302
20
Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
REPORTS EXHIBITING THE PRESENT STATE
which, moreover, are fringed along the seaboard in many places with piratical villages inhabited by descendants of a race which, for a long series of centuries, has diversified their ordinary avocations of fishing and tillage with piratical expeditions at certain seasons of the year.
7. These people maintain a number of snake boats and other craft adapted for attacking vessels that approach too close to the shore, or get becalmed and anchor incautiously near the haunts of these pirates. The latter, however, also possess vessels heavily armed and adapted for longer cruises, though the large piratical fleets of former days are now no longer assembled, owing to the efficiency and vigilance of Her Majesty's cruisers, and also to the good faith and increased exertions of the Chinese authorities themselves, who have recently exhibited unmistakable proofs of energy and sincerity in their efforts to co-operate with the cruisers.
8. Your Grace will thus perceive that the existence of great numbers of persons trained from their childhood to robbery is quite compatible with that of a far larger population in the same provinces industrious by nature and early training, and generally trustworthy and obedient to the law. Nevertheless, the criminal class in the neighbourhood is sufficiently numerous for a very small percentage of it, if located in this Colony, to work such mischief as to require unusual precautions against their landing or remaining here, and I think that, at last, the appropriate means of effecting this have been, in a great measure, applied.
9. As dealing with those criminal classes here is one of the most serious responsibilities devolving on the local Government, I propose to advert to some of the leading features of the present system; and, speaking now with increased experience, I venture still to refer to my Despatch No. 160, of November last year, as explaining the only true principles on which, apart from questions affecting European prisoners, it is practicable to keep down crime here, and deter persons from visiting Hong Kong for other than lawful purposes. I pointed out in that Despatch that my predecessor, when advocating the construction of a very large new gaol at Stone Cutter's Island, had dwelt on the extraordinary increase of crime here, as evidenced by the augmented number of prisoners in Victoria Gaol, which had risen in four years from 262 in 1858 to 520 in 1862, and I did not hesitate to attribute that increase mainly to the little deterrent influence of imprisonment in a well-kept gaol with wholesome food, good lodging, and light work; so that, with ample materials in our immediate vicinity for filling such buildings, a third gaol would probably ere long have been required in addition to those already existing. Such a result would appear to have been not at all improbable, because, on the 31st of October 1865, the total number in both gaols had again risen from 520 in 1862 to 876. I have no doubt, therefore, that, unless some change in the system of dealing with prisoners had been adopted, the number now in gaol would probably be nearly 1,100, whereas the existing average of criminal prisoners is now below 500.
10. This extraordinary and satisfactory change has mainly been brought about by four distinct causes :-First, by the operation of Ordinance No. 12 of 1865, by which flogging was added to the punishment of those who, at the time of commission of any crime, were armed with any offensive weapons, or were guilty of violence against the person. This, however, could not of itself have produced the results now attained, because throughout the first eight months of last year there was a very large increase in the number of prisoners over 1865.
11. Secondly, I attribute that result to the gradual improvement in the constitution of the police force, a work of great difficulty and labour, which has been only partially carried out as yet, but which nevertheless has already operated as a principal cause of the less frequent visit to this Colony of criminals from the adjacent provinces on the mainland. I shall presently advert more fully to the organization of the police.
12. Thirdly, the reforms which I have been enabled to effect in the supervision of gaol labour, and the fact, well known to the class whom it principally concerns, that those who are condemned to imprisonment can no longer expect commodious lodging with light labour, but must perform tasks which, though regulated with every due regard to sanitary precautions, are nevertheless sufficiently laborious, has unquestionably deterred numbers from coming here, as of old, to a tempting and productive field for plunder.
13. Fourthly, the most effective means of preventing hardened criminals from returning here is one on which I have had the benefit of many communications from Her Majesty's Government, and which has been specially devised to meet the exceptional exigencies of this Colony; namely, that of allowing certain prisoners who petition, before their sentence expires, for the indulgence to be released conditionally that
302
20
Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
REPORTS EXHIBITING THE PRESENT STATE
which, moreover, are fringed along the seaboard in many places with piratical villages inhabited by descendants of a race which, for a long series of centuries, has diversified their ordinary avocations of fishing and tillage with piratical expeditions at certain seasons of the year.
7. These people maintain a number of snake boats and other craft adapted for attacking vessels that approach too close to the shore, or get becalmed and anchor incautiously near the haunts of these pirates. The latter, however, also possess vessels heavily armed and adapted for longer cruises, though the large piratical fleets of former days are now no longer assembled, owing to the efficiency and vigilance of Her Majesty's cruisers, and also to the good faith and increased exertions of the Chinese authorities themselves, who have recently exhibited unmistakable proofs of energy and sincerity in their efforts to co-operate with the cruisers.
8. Your Grace will thus perceive that the existence of great numbers of persons trained from their childhood to robbery is quite compatible with that of a far larger population in the same provinces industrious by nature and early training, and generally trustworthy and obedient to the law. Nevertheless, the criminal class in the neigh- bourhood is sufficiently numerous for a very small percentage of it, if located in this Colony, to work such mischief as to require unusual precautions against their landing or remaining here, and I think that, at last, the appropriate means of effecting this have been, in a great measure, applied.
9. As dealing with those criminal classes here is one of the most serious respon- sibilities devolving on the local Government, I propose to advert to some of the leading features of the present system; and, speaking now with increased experience, I venture still to refer to my Despatch No. 160, of November last year, as explaining the only true principles on which, apart from questions affecting European prisoners, it is prac- ticable to keep down crime here, and deter persons from visiting Hong Kong for other than lawful purposes. I pointed out in that Despatch that my predecessor, when advocating the construction of a very large new gaol at Stone Cutter's Island, had dwelt on the extraordinary increase of crime here, as evidenced by the augmented number of prisoners in Victoria Gaol, which had risen in four years from 262 in 1858 to 520 in 1862, and I did not hesitate to attribute that increase mainly to the little deterrent influence of imprisonment in a well-kept gaol with wholesome food, good lodging, and light work; so that, with ample materials in our immediate vicinity for filling such buildings, a third gaol would probably ere long have been required in addition to those already existing. Such a result would appear to have been not at all improbable, because, on the 31st of October 1865, the total number in both gaols had again risen from 520 in 1862 to 876. I have no doubt, therefore, that, unless some change in the system of dealing with prisoners had been adopted, the number now in gaol would probably be nearly 1,100, whereas the existing average of criminal prisoners is now below 500.
10. This extraordinary and satisfactory change has mainly been brought about by four distinct causes :-First, by the operation of Ordinance No. 12 of 1865, by which flogging was added to the punishment of those who, at the time of commission of any crime, were armed with any offensive weapons, or were guilty of violence against the person. This, however, could not of itself have produced the results now attained, because throughout the first eight months of last year there was a very large increase in the number of prisoners over 1865.
11. Secondly, I attribute that result to the gradual improvement in the constitution of the police force, a work of great difficulty and labour, which has been only partially carried out as yet, but which nevertheless has already operated as a principal cause of the less frequent visit to this Colony of criminals from the adjacent provinces on] the mainland. I shall presently advert more fully to the organization of the police.
12. Thirdly, the reforms which I have been enabled to effect in the supervision of gaol labour, and the fact, well known to the class whom it principally concerns, that those who are condemned to imprisonment can no longer expect commodious lodging with light labour, but must perform tasks which, though regulated with every due regard to sanitary precautions, are nevertheless sufficiently laborious, has unquestionably de- terred numbers from coming here, as of old, to a tempting and productive field for plunder.
13. Fourthly, the most effective means of preventing hardened criminals from returning here is one on which I have had the benefit of many communications from Her Majesty's Government, and which has been specially devised to meet the exceptional exigencies of this Colony; namely, that of allowing certain prisoners who petition, before their sentence expires, for the indulgence to be released conditionally that
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.