🚀 go-pugleaf

the reasons he gives for not instituting a
    prosecution in this case."

During the year previous, 1876, Ordinance No. 2 had been passed,
depriving the Registrar General of the much-abused judicial powers
he had exercised since 1867, and transferring them to the police
magistrates.

Speaking of the incident of Tai Yau having sold her boy to pay her
fine, Governor Hennessy wrote the Colonial Office, under date of
December 6th, 1877:

    "I am now informed that the Commissioners have obtained from the
    records of the Registrar General's department and from Mr. Smith's
    evidence the clearest proof that this practice of selling human
    beings in Hong Kong was well known to the department. One of the
    records has been shown to me in which a witness swears, 'I bought
    the girl Chan Tsoi Lin and placed her in a brothel in Hong Kong';
    and on that particular piece of evidence no action was taken by
    the department."

Lord Carnarvon was Secretary of State for the Colonies at this time,
and his replies to Sir John Pope Hennessy were small encouragement to
the course the Governor had taken. He criticises his "somewhat unusual
course" in the appointment of a Commission "composed of private
persons to inquire into the ad