691006-1877-Proceedings-of-Council-17th-September- — Page 11

THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 22nd SEPTEMBER, 1877. 419

A few days after I arrived in the Colony, two other Chinese were sentenced to three years' penal servitude and to receive three public floggings each. One had been convicted of kidnapping, and the other of larceny and wounding. accordance with what I understood to be the usual practice, paragraphs appeared in the local newspapers announcing that two men were to be flogged at the public whipping post, near the Harbour Master's office-that is, in the busiest thoroughfare of the Colony- at 4 P.M. on the 10th of May.

I did not think proper to interfere with the sentence; and, accordingly, the men were marched through the several crowded streets between the gaol and the Harbour Master's office, and there publicly flogged.

Nine days after this, I paid my first visit to the prison. On entering the hospital, two attenuated patients, apparently very weak, grovelled at my feet and cried. On sending for an Interpreter, I found they were the men who had been flogged on the 10th of May. They complained that their flesh had been torn so much that the wounds would not heal and they could not sleep. Mr. TOMLIN, the Acting Superintendent, counted, in my presence, the number of wounds still open, made on the 21st of May, he thus records the facts:--

In a memorandum he

66

'AU-A-FU, sentenced on the 23rd of April, 1877.** Received the first flogging at 4 P.M. on the

"10th of May. Had twelve wounds still bleeding on the 19th instant.'

IN-A-MAN, sentenced on the 26th of April, 1877.*** Received first flogging on the 10th

"instant. Had eight wounds still bleeding on the 19th instant."

In about ten days more, I again visited the prison with Mr. CECIL SMITH, the Registrar General, Bishop BURDON, when we saw the blood still flowing from the torn backs of those prisoners.†

I made some enquiries with a view of ascertaining whether there were any special reasons why the prisoners should have appeared so weak when I saw them, and why their wounds had been so slow to heal. The explanation I found to consist in the fact that they had been, as it were, prepared for the flogging by a course of penal diet-rice and water--and that the new regulations of the Gaol Com- mission of last year respecting the diet of Chinese prisoners, to which your Lordship objects in despatch No. 45 of 7th of May last, had been strictly enforced.

Having called for further information from the Colonial Surgeon on the general question of the new dietary, he reported on the 4th of July, against the changes made by the Gaol Committee. With reference to the removal of Chutney from the dietary scale of the Chinese prisoners, he says:-

"The condiments in the Chutney were necessary to enable the prisoners to digest the enormous

mass of rice. As a consequence of the loss of the Chutney, there have been

many more

66

66

complaints than usual of the digestive organs, Dyspepsia, Colic, Diarrhoea, &c., &c." He also points out that the dietary, established in opposition to his advice, is the same that in India is believed to be one of the causes of Leprosy.

I have, &c.,

(Signed,)

J. POPE HENNESSY,

Governor.

His Excellency Governor Pope Hennessy to The Right Honourable the Earl of Carnarvon.

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, HONGKONG, 13th July, 1877.

MY LORD,--On one of my first visits to the Hongkong Gaol, in the month of May, an old man named WONG-A-KWAI, who was in the prison hospital, complained that the punishments he had received were killing him. Mr. TOMLIN, the Acting Superintendent, pointed out, however, that he was an old offender, that he was constantly complaining, and that he was regarded as a very bad character by the prison officials. Neither Mr. TOMLIN, nor the Turnkey who was present, could understand the Chinese language, and it was through an Interpreter that the complaint was made.

1877.

+ According to a report from the Colonial Surgeon, the wounds were not closed until thirty-two days after the public flogging of the 10th of May,