achieved local immortality by doing as little as possible whilst making himself personally pleasant to the Colony as well to the Downing Street officials. As to Sir J. P. Hennessy, the less said the better. His acts speak powerfully enough. The centre of his world was he himself. But with all the crowd of dark and bright powers that were wrestling within him, he could not help doing some good and the Colony emerged out of the ordeal of his administration practically unscathed. No, what makes or mars the fortunes of Hongkong is not the wisdom or foolishness, the goodness or badness of its Governors. There is an indomitable vitality within and a Supreme Governor above this British Colony, and these powers irresistibly push on and control the evolution of Hongkong until its destiny be fulfilled in accordance with a plan which is not of man's making.
Several important social problems were taken up during this period, in the case of the gambling question, first investigated by Sir J. Bowring, worked out by Sir R. MacDonnell in a spirited but unsuccessful manner, and religiously eschewed by his successors who, however, did not escape the curse of this rampant evil, all that can be said is that the Sphinx will have to solve its own riddle, for no one seems able or courageous enough to deal with the problem. As to the Contagious Diseases question, a solution was sought, in a more or less half-hearted manner, by several Governors of this epoch, but, as no great results were expected, public expectation was not seriously disappointed. Strange to say, the problem of municipal government, raised by the Parliamentary Committee of 1847, and diplomatically handled by Sir G. Bonham, was allowed by the mercantile community to remain dormant through the whole of this epoch. Stranger still, the only Governor who alluded to the subject was autocratic Sir R. MacDonnell who suggested to H.M. Government that the Colony should be allowed, as far as possible, 'the liberty to expend, on local improvements and works, all the available public income that can be raised from the community for these purposes.' But the strangest thing
