and appeals to the Supreme Court (Ordinance 4 of 1858) and declaring sundry Acts of Parliament to be in force in the Colony (Ordinances 3 of 1856 and 3 and 4 of 1857). As many as 15 Ordinances were passed by the Council in the year 1856 and 12 Ordinances in 1857. Mr. Anstey received, however, small thanks for his zeal. Shortly after his departure a Colonial Office dispatch was read in Council (January 20, 1850) stating that the legal advisers of the Crown had severely commented on the careless manner in which British Acts of Parliament had been adopted in Hongkong. A lamentable state of affairs was revealed when Mr. Anstey's successor, in admitting the justice of the censure, stated that his own tenure of the office was too uncertain to admit of his commencing any new system of legislation or correcting mistakes for which he was not responsible.
Among the Ordinances of the year 1857 there is one (No. 12 of 1857) which requires special mention as it constitutes the first attempt made by a British legislature to grapple with and control the evils arising from prostitution, by the introduction in Hongkong of the system of registration, compulsory medical examination and the establishment of a Lock Hospital. This Ordinance was the work of Dr. W. T. Bridges, the Acting Colonial Secretary, who was an enthusiastic believer in the philanthropic virtues of Contagious Diseases Acts. Sir J. Bowring, with some diffidence, permitted the Ordinance to pass, stating that he reserved his opinion as to its value; but, when the Chinese community made an energetic stand against the application of the measure to the inmates of houses visited by Chinese, Sir John yielded and thereby deprived the scheme of a fair trial in Hongkong. The problem involved in such a C. D. Ordinance requires, for a just and charitable solution, that unbiassed mind which but few possess. Let it be granted that, in the rural surroundings of the domestic and social life of Christian England, where every form of moral and religious influence is at full play, regulations of the nature of the C. D. Acts would fall under the condemnation of morality and religion as being not only not required but distinct reminders and
