As It Is, The Wealthier Foreign Residents,
For The Security Of Their Property, Are Obliged To Supplement The
Services Of The Public Caretakers By Employing Private Watchmen, Who
Patrol Their Grounds At Night.
It must be admitted that the criminal
classes are very rampageous in Victoria, whether from undue and unwise
leniency
In the treatment of crime, or whether from the extraordinary
mass of criminals to which our flag affords security is not for a
stranger to say, though the general clamor raised when I visited the
great Chinese prison in Canton, "I wish I were in your prison in Hong
Kong," and my own visit to the Victoria prison, render the former
suspicion at least permissible.
Hong Kong possesses the usual establishment of a Crown Colony, and the
government is administered by a Governor, aided by a Legislative
Council, of which he is the President, and which is composed of the
Chief Justice, the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General, the
Treasurer, and four unofficial members, nominated by the Crown on the
Governor's recommendation.
The enormous preponderance of the mixed Oriental population is a source
of some difficulty, and it is not easy by our laws to punish and
destroy a peculiarly hateful form of slavery which is recognized by
Chinese custom, and which has attained gigantic proportions in
Victoria. There is an immense preponderance of the masculine element,
nearly six to one among the Europeans, and among the Orientals the men
are nearly two and a half times as numerous as the women.
As Victoria is a free port, it is impossible to estimate the value of
its imports and exports, but its harbor, full of huge merchantmen, and
craft of all nations, its busy wharves, its crowd of lighters loading
and unloading by day and night, its thronged streets and handsome
shops, its huge warehouses, packed with tea, silk, and all the costly
products of the East, and its hillsides terraced with the luxurious
houses of its merchants, all say, "Circumspice, these are better than
statistics!"]
I. L. B.
LETTER III
The S.S. Kin Kiang - First View of Canton - The Island of
Shameen - England in Canton - The Tartar City - Drains and
Barricades - Canton at Night - Street Picturesqueness - Ghastly
Gifts - Oriental Enchantments - The Examination Hall
S.S. "KIN KIANG," December 30.
You will remember that it is not very long since a piratical party of
Chinese, shipping as steerage passengers on board one of these Hong
Kong river steamers, massacred the officers and captured the boat. On
board this great, white, deck-above-deck American steamer there is but
one European passenger beside myself, but there are four hundred and
fifty second-class passengers, Chinamen, with the exception of a few
Parsees, all handsomely dressed, nearly all smoking, and sitting or
lying over the saloon deck up to the saloon doors. In the steerage
there are fifteen hundred Chinese steerage passengers, all men. The
Chinese are a noisy people, their language is inharmonious, and the
lower class male voices, at least, are harsh and coarse.
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