When Sir John arrived in the Colony (April, 1854), the public mind had for some years been, and still was, in a state of tolerable tranquillity, and peace reigned within the Civil Service. The only disturbing element was a local newspaper, the Friend of China, edited by a discharged Civil Servant, who generally criticized the Government and most public officers with some animus and repeatedly insinuated that the Lieutenant-Governor (whilst Chief Magistrate) had been in collusion with his comprador's squeezing propensities. The fact that the Lieutenant-Governor allowed five years to pass before he stopped these unfounded calumnies by the appeal to the Court which, as soon as made, consigned that editor to the ignominious silence of the gaol (September 21, 1859), encouraged in the Colony a vicious taste for journalistic personalities. The more wicked a paper was, the greater now became its popularity. Soon another local editor (Daily Press) who, in certain business transactions in connection with emigration, had been crossed by the Registrar General, outstripped in scurrility his colleague of the Friend of China, and commenced to insinuate that the Registrar General was the tool of unscrupulous Chinese compradors and in league with pirates. The Registrar General sent in his resignation (June 11, 1855) but the Government, as well as the Naval Authorities, having perfect confidence in him, he was later on (December 6, 1850) induced to resume his office.
The next source of trouble was the system of Petty Sessions devised by Sir G. Bonham and continued by Sir J. Bowring who appointed (October 4, 1855) 13 non-official Justices of the Peace (subsequently increased to 15) to assist the stipendiary Magistrates. The non-official Justices, however, did not attend the Sessions unless they were specially sent for and the Chief Magistrate, as a rule, sent for them only when he had a difficulty with the Executive. In spring 1856, the Governor several times took occasion to remonstrate with the Chief Magistrate (T. W. Davies) regarding his interpretation of the new Building Ordinance (No. 8 of 1856) in cases of encroachments on Crown laud. The Magistrate, disregarding the minutes of the Executive
