depot lost its arms licence.
J 3
There was the usual crop of assaults-a courtfull of band aged heads and righteously indignant voices. The causes were usually trivial—a gambling debt of a few cents, a pail of water more or less accidentally knocked over, a woman's quarrel. In one case an infuriated father, using formidable fighting irons, set about his spendthrift hefty son, who asked for a large loan to go and enlist for a soldier. A potentially murderous quarrel over water rights between two villages was luckily nipped in the bud. By prearrangement the men of both villages met after breakfast in the nearest market town, on market day, to have it out with carrying poles. The police arrived in sufficient force to separate the contestants before much blood had been shed. Three men from each village were promptly (comparatively) heavily fined, the Elders lectured, the site of the dam in question visited, and the dispute (which was of at least 10 years' standing) settled, for the time being.
Towards the end of the year a civil-and-military forage contractor was the victim of several cases of arson by setting fire to his rice-straw stacks in various parts of the district. Steps taken by the Police, the contractor, and the District Officer were however successful in stopping what threatened to become a general practice, though only one of the culprits was caught.
4. In 41 cases the accused were committed for trial to the Supreme Court, as against 22 in 1936. These comprised 16 cases of robbery, 9 of coinage offences, 7 of homicide, 5 of possession of arms, 3 of returning from banishment, and 1 of throwing corrosive fluid.
In one case a man of 44 was attacked in an isolated spot, and robbed of $65, by two companions who were ostensibly taking him to Sai Kung to buy wolfram. They left him for dead in a little cave; but he recovered, and managed to get to Sha T'in Police Station, several miles away, and make a report sufficiently coherent to lead to the early arrest of the culprits in Kowloon. At the Criminal Sessions each was sentenced to 5 years hard labour.
The acid above-mentioned was thrown at a waitress, a town girl, at Yuen Long by one of a group of men who resented her having, on a previous occassion, scolded them for drinking more tea than they had paid for. Luckily she escaped permanent disfigurement.
Of the homicides one was a case in which an old woman was strangled by her adopted son and a woman accomplice. In another case a foki of a large isolated trading depot on Deep Bay, suspecting (wrongly, it turned out) that a boat approaching on a stormy night contained robbers, fired several shots at it with a shot gun, killing one man. The depot had been success- fully robbed on previous occasions. The foki was sentenced at the Criminal Sessions to 7 years hard labour, for manslaughter, and the depot lost its arms licence.
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