23
His practice, both as attorney and barrister—for such it was, long before that amalgamation became sanctioned by ordinance—became very extensive indeed. I do not remember exactly enough to speak with confidence; but I think it was at this period, that he put up the Chinese signboard, which still adorns his door-post, in the Queen's Road, informing all Chinese litigants that the inmate is "Bridges" [Bi-li-ji-si], the distinguished graduate-in-law, and "lord of legal knowledge," who moves all courts for clients, in small and great things, in unclean and clean. At all events, he was even now in the full enjoyment of that reputation; and, moreover, it was the general impression of the Chinese community, that the retainer, as counsel, secured in him the chief member of the Government.
For that impression, if he had ever taken any step, or shown any inclination to prevent or reverse it, he would not deserve to be blamed. It was the unhappy consequence of the original sin of choosing a practising barrister to fill, albeit provisionally and only for a season, those high executive appointments. But, as the Legislative Council has well and unanimously resolved, Dr. Bridges having, on the contrary, so combined the anomalous practices, and deliberately so demeaned himself in the exercise of each, as necessarily to produce that impression upon the minds of the observers, he is justly blameable for its existence. And of this, the very case which brought down upon him from that body the heavy censure of disqualification for the offices he had so disgraced, affords a lively illustration.
For revenue purposes, the retail of opium at Hong Kong was, by one of his Ordinances of 1858, created
