🚀 go-pugleaf

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 case in point that he had submitted to the former
Attorney General, but he "did not seem disposed to enforce the rights
of the father, on the ground that he had sold the child." The Governor
concludes: "I did not agree with his view of the law."

The last case was referred back to the Acting Police Magistrate t