26. The Commission cannot but feel that the taxpayers of Hongkong should not be called upon to provide the prison accommodation required by Western ideas for the criminal population of a province long notorious for turbulence and piracy. The only way to avoid this is by a rigorous system of repatriation and, by the logical sequence of that system, which the Colony has never yet been allowed to carry out, the infliction of whipping for the mere offence of returning from banishment.
27. All attempts at dealing with this question have hitherto been defeated, and the Administration of justice crippled by the hesitation to grant that one indispensable requirement, viz., the power to whip moderately for returning from banishinent a criminal who, in his own country would be batten unmercifully simply as a preliminary to trial. This, with the separate system throughout the existing Gaol, should afford a practical solution of the whole question.
28. Lastly they beg to state that, should any of the above suggestions be carried out and imprisonment made more deterrent either by reduction of the diet or otherwise, they are of opinion that it will be necessary to increase the disciplinary powers of the Superintendent of the Gaol, and they beg to recommend that the powers conferred on the Superintendent of the Gaol by Section 11 of Ordinance 4 of 1863, viz., to punish by noderate corporal punishment not exceeding 12 strokes of a Rattan, any prisoner guilty of the offences in that article mentioned, be restored. in order to maintain discipline under the altered conditions of the Gaol.
29. Since writing the above, the Commission have received information on the Law respecting whipping at Singapore.
30. They note that whipping is allowed there for a great many offences for which they do not ask that it should be applied here; and in presence of the Singapore Legis- lation on this subject they trust that the restricted recommendation which they have made on this point will be considered most reasonable; and that it will receive from the authorities that consideration which the extent of the evil it is sought to check requires.
EDW. J. ACKROYD, Chairman.
A. LISTER, Treasurer.
J. M. PRICE, Surveyor General.
A. GORDON, Superintendent, Victoria Gaol. E. MACKEAN, Acting Police Magistrate, PATRIC MANSON, M.D., Justice of the Peace. C. P. CHATER, Justice of the Peace.
149
(C.S.O.) No. 72.
(Enclosure 2.)
Superintendent of Victoria Gaol to Acting Colonial Secretary.
GAOL SUPERINTENDENT'S OFFICE,
HONGKONG, 30th March, 1886.
COLONIAL SECRETARY,
I feel I must again and urgently bring to the notice of Government the congested state of Victoria Gaol,
For some time past the number of Prisoners has been steadily increasing. To-day there are 674 Prisoners; deducting 7 females in a separate house, there are therefore 667 Prisoners now confined in this building.
I have in my annual Report pointed out the danger to discipline, the danger of moral contamination, and the great provocation and temptation to Prison offences, occasioned by the overcrowding in associated wards of so many Prisoners. But now, as the warm weather is coming on, I must draw particular attention to the Sanitary dangers of the present overcrowding.
The cubic contents of the different cells have recently, at my request, been re- measured by the Surveyor General's Department; but as I have not yet received the measurements I assume the correctness of the old measurement, and beg to draw attention to the following alarming facts.
The cubic measurement of all the cells combined is reported as 138,948 cubic feet. This with 667 Prisoners distributed in the cells gives only 208 cubic feet per Prisoner.
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