THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 17TH NOVEMBER, 1877.
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My honourable friend the Acting Colonial Treasurer and Senior Police Magistrate will understand me when I also assert that the system of repeated short sentences on old offenders is a bad system. I have had cases before me recommended for deportation in which it was not a case of a second, or third, or fourth, but a sixth or seventh offence by the same man. Cases come before me of this character: first offence, larceny, sentence one month's imprisonment with hard labour and to be flogged; second offence, larceny, punishment two months' hard labour and to be flogged; third offence, larceny again, with one month's imprisonment and to be flogged. Then, probably, the juvenile criminal is grown up, and the sentence is six months' hard labour. It comes, in course of time, to the fifth offence, six months' hard labour with a recommendation to deport him. Well, that is carried out. You then very likely find, sooner or later, the same man up for returning from deportation and committing a larceny, and he gets twelve months. That is a system opposed to a fundamental principle laid down by the Secretary of State for the guidance of those responsible for the administration of the criminal law. No greater mistake can be made than that of inflicting short sentences on old offenders. It tends to create and cultivate a criminal class.
In one of the despatches communicated to Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY by Lord CARNARVON, he enclosed copies of despatches written to various Governors on the general question of the treatment of criminals. To the Governor of British Guiana (Sir JAMES LONGDEN) he says: "The principles on which you should work are no doubt well known to you. They are the separation of youthful from adult criminals, by placing the former in an industrial or reformatory establishment; the enforcement of the separate system amongst adults; the establishment of penal labour by treadwheel, crank, shot-drill, or similar means for prisoners in the first stage of long sentences, and during the whole or the greater portion of short ones, and, lastly, the moral and industrial training of those prisoners whose sentences are long enough to warrant the conclusion that a system of reformatory training will not be without its effect in their future disposition and mode of life." These are well known and indisputable principles. But in Hongkong, you have no separation of youthful from adult criminals; no Government reformatory; no industrial school; no moral or industrial training of any kind; you shut your eyes to the future carcer and mode of life of discharged prisoners. Where there is such a total absence of reformatory training, and where you avow it is hopeless to improve the moral condition of the Chinese prisoners, and where you have a set of Turnkeys who cannot speak their language, you cannot expect a decrease of crime.
Before I came, Mr. Administrator AUSTIN reported that, owing to the complaints against the Turnkeys, from his own personal observations of them, he was convinced a reform was necessary, and he suggested getting men out from England. Lord CARNARVON, struck no doubt by the admission of the Gaol Committee that those who had care of the prisoners knew but very little their language, character or disposition, suggested that an endeavour should be made to get trustworthy Chinese Turnkeys. In writing to his Lordship, I said:--
"I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship's despatch No. 66 of the 13th of June, with reference to Mr. Administrator AUSTIN'S report of the 11th of April on the misconduct of the Turnkeys in the Hongkong Gaol, and in reply to his suggestion that Turnkeys, to receive salaries of £100 a year each, might be obtained from England. Your Lordship instructs me to consider the expediency of getting two trained Warders from the Home service, at salaries of £150 a year each, to be on an equality with the officer now styled Head Turnkey; to weed out from the present class of Turnkeys the most unsatisfactory members of the class, and to employ some trusty Chinese as Assistant Turnkeys under strict European supervision.
"I am enabled to reply to your Lordship's despatch without delay, as I had already obtained and considered the necessary information on the subject, and decided, as a provisional measure, on the very course your Lordship indicates.
"From the enclosed copies of letters from the Acting Superintendent of the Prison, recommending the dismissal of certain European Turnkeys who had been guilty of drunkenness in the gaol and beating prisoners, and my minutes agreeing to this recommendation, and further dismissing another Turnkey who had recently committed a third assault on a prisoner, your Lordship will see that, at the end of June and beginning of July, some vacancies in this class had been created, and that I proposed filling them up with well-conducted men who could speak Chinese. Accordingly, I instructed the Acting Captain Superintendent of Police, Mr. CREAGH, to report how far he could recommend the employment as Turnkeys of four Chinese policemen or other Chinese. Mr. CREAGH named three men who had borne excellent characters in his Department, a Chinese Sergeant Interpreter and two Chinese Constables. He also recommended, looking to the temptation they might be exposed to in prison, that they should be called upon to give large security; and he added that the three men he had selected were willing to find security to the extent of $500 each.
"With a view of obtaining more information, and as an additional precaution, I directed Mr. CREAGH's report, and the various minutes and papers, to be sent to Mr. HAYLLAR, Queen's Counsel, who had been so useful as Chairman of the Commission that reported, in 1872, on the organization of the Police.
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'Acting on the Report of that Commission, and on the evidence of such high authorities as Dr. LEGGE and Sir EDMUND HORNBY, my predecessor had taken the important step of extensively employing Chinese in the Police Force.
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