letter for the information of the Governor, Sir John
Pope Hennessy, to the effect that he had sentenced, on the previous
day, two poor women to imprisonment with hard labor, for detaining
a boy 13 years old. The women sold the little boy to a druggist for
$17.50. The relatives traced their lost boy, came from Canton and
claimed him, but the druggist refused to give him up, producing a
bill of sale, and the boy was not given up until they appeared in the
police court. The Chief Justice adds:

"I am satisfied from the evidence that the great criminal is this
druggist, and that it is an opprobrium to the administration of
justice to punish these poor women as I have done, and allow the
druggist to escape. I therefore ask His Excellency to direct that
proceedings be forthwith taken against the man, and that the case
be conducted at the magistracy by the Crown Solicitor, so that he
may be committed for trial before the Supreme Court."

He then speaks of a case of a woman whom he sentenced on May 6th,
1879, to two years' imprisonment with hard labor for stealing a female
child. He adds:

"The woman was merely a middle woman, and received a small sum,
but it came out in the evidence that Leung A-Luk had bought the
child for $53, and was actually confining her in a room where
the child was discovered. She was the great criminal. It is an
opprobrium to justice to punish this poor woman, and to allow
Leung A-Luk to go unpunished. I am aware that, according to
precedents here and at home, it is within the province of the
presiding judge to direct prosecutions such as these to be
instituted, but I think it more convenient to ask His Excellency,
as the head of the Executive (whose province it especially is to
originate criminal proceedings) to direct prosecution. To let
these chief offenders go unprosecuted, and to punish such
miserable creatures, exposes the court to the contempt of the
community, and tends to destroy all respect for the administration
of justice in the Chinese community."

Accordingly the Governor forwarded this request on the part of the
Chief Justice to the Attorney General, saying: "It is clear from the
evidence and from documents published by the Contagious Diseases
Commission that practices of this kind have prevailed unchecked, or
almost unchecked, for many years past in this Colony." The Governor
then referred to a