Hon:
Enclosure W
Extracts from Daily Press of 25th June 1881 reporting
proceedings of Connoil of the 21/6th Brine 1881. The question of Fogging Mendicants
252
The ACTING COLONIAL. TREASURER-I should like to say a few words with regard to this matter, but they will be greatly curtailed by the remarks your Excellency has just made. As a magistrate who is also Superintendent of the Gaol, where meudicants here frequently come before me, I am glad to hear your Excelleney does not intend to take away the whole of the power given to the Government by the section of ordinanes 8 of 1858. At present there are two sections of ordinances which refer to mendicants, sub-section 17 of see- tion 2 of Ordinance 14 of 1445, which allows the infiction of a fine, in default, imprisonment; and the other, Section 23 of Ordinance 8 of 1858. By looking at the end of that Ordinance, for every offence against section 28, it is pro- vided that the offender may receive, at the discretion of the Court, not more than thirty. six blows with a rattan and be deported to his native country, or, with consent of such offender, to any other place, if His Excel- lenoy the Governor shall so decide. I am not surprised your Excellency should have thought fit to repeal that portion which refers to cor. poral punishment. I have always considered, in the case of a mendicant, that was a most barbarous enactment; and I was one of the first, I think, to deal with mendicants by sending them to their native country without the infliction of corporal panishment. I was told I had no such power, that they must receive the corporal punishment, and the deportation follows. I said I could take the more lenient ofthe two views, and that if the power of deportation was used in an intelligent manner it would have a very good effect indeed. But I was afraid, from merely looking at the Ordinance now laid before us, your Excellency intended not to resort to that section which al lowed the deportion of mendicants. But from the few words you have just let fall I am glad to find the Government do not intend to deprive them. selves of that power. I was saying that if that section were carried out in an intelligent manner, it would do a great deal of good. Where a person has spent a great part of his life and energy in this Colony, and at last been re- duced, by infirmity or illness, to beg, he certainly should not be turned out of the Colony in his old age. And in every case where médi. cants have been brought before me I have been careful to ascertain what was the cause, how long they had been in the colony, and where they came from, and if it was the first time, I invariably dischargea them with a caution; the second time, if they were suffering from disease. I caused a letter to be written to the directors of the Tung Wah Hospital, and they were im- mediately taken in there. Some, who had been in the colony a very short time, wished to return to their cative country. If I thought they would go of their own accord, I gave them a gratuity out of the poor-box, if I thought they would stop, I ordered the police to see them out of the Co- lony. According to my experience of Hong- kong mendioaucy, I am glad to say, there are very few sturdy beggars here, and in every case I have not thought it right to send them to prison. I think that course most objectionable except in the case of sturdy beggars. In most cases they! are suffering from some infirmity or illness, and to send these people into gaol is a great mistake. There is no place in the gaol, as it is at pre- sent, for their reception. Their admission not only renders us liable to epidemics in the gaol, but it is no pauishment to them whatever, bocauso
they are in such a reduced state or so suffering from illness that they immediately go into the doctor's hands, and he orders the nourishing diet and no labour, and for the short time they are in it is impossible to make the pauishment at all deterrent. Of course in the case of sturdy beggars, the punishment will have some effect, but I must say the only one I recognised as such was a woman the day before yesterday, and I fined ; her a dollar, and she immediately paid it. But, as a rule, we have not a place for them, and where poverty bas come on them through no fault of their own, Itbiak it better to get them assisted by charitable organisation. In most cases, how- ever, if they have only be in the Colony a short time, I would recommend the operation of that section of the Odinance. My hon. friend oppo.
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On Section 14, which provides for the repeal of certain Ordinances,
His EXCELLENCT said-My hon. friend on my right (Mr. Jobuson) will remember that Ordinance 8 of 1858 was the one to which my hou. friend on my left (Mr. Tonnochy) has referred as the one which imposes on mon- dicants certain punishments, one of which was that they should be liable to receive thirty. six strokes with a rattan. I congratulate bim ou what he has mentioned, that he was the first to reverse this flogging system. The fact is, if a mendicant could not be fined, or if there were reasons why he could not be imprisoned, then I think it is a question of law for His Honour the Chief Justice or the learned Attorney-General to explain whether it was open to my hou. friand, in the face of that old Ordinance, to avoid flogging, because it says "Or at the dis cretion of the Court receive not more than thirty- six blows nor less than five blows with a rat- tan. and be deported to his native country." I think it is very possible that my hon. frieud— and I congratulate him upon it-properly stretched so far the law in the direction of leniency as not to flog mendicants. I must say oue of the reasons I had in telling Lord Carnarvon I could not support Ordinance 8 of 1868 was that clause. When I reflect on the fact that some of those mendicants were very old, and that we are close to this country of China which deals out a good deal of flogging, bat, never flogs men for merely asking for alms-there is nothing in the law of ! China that will justify any magistrate in doing what might have been done under that Ordinance I am glad we are repealing it, and I con- gratulate my hon. friend on having adopted as a magistrate the more lenient course of not Rogging. The Bill passed through Committee, and was read a third time.
For Hennessy
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