When Mr. Thompson visited Malacca, to inquire into the system pursued there, he found it to be of the most primitive type. For the linear measurements the surveyor had for a chain, rattans jointed together, and this, with a ten-foot rod and a common compass, formed their whole equipment. When he tested however the measurements of the fields and the town lots, he was surprised to find to what approach to accuracy they had arrived with their rude implements. Indian convicts were also there employed as land measurers and assistants. Upon his return to Singapore, Mr. Thompson designed a European hospital, and adjoining it a pauper hospital, erected mostly at the cost of a benevolent Chinese gentleman of the name of Tan-Tock-Seng. They were built on a plateau of Pearls Hill facing the town. Some years later these buildings were required for military purposes, and were adapted for the purposes of a Commissariat and Ordnance Department respectively. A new building, in which was incorporated a general hospital, was subsequently erected facing the Bukit Timah Road, and the Tan-Tock-Seng hospital for paupers was built further outside the town on the Serangoon Road. In the erection of these buildings convict labour was very largely utilised, and in the front elevation of Tan-Tock-Seng's hospital they had some rather difficult mouldings to execute. In the year 1844, owing to the amount of building that was then going on in the town, there was a great dearth of bricks; so much so, that the Chinese brick-kilns could not supply the immense demand, and the price per laksa of 10,000 rose more than fifty per cent. This led to the determination on the part of the Government to make their own bricks, and an order was issued to the Public Works Department to arrange for their manufacture by the convicts. This was subsequently done; and a suitable site having been found upon the Serangoon Road, a large establishment was started, an account of which will be given in detail when we come to deal with the industrial occupations of the Indian convicts. The first Government brick-field, however, was started at Rochore, under Captain Faber, but was given up after only a short trial. He employed free labour. Chapter VI SINGAPORE (_Continued_)