Australian stations (_all unprotected_); and _gonorrhoea_ was
_higher than in any other naval station in the world_. This
_official_ misleading feature is to be found in other quarters
than Dr. Murray's Reports; for in the _Navy_ Report for 1873
(p. 282), Staff Surgeon Bennett, medical officer of the ship
permanently stationed in Hong Kong, says--"Owing to the excellent
working of the Contagious Diseases Acts, venereal complaints in
the colony are reduced _to a minimum_. The _few cases_ of syphilis
are chiefly due to private prostitutes not known to the police."

In a representation made to the Secretary of State by W.H. Sloggett,
Inspector of Certified Hospitals, October 7, 1879, we get an exact
account of what led to the passage of the Contagious Diseases
Ordinance of 1857. He says: "In 1857, owing to the very strong
representations which had been made to the Governor during the
previous three years, by different naval officers in command of the
China Station, of the prevalence and severity of venereal disease at
Hong Kong, a Colonial Ordinance for checking these diseases was passed
in November of that year."

When Lord Kimberley was Secretary of State he wrote (on September 29,
1880) Governor Hennessy of Hong Kong in defence of the Ordinance of
1857,--at least as to the motive expressed by Mr. Labouchere for
consenting to the passing of the Ordinance: "These humane intentions
of Mr. Labouchere have been frustrated by various causes, among which
must be included that the police have from the first been allowed to
look upon this branch of their work as beneath their dignity,
while the sanitary regulation of the brothels appears from recent
correspondence to have been almost entirely disregarded." To this
Governor Hennessy replied: "On the general question of the Government