Page:Crime and government at Hong Kong.pdf/98



The appointment of this Commission arose out of the following circumstances.

On the 10th May, 1858, the Registration Ordinance of 1858, already referred to, had reached its last stage in the Legislative Council.

On my way to attend it, a letter from the Superintendent of Police was placed in my hands, to be laid before the Council, with a view, I presume, to the question, whether some security should not be taken against abuse, before the final passing of a measure, which confirmed so many of the prodigious powers vested in Mr. Caldwell, under the condemned ordinance of the year preceding.

That letter charged positively, that he had already turned to the profit, of himself or his friends, the large powers, similarly vested in him by the much more recent ordinance, which made him Licenser of Chinese Brothels.

That letter specified the "Licensed Brothel No. 48"—a brothel therefore licensed by himself—as being one, in which he was interested either as immediate or as head landlord—the land on which it stood ("Inland Lot 241 B."), being his property.

I read this letter in my place in Council. My reasons for doing so—the demeanour and conduct of the accused and his confederates—the unanimous vote of the Council in favor of the incapacitating clause, which I thereupon moved to add to the Registration Ordinance,—and the ulterior consequences of these proceedings, are correctly stated in my printed evidence before the Commission:—