Sessional_Paper_1893 — Page 842

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those habits, and finally owing to the low character of the Chinese element of the Hongkong Police Force, I am decidedly of opinion,-

(a) that none but a Committee of respectable Chinese residents can effectively

and safely grapple with the shades of difference between kidnapping and selling, and cope with the tricks of Chinese kidnappers and Chinese anti-kidnapping detectives;

(b) that the local Police Force, including its Chinese and Detective contingents, could not possibly, either effectively or safely, repress Chinese kidnapping; (c) that an abolition of the present Pó Leung Kuk system and an attempt to do its work by means of some amendment of or addition to the Police Force organization would result not only in an overwhelming flood of kidnapping crimes, but exasperate and seriously alienate the mass of the Chinese population by indiscreet interference with Chinese family life (the privacy of which is quite as sacred a palladium to a Chinaman as the liberty of the subject to an Englishman), and introduce an additional source of corruption into the local Police system.

(6.) I have no doubt there are drawbacks connected with the system of the Pó Léung Kuk, and that, perhaps, the principal drawbacks are—

(a) ignorance on the part of a Chinese Committee of the elementary principles of English law, or rather adherence to the divergent principles of Chinese law and custom, and

(b) more particularly the temptations of bribery to which the detectives of the

Pó Leung Kuk are exposed.

(7.) But a Chinese Committee's ignorance of English and preference for Chinese principles of law would at least be equalled by Police ignorance or disregard of Chinese habits of social and family life, whilst the temptations of detectives would be even more powerful in the case of Police Officers and bribery would be far more difficult to bring home to them.

(8.) Whatever other drawbacks may attach to the present system represented by the Pó Leung Kuk, I believe that greater power given to the Registrar General in his supervision of the work of the Committee and to the Superintendent of the Police in his control over the Committee's detectives, and particularly a continuance of the cordial cooperation of these two Officers, will reduce those drawbacks to a safe minimum.

E. J. EITEL, PH. D.,

Inspector of Schools.

Appendix 21.

Case referred to by Mr. Wodehouse and Inspector Kemp.

Translation of statements made in the Pó Léung Kuk.

LI SHING-YING and Ú HONG-FUK, a boy, aged 6, were brought to the Pó Léung Kuk on the 28th of the 6th moon (21st August) by YAU WAI, watchman in Bonham Strand.

LI SHING-YING states,-

I am 33 years of age and a native of Ü Ün District. My husband's name was

**

CHING-T'ONG.

I lost a maidservant

I have a son called HONG-FUK. My husband was a mun sheung" (attendant) to the Magistrate of Nam Hoi. Since the Magistrate left his post, I have lived in Ko Shé Street in Canton. named LIN HI on the 21st of the 5th moon (27th of June). I offered a reward of $55, but I could not find her. A man, whom I know by sight but not by name and whom I had heard telling my servaut that