THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 24тα NOVEMBER, 1877.
Tam asking you to te a sinall sum, 1,000,
sing of Kennely
down
sure you
will agree to most heartily. The road is a great advantage to the Colony, and will ap associate with it the name of my predecessor, and by this vote we shall be assisting in making the road what it ultimately will become, a first class road. My predecessor put down a sum of $30 for the Central School for 1877, but a larger sum, $52,000, was spent upon the site alone, and myself signed warrants, in addition to that sum, for $7,000, for the site of that school. I will
put $25,000, nearly the same sum as Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY, but the Secretary of State is desirous of eeing full details of the estimates, plans, and specifications of this work, before anything else is done, and in truth that is the usual course under the Colonial regulations. That Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY was justibed in buying the site before preparing plans, &c., you will readily admit, because in this Colony the pus specifications, and estimates depend very much upon the site, and accordingly, though the Colonial regulations require a Governor, before spending any money, to send plans of the whole pi complete, I think everyone will understand there was nothing to be done, but to secure wha reported to be the best site, and then have plans prepared and submitted for Lord Carnarvon's app before any further step was taken.
Now there is another item which is mentioned, but, strictly speaking, is not in our esti That is, the breakwater to save the junk population in typhoons. On that I propose to spend?“ the sanction of the Secretary of State, $50,000. Plans have been prepared and submitted to com Naval Authorities, amongst others to Admiral RYDER, who has given a report upon them, and plans will be sent home at once. The project commends itself to you, I have no doubt. Y aware that in the last typhoon there was a serious loss of life. A considerable number of men, women, and children of the junk population perished, and the loss of life was so great that it annousted, I believe, to not much less than five thousand. Her Majesty the Queen noticed it, and She directed Lord CARNARVON to write specially to my predecessor conveying Her condolence and extreme regret for the misfortunes of Her subjects in this Colony. Indeed in that great calamity, interest was felt in every part of the British Empire. The loss of life was very sudden; the greater part must have perished, according to good authorities, in about fifty minutes during the height of the typhoon. Well, when I came to the Colony, I found that some Naval gentlemen, Captain BONHAM BAX. Compodore WATSON, and Admiral RYDER, had been in consultation with the Surveyor-General, and were: all of opinion that it was possible to construct a breakwater by which the lives of these people would bị saved in any heavy tyhoon. Accordingly, I looked over all back papers, consulted with the Com medore, Captain BONHAM BAX (who I regret to say has died since), and my honourable friend, thể rveyor-General, and we prepared a project which has been put before the Finance Committe. It was first submitted to a committee I nominated of competent gentlemen, who examined the whole scheme, and their report upon the breakwater was laid before the Finance Committee. This report will also be printed, with a plan accompanying it, and the Secretary of State has written to fine to say he proposes to submit the plan so prepared to Sir Joux Coope, and on receiving his report I have no doubt the work will be sanctioned, and, I trust, commenced next year.
Gentlemen, I purpose to ask you to vote this year the sum of $10,000 for providing a g the separate system, that is, for altering the present gaol. You are aware that soon after I received a despatch from Lord CASARVON in which he pointed out the necessity for having a on the separate system for the repression of crime. I need not dwell on the subject. It is established clearly all over the world that the great deterrent to crime is a gaol on the separate system. My friend, Sir WILLIAM GREGORY, when first he arrived at Ceylon, said he thought the prisons of Ceylon, which were not on the separate system but on the system of associated cells, might be maintained, tor He did not think it absolutely necessary for Orientals to be treated in that way; but before leaving the
olony he said he wished frankly to state that he had found by his own experience he was During his residence there he had the opportunity of making the changes insisted npou GARNARVON, and he found them most beneficial to Ceylon. He also visted India, and said, whị man is prepared to say, that the great deterrent of crime is the establishment of the separate systen Therefore, I propose to do it here. We will do as much as we can next year, and I don't apprehen we will want more for the amount of work we can get through than $10,000. The maxhoun number of prisoners in Gaol last year was 563 at this date, that is on the 12th November. Now we happen to have a smaller number. It may very properly be said, in constructing the separate system we ought to provide for the maximum number, and therefore there should be 563 cells. But you will agree with me it is desirable to have the juvenile offenders removed from the prison to industrial
phools or reformatories of some kind; also to remove the females. Women do not require to be. treated with the same severe prison discipline as men, and there is no necessity for imposing them the separate system. The time may perhaps come when some member of my Council, one of the unofficial members connected with commerce, will be prepared to suggest that imprisonment for debt in this Colony should be abolished. There is at present but one prisoner for debt and he occupies a whole gallery of the Gaol. But that is a question I leave to my honourable friends connected with the Commercial pursuits of the Colony. As the matter stands, I am providing for 300 separate selle and that is on the assumption that the juveniles will be sent elsewhere, and we will make some provision for females.
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 24TH NOVEMBER, 1877.
The CHIEF JUSTICE-How many prisoners for debt did you say there were?
527
HIS EXCELLENCY-One; and the prisoners for debt have one ward which might be divided into separate cells; I forget the exact number.
The SURVEYOR GENERAL-Twenty-four.
425
In the gaol when I first
HIS EXCELLENCY-And at present we have one single debtor. visited it, I was astonished to see a man chained by a long chain to one of the inner gates, and Mr. TOMLIN cantioned me how I was to pass through the next little opening so as to avoid him. I made He was chained because he was lunatic and a violent one. inquiries and found he was a lunatic. There was another upstairs in one of the associated cells. He was a peaceable man, but a very talkative one, and he kept on talking the whole time. You will readily understand that the presence of such cases would not conduce to the preservation of discipline in the gaol; that and other circumstances Chinese lunatics of Hongkong are simply caused me to think of establishing a lunatic asylum. deported to the mainland. My honourable friend the Chief Justice mentioned to me a very sad case, The son of an English professional gentleman-I need not mention names-came out here; he got an attack of lunacy, and he died in our prison. There have been other cases of people confined in the prison as lunatics who never ought to have been inside its walls. Therefore I propose to ask you for the sum of 5,000 for a small lunatic asylum, which, having provision for eight beds, will, I think, be sufficient, meanwhile I have taken the responsibility of not using the Gaol for this purpose, but of improvising a temporary lunatic asylum.
I now come to a work of great interest to this commercial community. The Finance Committee have had before them, and you will also have in print, a most interesting and valuable report of the Surveyor-General, with a letter upon it from Admiral RYDER, relating to the establishment of a time ball in Victoria Harbour. Some of you, gentlemen, are connected with commerce, and I need not tell you that in a great centre of shipping such as this-one of the greatest centres of shipping in the It has not yet been whole world-we should have some means of accurately determining the time. done. Owing to the public spirit of the princely house of JauniNG MATHES fired at twelve o'clock, which is a great convenience to labourers and where, liding purposes connected with navigation, the strictest accuracy is required. There must be a mistake of a second or two, and for that accuracy certain scientific artarrement must be made observatory must be established which will enable us to work theme-ba
us to make a series of observations, magnetic, metereological and relating to s
ave liave a mur myself; but for
1 short, an And also enable of which wi
of advantage to the Colony, and to other ports in China. Upon that object. I propose to spend
1000 next year.
That finishes the special subjects to which I thought it my duty to draw your attention as regards ks and buildings. There are one or two other questions which may lead to some expenditure, and ich I may possibly have to put before you next year. I have received reports on the state of the erpretation in Hongkong from leading merchants, from leading members of the Bar, and from the ges, recording the fact that the interpretation of this Colony is disgracefully bad. What are we to to remedy it? Hongkong is a wealthy and prosperous Colony; something should be done to vide a proper staff of interpreters. A distinguished predecessor of mine, Sir HERCULES ROBINSON, steps to do that. He had the great advantage of consulting with Dr. LEGGE, an eminent Chinese lar; and, acting on the advice of Dr. LEGGE, le prepared a scheme which was sent home to the then retary of State for the Colonies. That scheme was approved, was carried out, and under it a few hly able and intelligent young gentlenen came to this Colony as interpreters. Soon after they arrived scheme was abandoned, and not one of those gentlemen is an interpreter in the Colony. There is in the Colony a single interpreter trained according to that scheme, and to use the words of the reports You will at once say, let us return to Sir r present system of interpretation is deplorably bad.” CULES ROBINSON's scheme and honestly carry it into effect. I have not yet had time to go into the stion as fully as it will be my duty to do, but I have ventured to suggest to Lord CARNARVON, in arding to him the reports of the Chief Justice, Mr. SNOWDEN, and Mr. HAYLLAB and other members e Bar, that he might take the opinion of Dr. LEGGE, who is now at Oxford, as to what really ought done to establish a practical system of interpretation in this Colony. You are aware that a number entlemen kindly volunteered to form a board of Chinese examiners, but not through any fault of
this Board has not prepared a solitary interpreter. What is really of value in this life generall ires to be paid for, and the young gentlemen who studied under that Board were not able to give the mic to their study, and to their official duties which would enable them to become Chinese scholar I found that Mr. GARDINER AUSTIN, the Colonial Secretary, as Administrator, had made a little minu on the report prepared by the Director of Studies, in which he pointed out that it was quite impossib the subordinate officers of the Government could master Chinese so long as they had to devote t proper time to their official duties. Ile was quite right. The report showed that; and more than o of these young gentlemen have retired from the attempt to study Chinese, and at the same time do the official work. It was found it interfered with their health. If, after leaving their office, they sat dow to study Chinese instead of taking proper exercise, their health broke down, so that practically that scheme, as a scheme for giving us student interpreters, has failed. We must adopt some other plans
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