supplied to him and reorganized the Police Force of Hongkong on the model of the Irish Constabulary with due adaptations to local circumstances. With the aim of suppressing the system of private night-watchmen, kept by every European house-owner on the model of the old practice in vogue in the Canton and Macao days, Major-General D'Aguilar (acting as Lieutenant-Governor in the temporary absence of Sir J. Davis) passed (September 11, 1844) the unpopular 'Bamboo Ordinance' (17 of 1844) prohibiting the use of the bamboo-drums by which those watchmen used to make night hideous in order to prove (not merely to their employers as the Ordinance alleged) that they were on the alert. But whilst securing by this premature measure the peace and quiet of the town during the night, he rather encouraged, in the absence of an efficient Police Force, nightly depredations by native burglars.
Highway robberies and burglaries continued to be of almost daily occurrence. Government House was once more robbed (July 16, 1844) and some of the Governor's valuables carried off. No house in the Colony was safe without armed watchmen and no one ventured out after dark except revolver in hand. The Police Magistrate issued (August 25, 1846) a notice warning residents 'not to go beyond the limits of the town singly nor even in parties unless armed.' In 1847 European householders were ordered to supplement the imperfect street-lighting system by suspending lamps before the doors of their houses. The Police Force possessed as yet neither the training nor the moral tone that would have inspired the community with confidence and prevented collusion between native constables and criminals. As to the latter it seemed as if English law, though ever so severely administered, was unable to provide penalties sufficiently deterrent. Flogging was indeed resorted to very freely and even for comparatively shadowy offences such as vagrancy. The House of Commons occupied itself, rather needlessly, with this point (in autumn, 1846) at the motion of Dr. Bowring, the Member for Bolton, who drew the attention of the Ministry to the allegation that 54 natives had been flogged in Hongkong
