THE BRITISH COLONY OF HONG KONG WITH THE SANCTION AND AUTHORITY OF THE COLONIAL GOVERNOR. "Referring to the Colonial Surgeon's Department, we feel bound to point out that those portions of the _Annual Medical Reports_ which refer to the subject of the Lock Hospital _have, in too many instances, been altogether misleading_." (Report of Commission, p. 2, parag. 2.) "In 1862 (five years after the Act had been in force) Dr. Murray was '_completely satisfied_ with the _incalculable_ benefit that had resulted to the colony from the Ordinance of 1857'"[A] [Footnote A: An extreme form of C.D. Acts, without parallel in any other place under British rule.] "In 1865 (after eight years' experience) he wrote, 'the _good_ the Ordinance does _is undoubted_; but the good it might do, were all the unlicensed brothels suppressed, was incalculable.'" "In 1867 (after ten years' experience) the _public_ was informed that the Ordinance had been 'on trial for nearly ten years, and _had done singular service_.'" _Yet in this very same year_--1867, April 19th--"Dr. Murray stated in an _Official Report not intended for publication_, but found by the Commission among other Government papers, and published,--'That venereal disease has been _on the increase_, in spite of all that has been done to check it, _is no new discovery_; it has already been brought before the notice of His Excellency.'" (Report, p. 35, pars. 4 and 5.) What is to be thought of the character of such reports for the _Public_, and such an _Official Report_, "not _intended_ to be _published_"? This same Dr. Murray's Annual Report for the _Public_ for 1867, was _actually put in evidence before the House of Lords' Committee_ on venereal diseases--1868, page 135. "Venereal disease here has now become of _comparatively rare occurrence_." Yet the _Army_ Report for the previous year (1866, page 115) states that "the admissions to hospital for venereal disease were 281 per 1000 men;" i.e., more than one man in four of the whole soldiery had been in hospital for this "comparatively rare" disease. As regards the Navy, Dr. Murray says, "the evidence of Dr. Bernard, the Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals and Fleets, is even more satisfactory. He writes (Jan. 27), 'I am enabled to say that true syphilis is now rarely contracted by our men in Hong Kong.'" Yet the "China station," in which Hong Kong occupies so important a position, had at the time 25 per cent. more _secondary