"Besides being grossly unjust, as between men and women, this law is a piece of class legislation of an extreme kind. The position and wealth of men of the upper classes place the women belonging to them above any chance of being accused of prostitution. Ladies who ride in carriages through the street at night are in no danger of being molested. But what about working women? what about the daughters, sisters and wives of working men, out, it may be, on an errand of mercy at night? and what, most of all, of that girl whose father, mother, friends are dead or far away, who is struggling hard, in a hard world, to live uprightly and justly by the work of her own hands,—is she in no danger of this law? Lonely and friendless, and poor, is she in no danger of a false accusation from malice or from error? especially since under this law homeless girls are particularly marked out as just subjects for its operation; and if she is accused, what has she to rely on, under God, except that of which this law deprives her, the appeal to be tried 'by God and my country,' by which it is understood that she claims the judicial means of defense to which the law of the land entitles her?
"I will only add that this law has a fatally corrupting influence over the male youth of every country where it is in force. It warps the conscience, and confuses the sense of right and wrong. When the State raises this immoral traffic into the position of a lawful industry, superintended by Government officials, what are the young and ignorant to think? They cannot believe that that which the Government of the country allows, and makes rules for, and superintends, is really wrong."
Such measures as these have acquired a foothold in the United States more than once, but have been driven out again. They are proposed every year almost, at some State Legislature, and often have been proposed at several different legislatures during a single year. They are in operation, to some extent at least, under the United States flag at Hawaii, in the Philippines, and at Porto Rico. The enforcement of the Acts must depend to a large extent upon the co-operation of the male fornicator with the police and officers of the law, and places good women and girls terribly in the power of malicious or designing libertines.
It appears from official records, that in Hong Kong, during six months in 1886-7, out of 139 women denounced by British soldiers and sailors as having communicated contagion, 102 were on examination found free from disease, and only 37 to be diseased; and during a similar period in 1887-8, out of 103 women that were denounced, 101 were on examination found free from disease and only two diseased. We can judge from this of both the worthlessness of the measure for tracing diseased women, and the mischievousness of the measure as an aid to libertines in getting girls they are endeavoring to seduce so injured in reputation that they can easily capture their prey.
As a sanitary measure, the Acts have invariably proved a failure, as shown by honestly handled statistics. There have, to be sure, been many doctors, some of high scientific qualifications, who have produced statistics strongly tending to prove the sanitary benefits of such measures on superficial survey. But these statistics have afterwards been shown to be mistakenly handled or designedly manipulated to make such a showing. This is not a medical book, and any extended treatment of figures as to disease would be entirely out of place in it, so we will content ourselves by saying that during late years physicians of prominence from every part of the world have assembled twice at Brussels for Conferences in regard to this matter. These physicians are in large numbers Continental doctors, the very ones who have had most to do in enforcing such measures. Each time the number of opponents to the Contagious Diseases Acts has rapidly increased, after listening to the testimony from all sides as to their inutility; in fact, the whole force of opinion at each of these Conferences, in 1899 and 1902, was against State Regulation, though there was a division of opinion as to the substitute for it.
In 1903, the Minister of the Interior of France, the country where these Acts originated, nominated an extra-Parliamentary Commission to go thoroughly into these questions. This Commission held its numerous sittings in 1905, and in the end by almost a two-thirds' majority condemned the existing system of regulation in France, and furthermore rejected the alternative proposal of notification with compulsory treatment, by sixteen votes to one. In reporting on the Conferences held in Brussels, the Independence Belge said, in a leading article: "Regulation is visibly decaying, and the fact is the more striking because the country that instituted it (France) is at present the one that meets it with the most ardent hostility."
CHAPTER 4.
MORE POWER DEMANDED AND OBTAINED.
In 1866 the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell, determined upon the repeal of Ordinance 12, 1857, in order to inaugurate "a more vigorous policy of coercion," (says the Commission's report): "The key note of the new regime was struck by the Governor's first minute on the subject, dated 20th October, 1866, in which he wrote he was 'anxious early to introduce to the Council an amended Brothel Ordinance, conferring necessarily almost despotic powers on the Registrar General." … Be it said to the honor of Attorney General (now Sir Julian) Pauncefote, that in the face of this he urges the most weighty objections to the policy of "subjecting persons to fine and imprisonment without the safeguards which surround the administration of justice in a public and open court." But these objections were not allowed to prevail.
It appears that some hesitation was felt on the part of the home authorities in giving approval to the new ordinance. It may have been the warning given by Attorney General Pauncefote, it may have been something else. Whatever it was, the Commission informs us: "The Ordinance 10 of 1867 received its final sanction when the conclusion arrived at by the Colonial Government was before the home authorities, showing that in the event of the ordinance becoming law, revenue would be derived from the tainted source of prostitution among the Chinese." (The italics are the authors').
Ordinance 10, 1867 now came into operation, with the following additional powers in the hands of the "Protector" of Chinese, the Registrar General:
1st, Not only were keepers of unregistered houses to be fined or sent to prison, but the women—"held in practical slavery for the purposes of prostitution"—when found in unregistered houses were also subject to fine and imprisonment.
2nd, The Registrar-General, otherwise the "Protector" of Chinese, could break into any house suspected of being a brothel, and arrest the keeper thereof without warrant. And he could authorize his underlings to do the same.
3rd, The Registrar General could exercise both judicial and executive powers in the prosecution of the duties of his office.
4th, All outdoor prostitutes could be arrested without warrant, fined and imprisoned.
The new law possessed one virtue over the old. It frankly, and more honestly, employed the word "licensed," where the old law said "registered," brothels.
The report of the Commission says:
"Although the new Ordinance conferred such extensive and unusual powers on the Registrar General and Superintendent of Police as to breaking into and entering houses and arresting keepers without warrant, no serious difficulty whatever, so far as the records show,—and we have paid special attention to the point,—seems to have been experienced under the previous enactments in bringing the keepers of such houses before the court…. Nor can we in the second place find among the foregoing records proof of the necessity of the transfer to the Registrar General of the judicial powers…. As a matter of fact, witnesses do not seem to have been at all squeamish in divulging repulsive details in open Court, nor, on the other hand, do the magistrates ever seem to have shown too exacting a disposition as to the nature or amount of the evidence they required to sustain convictions; and the astonishing system of detection which had grown up had met, so far as we can see, with neither discouragement nor remonstrance."
We pause to lift our hearts to God in prayer before venturing to lift the curtain and disclose even a faint outline of the reign of terror now instituted over poor, horror-stricken Chinese women of the humbler ranks of life at Hong Kong. But, in order that we may understand the conditions under which the slave women coming to our Pacific Coast have lived in times past, the recital is necessary. Happy for us if we never needed to know any of these dark chapters of human history and human wrongs! Sad indeed for the thoughtless, and bringing only harm, if such an account as we have to give should be read merely out of curiosity or for entertainment. There is either ennoblement or injury in what we have to say, according to the spirit brought to the task of reading it. Think quietly, then, dear reader, for one moment. From what motive will you read our recital? We do not write what is lawful to the merely inquisitive. Then, will you continue to read from a worthier motive? If not, we pray you, close the book, and pass it on to someone more serious minded. Our message is only for those who will hear with the desire to help. But do not say: "I am too ignorant as to what to do, I am too weak, or I am too lowly, and without talents or influence." No, you are not. There is a place for you to help. God will show it to you, if this book does not suggest a practicable plan for you. What we wish to accomplish, and what we must accomplish, if at all, by just such aid as you can give, sums itself up in this: We must make our officers of the law understand that the question of slavery has been settled once for all in the United States, by the Civil War, and we will have none of it again. It will never be tolerated under the Stars and Stripes; and when you can think of nothing else to do, you can always go aside and cry to the Judge of all the earth to "execute righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed," as He has promised to do, if we but call upon Him.
Now read on with a heart full of courage, not caring for the haunting pain that will be left when you lay the book aside. What others have had to suffer, you can at least endure to hear about, in order to put a check upon like suffering in the future, and in our own land, too. A country bathed in blood as ours has once been has met already its terrible judgment for not throttling the monster, Slavery, in its infancy, before it cost so much blood and treasure. We will be wiser another time, and refuse to trifle with such great wrongs. We cannot brave the Omnipotent wrath in a second judgment for the same offense, lest He say to us: "Ye have not hearkened unto Me, in proclaiming liberty, everyone to his brother, and every man to his neighbor; behold, I proclaim a liberty unto you, saith the Lord, to the sword and to the pestilence and to the famine."
From the first days of the enactment of this measure, and all the way through until 1877, the inspectors of brothels had standing orders to enter any native house that they suspected of containing any women of loose character, and arrest its inmates in accordance with the following plan: The inspector would secure an accomplice, called an informer, or often more than one. The accomplice would enter a native house plentifully supplied with marked money out of the Secret Service Fund. This accomplice was often a friend or relative of the family he called upon. He would often offer them a feast and drinks, and send to a near-by restaurant and procure them at Government expense. After feasting and drinking, he would try to induce some woman of the house to consort with him, showing her a sufficient sum of money to fairly dazzle her eyes. This he could well afford to do, for the Government put the money in his hands to offer, and if the woman accepted, it would not be a loss to the Government, for it would be taken back again afterwards. Perhaps some poor half-starved creature would yield to the tempter; perhaps some heathen man would press his wife to accept the offer, in his greed for the money; perhaps some foolish young girl would think she had suddenly come into great fortune in having a man of such great wealth proposing marriage to her. It must not be forgotten that the poorest people in China often marry in a manner which is almost devoid of all ceremony, and yet it is considered perfectly right and honorable, and the couple remain faithful to each other afterwards. It is not unlikely, then, a young woman might, with the consent of her parents, look upon such a proposal as this as about to eventuate in real marriage, if it were so put before her. No such thing as courting ever takes place in China, previous to marriage. In other cases, doubtless, the informer who had thus intruded himself for the basest reasons into a native house, might really find a woman of loose character there. It were certainly more to the credit of such a woman that she was in hiding, and preferred it to flaunting her shame in a licensed house of infamy. What business have Governments hounding down these women, tearing away their last shred of decency and obliging them if inclining to go wrong to sink at once to the lowest depths of infamy? But that is what the attempt to localize vice in one section of a town, or to legalize it always means. When the informer at Hong Kong had insinuated himself into a native house and by means of the bait of "marked money" caught a victim and sinned with her, at once he threw open the window and summoned the Inspector, who was in waiting outside, who would rush in and arrest all the women and girls in the house, down to children often only 13 or 14 years old. This was not all according to law, but it seems to have been the regular practice. Says Mr. Lister, who was Registrar General for the first year after the Ordinance of 1867 came into operation: "As a general rule, the first thing I knew of a case of an unlicensed brothel coming before me was the finding of a string of women in my office in the morning." "Almost despotic powers" had been put into the hands of the "Registrar General," and these were some of the results. The "marked money" that had caught the victim would now be sanctimoniously taken away from her and restored to the Secret Service Fund. The woman would be fined or imprisoned, and the other inmates of the house put through trial as accused of being "common prostitutes" and inmates of an unlicensed brothel, and if the Registrar General so decided, the house from which they came declared in the Government Gazette as a licensed house of prostitution. The keepers of licensed brothels, slave-dealers, procurers and such characters hung around the court room to help these women pay their fines, and so get them under bonds to work off these fines by prostitution. Sometimes the women sold their children instead of themselves. If boys, for "adoption," as it is called; a form of slavery which is permitted in Hong Kong. If girls, into domestic slavery or worse, probably with the thought that they could buy them back soon, but if the mother herself went the daughter would be sure to be caught by kidnapers, or fall into prostitution anyway, as the only means she would have of getting along without her mother's protection. Mr. Lister said before the Commission: "I became suspicious of the whole system of convictions against houses for Chinese. I was certain that the informers could not be depended on for one moment. My inspector employed his own boatmen as informers. I became convinced that I could lock up the whole Chinese female population by this machinery." Married men were often knowingly hired on Government money to commit adultery with native women, then the money would be taken away from the woman and she could not even have that toward her fine, while the man would be given a further reward for hunting down an "unlicensed woman." Quickly, strong organizations of brothel-keepers were formed, and the whole infernal system from that day to this of brothel slavery passed under the secret management of "capitalists"—Chinese merchants of large means.
We have made a general statement as to abuses; now for some specified details. Sometimes the inspectors took their turn as informers, and often men of higher official rank did so, even to the Registrar General himself. In 1868, Inspectors Peterson and Jamieson visited houses as informers, dressed in plain clothes. Jamieson went once disguised as a soldier. Inspectors Burns, Sieir and Deane were also employed as informers, this year. In one case, a woman escaped the persecution of an informer who had intruded into her house by means of ladder; in another case, a woman risked her life getting out of the window upon a flimsy shade adjusted to keep the sun out; in another, a woman managed to escape to the roof; one poor creature let herself down to the ground from an upper window by means of a spout. When women were ready to take such risks as these (and undoubtedly the official records would mention only a few such cases out of the many) rather than be compelled to keep open houses of prostitution, one would have thought it would have counted as some proof of the respectable character of the women,—but it does not seem to have been reckoned so. The women were generally driven into the business of keeping an open house of prostitution anyway, and the Government benefited in cash by just so much more.
"It may be mentioned here," says the report of the Commission, from which we cull these cases, "that from this date (July 6th, 1868) the practice has apparently prevailed of apprehending all the women found in unlicensed brothels" (in more correct language, those houses penetrated into by informers and reported to the Registrar as brothels). These accusations were not always true, by any means. Seven women were apprehended at one time during this year, on the charge of a watchman, that they kept and were inmates of an unlicensed brothel, "the chief witness being a child 10 years old … five of the women were married, and two, children of 13 and 14 years old, are described as unmarried." They were all, even the children, convicted, and sent to the Lock Hospital for the indecent examination, in order to determine if they were in proper health to practice vice. Afterwards the Registrar concluded that the case had been got up by the watchman to extort money from the women. But the establishment of their innocence did not put them right again. Think of the horrible ordeal and the dirty court details through which these young girls had been put, on the testimony of a child of ten, and of a watchman determined that they should learn to give him money when he demanded it, or he would drive them into prostitution. One wonders how many hundreds of respectable families were thus bled of their small incomes by the vile informers who were being rewarded by Government for their extortion. Imagine the terror that respectable Chinese women suffered, knowing that any man might denounce them, out of malice, and thereby reduce them to the very worst conceivable form of slavery! Within a few years, nearly all the respectable Chinese women had disappeared from Hong Kong. Chief Inspector Whitehead testified before the Commission: "When an unlicensed brothel [i.e., a native house accused of being such] is broken up, the women have to resort to prostitution in most cases for a living." During 1869, one poor woman signed a bond to deport herself for five years rather than be taken to the Lock Hospital. But the "protected women," with their nursery of children they were raising for brothel slavery, being the mistresses of foreigners, were not persecuted in this manner, so, by a kind of mad infatuation the Government seemed bent on encouraging and developing immoral women and driving decent women either into prostitution, or, by the reign of terror, out of the Colony. In 1869, five women were charged before the Registrar General, and three of them were discharged as innocent. Then the Registrar General decided to make the punishment of the first of the remaining two depend upon the state of health of the second. This second was examined and found diseased, and in consequence of that fact, the first one was fined fifty dollars or two months' imprisonment! The Commission speaks of this as a "somewhat curious" case. We wonder how the punished woman described it. Afterwards, the case was reopened, and "evidence was given calculated to throw the gravest doubts on the credibility of the informers" against these five women. What was then done? Were the informers punished for giving false evidence designed to work incalculable injury to five innocent women? Not at all. A few days later the same informers were employed again as witnesses, and secured the conviction of three more women. In one case, in 1870, it was proved that an informer had entered a house and made an indecent assault upon a woman, doubtless expecting to get his reward as usual. But he was fined ten pounds instead. But how many others may have done the same thing under circumstances where a sufficient number of witnesses to the assault could not be produced. And then, the man would be rewarded and the woman forced at once to take up her residence in a licensed house of shame. The Acting Registrar General played the part of informer during 1870, and punished as judge the woman he accused before himself,—for the law, as we have said, that came into force in 1867 gave the Registrar General both prosecuting and judicial powers. He probably also induced the woman on Government money to commit adultery with him. Then as the judge he would confiscate the money again, and give her a fine of fifty dollars instead. We wonder if he likewise gave himself a "substantial award from the bench," as the Registrar General was accustomed to give other informers when they succeeded in getting evidence sufficient for conviction. It is noticed by the Commission that one woman this same year escaped by the roof at the peril of her life. No one knows how many more may have done the same.
An inspector, Peterson, and a constable, Rylands, each induced women on the street to accept money of them, and these women were punished as prostitutes in hiding and not registered. Two prosecutions during this same year are mentioned as having been instituted from malice. One woman jumped from her window and severely injured herself, trying to escape Inspector Douglass. One woman dared to assault an informer who was after her, and was punished by ten days' imprisonment, with hard labor. Inspector Jamieson brought charges against three women for obstructing him in the discharge of his official duties, and was himself found guilty of illegal conduct.
In the records of 1871 is the case of two men who had a falling out, Alfred Flarey and Police Constable Charles Christy, for some reason not mentioned. Each of these men kept a private mistress. Flarey went to an inspector, and obtained money to be used in tempting the mistress of Christy. He then accused her before the courts, she was condemned, and paid a fine of ten dollars. On the following day, Christy appeared in court against the mistress of Flarey, with two fellow-policemen, to describe their own vileness in order to get revenge on Flarey by depriving him of his mistress and reducing her to the level of a common prostitute. The woman was discharged, indicating that it was a trumped up case. The Commission's report, in describing the details declares: "The law, in these two instances, was put in motion obviously for the vilest of purposes."
In 1872, Inspector Lee, who had become an inspector in 1870, and of whom we shall have more to say, acted himself as informer, and employed his boy twice in the same capacity. Inspector Horton acted as informer eleven times, and Inspector King four times. During this year the Registrar General so far forgot that there was even a sanitary pretext for the Ordinance for the law he was set to operate as to employ as an informer one Vincent Greaves, whom he knew to be diseased. From about this time on, many cases of conviction were secured against women where it was evident the matter had gone no further than that they had accepted the marked money of the informers, or, as was actually proved in some cases, this marked Government money had been secreted by the informers in the rooms occupied by women. Inspector Lee in one instance found the money on a table in a room into which an informer had insinuated himself. The woman denied having ever accepted it of him, yet she was convicted on that evidence alone. With rewards offered to men of the lowest character, who would secure the conviction of women so that the latter could be forced into the life of open prostitution, all the presumptive evidence should have turned such a case as this against the informer. Many similar cases of the conviction of women of being keepers and inmates of secret brothels, were secured on this sort of evidence. One young girl of 14 was entrapped by marked money being found in her toilet table. The court records showed that this was the second time she had been entrapped in this manner. This second time she was convicted and sent to the Lock Hospital where, upon examination, exceptional conditions demonstrated beyond doubt that she was still a virgin. But what of the many young girls with whom exceptional conditions did not exist, when they were brought to the examination table?
During the year 1873, two women were severely injured by jumping out of their windows to escape the informers. One fractured her leg.
The cook of Inspector King testified in the Registrar General's court: "Yesterday I received orders of Mr. King to go to Wanchai, and see if I could catch some unlicensed prostitutes." This man was employed, and his employer orders him off to this wicked business, and he must either obey or take his discharge. A Chinese servant ordered to go commit adultery by the man who employed him as his cook. These things were constantly done by employers of Chinese men. Yet these native servants are all married men, for they marry so young in the Orient. And Government money was furnished them besides to pay for the debauchery, and if they brought in a good case for prosecution they got a reward in money besides. So this cook is ordered off by his master to "catch some unlicensed prostitutes," with the same sang froid as though ordered to go catch some fish for dinner. The cook seemed to know where to get the most ardent assistance for the task his employer had set him, for he says: "I got the assistance of a man who is master of a licensed brothel in Wanchai." To be sure; who would be so interested in capturing women and getting them condemned to go and live in a house licensed by the Government as the man in the town at the head of the licensed house? The cook was given a dollar as bait, with which to catch the woman. Inspector Lee, who followed up the men to make sure of the capture, found the dollar given by King to his cook "lying on the bed" in the room occupied by the women, and they were convicted on no other evidence than this and Lee's "suspicions."
Private Michael Smith of the 80th Regiment was given four dollars by Inspector Morton and instructed to go to a certain Mrs. Wright at her quarters, and try to debauch her; he drank brandy with her [at Government expense?] from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m., but failed in his errand. Why did she not turn him out of the house? Women were frequently fined for daring to resent the aggressions of these informers. In one case a man was struck for trying to obstruct the arrest of a girl of 14, and later was punished. This girl was proved to be a virgin afterwards. Many women and girls, against whom there was no sufficient evidence, were sent to the Lock Hospital for examination in order to determine in that manner their character. In half-a-dozen cases or so, it is recorded that the result determined the virginity of the person. But such a test as this rests upon the accidental presence of an exceptional condition among even virgins, and what became of those who did not answer to the exceptional test, and yet were as pure as the rest? They would everyone of them be consigned to the fate of a brothel slave.
One informer, "with the assistance of public money, and in the interests of justice," according to the Commission's report, sinned with a child of fifteen in order to get her name on the register. Inspector Horton bargained for the deflowering of a virgin of 15, "in the interests of justice," with the owner of the slave child. The child as well as the owner were then taken to the Lock Hospital, where the latter was proved to be a virgin. A Chinese informer consorted with a girl named Tai-Yau "against her will, which led to his being rewarded, and to her being fined one hundred dollars." She was unable to pay the fine, and sold her little boy in part payment for it, in order to escape a life of prostitution.
But need we go into further painful details? There are hundreds more of such cases of cruel wrong on record, and God alone knows how many thousands of cases there are that have never been put on record. We only aim to give a case here and there in illustration of the many forms of cruelty practiced upon innocent women in order to force them into prostitution, and to demonstrate that brothel slavery at Hong Kong cannot truthfully be represented as the outcome of Chinese customs which foreign officials have found difficulty in altering.
But why should Americans be called upon to acquaint themselves with such loathsome details? In order that Americans may have some just conception of their duty toward the large number of these poor, unhappy slaves who have been brought from Hong Kong to their own country.
CHAPTER 5.
HOUNDED TO DEATH.
Sir John Pope Hennessy went to Hong Kong as Governor of the Colony in the early Spring of 1877. In the following October a tragedy occurred, which drew his attention to the administration of the Registrar General, and he set himself to the task of trying to right some of the wrongs of the Chinese women.
The case last mentioned in the previous chapter related to a woman by the name of Tai-Yau, whom an informer humbled "against her will," which led to his being rewarded and her being fined $100, to pay which she sold her little boy. This seems to have been the only way open for her to escape a life of prostitution. To make this point clear, we will here insert the explanation of conditions given by Dr. Eitel in a communication for the information of Governor Hennessy at a little later period than the incident we are about to relate. He speaks of Chinese women who secretly practiced prostitution [but, as we have shown, many respectable Chinese women suffered also], as
"preyed upon by informers paid with Government money, who would first debauch such women and then turn against them, charging them before the magistrate under the Ordinance 10, 1867, before the Registrar General as keepers of unlicensed brothels in which case a heavy fine would be inflicted, to pay which these women used to sell their children, or sell themselves into bondage worse than ordinary slavery, to the keepers of brothels licensed by the Government. Whenever a so-called sly brothel was broken up these keepers would crowd the shroff's office [money exchanger's office] of the police court or the visiting room of the Government Lock Hospital to drive their heartless bargains, which were invariably enforced with the weighty support of the inspectors of brothels,[A] appointed by Government under the Contagious Diseases Ordinance. The more this Ordinance was enforced, the more this buying and selling of human flesh went on at the very doors of Government offices."
[Footnote A: We italicise this to call attention to the active part officials took in encouraging slavery.]
We can then readily imagine Tai-Yau as sentenced to pay her fine of one hundred dollars, and nothing to pay with. The money exchanger's office next the court room was crowded with slave-dealers, waiting to offer to pay the fines of such unhappy creatures, and she probably turned to them. If she were sent to jail what would become of her little boy? And if she sold herself to the licensed brothel-keepers, as the inspectors of brothels were urging her to do, the fate of her boy would be even worse. She could see a hope that if she sold the boy for "adoption," a form of slavery the Hong Kong Government permitted, of which we will tell more,—then if she had her freedom she could at least hope to redeem him some time. So the little fellow was sold for about forty dollars, and she went away sixty dollars in debt,—probably to the brothel-keepers, who would never let her out of their sight until, through the debt and the interest thereon, they would in time be enabled to seize her as their slave. But she went out hoping for some honest way of earning the money, or else she would have bargained with them at once to work off the debt by prostitution. But what could a Chinese woman do in the face of such a debt? A painter's wages at Hong Kong at this time were five dollars a month. A woman's wages at any respectable occupation would not have been more than half that amount. Ten cents a day would be a fair computation. And all the time she would be trying to earn the money the debt would be increasing by the interest on it; and her little boy would increase more rapidly in value than in years.
All this occurred in November, 1876. About the first of October, 1877, nearly a year later, she engaged a single room for herself and a servant[A] at 42 Peel street, of a woman named Lau-a Yee. Mrs. Lau, the landlady, had the top floor of a little house. Another family had the first floor, and the street door leading up to Mrs. Lau's apartments ended in a trap door which was shut down at night. There were also folding doors half way up the stairway, not reaching to the ceiling, however, that could be locked at night to make the place doubly secure from intruders. The little upper flat consisted of only three rooms. Mrs. Lau occupied the front room, and her servant woman slept on the floor in the passage-way, and took care of Mrs. Lau's little child. This servant woman had a friend come over from Canton to spend the night with her and seek for employment. The middle room was occupied by Tai Yau, the woman who had sold her little boy into slavery, and her servant. The back room was vacant. Tai Yau was about twenty-six years old, and her servant nearly sixty.
[Footnote A: The evidence does not make it clear how so poor a woman should have a servant. Might she not in reality have been acting the part of "pocket-mother" to the girl?]
On the evening of October 16th, 1877, Inspector Lee gave ten one dollar bills to his interpreter, telling him to go out and use it in catching unlicensed women. The interpreter found two friends and gave one three dollars and the other seven dollars to help him in his errand. Think of it! The man to whom the three dollars were given was a worthless fellow who in his own words, lived "on his friends." When he worked he earned about 14 cents a day. The other man to whom was given seven dollars for a night of pleasure, earned five dollars a month when he worked at his trade—painting.
These men went to an opium shop where they found a pander. Apparently they did not know where to find unlicensed women without his help. Two other men joined them, and they all went to No. 9 Lyndhurst Terrace, the interpreter lingering about in waiting somewhere outside. When two of the men learned that they had been brought with the purpose of using their testimony against the women they withdrew. There were three women in the house. One was of loose morals, or at any rate she trifled with temptation; the other two managed to withdraw. A supper of fowls, stuffed pigs' feet, sausages, eggs, and plenty of native wine was brought in, and they feasted, the men getting under the influence of drink. A-Nam, the pander, went out and hunted up two more girls for the feast. Perhaps these suspected a plot, for they withdrew. Then A-Nam went again, and returned with Tai-Yau.
It was about nine o'clock when A-Nam came to 42 Peel street and called Tai Yau out. Mrs. Lau saw her go out with him, but was not uneasy, for she had seen him there before as a friend of Tai Yau. Is it not quite likely it was from him she borrowed the money? He was the kind of man whose profession would lead him to hang around the Registrar's court in order to get on the track of unlicensed women and to get them in his power. If such were the case, and she owed him money, she would be terribly in his power.[A] She went away with him to the feast near by at No. 9 Lyndhurst Terrace, and at twelve o'clock she returned in company with A-Nam and a strange man. Mrs. Lau was up and worshipping in her room. She came and said to Tai Yau: "Who is this?" seeing the strange man sitting on a chair. "What is this strange man doing here?" Tai Yau replied, "Oh, he is a shopman and is my husband."
[Footnote A: Chief Inspector Whitehead testified before the Commission: "When an unlicensed brothel is broken up the women have to resort in most cases to prostitution for a living." Though the wrong done Tai Yau had been "against her will," yet it had brought her into court upon the charge of being a "common prostitute," and thrown her heavily into debt. It is not unlikely she now found it almost beyond her power to resist becoming enslaved as a prostitute.]
The name of the man with A-Nam was A-Kan, and A-Kan had been a witness against her when she had been condemned before and fined $100. Now he was here in her room again at this time of night, with the man who had brought them together.
Meanwhile Inspector Lee and the interpreter who had given this A-Kan seven dollars to entrap an unlicensed woman, were hunting along the street below to trace the house into which A-Kan had managed to get an entrance. They began to call "A-Kan! A-Kan!" Someone, probably quite innocently said, "I think the man you are looking for went into the house opposite. I saw some one enter there." This was all the clue they had, yet on that evidence alone, Inspector Lee began to pound on the street door of the house, No. 42. A woman on the first floor looked out, and the Inspector ordered her to open the street door. If she recognized him as an officer she would not have dared refuse. The inspector and the interpreter went up the stairs, but encountered folding doors half way up, locked across the stairs. The Inspector managed to get over them and unlock them from the inside, and on they went, and paused to listen beneath the trap door. They did not hear A-Kan's voice, and did not know whether he was there. They had only the conjecture of the woman across the street to proceed upon, nevertheless they had forced their way into this private abode occupied by women, knowing nothing whatever about the place, whether it was respectable or not. At this moment Mrs. Lau heard voices of men on her stairs, and said in alarm to A-Kan, "The inspector is coming, looking for you, isn't he?" A-Kan said "Yes." Then Tai Yau threw herself at the feet of A-Kan and begged for mercy, saying: "I was arrested before and fined a hundred dollars. I sold my son to pay the fine, and you must not say anything now." He sanctimoniously shook his head, as though weighing his responsibility, saying: "I don't know, I don't know." She did not recognize him, but he was the very man who had before informed against her and secured her conviction, when she was humbled "against her will." He now opened the trap door to let the inspector and his interpreter in. Tai Yau exclaimed to Mrs. Lau, "He is coming to arrest women for keeping an unlicensed brothel, let us flee!" Tai-Yau ran up a ladder through a scuttle out upon the flat roof of the house, her old servant following and Mrs. Lau behind. The inspector and interpreter followed, while the informer escaped from the house. Mrs. Lau managed to reach the hatch of the next house, No. 44, and ran down that into the street, hotly chased by the inspector. He said in his testimony: "I pursued the woman down the trap, and followed her right into the street. I pursued and she ran up the steps of Peel street and up to Staunton street, and a Lokong [Chinese constable] caught her about ten yards from Aberdeen street." Then the occupants of the ground floor of 44 Peel street called to Inspector Lee and told him that some people had fallen from the roof into their cook-house, and Inspector Lee said in his testimony: "I went into the cook-house and saw the deceased [the old servant of Tai Yau] lying on the granite on her face, with her head close to an earthenware chatty [water-bottle] which I pointed out, and the bundle of clothing with a Chinese rule lying on the top of her head, or on the back of the neck. Close beside her was another woman lying on the other side of the chatty with her feet against the wall and her head out toward the cook-house door. I had a Chinese candle. I took up the bundle of clothes off deceased's head, and turned her on her back, and there were no signs of life apparent. The other woman was bleeding from the face, and her face and neck were covered with blood. She was moving as if in great pain. I sent for the ambulance at once, and by this time the whole street was aroused." The two women, Tai Yau and the old servant, had fallen through a smoke-hole in the roof.
Tai Yau had a fractured jaw and left thigh, besides internal injuries. She lived but ten days. The verdict rendered in each of these cases was nearly the same. That of Tai Yau's calamity reads in part:
"Mok Tai-Yau, on the morning of the 17th of October, in the year aforesaid, being on the roof of a house, known as 44, Peel Street, Victoria, and having fled there in consequence of the entry of an Inspector of Brothels into the house known as 42, Peel Street, where she lived, accidentally and by misfortune fell down an open area, known as a smoke-hole, unto the granite pavement beneath, and by means thereof did receive mortal bruises, fractures and contusions, of which she died…. The jury aforesaid are further of opinion that Inspector Lee, the aforesaid Inspector of Brothels, exceeded his powers by entering the house, No. 42, Peel Street, without a warrant, or any direct authority from the Registrar General or the Superintendent of Police, and would strongly recommend that the whole system of obtaining convictions against keepers of unlicensed brothels be thoroughly revised, as the present practice is, in our opinion, both illegal and immoral."[A]
[Footnote A: Inspector Lee testified on this occasion that he sometimes had chased women over the roofs of as many as twenty contiguous houses.]
On Nov. 1st, 1877, Governor Hennessy wrote to the Colonial Office,
London:
"I have taken the responsibility of putting a stop to a practice which has existed in this Colony since September, 1868, when Sir Richard MacDonnell sanctioned the appropriation of Government money for the pay of informers who might induce Chinese women to prostitute themselves, and thus bring them under the penal clauses of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance. For many years past this branch of the Registrar General's office has led to grave abuses. It has been a fruitful source of extortion, but what is far worse, a department of the State, as one of the local papers now points out, which is supposed to be constituted for the protection of the Chinese, has been employing a dangerously loose system, whereby the sanctity of native households may be seriously compromised. I had no idea that the Secret Service Fund was used for this loathsome purpose until my attention was drawn to an inquest on the bodies of two Chinese women who were killed by falling from a house in which one of the informers employed by the Registrar General was pursuing his avocations…. I am taking steps to institute a searching inquiry into the whole subject. The European community are ashamed at the revelations that have been made at the inquest, and amongst the Chinese the practice that has been brought to light is, viewed with abhorrence."
This was the incident which led to the appointment of the Commission of Inquiry into the working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance, the report of which Commission we have already had occasion to quote from more than once.
Later, Governor Hennessy wrote to the Colonial Office:
"Whilst the Attorney General is of opinion that, strictly speaking, there is a prima facie case of manslaughter made out against Inspector Lee, and that possibly a conviction might be obtained, he advises against a prosecution. I do not concur with the Attorney General in the reasons he gives for not instituting a prosecution in this case."
During the year previous, 1876, Ordinance No. 2 had been passed, depriving the Registrar General of the much-abused judicial powers he had exercised since 1867, and transferring them to the police magistrates.
Speaking of the incident of Tai Yau having sold her boy to pay her fine, Governor Hennessy wrote the Colonial Office, under date of December 6th, 1877:
"I am now informed that the Commissioners have obtained from the records of the Registrar General's department and from Mr. Smith's evidence the clearest proof that this practice of selling human beings in Hong Kong was well known to the department. One of the records has been shown to me in which a witness swears, 'I bought the girl Chan Tsoi Lin and placed her in a brothel in Hong Kong'; and on that particular piece of evidence no action was taken by the department."
Lord Carnarvon was Secretary of State for the Colonies at this time, and his replies to Sir John Pope Hennessy were small encouragement to the course the Governor had taken. He criticises his "somewhat unusual course" in the appointment of a Commission "composed of private persons to inquire into the administration of an important department of the Government." He says: "I am unable to concur in the suggestion made in your despatch as to the advisability of prosecuting Inspector Lee." He implies that in his opinion "Inspector Lee was acting strictly within his powers on this unfortunate occasion." "It is quite possible," Lord Carnarvon continues, "that there may be abuses connected with the Contagious Diseases Ordinance which ought to be removed; but I would point out that such abuses arise from the imperfections in the system as established by law…. While ready to give consideration to the subject of amending the system, if necessary, I fail at present to observe wherein the officers … have exceeded the duty imposed upon them by law."
From such responses as these we readily learn that it was not alone in Hong Kong that these outrageous abuses of every principle of justice in dealing with Chinese women failed to arouse more than a lukewarm interest in their behalf, and all the way through Sir John Pope Hennessy, with one or two notable exceptions, so far as the records go, was shown but scant sympathy in his efforts to correct these abuses.
On April 2nd, 1878, Sir Harcourt Johnstone asked in the House of Commons the Secretary of State for the Colonies, "whether his attention has been directed to a recent outrage committed … at Hong Kong, which is now forming the subject of inquiry by a Commission appointed by the Governor. And if he will cause special investigation to be made as to the manner in which the revenue derived from licensing houses of ill-fame is raised and expended for the service of the Colony."
In answer to this question, the Commission reported that, "the monies raised both by the licenses from houses of ill-fame, and from the fines inflicted under the provisions of these Ordinances, have been expended in the general services of the Colony; and that the actual revenue derived from this source, since and including 1857 down to the end of 1877, amounted to $187,508, to which must be added the Admiralty allowance from 1870 to 1877, amounting to $28,860, and fines estimated at $5,000, making a total of $221,368.00."
After July 1st, 1878, the fund derived from brothels was used for the operation of the provisions of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance only.
Later, on July 28, 1882, Governor Hennessy received in London a large deputation of gentlemen interested in the abolition of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance of Hong Kong. To these he addressed the following words descriptive of the condition of things at Hong Kong unearthed by the Commission:
"I saw in the Colony abuses existing which have effect far beyond the range of Hong Kong. Let me instance one or two only. We get from Great Britain some European police. They are men selected with care for good conduct, and they are sometimes married men; their passages and their wives' passages have been paid to Hong Kong, where married police quarters are provided. But what transpired when that Commission was held? The Registrar General had recorded in his book, morning after morning, the evidence of informers selected from that police force, whom he had employed to commit adultery with unlicensed Chinese women; and borne of these men were married police, whose wives were brought to Hong Kong; so that in point of fact, he was not only encouraging adultery but paying for it with the money of the State. Well, I stopped that, of course…. At the head of the Registrar General's Department in Hong Kong, we appoint an officer, as we believe, of the highest character. One of the gentlemen so employed puts on a false beard and moustache, he takes marked money in his waistcoat pocket, and proceeds to the back lanes of the Colony, knocks at various doors, and, at length, gains admission to a house. He addresses the woman who opens the door and tells her he wants a Chinese girl. There is an argument as to the price, and he agrees to give four dollars. He is shown up to the room, and gives her the money. What I am now telling you is the gentleman's own evidence. He records how he flung up the window and put out his head and whistled. The police whom he had in attendance in the street, broke open the door and arrested the girl. She is brought up the next day to be tried for the offence; but, before whom? Before the Acting Registrar General—before the same gentleman who had the beard and moustache the night before. He tries her himself, and on the books of the Registrar General's office (I have turned to them and read his own evidence recorded in his own handwriting) there is his own conviction of the girl, of the offence, and his sentence, that she be fined fifty dollars and some months' imprisonment! I mention this for this reason—that the officer who did this was appointed because he was supposed to be a man of exceptionally high moral tone, and good conduct and demeanour. But what would be the effect on any man having to administer such an Ordinance? There was laid before my Legislative Council a case of one of the European Inspectors of brothels, and I was struck by this fact in his evidence. He says: 'I took the marked money from the Registrar General's office, and followed a woman, and consorted with her, and gave her the money; and the moment I had done so, I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the badge of office, and pointed to the Crown, and arrested the woman.' She was henceforth 'a Queen's woman'."
CHAPTER 6.
THE PROTECTOR'S COURT AND SLAVERY.
The justification for the passage of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance at the beginning, as set forth in Mr. Labouchere's dispatch on the 27th of August, 1856, to Sir John Bowring was, that the "women" "held in practical slavery" "through no choice of their own," "have an urgent claim on the active protection of Government." It has been claimed again and again by officials at Hong Kong and Singapore that protection is in large part the object and aim of the Ordinance. For instance: In 1877, Administrator W.H. Marsh, of Hong Kong, learning that there was a likelihood of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance being disallowed by the Home Government, wrote to the Secretary of State for the Colonies:
"It is the unanimous opinion of the Executive Council that the laws now in existence have had, when they have been properly worked, a most beneficial effect in this Colony … in putting the only practical check on a system of brothel slavery, under which children were either sold by their parents, or more frequently were kidnaped and sold to the proprietors of brothels. These unfortunate girls were so fully convinced that they were the goods and chattels of their purchasers, or were so terrified by threats, that they rarely if ever made any complaints even when interrogated. It was very seldom that sufficient evidence could be obtained to punish such nefarious traffickers."
A document enclosed in this letter to the Colonial Secretary at London, signed by the Acting Colonial Secretary at Hong Kong, the Colonial Surgeon, and the Registrar General, states: "Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of the Ordinances is the means they place in the hands of the Government for coping with brothel slavery." From the moment Mr. Labouchere put this false claim to the front it has been the chief argument advanced by officials eager for the Contagious Diseases Ordinance as a method of providing "clean women," in order to win to their side the benevolent-minded.
On this point the Commission reported: "In regard to the only result worthy of a moment's consideration, viz., that referred to by Mr. Labouchere's dispatch, of putting down the virtual slavery of women in brothels, the conclusions of those in the best position to form trustworthy opinions is not encouraging." Mr. Smith, who took over charge of the Registrar General's office in October, 1864, and who had many years of experience in that position, is quoted as saying: "I think it is 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." Mr. Lister, another Registrar General, says: "I don't think the new Ordinance had any real effect, or could have had any effect upon the sale of women. I don't think any good is done by preventing women emigrating to San Francisco or other places, as their fate is just the same whether they go or not."
The Commissioners state:
"The well-meant system devised by the Registrar General's Department which requires every woman personally to appear before an Inspector at the office, and declare her willingness to enter a licensed brothel, and that she does so without coercion, before she can be registered, may probably act as some check upon glaring cases of kidnaping, so far as the licensed brothels are concerned. But it seems clear that for the supply of such establishments, there is no need to resort to kidnaping, in the ordinary acceptance of the term. There can be no doubt that, with the exception of a comparatively few who have been driven by adversity to adopt a life of prostitution, when arrived at a mature age, the bulk of the girls, in entering brothels, are merely fulfilling the career for which they have been brought up, and even if they resent it, a few minutes' conversation with a foreigner, probably the first many of them have ever been brought into communication with, is but little likely to lead them to stultify the results of education, according to whose teachings they are the property of others and under the necessity of obeying their directions. The idea that they are at liberty not to enter a brothel unless they wish it, must, to girls so brought up, be unintelligible. To what other source indeed could they turn for a livelihood? Who can tell, moreover, what hopes or aspirations have been instilled into the minds of these girls? The life on which she is about to enter has probably not been painted to her in its true colors. Why should they shrink from it? As a matter of fact they never do…. Mr. Smith, however, thinks, with regard to these women, Government supervision does ameliorate their condition somewhat. The women are periodically seen in their houses by the inspectors, and the cleanliness and comfort of the houses is carefully looked after.' With the internal cleanliness and comfort of brothels, we think the Government has little to do. But the amelioration of the inmates is a matter which certainly stands on a different footing, and is one in which the Government has a deep interest."
The Report goes on to state that the Commissioners do not endorse the views of Mr. Smith as to the amelioration of the condition of the inmates of brothels, through Governmental registration and supervision, and states:
"Young girls, virgins of 13 or 14 years of age, are brought from Canton or elsewhere and deflowered according to bargain, and, as a regular business, for large sums of money, which go to their owners…. The regular earnings of the girls go to the same quarters, and the unfortunate creatures obviously form subjects of speculation to regular traders in this kind of business, who reside beyond our jurisdiction. In most of the regular houses, the inmates are more or less in debt to the keepers, and though such debts are not legally enforceable, a custom stronger than law forbids the woman to leave the brothel until her debts are liquidated, and it is only in rare cases that she does so." "As to the brothel-keepers, there is nothing known against them, and they are supported by capitalists. Mr. Lister speaks of them as 'a horrible race of cruel women, cruel to the last degree, who use an ingenious form of torture, which they call prevention of sleep,' which he describes in detail…. It seems that although the Brothel Ordinances did not call into being this 'horrible,' 'cruel,' and 'haughty' race of women, they have armed them with obvious powers, which they would not otherwise have possessed, and there is consequently reason to apprehend that Government supervision accentuates in some respects rather than relieves the hardships of the servitude of the inmates."
The records furnish many instances to prove that the Registrar
General's Department was not operated with the least idea of relieving
the slave from her bondage. These are culled from the court records.
We will condense some of them.
1. Three sisters were brought by their foster-mother from Macao to Hong Kong, on the promise of a feast; they were taken to the house of an old brothel-keeper, to whom the foster-mother sold the girls, receiving ten dollars apiece for them, to bind the bargain, and she went away, leaving the girls with this old woman, who began immediately to urge them to become prostitutes; they cried and refused, asking to be allowed to go to their foster-mother who had brought them up,—not suspecting that they had been already sold by her into shameful slavery. The old woman locked them up, and beat one of the girls, who had resisted her cruel fate. Their meals were all taken into the room where they were kept close prisoners from that time. Brought into court, the foster-mother was set at liberty, although the history was fully set forth, and the old woman declared: "She pledged the girls in my house, by receiving thirty dollars from me…. I have a witness who saw the money paid." The brothel-keeper was convicted only of assault for beating the girl, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labor. No reference was made to her own admissions as to buying these girls, and endeavoring to force them into prostitution. Ten days later, her case was brought up again, and the remaining portion of her sentence was remitted, and she was fined twenty-five dollars. No record is made as to what became of these hapless girls; it is to be assumed that they were sent back to the brothel.
2. Two girls brought before the Registrar General, both of whom pleaded for protection against their owner, stating that she intended to sell them to go to California. One of these had been bought by this woman for eighty dollars; the girl saw the price paid for her; the other said her mother was very poor, and sold her for twenty dollars. Each declared she had been living under the "protection" of a foreigner until recently, and that she had not "acted as a prostitute"; they now feared being "sold into California" by the woman in charge. The Inspector said: "There has been at times a number of women residing in the house, and I do not know what has become of them. I believe that they have been sent to California by the defendant." One of the girls being recalled, and seeming to have gained courage, witnessed that she had been in the house when several women had been brought there and after some time had been sent away to California. She had been present when bargains were struck for the women, the price being various; bought here, the women cost from fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars, and when sold in California they were to be disposed of from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty each.[A] She said the woman had "made a great deal of money. She has told me so." She also said some were unwilling to go, but were afraid to resist. She said between ten and twenty women had passed through the woman's hands, to her knowledge. The brothel-keeper's reply was, that the last witness owed her money, and had taken some ornaments which belonged to her—together with a denial that she had bought anybody or sent anyone to California. What was the outcome of this dreadful arraignment of crimes against Chinese girls? The woman was "ordered to find security (two sureties of $250 each) for her appearance in any court, for any purpose and at any time within twelve months." No record as to the fate of the two girls who had sought "protection" of the authorities.
[Footnote A: The market price of a Chinese girl at the present time (1907) in California is $3000.]
3. Two young girls were found in a licensed house of shame, whose names were not on the list, the keeper and a woman, Ho-a-ying, who had brought the girls from Canton to Hong Kong, were summoned before the Registrar General. Ho-a-ying represented the girls as sisters, and that she visited them in Canton and found their mother dead, and that she brought them to Hong Kong because of their appeal to her to find them work, and that she put them into defendant's brothel. She contradicted herself in her testimony as to the name and house of the girls' mother, and the girls themselves declared that they were not sisters, and had never seen each other until they met on the steamer at Canton the day before. One of the girls declared: "I was sold by Ho-a-ying to the mistress of the brothel. I heard them talking about it, and so I know it. Ho-a-Ying also told me that I had been sold. I do not know for what sum." The brothel-keeper stated that Ho-a-Ying came and asked if she wanted two girls, as she had two who had come from Canton. "The girls were brought, and after being in the house a short time the Inspector came. I purposed having their names entered on the following morning." The brothel-keeper was fined five dollars for keeping an incorrect list of inmates. Ho-a-Ying was convicted of giving false testimony, and fined fifty dollars; in default, three months' imprisonment. No information as to the disposal of the girls, and no punishment for this bargaining in human flesh.
4. Six Chinese persons from licensed brothel No. 71, Wellington Street, were arraigned before the Registrar General, charged with buying and selling girls for evil purposes, and also with selling girls to go to California, and with disturbing the peace. The Inspector described the house thus: "I found all the defendants on the first floor. I found six girls in the house and three children. The floor was very crowded … four of the girls were in a room by themselves at the back of the house. They were all huddled up together, and seemed frightened. The defendants were in the front part of the house. The girls at the back part of the house could not have got out without passing through the room where the defendants were. This house has been known to me for a long time as one where young girls were kept to be shipped off to California."
A watch-repairer and jeweler who had resided opposite this place for three or four years declared that he knew the first defendant, A-Neung, and that she had lived there some years, on the first floor; that he had seen a number of girls going in and out of the house, seeming to arrive by steamer, some in chairs and some walking, and that he knew from what he had seen of her and the girls that she was a buyer and seller of girls. A carpenter living below in the same house deposed: "I have always seen a number of young girls being taken in and out of the house. The age of the girls ranged from 10 to 20 years. There was always a great deal of crying and groaning amongst the girls up-stairs. I have not heard any beating, but the girls were constantly crying. The crying was annoying to me and the other people in the shop. The people living in the neighborhood have, together with myself, suspected that the girls were bought and sold to go to California." Another neighbor deposed to knowing the third defendant as "in the habit last year of taking young girls of various ages, from 10 to 20, about the Colony for sale. I knew this defendant wanted to sell the girls, as she asked me if I knew any woman who wanted to buy them. She comes from Canton." A girl from Wong-Po found in No. 71 brothel, told of being taken to Canton at eleven years of age and sold by her sister as a servant to the Lam family. After being in this family three or four years, her mistress and the second defendant, Tai-Ku, a relation of her mistress and daughter to the first defendant (A-Neung, keeper of the brothel), took her to a "flower-boat," and the next day by steamer to Hong Kong, and she was taken to the house of A-Neung. Her mistress stayed in the house three days, and sold her to the first and second defendants (mother and daughter) for $120. She added: "This was in the tenth month last year…. I was never allowed to go out. I have never been out of the house since I came to Hong Kong [nearly six months]. First, second and third defendants never went out of the house together [some one always being on guard]. Last year Tai-Ku and A-Neung told me that I should have to go to San Francisco. This year I was again told that I was going to San Francisco. I said I did not want to go. Tai-Ku then beat me." Another girl only 19 years old, married about four years, declared that in consequence of a quarrel between herself and another wife of her husband, he sold her to Sz-Shan, fifth defendant, for $81, who brought her from Tamshui by steamer to Hong Kong, and took her to A-Neung's house, where she was being held for sale. She finished her testimony thus: "Several men have been up to the house to see me. They were going to buy me if they liked me." A letter was produced by the Inspector, which he found in A-Neung's house, from Canton to the writer's sister-in-law in Hong Kong, urging that as the owner had lost money on the "present cargoes," a higher price must be set on them and the sale hastened, as soon as the letter should arrive, and word returned that they had been disposed of; also directing that "after the transaction, one cue-tassel and one shirting trouser" were to be taken back and sent to Canton by the hand of a friend at first opportunity. (This as a pledge of good faith.)
A-Neung, first defendant, declared that she was "a widow, supported by her son-in-law now in California. Mine is a family house. The girls are visitors at my house." The second defendant, Tai-Ku, daughter of the preceding, declared herself to be a married woman, and that her husband was in California, on a steamer; that the girls were not hers, and that she was "not in the habit of sending girls to California." The third defendant deposed that she came from Canton to ask A-Neung for some money, and added: "I never buy and sell girls." Fourth defendant claimed to be utterly ignorant of the girls being sent to California, and said she was supported by Tai-Ku; the fifth defendant declared she knew nothing of the buying and selling of girls; and the sixth defendant claimed she had gone to the house to obtain the payment of a debt; she was discharged.
The sentence was:—First, second, third, fourth and fifth defendants to find two securities, householders, in $500 each, to appear at any time within the next six months, to answer any charge in any court in the Colony.
Whether the girls were sent to California to swell the number of wretched slaves on the Pacific Coast, or remained in slavery in Hong Kong, there is no record to be found; nor, even with abundant evidence concerning this licensed brothel which the Inspector himself declared he was long familiar with as a place "where young girls were kept to be shipped off to California," and with the evident collusion between A-Neung and Tai-Ku with the son-in-law and husband respectively of the two women, situated most favorably on a steamer for managing this wicked business at the California end of the line, and with all the testimony of the neighbors and the girls, yet no effort was made by the Registrar-General to punish these people for trafficking in human flesh.
5. An old man complained before the Registrar-General, that his granddaughter, A-Ho, had got into debt because of sickness, and in order to pay the money, she was induced by an uncle of Su-a-Kiu to apply to the latter for help. Su-a-Kiu promised to advance her the money, $52, if A-Ho would serve her eight months in a brothel kept by a "friend" of the woman in Singapore. A-Ho's stress was so great that she entered into these hard terms, the woman paying her $52 at the steamer, as it was going, and A-Ho handed it to her grandfather to pay her debt. A-Ho left on the "26th of the 8th moon" for Singapore. On the evening of "the fourth day of the 10th moon" he received a letter from A-Ho to the effect that she had been sold for $250, to another party. When the grandfather went to Su-a-Kiu and asked her why she had sold his granddaughter, she cajoled him by promising to take him to Singapore to see A-Ho. Later, the man who lived with Su-a-Kiu, came and threatened to accuse him of extortion, acknowledging of himself that he "lived by selling women into brothels of Singapore." The grandfather reported the case to the Registrar-General. The woman Su-a-Kiu stated: "I took A-Ho to Singapore. I took her to the "Sai-Shing-Tong Brothel" in Macao Street. She is still in that brothel." The Registrar-General ordered her to find security in the sum of $100 to appear to answer any charge within the next three months. The grandfather was also ordered to find similar security in the sum of $70.
The girl A-Ho, in seeking to pay her debt contracted through sickness, by servitude for eight months, was entrapped and sold as a slave for life, and the Registrar-General, when acquainted with the facts, seems to have taken no steps to punish this slave-trader. Governor Hennessey, in calling the attention of the Home Government to these, out of many similar ones, says: "The accompanying extracts from the printed evidence [taken by the Commission] show that the Registrar-General's Department was not ignorant of the fact that Chinese women were purchased for Hong Kong brothels, and that the head of the Department thought it useless to try to deal with the question of the freedom of such women…. That the buying and selling was not confined to places outside the Colony is clear from the evidence of other witnesses, and from the notes of cases taken by the Registrar-General himself. It will also be seen that where the persons guilty of such offences were sometimes punished, it was generally for some minor offence, such as not keeping a correct list of inmates, or for an assault."
Doubtless slavery would spring into prominence in almost any land when once it became known that in places actually licensed by Government, such as were the houses of ill-fame at Hong Kong, where the inspectors made almost daily visits, slaves could be held with impunity, and that when slave girls made a complaint, and their cases were actually brought into court, charging the buying and selling of human beings, the officers of the law would ignore the complaints.