CHAPTER 7.
OTHER DERELICT OFFICIALS.
The Registrar General was not the only official at Hong Kong who did not believe in the extermination of slavery, as we shall proceed to show, although the Governor had strong sympathy from the Chief Justice.
On May 30th, 1879, Sir John Smale, Chief Justice of the Colony of Hong Kong, wrote a letter for the information of the Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy, to the effect that he had sentenced, on the previous day, two poor women to imprisonment with hard labor, for detaining a boy 13 years old. The women sold the little boy to a druggist for $17.50. The relatives traced their lost boy, came from Canton and claimed him, but the druggist refused to give him up, producing a bill of sale, and the boy was not given up until they appeared in the police court. The Chief Justice adds:
"I am satisfied from the evidence that the great criminal is this druggist, and that it is an opprobrium to the administration of justice to punish these poor women as I have done, and allow the druggist to escape. I therefore ask His Excellency to direct that proceedings be forthwith taken against the man, and that the case be conducted at the magistracy by the Crown Solicitor, so that he may be committed for trial before the Supreme Court."
He then speaks of a case of a woman whom he sentenced on May 6th, 1879, to two years' imprisonment with hard labor for stealing a female child. He adds:
"The woman was merely a middle woman, and received a small sum, but it came out in the evidence that Leung A-Luk had bought the child for $53, and was actually confining her in a room where the child was discovered. She was the great criminal. It is an opprobrium to justice to punish this poor woman, and to allow Leung A-Luk to go unpunished. I am aware that, according to precedents here and at home, it is within the province of the presiding judge to direct prosecutions such as these to be instituted, but I think it more convenient to ask His Excellency, as the head of the Executive (whose province it especially is to originate criminal proceedings) to direct prosecution. To let these chief offenders go unprosecuted, and to punish such miserable creatures, exposes the court to the contempt of the community, and tends to destroy all respect for the administration of justice in the Chinese community."
Accordingly the Governor forwarded this request on the part of the Chief Justice to the Attorney General, saying: "It is clear from the evidence and from documents published by the Contagious Diseases Commission that practices of this kind have prevailed unchecked, or almost unchecked, for many years past in this Colony." The Governor then referred to a case in point that he had submitted to the former Attorney General, but he "did not seem disposed to enforce the rights of the father, on the ground that he had sold the child." The Governor concludes: "I did not agree with his view of the law."
The last case was referred back to the Acting Police Magistrate to know why the woman, Leung A-Luk, was allowed to go unprosecuted. The Police Magistrate replied: "It appeared to me that 4th defendant (Leung A-Luk) being a well-to-do woman, and having no children of her own, had purchased the girl with a view to adopting her." He adds: "When Acting Superintendent of Police last year, I wished to prosecute a man for detaining a child … but as it was shown that the boy had been sold by his father some months previously, the Attorney General considered the purchaser was in loco parentis, [in the place of a parent] and could not be purchased."
On the two cases to which the attention of the Governor had been brought, the Attorney General reported:
"With the greatest respect for the Chief Justice, I doubt the policy of prosecuting the woman he refers to, having regard to the fact that the magistrate had discharged her for want of testimony, and looking to his further report. The magistrate should always be supported if possible; and if he discharged the woman, and put her at the bar as a witness, and she was used again at the Supreme Court, it might look like a breach of good faith to treat her now as a criminal…. As to the druggist's case, I think that the only thing that can be said is that it would look to be a breach of faith to proceed against him now."
When the case was referred to the Crown Solicitor, he said:
"As to the druggist the parties had now left the Colony, and there were no witnesses against him. The purchase by Chinese of young orphans, and indeed of others whose parents are too poor to keep them, is a social custom amongst the natives, and is of constant occurrence in Hong Kong. These 'pocket-children,' as they are usually termed, are often treated with great affection, and are far better off than they were previous to their being so bought."
It was the 30th of May when the Chief Justice called the Governor's attention to these cases. It was July before the Attorney General and the Crown Solicitor seem to have paid any attention to the cases. It was no wonder, then, that some of the witnesses could not be found. Meanwhile the Governor had left the Colony for a trip to Japan, and W.H. Marsh was acting in his place. On July 16th, he returned answer to the Chief Justice that he had now received a report on the cases from the Attorney General, the committing magistrate and the Crown Solicitor, and
"I regret to inform you that … I do not see my way to directing the prosecutions of the two persons indicated by you; first … because I do not agree with you in looking upon them as the principal criminals; and, secondly, because I think that after the evidence of these persons has been taken both before the committing magistrate and the Supreme Court without any warning having been given them that their evidence might be used against them, it would appear like a breach of faith to treat them now as criminals." "Should the prosecution of these persons result in their acquittal, which seems to me not improbable, I fear that the good effect produced by the severe reprimand, which I understand that your Honor administered publicly to all the parties concerned in these two cases, might be to a great extent neutralized." (!)
On September 29th, 1879, the Chief Justice sentenced more criminals for trafficking in children. A Japanese girl, Sui Ahing, eleven years old, was brought to the Colony by a Chinaman who had bought the child in Japan of its parents. Needing money to go on to his native place, this Chinaman borrowed $50 of a native resident at Hong Kong, and left the child as security for the debt. The wife of the man in whose custody the child was left beat the child severely and she ran out of the house. She was found wandering on the street late at night, and the finder took her and sold her to another Chinese party, who threatened to send her to Singapore as a prostitute. It was plain the last purchaser intended either to send her to Singapore or keep her at Hong Kong for vile purposes. This case illustrates well the frequency with which children are sold and re-sold in that country. The parties to the last transaction, the finder of the child and the purchaser of the child from the finder, were both found guilty, one of selling, the other of buying a child for the purposes of prostitution. His Lordship, the Chief Justice, said:
"I will call upon the prisoners at another time. This is a case of far larger proportions than the guilt or innocence of the two prisoners at the bar. I take shame to myself that the appalling extent of kidnaping, buying and selling slaves for what I may call ordinary servile purposes, and the buying and selling young females for worse than ordinary slavery, has not presented itself before to me in the light it ought. It seems to me that it has been recognized and accepted as an ordinary out-turn of Chinese habits, and thus that until special attention has been excited it has escaped public notice. But recently the abomination has forced itself on my notice. In some cases convictions have been had; in two notable instances, although I called for prosecution, the criminals escaped. They were Chinese in respectable positions, and I was given to understand that buying children by respectable Chinamen as servants was according to Chinese customs, and that to attempt to put it down would be to arouse the prejudices of the Chinese. The practice is on the increase. It is in this port, and in this Colony especially, that the so-called Chinese custom prevails. Under the English flag, slavery, it has been said, does not, cannot ever be. Under that flag it does exist in this Colony, and is, I believe, at this moment more openly practiced than at any former period of its history. Cyprus has been under our rule for about a year, and already, both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords, questions have been asked, and the Members of the present Ministry have assured the country that slavery in every form shall be speedily put down there. Humanity is of no party, and personal liberty is held to be the right of every human being under English law, by, I believe, every man of note in England. My recent pleasant personal experience in England assures me of that. But here in Hong Kong, I believe that domestic slavery exists in fact to a great extent. Whatever the law of China may be, the law of England must prevail here. If Chinamen are willing to submit to the law, they may remain, but on condition of obeying the law, whether it accords with their notions of right or wrong or not; and, if remaining they act contrary to the law, they must take the consequences…. I shall deal with these people when I shall have more fully considered the case."
During the proceedings of the trial of these two prisoners, the
Attorney General had declared his intention not to call the former
owners of the child, Wai Alan, the woman who beat the child, or Pao
Chee Wan, her husband. The Chief Justice now said:
"I now direct you, Mr. Attorney General, to prosecute these two people, Pao Chee Wan and Wai Alan." Attorney General:—"My Lord, I intimated before that this matter was under consideration; I do not think I am at liberty to say under whose consideration." His Lordship:—"I direct the prosecution, and will take the responsibility. It is the course in England and I will pursue it here." The Attorney General:—"You have publicly directed it; and I will report it to the proper quarter." His Lordship:—"The Attorney General at home is constantly ordered by the Court to prosecute. On my responsibility alone I do this." The Attorney General:—"May I ask your Lordship to say on what charge?" His Lordship:—"Under Sections 50 and 51 of No. 4 of 1865, and also for assault." The Attorney General continued to raise objections, when the Chief Justice said: "I have said as much as I choose to say, and I will not be put to question by the Attorney General. If you have any difficulty, come to the Court in Chambers."
Governor Hennessy, in reporting the incident to the Secretary of State at London, adds: "I sent a note to the Attorney General, saying I thought that the prosecution suggested by the Chief Justice should take place; but it was found that the accused parties were not in the Colony." After this manner many cases brought to the attention of the officers of the law by parents or guardians of children of kidnaping and trading in girls and children failed to secure the attention they deserved. It seems to us not at all amazing, when one reads this past history, that by the time Chinese girls have seen and learned all that they must in the Colony of Hong Kong, when brought to this country they are utterly incredulous as to the good faith of police and other officials. They must enter a complaint at the risk of their lives, and if the officer of the law will not prosecute the case in spite of all its difficulties (which are largely imaginary on the part of lukewarm officials), then the girl must be returned to the master she has informed against, to be in his power for him to vent his wrath upon her. A case in point occurred in Oakland only a few months ago, and we had a chance to interview the girl. The Captain of Police went through the brothels of Oakland's Chinatown, accompanied by some missionary ladies, in order to discover if possible any girls who would acknowledge that they wished to come away. Every girl was questioned, in the absence of the keepers, and not one, or perhaps only one, said she wished to come away. There were some one hundred and fifty Chinese slave girls in Oakland at this time, and one might say they all had a chance to escape, and of their own will chose to remain. But was that the truth? Not at all; the result did not prove at all that one, and only one wished to come away. It proved merely that only one was inspired with sufficient confidence and courage, after her long, hard experience with foreigners, to say what she wished. It is the universal testimony of all the girls who have been rescued, so we have been told, by those who have been engaged in this rescue work for many years—that every slave in Chinatown plans and dreams of nothing else but of the day when, having served long enough to buy her freedom, she will be granted it by her master or mistress, and then she can be honorably married. But unless her freedom is purchased for her by some lover, the cases are rare, indeed, that a girl is allowed to earn her own freedom, though they are kept submissive by constant promises that the goal is just ahead of them. A few days after the Oakland papers had triumphantly asserted that it had been demonstrated that there was not a single slave girl in Chinatown—a statement that everyone who had any intelligence on the subject, including the newspapers themselves, knew to be false—a lady in mission work received a cautious hint in a round-about way that one of the girls she had seen when the rounds were made desired to be set at liberty. "How did you learn this?" we eagerly and quite naturally asked the missionary. She replied that on no account could she tell a human being how the intelligence was conveyed to her, as it might cost others very dearly, even to the sacrifice of life, if the knowledge leaked out. "But," she said, "I will show you the girl and you may talk with her yourselves." We gathered from the girl that she was a respectable widow, the mother of two children, living with her parents not far from Hong Kong on the mainland. As they were very poor, she went to Hong Kong to work at sewing to help support the family. An acquaintance there told her that she could earn as much as thirty dollars a month at sewing in California, and he could secure her passage for her at economical cost. She returned to her home and consulted her parents, and they thought the chance a good one, so bidding her little ones good bye, she returned to Hong Kong and paid for the ticket, being instructed that a certain woman would meet her at the wharf at San Francisco whom she must claim as her "mother," since the immigration laws were so strict that she must pass herself off as the daughter of this woman (for this daughter, who was now in China, having lived in the United States was entitled to return to her mother). Reader, have you ever traveled on another's ticket? If so, or if you have known a professing Christian to have done so, do not be too harsh in your judgment of this heathen, and declare she deserved the terrible fate that overtook her. The "mother" met the sewing-woman, brought her to Oakland, and imprisoned her in a horrible den to earn money for her. With utmost caution our missionary friend rescued her. The Captain of Police and other officers were at hand to help the missionary, and when the girl was taken, she struggled frantically and called for help as though being kidnaped. Had the policemen been there alone they would have let the captors have their slave, believing they had made a mistake. But they had not; the missionary knew that; the girl was only thinking ahead of the possibility of the plot failing and of falling back into the hands of her captors. She must never betray to them, until safely out of their clutches, that she wished to come away. She must make it appear that she was dragged away against her will. And this is free America! Do you wonder that these girls do not tell everybody who asks them that they are unwilling captives? Doubtless they would if our officers of the law showed their good faith by laying hold of these slave dealers. Nothing was done or attempted to punish the horrible creatures who captured this girl. They are going on unmolested with their nefarious business, though many of them could be easily punished. This part of the work—punishing slave-dealers—has never been taken up seriously here on the Pacific Coast. And until these terrible criminals are immured in prison, most certainly these Chinese slave girls will not declare their desire for freedom, for if it were granted them they would not be safe—at least they have no reason to believe they would be, though there are missions where they would be protected. But what reason have they for believing this is the case, after the years of training they have had in the perfidy of all those with whom they come in contact! Many girls have been rescued on this Pacific Coast, by brave missionary workers. But it is to the lasting shame of our country that such wicked creatures are allowed to exist here to import these slaves. Imprison the importers, and the slaves are rescued. That is the short road to freedom. But that was not the path pursued by officials in general at Hong Kong, nor is that course being pursued in the United States. This sewing woman has been returned to her home. Many another woman has at equal peril to herself made her complaint and it has fallen upon the deaf ears of officials, and the poor slave has had to settle with her masters for her fool-hardiness.
Now we will return to Hong Kong, and to past history. We will cite just one more case to show something of the reluctance of officials there to prosecute the traffickers in human flesh. A Chinaman, Tsang San-Fat, petitioned the Colonial Secretary at Hong Kong in regard to the custody of his little daughter, whom, "under stress of poverty," he had given away to a man named Leung A-Tsit, the October previous, the understanding being that the latter should find her a husband when she grew up, and should not send her away to other ports. In May the parents learned from A-Sin, employed by Leung A-Tsit, that the latter was going to take away the little girl to another place. After taxing the man with this, and receiving only excuses in reply, the father petitioned that Leung A-Tsit should be prevented from carrying out his design. Leung A-Tsit filed a counter-petition, stating that Tsang San-Fat, being unable to support a family, handed over to him his little daughter, aged six years; that the little girl was to become his daughter and to be brought up by him, he paying $23 to the parents. He accused the father of trying to extort money from him, and appealed for "protection" from "impending calamities." Later, further facts came out, showing that the father of the child had borrowed $5 three years before from Leung A-Tsit, which, with interest at ten cents per month for every dollar, now amounted to $23. The September before, his creditor came and demanded payment, and when the father told him he had no money, and found it very difficult to provide for his family, Leung A-Tsit said: "Very well, you can give me your daughter instead, and when she is grown up I will find her a husband." It was finally agreed that he should have the little girl for $25, viz., the $23 already owing, and $2 to the mother as "tea-money." The $2 were paid and he took the child away. The mother said: "I was very sorry about it and cried." (But mothers have little to say as to the disposal of the children they bear in the Orient). The Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy, took a deep interest in this case, when he heard of it, regarding it as "an illegal transaction," and urged upon the Attorney General, Mr. G. Phillipo, to prosecute, on his behalf, the purchaser of the girl, and that both the father of the child and Leung A-Tsit be notified that the father was entitled to the child by British law, and referring the father to the police magistrate. The police magistrate requested of the Colonial Secretary that the Attorney General's opinion be obtained, as to what course the magistrate should pursue. The final outcome of the case is told by Governor Hennessy in a despatch to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
"I made a minute on the petitions, directing them to be sent to the Attorney General, as 'the parties appear to acknowledge being concerned in an illegal transaction.' In a few days the papers were returned to me with the following opinion of the Attorney General: 'The transaction referred to would not be recognized in our laws as giving any rights, except perhaps as to guardianship, but I am unable to say there is anything illegal in the matter beyond that. I do not think it a criminal offence if it goes no further than the adoption of a child and the payment of money to its parents for the privilege.'"
Later, when His Excellency was calling the attention of Acting Attorney General Russell to a somewhat similar case, he states, in reference to this above-described case:
"Mr. Phillipo, before whom the papers were laid, did not seem disposed to enforce the rights of the father, on the ground that he had sold the child. I did not agree with Mr. Phillipo's view of the law."
CHAPTER 8.
JUSTICE FROM THE SUPREME BENCH.
On October 6th, 1879, Sir John Smale, the Hon. Chief Justice for Hong Kong, passed judgment in three cases on prisoners convicted of various degrees of crime connected with the enticing, detaining, buying and selling of children. Governor Hennessy, in reporting the remarks made by the Chief Justice on that occasion to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, pronounced it "an able and elaborate judgment on the existence of slavery at Hong Kong."
Said Sir John Smale:
"Various causes have occasioned delay in passing sentence, of which I will only refer to one: The gravity of the fact that these and other cases have recently brought so prominently to the notice of the Court that two specific classes of slavery exist in this Colony to a very great extent, viz., so-called domestic slavery, and slavery for the purposes of prostitution. The three cases now awaiting the sentence of the Court are specially provided for by Ordinances of 1865 and 1872, prohibiting kidnaping and illegally detaining men, women, and children; and no difficulty ever arose in my mind as to the crimes of which these prisoners are severally convicted, or as to the sentences due to such crimes; and there is no question as to crimes or punishment of cases where women are smuggled into brothels, some licensed and others unlicensed, or otherwise dedicated to immoral purposes. But the enormous extent to which slavery in this Colony has grown up has called into existence a greatly increasing traffic, especially in women and children. The number of Chinamen in this Colony has increased and is increasing rapidly, whilst their great increase in wealth has fostered licentious habits, notably in buying women for purposes sanctioned neither by the laws nor customs on the mainland. I hold in my hand a placard in Chinese, torn down from the wall of the Central School, Cough Street steps, in this city. The translation appears at length in the Hong Kong Daily Press of August 15th, 1879. The purport of that translation is shortly that the advertiser, one Cheong, has lost a purchased slave girl named Tai Ho, aged 13 years. After a full description of the girl a reward is offered in these terms:—'If there is in either of the four quarters any worthy man who knows where she is gone to, and will send a letter, he will be rewarded with four full weight dollars, and the person detaining the slave will be rewarded with fifteen full weight dollars.' These words are subsequently added:—'This is firm, and the words will not be eaten.' I recently spoke in reprobation of slavery from this Bench, and in consequence of my remarks a gentleman who tore down this placard gave it to the editor of the Daily Press, and in a letter in that paper he stated that such placards are common, and that he had torn down a hundred such placards. Has Cuba or has Peru ever exhibited more palpable, more public evidence of the existence of generally recognized slavery in these hotbeds of slavery, than such placards as the one I now hold in my hand, to prove that slavery exists in this Colony? The notices have been posted in a most populous neighborhood, and have been in all probability read—they ought to have been, they must have been read—by scores of our Chinese policemen.
"Important as this Colony is, politically and commercially, it is but a dot in the ocean; its area is about half that of the county of Rutland; the circumference of this island is calculated at about 27 miles, whilst that of the Isle of Wight is about 56 miles. The cultivated land on this island may be to the barren waste about one-half per cent, and there is no agrarian slavery here in nearly the total absence of farms, and on this dot in the ocean it is estimated that the slave population has reached ten thousand souls! I first became fully alive to the existence of so-called domestic slavery in this Colony at the Criminal Sessions in May last, on the trial of two cases…. But it is said that what is called domestic slavery, as it exists in Hong Kong, is mild, and it is said to be the opinion of a gentleman of great experience in Chinese, that, as it exists here, it is not contrary to the Christian religion, and that it is as general a fashion for Chinese ladies in Hong Kong to purchase one or more girls to attend on them as it is for English ladies to hire ladies' maids, and that the custom is so general that it would be highly impolitic, if not impossible, to put down the system. It may be that slavery as it exists in the houses of the better classes in Hong Kong is mild, and that custom among the better classes renders servitude to them a boon as long as it lasts. It is, I believe, an admitted duty that when the young girl grows up and becomes marriageable she is married; but then it is the custom that the husband buys her, and her master receives the price always paid for a wife, whilst he has received the girl's services for simple maintenance; so that, according to the marriageable excess in the price of the bride over the price he paid for the girl, he is a gainer, and the purchase of the child produces a good return. But the picture has another aspect. What, if the master is brutal, or the mistress jealous, becomes of the poor girl? Certain recent cases show that she is sold to become a prostitute here or at Singapore or in California, a fate often worse than death to the girl, at a highly remunerative price to the brute, the master. It seems to me that all slavery, domestic, agrarian, or for immoral purposes, comes within one and the same category."
Every word uttered on this occasion by Sir John Smale, Chief Justice, has value, but it is impossible for us to quote it all. Referring to the purchase of kidnaped children from the kidnapers by well-to-do Chinese residents of Hong Kong, without effort on the part of these purchasers to ascertain from whence the children came, he says:
"In each of these cases I requested the prosecution of these well-to-do persons, purchasers of these human chattels, who had bought these children, whose money had occasioned the kidnaping, just as a receiver of stolen goods buys stolen property without due or any inquiry to verify the patent lies of the vendors. I have reason to believe that H.E. the Governor was desirous that my request should, if proper, be complied with; but on reference to former cases it appeared that a former Attorney-General had found that the system had been almost if not altogether unchecked for many years past, and that in particular, when His Excellency had desired to enforce the rights of a father to recover his child, he was not disposed to enforce that right because the father had sold that child."
He relates the details of yet another case concerning which he says: "I took the responsibility to direct the Acting Attorney General to prosecute this man and his wife." But the Attorney General, it seems, did not.
"Is it possible that such a being as man can, according to law … become a slave even by his own consent?" asks the Chief Justice. "I say it is impossible in law, as Sir R. Phillimore, 1 Phill., International Law, vol. 1, p. 316, has said in a passage I read with the most respectful concurrence, but too long for full quotation." "It is unnecessary for me to trace how it became the Common Law of England that whosoever breathes the air of England cannot be a slave." After reference to notable decisions on the part of England's highest authorities as to the unlawfulness of slavery; to the claim that slavery was secured to the Chinese residents by the promise not to interfere with their customs, and reminding his hearers that the promise was made only "pending Her Majesty's pleasure"; after quoting the Queen's proclamation against slavery at Hong Kong, and the assurance in that proclamation that "these Acts will be enforced by all Her Majesty's officers, civil and military, within this Colony," he asks:
"Have all Her Majesty's officers, civil and military, enforced these Acts within this Colony? I think they have not; I confess I have not. Our excuse has been in the difficulty of enforcing these Acts, but mainly in our ignorance of the extent of the evil. What is our duty, now that we know that slavery in its worst as in its best form exists in this dot in the ocean to the extent of say 10,000 slaves,—a number probably unexceeded within the same space at any time under the British Crown, and, so far as I believe, the only spot where British law prevails in which slavery in any form exists at the present time?"
Then he deals with the pretext that this slavery is Chinese custom, in words we have already quoted in the first chapter of this book. He passes on to consider and affirm the propriety of the Chief Justice directing the Attorney General to prosecute these cases, and answers some of the objections raised by the latter officer, concluding this portion of his remarks with the words: "What I have said has been said to meet arguments, doubts, and difficulties which have paralyzed public opinion and public action here; which arguments, doubts and difficulties are the less easy to combat because they have been rather hinted at than avowed."
The Chief Justice then sentenced several prisoners for enticing, kidnaping or detaining children with intent to sell them into slavery, to penal servitude for terms ranging from 18 months to 2 years.
On October 20th, Sir John Smale wrote the Governor:
"I cannot understand why such classes should as classes increase in this Colony at all, unless it be that (in addition to the Chinese demand for domestic servants and brothels) there be an increased foreign element increasing the demand. I fear that a high premium is obtained by persons who kidnap girls in the high prices which they realize on sale to foreigners as kept women.[A] No one can walk through some of the bye-streets in this Colony without seeing well dressed China girls in great numbers whose occupations are self-proclaimed; or pass those streets, or go into the schools in this Colony, without counting beautiful children by the hundred whose Eurasian origin is self-declared. If the Government would inquire into the present condition of these classes, and still more, into what has become of these women and their children of the past, I believe that it will be found that in the great majority of cases the women have sunk into misery, and that of the children the girls that have survived have been sold to the profession of their mothers, and that, if boys, they have been lost sight of or have sunk into the condition of the mean whites of the late slave-holding states of America. The more I penetrate below the polished surface of our civilization the more convinced am I that the broad undercurrent of life here is more like that in the Southern States of America, when slavery was dominant, than it resembles the all-pervading civilization of England." "My suggestion that the mild intervention of the law should be invoked was ignored. It was also met by the assertion that custom had so sanctioned the evils in this Colony as that they are above the reach of the law, and that by custom the slavery was mild."
[Footnote A: Rather, it would seem in later years, by renting them for a monthly stipend.]
The Governor, in a letter to the Colonial Secretary at London about this time, informs the Colonial Secretary of his own failure also to induce the Attorney General to prosecute cases to which His Excellency had called his attention, and furthermore he explains that other of his principal executive officers held to the same views as the Attorney General.
CHAPTER 9.
THE CHINESE PETITION AND PROTEST.
We get additional and valuable light on social conditions at Hong Kong, through statements drawn up by prominent Chinese men and laid before the Governor. As a representation from the Chinese standpoint it has peculiar value at all points excepting where self-interest might afford a motive for coloring the truth.
The occasion of these statements was as follows: On November 9, 1878, a month before the report of the Commission was published, certain Chinese merchants had petitioned the Governor to be allowed to form themselves into a society for suppressing kidnaping and trafficking in human beings. This petition states that the worst kidnapers are "go-betweens and old women who have houses for the detention of kidnaped people." They declare that these
"inveigle virtuous women or girls to come to Hong Kong, at first deceiving them by the promise of finding them employment (as domestic servants), and then proceeding to compel them by force to become prostitutes, or exporting them to a foreign port, or distribute them by sale over the different ports of China, boys being sold to become adopted children, girls being sold to be trained for prostitution." "Your petitioners are of opinion that such wicked people are to be found belonging to any of the [neighboring] districts, but in our district of Tung Kun such cases of kidnaping are comparatively frequent, and all the merchants of Hong Kong, without exception, are expressing their annoyance."
Accompanying the petition was a statement of the situation:
"Hong Kong is the emporium and thoroughfare of all the neighboring ports. Therefore these kidnapers frequent Hong Kong much, it being a place where it is easy to buy and to sell, and where effective means are at hand to make good a speedy escape. Now, the laws of Hong Kong being based on the principle of the liberty of the person, the kidnapers take advantage of this to further their own plans. Thus they use with their victims honeyed speeches, and give them trifling profits, or they use threats and stern words, all in order to induce them to say they are willing to do so and so. Even if they are confronted with witnesses it is difficult to show up their wicked game…. Kidnaping is a crime to be found everwhere, but there is no place where it is more rife than at Hong Kong…. Now it is proposed to publish everywhere offers of reward to track such kidnapers and have them arrested…. The crimes of kidnaping are increasing from day to day."
This proposal on the part of Chinese merchants to form such a society was cordially accepted by officials, and the Governor requested that two police magistrates, whom he named, the Captain Superintendent of Police and Dr. Eitel, should draw up a scheme to check kidnaping, in concert with the Chinese petitioners. This committee met, and decided that the objects of the "Chinese Society for the Protection of Women and Children" should he as follows:
1. The detection and suppression of kidnapers and kidnaping. 2. The restoration to their homes of women and children decoyed or kidnaped for prostitution, emigration, or slavery. 3. The maintenance of women and children pending investigation and restoration to their homes. 4. Undertaking to marry or set out in life women and children who could not safely be returned home.
At a subsequent meeting of these gentlemen, Mr. Francis, Acting Police Magistrate, asked the Chinese merchants present, "If there was of late any special modus operandi observed in the proceedings of kidnapers differing from what had been observed and known formerly?" To this the Chinese gentlemen present replied that "there was indeed a marked difference observable in the proceedings of kidnapers of late, because they had become acquainted with the loopholes British law leaves open, also with the principle of personal freedom jealously guarded by British law, and that through this knowledge their proceedings had not only become less tangible for the police to deal with, but the kidnapers had been emboldened to give themselves a definite organization, following a regular system adapted to the peculiarities of British and Chinese law, and using regular resorts and depots in the suburbs of Hong Kong." In support of this, Mr. Fung Ming-shan laid on the table two documents written in Chinese. One of these contained a list of 38 different houses in the neighborhood of Sai-ying-pim and Tai-ping-shan used by professional kidnapers, whose names are given, but whose residence could not be ascertained. The other document consists of a list of 41 professional kidnapers whose personalia have been satisfactorily ascertained.
The foreign Magistrates present then pointed out to the Chinese members of the meeting that one great difficulty the Government frequently met in dealing with such cases was the question, what to do with women or children found to have been unlawfully sold or kidnaped; how to restore them to their lawful guardians in the interior of China; how to provide for them in case such women or children had actually been sold by their very guardians, who, if the woman or child in question were restored to them, would but seek another purchaser; how to deal with persons absolutely friendless, etc. The Chinese members of the meeting replied that they were prepared to undertake this duty. They would employ trustworthy detectives to ascertain the family relations of any kidnaped person, who would see to such persons being restored to their families upon guarantee being given for proper treatment; and in cases where restoration was impossible or not advisable, they would take charge of such kidnaped persons, maintain them, and eventually see them respectably married. It was then decided that the Magistrates present should draw up a succinct statement of the provisions of the British law forbidding the sale of persons and guaranteeing the liberty of the subject, which should be translated into Chinese, and circulated freely in the neighboring districts.
Although the action on the part of the Chinese merchants in forming themselves into an organization to put down kidnaping was received with much appreciation by the Governor and Secretary of State at London, as well as by many of the officials at Hon' Kong, there were those who from the first doubted whether the motives of the Chinese in thus uniting were wholly disinterested on the part of the majority. Such were confirmed in their doubts by the action of these same Chinese as soon as Sir John Smale set to work in earnest to exterminate slavery, and declared in his court a year later than the formation of this Chinese Society:
"I was given to understand that buying children by respectable Chinamen as servants was according to Chinese customs, and that to attempt to put it down would be to arouse the prejudices of the Chinese…. Humanity is of no party, and personal liberty is to be held the right of every human being under British law…. Whatever the law of China may be, the law of England must prevail here. If Chinamen are willing to submit to the law, they may remain, but on condition of obeying the law, whether it accords with their notions of right or wrong or not; and if remaining they act contrary to the law, they must take the consequences."
Sir John Smale's utterance created intense feeling among these Chinese merchants, who at once called upon the Governor to represent their views and to protest. The Governor informed them that "slavery in any form could not be allowed in the Colony." They protested that their system of adoption and of obtaining girls for domestic purposes was not slavery; "and they referred to the more immoral practice of buying girls for the Hong Kong brothels, which, they alleged, Government departments had connived at, though it was a practice most hateful to the respectable Chinese." The Governor then asked them for their views in writing, and they sent them to him in the form of a memorial, containing the following words:
"Your petitioners are informed that his Lordship, the Chief Justice, after the trial of a case of purchasing free persons for prostitution, said, in the course of his judgment, that buying and selling of girls for domestic servitude was an indictable offense;—which put all native residents of Hong Kong in a state of extreme terror; all great merchants and wealthy residents in the first instance being afraid lest they might incur the risk of being found guilty of a statutory offence, whilst the poor and low class people, in the second instance, feared being deprived of a means to preserve their lives (by selling children to be domestic servants)."
These petitioners claimed:
That the buying of boys for "adoption" and of girls for domestic servitude, "widely differs from the above-mentioned wicked practices" of kidnaping and buying and selling of girls into brothels.
That the domestic slaves "are allowed to take their ease and have no hard work to perform," and when they grow up, "they have to be given in marriage."
That all former Governors had let them alone in the exercise of
their "social customs."
That Governor Elliott had promised them freedom in the exercise of
their native customs.
That infanticide "would be extremely increased if it were entirely forbidden to dispose of children by buying and selling;" parents deprived of the means of keeping off starvation by selling their children would "drift into thiefdom and brigandage."
Following the petition was an elaborate statement on the subject, full of subtle arguments, misstatements and perversions, together, of course, with some well-put statements, forming ten propositions in favor of domestic slavery. Their first claim is not exactly true, as even Dr. Eitel, who defended domestic servitude, was bound to declare, namely, That Chinese law does not forbid adoption and domestic servitude. We have already quoted Sir John Smale's statement of the Chinese law, which restricted the adoption of boys to the taking of one with the same surname as the family. And as to the buying of girls for domestic servitude, though largely practiced in China, yet these Chinese merchants could hardly have been ignorant of the fact that it was an illegality before the Chinese law. "The reason of this," says the Chinese protest, "is the excessive increase of population, and the wide extent of poverty and distress." But there was neither over-population nor distress at Hong Kong which should necessitate the introduction of the practice into that Colony. "If all those practices were forbidden, poor and distressed people would have no means left to save their lives, but would be compelled to sit down and wait for death." In other words, these men would claim that their motives were wholly, or largely benevolent in purchasing the children of the poor! And what better could the poor do for a living than to beget children and sell them into slavery to the rich!
"Whilst all those practices, therefore, may be classed together as buying and selling (of free persons), it is yet requisite to distinguish carefully the good or wicked purposes which each class of practice serve, and accordingly apply discriminately either punishment or non-punishment." But anti-slavery legislation has never done this, and never will. The question is not to any large extent the comfort or misery of the chattel, but the forbidding that one human being should be allowed to deal with another as a chattel at all.
This attitude of the Chinese merchants who allied themselves with the British officials for the Protection of Women and Children gave no omen of good from the very first. Yet from that day to the present these men have had a large share in the government of the native women of Hong Kong and Singapore, rendering it very difficult ever to elevate the standard of womanhood, or to educate Chinese women in principles that should be the common inheritance of all who live in a so called free country.
The statement continues:
"Since the last few years many Chinese have brought their property, wives and families to the place, supposing they would be able to live here in peace, and to rejoice in their property. …Chinese residents of Hong Kong have, therefore, been in the habit of following all native customs which were not a contravention of Chinese statute law [but it seems this sort of buying and selling of human beings is contrary to Chinese law. This is a misrepresentation]. It is said that the whole increase and prosperity of the Colony from its first foundation to the present day is all based on the strength of that invitation which Sir Charles Elliott gave to intending settlers, and that this present intention of applying, all of a sudden, the repressive force of the law to both the practice of buying or selling boys or girls for purposes of adoption or for domestic servitude is not only a violation of the rule of Sir Charles Elliott, but moreover will, it is to be feared, not fail to trouble the people."
They speak of infanticide as an evil that
"must be classed with evils almost unavoidable. Now if the buying of adoptive children and of servant girls is to be uniformly abolished, it is to be feared that henceforth the practice of infanticide will extremely increase beyond what it ever was. The heinousness of the violation of the great Creator's benevolence, which constitutes infanticide, is beyond comparison with the indulgence granted to the system of buying and selling children to prolong their existence."
As though these benevolent persons only bought slaves for this one laudable purpose, to preserve their lives! "As regards the buyers, they look upon themselves as affording relief to distressed people, and consider the matter as an act akin to charity," etc.
A flood of light is let in upon the matter of the reluctance of British officials to move in the putting down of domestic slavery and the buying and selling of boys among the natives, in the following well-deserved thrust at the weak point in the armor of the British officials:
"The office of the Registrar-General was charged with the superintendence of prostitutes and the licensing of brothels and similar affairs. But from 80 to 90 per cent of all these prostitutes in Hong Kong were brought into these brothels by purchase, as is well known to everybody. If buying and selling is a matter of a criminal character, the proper thing would be, first of all, to abolish this evil (brothel slavery). But how comes it that since the first establishment of the Colony down to the present day the same old practice prevails in these licensed brothels, and has never been forbidden or abolished?"
This was a center shot, and calculated to weaken the hands of at least the guilty officials. What could they say? Were the officials prepared, since the report of the Commission a few months before had made public the scandals connected with the licensing and inspection of brothels, to set about reforming the abuses by radical measures? Certainly the Chief Justice was. He did everything in his power to abolish slavery as slavery, not simply to abolish slavery when unconnected with brothels. But subsequent history seems to indicate that, from this point on, the British officials were ready to compromise with the Chinese merchants, and the testimony from this time forward was well-nigh universal in Hong Kong circles that domestic slavery, or "domestic servitude," as Dr. Eitel recommended that it should be called instead (since a weed by another name may help the imagination to think it a rose), was very "mild" and "harmless," and that the adoption of purchased boys was a "religious" duty, or at least, had a religious flavor about it, as practiced by the Chinese. But as we have already said, that adoption in order to be lawful in China must be the adoption of one of the same surname.
On October 27th, 1879, the Chief Justice, at an adjourned sitting of the Court for the purpose, sentenced two more offenders, one for kidnaping a boy, and the other for detaining a girl with intent to sell her. In the first case the Judge said:
"Received as you had been into the father's house in charity, you availed yourself of the opportunity to steal his child, and tried to sell the child openly, probably having hawked him from door to door. The sentence of the Court on you, Tang Atim, is that you be imprisoned and kept to hard labor for two years, and that you be kept in solitary confinement for a period of one week in every two months of your imprisonment."
Chan Achit, an old woman, convicted of having unlawfully detained a female child of 11 years of age, with intent to sell her, was next placed in the dock. His Lordship said:
"The evidence in this case has shown the extraordinary extent to which, under cloak of China custom, the iniquity of dealing in children has extended. From the evidence, I have no doubt that a vagabond clansman to whom the father had occasionally given out of his penury had originated the crime in enticing the child away, and it seems to me to be clear that the prisoner was as well known as a 'broker of mankind' as a receiver of stolen children, to sell them on commission, as receivers of old iron and marine stores could be found in this Colony to dispose of stolen property. The little girl bought and sold, aged 11 years, is a very intelligent child, and described the negotiations for her sale with great clearness."
The Chief Justice then went on to repeat the little girl's testimony as to these "brokers of mankind," and the child's knowledge, from personal observation of these purchases and sales, to which he adds:
"Let me here ask, Is the trade, or rather profession, 'broker of mankind,' also a sacred China custom? I will not ask the queries which would naturally arise in case the question were answered in the affirmative. At present, however, I must say that, custom or no custom, the practice of this profession is prohibited by statute, and it is my duty to meet its exercise by punishment."
The prisoner was sentenced to two years' penal servitude. The Chief Justice concluded his remarks on that occasion by replying to the statements made in the Chinese petition.
He called attention to the Chinese resting their claim on the temporary promise of Governor Elliott in 1841; of the fact that they ignored the proclamation of the Queen in 1845. He said that infanticide was also a Chinese custom in the same sense that slavery was, on the words of the petition:
"Amongst the Chinese there has hitherto been the custom of drowning their daughters. The Chinese threaten the increase of this 'custom' of drowning children if their sale is put down…. I can only say that in case father, mother, or relative were convicted of infanticide, Chinese custom would be no protection, and, unless I am grievously mistaken, the presiding judge would have no alternative but to sentence the perpetrator to death … the one custom is tolerated just as the other custom is tolerated, and both alike or neither must be claimed as sanctioned by Governor Elliott's proclamation. All remedies which ever existed by common law or by statute in England up to 1845 against ownership of human beings, against every form of slavery, extend by their own proper force and authority to Hong Kong; and, if that were not enough, all English laws applicable to Hong Kong, including those against ownership in human beings, were by express Ordinances 6 of 1845, and 12 of 1873, embodied into the laws of Hong Kong, whilst the worst forms of slavery are especially punished by Ordinance 4 of 1865, and 2 of 1875. I am bound by my most solemn obligations to enforce all these laws. I must, therefore, without fear, favour or affection, discharge this duty to the best of my ability."
CHAPTER 10.
NOT FALLEN—BUT ENSLAVED.
The Report of the Commission affords the following instructive account of the difference in the moral and social status between the prostitute of the East and West:
"In approaching the subject of prostitution, as it is found in Hong Kong at the present day, it is absolutely necessary for a full and just comprehension of it, to keep in mind two distinct considerations. One is the almost total identity of the whole system of prostitution, which since times immemorial is an established institution all over the large empire of China. The other point to be kept in mind is the radical difference which distinguishes the personal character, the life and the surroundings of Chinese prostitutes from all that is characteristic of the prostitutes of Europe." … "At the present day the Chinese prostitutes of Hong Kong have but very little to distinguish them, either in the past, present, or future of their personal lives, or in their position and surroundings, from the prostitutes of the 18 provinces of China…. Those of the prostitutes of Hong Kong who are inmates of brothels licensed for foreigners only, or who live in sly brothels for foreigners, have adopted a different style of dress, but are otherwise in no essential point differently situated from prostitutes in China, except that the inmates of brothels licensed for foreigners are subject to compulsory medical examination, and consequently far more despised by their countrymen and even other prostitutes."
"Prostitutes in Europe are, as a general rule, fallen women, the victims of seduction, or possibly of innate vice. Being the outcasts of society, and having little, if any, prospect of being again admitted into decent and respectable circles of life, deprived also of their own self-respect as well as the regards of their relatives, occasionally even troubled with qualms of conscience, they mostly dread thinking of their future, and seek oblivion in excesses of boisterous dissipation. The Chinese prostitutes of Hong Kong are an entirely different set of people…. Very few of them can be called fallen women; scarcely any of them are the victims of seduction, according to the English sense of the term, refined or unrefined. The great majority of them are owned by professional brothel-keepers or traders in women in Canton or Macao, have been brought up for the profession, and trained in various accomplishments suited to brothel life…. They frequently know neither father nor mother, except what they call a 'pocket-mother,' that is, the woman who bought them from others…. They feel of course that they are the bought property of their pocket-mother or keeper, but they know also that this is the feeling of almost every other woman in China, liable as each is to be sold, by her own parents or relatives, to be the wife or concubine of a man she never sets eyes on before the wedding day, or liable, as the case may be, to be pledged or sold, by her parents or relatives, to serve as a domestic slave in a strange family…. They have the chance, if they are pretty and accomplished, of being wooed … and they may look forward with tolerable certainty to being made the second, or third, or fourth, or at any rate the favorite wife of some wealthy gentleman. If not possessed of special attractions or wealthy lovers, they look forward to being taken out of the brothel by an honest devoted man to share the lot of a poor man's wife. Or they may endeavor to save money by singing, music and prostitution combined, and not only to purchase their freedom, but to set up for themselves, buying, rearing, and selling girls to act as servants or concubines or prostitutes, or they may finally come to keep brothels as managers for wealthy capitalists or speculators. There is further a certain proportion of prostitutes in Hong Kong who have, by the hand of their own parents or husbands, been mortgaged or sold into temporary servitude as prostitutes, or who of their own will and accord act as prostitutes under personal agreement with a brothel-keeper, for a definite advance of a sum of money, required to rescue the family, or some member of it, from some great calamity or permanent ruin."
"There is, however, one class of women in Hong Kong who can scarcely be called prostitutes, and who have no parallel either in China, outside the Treaty Ports, or in Europe. They are generally called 'protected women.' They may originally have come forth from one or other of the above-mentioned classes of prostitutes, or may be the offspring of protected women…."
The Report describes the situation of the "protected woman" in the following terms:
"She resides in a house rented by her protector, who lives generally in another part of the town; she receives a fixed salary from her protector, and sublets every available room to individual sly prostitutes, or to women keeping a sly brothel, no visitor being admitted unless he have some introduction or secret pass-words. If an inspector of brothels attempts to enter, he is quietly informed that this is not a brothel, but the private family residence of Mr. So and So…. This system makes the suppression of sly brothels an impossibility…. The principal points of difference between the various classes of Chinese prostitutes of Hong Kong and the prostitutes of Europe amount therefore to this, that Chinese prostitution is essentially a bargain in money and based on a national system of female slavery."
"It must not be supposed, however, from what is said above, that the Chinese, as a people, view prostitution as a matter of moral indifference. On the contrary, the literature, the religions, the laws and the public opinion of China, all join in condemning prostitution as immoral, and in co-operation to keep it under a certain check. The literature of the Confucianists, which, as regards purity and utter absence of immoral suggestions, stands unrivalled by any other nation in the world, does not countenance prostitution in any form…. The laws and public opinion … agree in keeping prostitution rigidly out of sight. Although the Chinese are a Pagan nation, they have no deification of vice in their temples, no indecent shows in their theatres, no orgies in their houses of public entertainment, no parading of lewd women in their streets…. In short, as far as outward and public observation goes, China presents a more virtuous appearance than most European countries."
The report goes on to show that nevertheless the practice of polygamy,
"leaving the childless concubines liable to be sold or sent adrift at any moment, the law of inheritance neglecting daughters in favour of sons," and "the universal practice of buying and selling females combined with the system of domestic servitude," makes the suppression of prostitution difficult. "This intermixture of female slavery with prostitution has been noticed in Hong Kong at the very time when the Legislature first attempted to deal with Chinese prostitution."
We now understand the nature of this wretched form of slavery as carried on at Hong Kong. There did not exist a class of women brought to the pitiable plight of prostitution by the wiles of the seducer, or through the mishap of a lapse from virtue, after which all doors to reform are practically closed against such, as in Western civilization, nor were there those known to have fallen through innate perversity; but such as existed among the Chinese were literal slaves, in the full sense of that word. From the standpoint of these officials, for the most part, prostitution was necessary. This was plainly declared in many official documents. The fact that they licensed brothels proves also that prostitution was considered necessary. And since necessary, if the means failed whereby brothels in the Occident are maintained, then they must be maintained by Oriental means,—which was slavery. Under such circumstances, to license prostitution meant, from the very nature of the case, to license slavery. To encourage prostitution, as it always is encouraged by the Contagious Diseases Acts, meant to encourage slavery. Hence they reasoned, and declared—to use the language of the Registrar General, Cecil C. Smith—that it was "useless to try and deal with the question of the freedom of Chinese prostitutes by law or by any Government regulation. From all the surroundings the thing is impracticable."
It must be admitted that the conditions at Hong Kong favored the development of social impurity. From the moment of British occupation, and before, in fact, there were at that place large numbers of unmarried soldiers and sailors, many of very loose morals; also many men in civil and military positions as officials, and numerous merchants, etc., most of them separated far from their families and the restraints that surrounded them at home. On the Chinese side, there were men accustomed to deal with their women as chattels, willing to sell them to the foreigners.
But we need to inquire a little further into the matter before conceding that because a thing will almost inevitably take place, therefore it is best to license it in order to keep it within bounds. The superficial sophist says: "Prostitution always has existed and always will exist. Painful as the fact is, such is the frailty of human nature. You cannot make men moral by act of parliament, and it is foolish to try. We will have to license the thing, and thus control it as best we can. That is the only practical way to deal with this evil." Such reasoning as this exhibits the most confused notions as to the nature of law.
No law is ever enacted except with the expectation that an offense against it will take place. Law anticipates transgression as much as license; but law provides a check upon offenses and license provides an incitement to them. "The law was not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient." Have not murder and stealing always existed? Are they not likely to exist in spite of laws against them, so long as human nature remains so frail? Then why not license them in order to keep them under control? It is perfectly apparent to all that to license murder and stealing; would be the surest way of allowing them to get quickly beyond control. "But you cannot make men moral by act of parliament, and it is foolish to try; to put a man in jail will not change him from a thief into an honest man." "But," you reply, "we do not punish men for stealing and for murder for their own good, but for the good of the community at large." Certainly. Then what becomes of the argument that because men will not become pure by act of parliament they are to be allowed to commit their depredations unmolested? The primary object of law is not reformatory but protective,—for the victims of lawlessness.
Our great Law-Giver, Jesus Christ, admitted a certain necessity of evil, but He did not say, "therefore license it, to keep it within bounds." He said, "It must needs be that offenses come." But His remedy for keeping the offenses within bounds was, "woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." As inevitably as the offense was committed so invariably must the punishment fall on the offender's head. That is the only way to keep any evil within bounds. This is the principle that underlies all law.
These Hong Kong officials who believed in the licensing of brothel slavery and brought it about, have much to say about the "unfortunate creatures" who were the victims of men. But if the advocate of license is self-deceived in his attitude toward this social evil, we need not be deceived in him. One does not propose a license as a remedy for an evil, except as led to that view by secret sympathy with the evil. A license of an evil is never proposed excepting upon the mental acquiescence in that evil.
British officials who licensed immoral houses at Hong Kong did not wish the libertine to be disturbed in his depredations. The Chinese merchants were able to see this fact if those officials were not ready to admit it even to themselves. They knew how to throw a stone that would secure their own glass houses. Hence they said in their memorial to the Governor:
"From 80 to 90 per cent of all these prostitutes in Hong Kong were brought into these [licensed] brothels by purchase, as is well known to everybody. If buying and selling is a matter of criminal character the proper thing would be first of all, to abolish this evil (connected with the brothels). But how comes it that since the first establishment of the Colony down to the present day the same old practice prevails in these licensed brothels, and has never been forbidden or abolished?"
It is to be noted that none of the officials at Hong Kong accused the Chinese merchants of slander in saying that from 80 to 90 per cent of the thousands of prostitutes in the Colony were absolute slaves. The Government was placed in a very awkward position by this challenge on the part of the Chinese. How could a Government that held slaves in its licensed brothels forbid Chinese residents holding slaves in their homes? But the Governor did not propose to be compromised. He wrote to the Secretary of State at London: "I believe I only anticipate your instructions, in giving orders that the law, whatever may be the consequences to the brothel system, should be strictly enforced so as to secure the freedom of the women." But he reckoned without his host. The Secretary of State did not stand by the Governor. So far as the records show, the Governor and Chief Justice stood alone, his entire Executive Council taking the opposing side. What was to be done?