CO129-129 - Sir MacDonnell - 1868 [1-3] — Page 194

CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案 All

__C. (continued).

No

Locality

Game.

Remarks.

291

30

Mullah lane

Ac

Fantan.

Thek Tay

51

22

3838

Jardine's Bazan Ihno Rewar

Aa

Pantaw.

Do

Do

34

Abadeen

De

Do

مل

مر

مر

16

Stanley

27

Rawloon

Do

38

39

Gilman's Bazaar

Po Pay Sek Tay

Do

40

A

42

Rangel Alley

Fantan

43

Queen's Road West.

Do

44

Loucas Row

Po Aay

مور

میں

(signed) W. M. Deane,

Acting Superintendent of Police,

Anne Copies)

fifat Acting Colonial Secretam

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

2017/18

192

FRIDAY, 30TH AUGUST, 1867.

Astract from

FINANCIAL STATEMENT BY

HIS EXCELLENCY SIR RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL, C.B.

7. Nevertheless there will probably be an excess of Assets over Liabilities at the end of the current Year of about $24,000, arising from licenses issued for the purpose of limiting the evil consequences of Gambling, as it now exists, by legalising it in a few localities subjected to Government supervision. Assuming that before the end of 1867 an amount equivalent to $65,000 shall be received from that source there will be the surplus above mentioned. Otherwise without a diminution of Expenditure or some other new source of Revenue there must be a deficit of about $41,000.

8. And here, although the Council is not at present called on to discuss or devise means of raising a Revenue, yet as you probably expect from me a general review of your financial position, I must remark that the Revenue, which incidentally arises from the policy for Control and Regulation of Gambling adopted by myself and the Executive Council under the powers which you created by Ordinance No. 9 of this Year, must be regarded as experimental, and liable either to cease altogether or to be diminished, from various causes.

9. Whatever addition comes to your means from that source can only be viewed as the accidental and unsought result of a policy to which the Govern- ment is reluctantly driven in pursuit of an object of great Public importance and one which is entirely distinct from the acquisition of Revenue.

10. That object is the suppression of the great mass of crime, the secret confederation of thieves burglars and bad characters, the breaking up of the principal centres of demoralisation, and removing the main source of Police corruption, all arising from the existence in your midst of numerous but ever shifting Gambling haunts, which the Executive has found itself unable to suppress. It is no use, and the attempt would be unworthy, to conceal from ourselves the extent of that mischief. Those whose duty it is to make themselves acquainted with the details can vouch the facts. It clearly would not do to fold our arms and make no attempt to suppress an evil, whose dangerous and contaminating influence springs from a source, which the Executive can partially remove, by confining the practice now illegally followed more or less over the entire City to a few places with the sanction of the Government, on certain Conditions, and subject to certain Regulations and Control, as contemplated by the recently conferred on the Government.

powers, which you have

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