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Enclosure
SUPPLEMENT
To the HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE of 14th March, 1885.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.-No. 116.
The following letter by the Colonial Treasurer respecting the proposed establishment of a Casual Ward for destitutes is published for general information.
No. 7.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 14th March, 1885.
W. H. MARSH,
Colonial Secretary.
TREASURY,
HONGKONG, 9th February, 1885.
SIR,-With reference to the question raised by you in C. S. O. No. 157 (returned herewith) on the subject of Destitutes and a proposed Casual Ward, which was referred to me for report, I have the honour to offer the following remarks.
2. The Destitute class here, other than Chinese, is mainly composed of seamen, with a sprinkling of mechanics, artisans, persons seeking employment, or those of no occupation whatever. * Chinese destitutes give but little trouble, appearing chiefly as professional beggars, who may appropriately be sent back to the mainland, from which they come.
3. Seamen form the next easiest class to deal with. A non-seanan destitute's case is complicated by the difficulty of finding employment, or of getting him shipped away. It will be well therefore to consider the case of destitute seamen first, then to pass on to destitutes of other occupations or of no occupation.
4. Destitute Seamen. The provision for British seamen under the Merchant Shipping Act is practically perfect, and the definition of a British seaman has been made as wide as possible. He is a British subject who has served on a British or a foreign ship, or a foreigner who has served on a British ship. No British seaman can be in distress except through his own fault, that is to say through having deserted, having been sent to Gaol for misconduct, having been wilfully left behind, &c. He may, however, have been duly discharged elsewhere, and have come here as a passenger. But this is the fault of the public officer who allowed him to be discharged under circumstances which must lead to his becoming a burden on the public somewhere. The provision for foreign seamen is not so perfect. Those Consuls who are also merchants can seldom do anything for them. destitute seaman therefore is either a British seaman who has deserted or been in trouble, or a foreign seaman in the same case, or one who cannot obtain relief from his Consul.
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5. Such a man presents himself to any benevolent person late, let us say, in the afternoon, and implores assistance. He has no place to sleep in and nothing to eat. He has just finished twelve weeks imprisonment for desertion or refusal of duty, so that he cannot be disposed of by a summary committal as a rogue and a vagabond. His immediate necessities are a piece of bread to eat, and a roof to sleep under: how is he to obtain them?
6. The best practicable way of disposing of him hitherto has been to induce the Gaol authorities to give him both, in which case he eats at Government expense, and might just as well do so in a properly organised shelter. The worst, and most common way, is to give him money, which he probably at once spends not in food or in lodging but in drink. Enough money is probably thus given in the course of a year to keep all the destitutes several times over.
7. This rough and ready way of converting the Gaol into a Casual Ward is not, as yet, nearly so useful as it might be, because few people know about it, and even those few regard it as asking a favour, a favour moreover which involves the writing of a note-and many persons would rather pay any small sum than add one more to the day's quota of notes to be written. If the plan is to be continued it should be put at once on an organised and well-understood footing. Tickets ensuring admission into the Gaol should be bound in books like cheque books, and entrusted to certain Government Officers, they should also be sold to all charitable persons who choose to buy them, a standing public notice explaining the system being kept in the newspapers. The Gaol has some advantages. Absolute discipline and cleanliness can be enforced there free of expense. Incorrigible vagabonds can promptly be made to understand that the Police Court is only next door, and the
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