CO129-319 - Governor Sir Blake - 1903 [10-11] — Page 139

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minute 'C', when the other minutes and replies 'D', 'B', 'H',

followed in due course. At this stage 1 call attention to para-

graph 11 of his letter which is quite erroneous and that my

minutes 'D' 'r' were only written after his strange conduct.

4.

I would point out that one of my important functions is

that of Keeper of the Court Records and that such Records are

public property and that no endorsement should appear on them

except the usual endorsements of the Judges when making an order

or the usual endorsements by the Court Bailiffs when serving the

process of the Court, and that by informing the Fuisne Judge on

a separate paper in the civil manner 1 did in my minute 'B' of the irregularity he had committed, I had no other object in

view beyond a strict sense of public duty and to keep the re-

cords of the Court in correct order.

5. I take the liberty of attaching the Court record in ques-

tion, which bears the endorsement of the Fuisne judge.

6.

Apart from my experience obtained under most able men in

the Straits Settlerents for upwards of 14 years, search the

Court records in Hongkong, high and low, as I have done from

its foundation, and 1 make bold to say that no similar en-

dorsement such as has been made by the Fuisne Judge will be

found.

7. By endorsing the Frocess of the Court as the Acting Fuisne

Judge has done, he has converted a Fublic document into that of

a departmental one, and a nice thing indeed would it have been

had I followed his example and thus allowed this document with

all the other endorsements on it, to fall into outside hands as

it would most certainly have done, when any one by paying the

usual search fee of 50 cents could have had access to it.

Marked X.

8.

This is essentially a matter of practice. having never

been Registrar, and having regard to the varicus positions he

has