Old Hong Kong-3 — Page 162

NEWSPAPERS (Contd.)

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An augury of the rapid progress which the new settlement of Hong Kong was expected to make, was the appearance on May 1, 1841, of the first Hong Kong Government Gazette. In the first number of this Gazette, printed at Macao, Captain Elliot, as charged with the Government of Hong Kong, notified that, pending Her Majesty's further pleasure, he had appointed on April 30, 1841, Captain W. Caine of the 26th Cameronian Regiment as Chief Magistrate of the Island of Hong Kong, to exercise authority for the preservation of the peace and the protection of life and property, over all non-Chinese inhabitants (those of the Army and Navy excepted) according to the customs and usages of British Police law, and over all Chinese inhabitants according to the laws, customs and usages of China, as near as may be, every description of torture excepted. But all cases requiring punishments exceeding a fine of $400, or imprisonment of over three months, or, in case of flogging, more than 100 lashes, or capital punishment, were to be remitted to the judgment of the Head of Government. Captain Caine was at the same time appointed Superintendent of the Gaol.

The next Gazette, on May 15, 1841, published the first census of Hong Kong. By some clerical blunder, however, the hamlet of Stanley, which never counted more than a few hundred inhabitants, was put down as having 2,000 Chinese inhabitants, and accordingly received the false description of "the capital (of Hong Kong), a large town." It never was anything of the sort.

The first actual Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Henry Pottinger, on the day of his arrival at Macao on August 10, 1841, issued a Gazette Extraordinary informing the public of his appointment and nature of his duties.

It was in the following year that printing presses were imported to Hong Kong and the first locally printed newspaper, the Friend of China and Hong Kong Gazette, appeared, and it was used as a vehicle for the Government's proclamations. In its issue of March 24, 1842, this paper printed a Notification dated from Government House on March 22, in which Sir Henry Pottinger announced his intention of appointing a Land Committee to investigate and report on the vexed question of land tenures. This appears to have marked the definite transfer of the Gazette to Hong Kong, and the origin of the practice of selecting a local journal to carry it.

Later, the Hong Kong Daily Press was made the vehicle for these Government notifications, the paper printing them by contract, and according to one chronicler of old, this led to "bickerings amongst those interested".

The procedure continued for some years, however, and it was not until Saturday, September 24, 1853, that the first separately issued Government Gazette of the Colony made its appearance. Since then, it has been the means of making known all official appointments, drafts of Ordinances, and notices which are necessary legally, such as bankruptcies, statements of accounts, registrations, and the many items that require publicity before they can operate according to the processes of the law.

In this connexion, it is interesting to find that, at the request of the Judges of the Supreme Court in 1898, the Government on June 11 that year gave its authority for the publication in the Gazette of such written judgments of the Court as might not be published in full in the local newspapers. There was a precedent for this as far back as 1855, when on November 24, that year, the judgment of Chief Justice Hulme in a Vice-Admiralty Prize Court, concerning...