11. Your Memorialists would remind Your Lordship of the severe strictures on the Hongkong Police Force passer by SIR RICHARD GRAVES MAODONNEEL, in his curlier despatches and public addresses in which he described than us thoroughly corrept, and in which he urges that corruption and the necessity of removing sous at least of the temptations to which the Force was exposed, as the strongest possible argument in favor of his system of Licensed Gambling Houses. Again, in 1969, after winch had been done to remedy the corruption complained of His Excellency, in his Despatch No. 831 of the 13th December, 1869, addressed to Your Lordship's predecessor in office, says "the Police of the Colony has never been so effective as is desirable and means of improving it would be a great boon."
12. No man laboured more strenuously to raise the character of the Force an did SiR RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL. He gave a constant personal supervision to its working, yet within twelve months after his departure from the Colony, Mr. DEAN's Report, already referred to, was published.
13. Your Memorialists would further all Your Lordship's attention to paragraph of the Report by Acting Captain Superintendent Curaan, of the 30th March, 1870, afready referred to, and to the case mentioned in that paragraph, commonly spukou of as the "Showkewan Murder Case." That was a case to the investigation of which the whole force and intelligence of the Police was directed, and neither time nor mcter was spared in the effort to bring to Justice the guilty parties. Four men were arrested and after a lengthened investigation were compitted, tried and convicted of the capital offence, but, before the day 6xed for the execution, facts were brought to the knowledge of the Executive, which threw grave doubts on the evidence which had induced die verdict. The witnesses were put on their trial for perjury and so much came out in the course of the preliminary investigation, and in the Supreme Court, to the disadvantage of the Police, that a Commission of Inquiry was nominated and appointed by Ilis Excellency the Governor. The Report sent in by that Commission has never been made public, was never commenriented to the members of the Legislative Council, nor even privately to the Chief Justice, as whose suggestion and on whose statements it was appointed. Your Memorialists gravely doubt if it has ever been forwarded to the Department over which Your Lordship presides, but enough was unde public in the course of the two trials and of the hearings at the Magistracy to convince the Chief Justice the Honorable Jous SMAL, and Your Memorialists, that the Police were as & body and individually rash, ignorant of their duty, open to corruption, utterly wanting in discretion, without discipline and in a state of disorganization and division most painful to contemplate.
14. Your Memorialists beg to remind Your Lordship in reference to that case, that Mr. SMars in his place as a member of the Legislathe Council handed in a Minute dated the 11th November, 1870, which was placed on record as of that date, in which he urged the appointnert of a Committee of the Council to inquire into the state of the Police Force, pointing at the very serious deficiencies in its constitution and organization, and complaining at the same time of the suppression of the Report of Messrs. Max, MrrcHELL, and Smirn, above referred to. fe proposed that a resolution embodying his suggestions should be put to the Coundi, and, if approved of, that the consideration of the vote for the Police Department," the Estimates for 1871 being then before the Council, should be postponed antil after the Committee had reported. A copy of this Minate would appear to have been forwarded to Your Lordship under cover of a Despatch, No. 29 of the 6th March, 1871, from the Officer Administering the Government of this Colony.
15. Your Memorialists complain bitterly that the questions raised by the Chief Justice in his Minute above referred to. were never subunitted to the Council; His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor refused his permission for the introduction sad discussion of Mr. Sara's Resolution, and a voth of $172,395.20 for the Police Expenditure of 1871, passed sub silentio.
16. Your Memorialists ure now reaping the fruits of the indifference of the Executive to Mr. SMA's remonstrance, and have the most ample proof that he understated rather than overstated the case against the Police. Not a night now passes without a burglary. Hardly a day without its report of some one having been knocked down and robbed, and this not in the lower parts of the town and in the back streets, but in the public thoroughfures, in the most central parte of the city.
was recenth the viction of a brutal outrage committed almost in broad day-light and at a point, where, if anywhere, a Policeman The following ought always to be on duty. The criminals, said to be four in naaber, are still ut large and unknown. night a Chinsman was knocked down and plundered on the Paende Ground, and with impunity. An assistant in German house was the nest victim. His assailants are still at large. The Superintendent of the Gaul arresting a well- known bad character, was set upon in open day, his prisoner rescued, and he himself badly beaten. The criminal and his rescuers are still free. Within the last month the private houses and godowns, of many of the principal merchants in the Colony have been broken into and robbed. Stores have been entered and plundered with tapimity. None of the property has been recovered. Only one of the criminals has been captured, and that by a mere chance.
17. Mr. George L. Tomas, of the Surveyor General's Department retentuandamisek
18. It is new dangerous to go out without artes after dark. Burglaries have become so frequent that the first question in the morning is for the names of the eufferers of the previous night. The Police are powerless to protect Your Memorialists froin robbery and violence, and they have never pretended to any skill as detectives.
19. Why do Your Memorialists cail Your Lordship'e arreation to all these things? To convince Your Lordship that the Police Forse of the Colony is most inefficient. To prove that there is something radically wrong in the system on which the Police Force here has been organized, and that no mere addition to the number of the nem enrolled, no increase in the extent of the appliances pinced at their disposal, no legislation merely panitive, nor all these things com- bined can effect any permanent improvement, for all these measures have been tried and found useless. To satisfy Your Lordship that a close and searching inquiry is needed into the constitution and working of the Polire Force, fite the causes that have contributed to its inefficiency; and into the history and circumstances of crime in the Colony, with a view to discover the defects of the present system, the ranedy, and the best means of applying it.
20. Your Memorialists pay heavily for the maintenance of a Police Force. No remonstrances from the Community as to its inefficiency, and as to the increased expenditure, have been becided by the Executive. The occupant of the high office of Chief Justice has in vain called attention to the defective organization, eruption and ignorwice of the Force and illustrated his case by the results of his judicial experience, his luonth was shot in rio Council Chamber, and his representations were ignored.
21. Your Memorialists beg leave to annex hereto a copy of the Resolutions passed at a Meeting of the non-official Justices of the Peace held at the Club House on the 30th day of August last, when, alarmed at the state of the Colony, and indigent at the inertness of the local Government, they deterruined to position the Lieutenant-Governor for a Com- mission of Inquiry into the state of the Police and the causes of the increased prevalence of serious criacs. Your Lordship will fund mexed a copy of their address to His Excellency, a copy of the reply, and a copy of the Resolutions come to by the Justices at their Meeting on the 11th instant, to take that reply into consideration,
22. At a Public Meeting field on the 25th day of September instant, at the City Hall, Resolutions were passed, copies of which are annexed hicreto.
23. In conclusion Your Memorialists pray Your Lordship's most carnest consideration for these their representations. They pray Your Lordship to disregard any errors of detail they may have unintentionally fallen into, but to go at once to the pith and narrow of their complaint. They way Your Lordship to move Her minst Gracions Majesty The QUERS in Council to appoint & Commission composed principally of not-official muambers of the Community to inquire into and report on the past history and present stary of the Colony as regards crime, to examine into the Police law of the Colony, and into the composition, organization and actud cost of the Police Force, with fall powers to examine witnesses and call for papers, Your Memorialists representing to Your Lordship that thus culy will Your Lordship arrive at a knowledge of the remedies to be applied to the adunified evils of the present state of affairs.
And Your Memorialists as in daty bound will ever pray,
HONGKONG. 25th September, 1871.
Daley
Racher Wow Kartenge
Cyril
Jurner
Holiday Miser
75
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