CO129-321 - Public Offices & Others - 1903 — Page 835

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me, and those with me after stating the change, that he hoped in a short time to obtain evidence on which to charge us with a much graver offence.

I was sent to Thankwan (a station six miles from Kowloon) and remained there until the 20th August, when I was ordered to attend at the prison, where I was held in private, by the Captain Superintendent of Police, on a charge of having received bribes from gamblers on the 19th April 1894 and on other occasions.

The only evidence produced against me was a Chinese document I was unable to read, that of the prisoner Sham In who stated that he did not know me, but that he had paid P.C. 137 Han Kang money for me; and that of P.C. 137 who stated that he had received money from Sham In, and handed it to me. On that evidence, which was virtually that of P.C. 137, without calling me for a defence, I was recommended for dismissal.

I could have proved that I was on leave from 29th March to 29th April 1894, and therefore could not have been paid a bribe in Hong Kong on the 19th April. The other P.C. to whom Sham In stated he had paid money for me was P.C. 134, who had been banished for several weeks before for denying he had ever received money from Sham In for himself or any other person, and consequently P.C. 134 could not be called as a witness for me.

Han Kang had returned from England only a few days before he was called as a witness, and he was taken straight from the ship he arrived in into Gaol where he was detained for the night. He knew that P.C. 349 had already been dismissed and banished from the Colony for persisting in denying that he had been a medium for the payment of bribes. We, therefore, quite understood he had either to undergo...