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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 19TH OCTOBER, 1878.

Your Lordship will perceive that owing to the inadequacy of the actual Gaol accommodation, its necessary enlargement and modifications will involve an expenditure of $95,000.

The transportation of long sentenced criminals, however, as shown by the Surveyor General, would do

away with the necessity for a new detached wing and would reduce the outlay to $44,800, or less than one half, a circumstance which makes me the more hopeful of your Lordship's favourable con- sideration of my Despatches Nos. 117 of 15th September, 121 of 21st September, and No. 155 of 7th November, 1877, with reference to Labuan as a convict settlement for-Hongkong.

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As to the works particularized by Mr. PRICE, I may remind your Lordship that this town is built on a strongly marked slope, and that once a building site has been levelled and laid out, it is a matter of extreme difficulty to effect subsequent extensions. These difficulties of level, no less than the want of room, will account for the somewhat close juxtaposition of the buildings and the absence of more capacious airing yards.

There is no doubt the present Gaol is unfortunately placed. Sir HERCULES ROBINSON'S plan of having a convict prison on Stone Cutter's Island would have prevented some of the serious evils of overcrowding and association to which it has been my duty from time to time to refer. Looking however to your Lordship's instructions, I have confined myself to considering such alterations only as may be essential in the existing Gaol in the Town of Victoria.

I have, &c.,

The Right Honourable The EARL OF CARNARVON,

Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies,

&c.,

&c.,

&e.

J. POPE HENNESSY,

Governor.

[No. 48.]

The Right Honourable Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Bart., M. P., to His Excellency Governor Pope Hennessy, C.M.G.

DOWNING STREET,

5th June, 1878.

SIR,I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch, No. 164, of the 22nd of November, relating to proposed improvements in the Victoria Gaol, and enclosing plans prepared by the Surveyor General for this purpose.

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2. I am aware the in trawing these plans, Mr. PRICE ha conformed to the instructions contained in paragraph 6 of my Predecessor's Despatch, No. 45, of the 7th of May, 1877, and I fully appreciate the care which he has bestowed upon them, but after due consideration of the subject, I am of opinion that they will not provide the accommodation required.

3. I observe that both you and the Surveyor General refer to the question of the reconstruction of the Gaol as dependent on the project of transporting long sentenced criminals to Labuan. It may be convenient, therefore, that I should at once state that I am not at present prepared to entertain this suggestion, and that any scheme for the improvement of the prison discipline in the Colony should proceed on the assumption that Hongkong will have to provide accommodation for the whole of its own criminals.

4. Keeping this decision in view, it will be evident that Mr. PRICE's plans for the enlargement of the existing Gaol, while they scarcely meet even the present requirements of the Colony, are open to objection on the grounds which he has himself indicated in paragraph 16 of his letter to the Colonial Secretary, viz., that the size of the airing yards, already small, will be still further diminished. Such a diminution of the prison yards together with the crowding of fresh buildings on the present site would be highly detrimental both to the discipline and the sanitary condition of the prison, and on this ground, it will be necessary to abandon Mr. PRICE's proposal.

5. It has been suggested as a mode of meeting the difficulty that the prisoners should be divided, and a second prison built outside the town, but as at present advised, I consider it wholly out of the question to establish two separate prisons in so small a Colony.

6. Two alternatives present themselves, the one being to enlarge the existing prison by acquiring and building on additional ground in the immediate neighbourhood: the other to abandon the present buildings and erect a wholly new prison on a different site.

7. As regards the acquisition of additional ground, an extension may apparently be sought either above or below the present site; that is to say, it would seem feasible either to resume the leases of the land immediately above Chancery Lane and carry the Gaol up to Caine Road, (at the same time closing Chancery Lane, or making a covered passage between the existing Gaol and the new site), or to resume the houses now occupied for the Civil Hospital and the other premises which are bounded by the Old Bailey.