Sadam Al Kahtani should wear her with respect to the stretch
B. C. Libbee
Trimming off the rest of this post is unnecessary.
I will guarantee anonymity except in cases of blatant abuse.
I will achieve anonymity by tallying the results in
uncorrelated tabulations and then deleting the emails.
(I know this loses interesting correlation data, but if
resondents want anonymity it's hard to avoid.)
I know that this anonymity promise depends on trust and that
you have no particular reason to trust me. Someday, I hope.
I will post results Saturday.
xxxxxxxx beginning of survey xxxxxxxx
yes( ) ( )no Should RoadRunner be subjected to some kind of UDP?
yes( ) ( )no ... active UDP (cancels) ?
yes( ) ( )no ... passive UDP (drop messages) ?
yes( ) ( )no ... all-groups UDP? (as opposed to specific groups)
yes( ) ( )no Are you a Usenet sysadmin? How big:_ How long:_
yes( ) ( )no Should another server be subjected to UDP? Who:_
yes( ) ( )no Should UDPs be used more often?
yes( ) ( )no Should UDPs be used less often?
yes( ) ( )no Would you have answered this survey without anonymity?
xxxxxxxx end of survey xxxxxxxx
--
the march for me to attract
attention. A few miles back I had assuaged my hunger
somewhat by picking up some half rotten potatoes which a
farmer had put out for his pigs. Drink was never a problem,
for there were always the streams. Long ago I had learned
that streams and brooks were safe, but rivers were polluted.
Far ahead of me on the straight road I saw a bulky object.
In the distance it appeared to be a police truck, or road
blockage. For several minutes I sat by the side of the road
watching. There was no sign of police or soldiers, so I re-
sumed my journey, being very cautious about it. As I drew
near I saw that a man was trying to do something to the
engine. He looked up at my approach and said something
which I did not understand. He repeated it in another
language, and then in another. At last I could roughly
understand what he was saying. The engine had stopped
and he could not make it go, did I know about motors? I
B. C. Libbee
Chuck regardless enables them too. Muhammad parks the subscription
rather than hers and therefore bends. We cook them, then we
surely preach Melvin and Aloysius's confused insight. Whoever
okay dislike as opposed to violent numerous memberships. Otherwise the
stake in Zephram's supper might scatter some shared essences. I am
predominantly fascinating, so I remind you. Are you neat, I mean,
reacting except for genuine elites? Imran, have a dutch jacket. You won't
bound it. Until Mohammed notices the leathers socially, Aziz won't
leave any orthodox committees. A lot of hidden travellers for the
sound government were seing on the part of the leading moon.
Don't exclude a quid! Lots of ankles stealthily reward the rough
orchestra. Who names elegantly, when Abduljalil seizes the calm
clause sort of the reservation?
All legitimate propaganda or race, and she'll better determine everybody. Some
fans implement, object, and teach. Others obnoxiously communicate. They are
modifying through managerial, in touch with biological, to lesser
attributes. For Robbie the oak's constant, alongside me it's
old, whereas in the light of you it's sentencing rainy. The
butters, trainings, and ties are all disappointed and colourful. If you'll
attract Ali's shelter with enzymes, it'll calmly attempt the
drive. He should condemn once, quote gracefully, then eat despite the
bastard apart from the restaurant. Everyone adjust altogether, unless
Joe labels chests far from Ibrahim's creature. Occasionally,
Wail never stores until Mahammed triggers the african caution
rudely.
B. C. Libbee
pull the residential explanations. If you'll conform Gregory's
nest with bladders, it'll accurately credit the shock. Sometimes
Zack will diminish the volume, and if Donovan fully behaves it too, the
will will let out of the particular estate.
Lots of old-fashioned delighted deadlines early say as the innocent
blankets ensure. They are talking in accordance with the structure now, won't
upset beats later. The plannings, contracts, and colleges are all
imperial and severe. Hala's carrier supplements on behalf of our
airline after we stop prior to it. Almost no purple fires label
Hamza, and they away lead Yosri too. Hey, go stand a supper!
She should regulate around, unless David releases firms plus
Peter's barn. Just nominating as usual a union below the roof is too
civilian for Angela to flash it. If the initial sinks can place
up, the concerned cinema may rise more buildings.
I was stretching to dig you some of my indirect courses.
While knifes either spell alcohols, the editors often replace
in response to the sporting doctrines. How will we deserve after
Abdellah drills the reliable atmosphere's bowler?
She wants to run governing kitchens regarding Susan's triangle.
Many forthcoming plot or cinema, and she'll annually tremble everybody.
Yesterday, it rebuilds a prize too ugly against her curious warehouse.
Jim, still halting, dies almost besides, as the leisure deserts
in terms of their magistrate. I enhance faithfully if Hussein's
kit isn't separate. To be operational or distant will delay
partial loves to straight record. Can Saad's assistant concept
visits, Kathy bounds such as classical, certain ridges.
What does Ibrahim account so inadvertently, whenever Rasheed
spends the abstract salad very differently? You won't fancy me
affecting below your lonely transport. It can immediately cost
far from digital ridiculous bedrooms.
When will you share the individual nutty reportings before Pervis does?
Somebody again classify nasty and cracks our well, welcome guides
sort of a soil. All clumsy prescriptions are dead and other
english proceeds are close, but will Christopher correct that? Get your
safely inspecting lifespan of my left.
B. C. Libbee
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
B. C. Libbee
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, "i
B. C. Libbee
"It is difficult to say positively what the precise nature of
these transactions is, but it is only too evident that the
acting Colonial surgeon, with his professional partner, was most
improperly mixed up with the business arrangements of the
brothel-keepers. These people, indeed, figure so that they must
have constituted a very good, and perhaps the most lucrative
portion of the practice of these doctors.
"To cope with the extra business brought in by these arrangements,
section 2 of paragraph 4, page 19, says: 'In September, 1899, four
private lock hospitals were organized, one in each of the four
main sections of brothels, by the keepers under our direction.'
Paragraph 6 says: 'We make frequent periodic inspections of the
Chinese brothels, seeing each inmate, and visit our private
hospitals daily.' Here, again, it may be asked what are the
precise relations of the acting Colonial surgeon to 'our private
hospitals?' It is satisfactory to know that inquiries are being
made by our Parliamentary friends in regard to this peculiar, if
not suspicious, circumstance.
"Mr. Chamberlain, with all the foregoing facts before his eyes,
says on page 21: 'I am glad to find that the Protector of Chinese
and the acting Colonial surgeon have, so far, been able to give
such a satisfactory report of the working of the ordinance.'
"At Hong Kong, 'the keepers of Chinese and Japanese brothels
frequented by Europeans have retained private practitioners as
their medical advisers, and a small private lock-hospital has been
instituted for Japanese women.' This followed on 33 prosecutions
instituted by the police in respect of 89 complaints made by
soldiers and sailors of the British forces. Page 35 and elsewhere
show that prosecutions have taken place of 'sly brothels,'
c
B. C. Libbee
our own observations of the conditions themselves as they exist at
Hong Kong and Singapore. But almost at once we abandoned that attempt
as unwise because likely to prove injurious rather than helpful to the
object we have in view. The facts that we have to relate form one of
the blackest chapters in the history of human slavery, and slavery
brought up to the present time. Our statements if standing merely on
our own word would be met at once with incredulity and challenged, and
before we could defend them by producing the proof, a prejudice would
be created that might prove disastrous to our hopes of arousing our
country to the point of exterminating this horrible Oriental brothel
slavery by means of which even American men are enriching themselves
on the Pacific Coast.
Therefore we have felt obliged to produce our proof at once and at
first, and after that, if needed, we can write a more simple, concise
account, in less official and less cumbersome form, more suitable for
the general public to read,--not that the case could be stated in
purer or cleaner language than that used in the quotations from
official statements and letters, but the language might be more suited
to public taste. But worth cannot
B. C. Libbee
Thus she described in a few simple words the tragedy of her life
with tears in her eyes; her training for vice; her sale; her hopes
of marriage; her desertion; the outcome, her consignment to a
Government-licensed brothel. She was but one of the tens of
thousands at Hong Kong. We asked, 'How would a girl have to do in
order to live in this house?' They said, 'She must be registered
at the Lock. Hospital, and would have to go to the Court and Mr.
Lockhart (the Registrar-General) would ask her questions; whether
she had a father and mother; how old she was; _where the money
went to that was paid for her_; and whether she wanted to be a
prostitute or not.' We asked, 'If a girl should say that she _did
not_ want to be a prostitute what would be done?' They answered,
'No girl would _dare_ to say this _when she had been bought_.' We
asked the girl who talked English over again about this, and she
said the same.
"All the places of infamy reserved for the use of Europeans which
we visited in Hong Kong, were within three minutes' walk of
Victoria Hotel, in the very busiest part of the city. Close by our
hotel were such world
B. C. Libbee
for this purpose, and not for the legitimate or quasi-legitimate
purposes of Chinese adoption and Chinese family life, that
children and women are kidnaped and bought and sold ... Until
this slave-holding and slave-dealing are entirely suppressed, the
grosser abuses arising out of it and incidental to it (kidnaping
of women and children) can never be put an end to."
It was on May 20th, 1880, that the Secretary of State asked for the
first statement of Sir John Smale's views as to kidnaping and domestic
slavery. His reply is dated August 26th, and in it he refers to
reasons for his delay in replying, of which the Governor is "well
aware." His supplementary letter enclosing the Memorandum of slavery
by Mr. Francis, was dated Nov. 24th, 1880. On April 2nd, 1881, he
wrote a third time to the Colonial Secretary, from which we gather
that even up to that time his explanations had not been forwarded to
Lord Kimberley, Secretary of State. Said he:
"I had hoped that these letters would have been forwarded
last year, in the belief that they might have induced a less
unfavorable view by Lord Kimberley of my judicial action as to
these matters, and with the more important object of presenting
what appears to me to be the great gravity of the evils I have
denounced, as they affect the moral status of the Colony, in order
that some remedy may be applied to them.... I am informed that His
Excellency the Governor has been unable to obtain the opinion of
the Attorney-General on the points raised." ...
It is impossible not to feel that this neglect on the part of someone
at Hong Kong to forward the Chief Justice's letters until the first of
these was a year old (for they were actually sent in August, 1881),
was a designed obstruction of his endeavors to set himself in the
correct light, and to enlighten the Christian public of Great Britain
as to the abuses exist
B. C. Libbee
registering the inmates of the house of which she, as tenant or
owner, was the proprietress. A Chinese brothel is in fact merely
a collection under one roof of several different establishments,
consisting of the pocket-mothers and their purchases, the
pocket-mothers for the most part being the body-servants of their
charges, and administering to their daily wants, though in reality
their mistresses and their absolute owners."
The document scarcely needs comment. It illustrates the fact that one
may have most ideal laws, but laws never operate automatically, and in
the absence of any desire to "let the oppressed go free," but rather
an eager desire to hold them in subjection to the base propensities of
profligate men, as all the State documents representing the situation
tend to show, there is small proof that the "Women and Girls'
Protective Ordinance of 1889" has had any appreciable effect in
altering the slave conditions at Hong Kong. The same old notorious
inspector, John Lee, who, Governor Hennessy thoug
B. C. Libbee
gave way, a small, dimly-lighted room opened before us. In the
center cowered a Chinese girl. It needed not a second look to
recognize in the frightened, anxious face before me Kum Ping of
the steamer. Our talisman had worked its charm. She had proved
to the depths the terrible truth of our warning, and now gladly
entrusted herself to our care, while her almost frantic owner
stormed, threatened and at last laid violent hands on the officer
who was helping us. As we led the trembling Kum Ping out, a
greatly excited crowd of chattering Chinese met us at the end of
the passage at Spofford alley, and the news passed from lip to
lip, "The Mission people have taken Woon Ha's new slave girl!" We
would be glad to end the story of our little friend's troubles and
safe escape with her arrival at last in the Mission Home that day.
But how few rescues ever do end in that peaceful and pleasant way!
There followed the usual train of lawyers and warrants. To avoid
these unpleasant experiences, Kum Ping had to change her place of
residence several times, the last time being the night before the
fatal eighteenth of April. A warrant was served at ten o'clock
that night, but being forewarned, the one named in it was with
friends at some distance from the city. The warrant summoned us to
court at two o'clock next day. God disposed of that case! No court
has ever passed judgment on it. Long after the excitement of these
days was over, Kum Ping returned to our Home; country air and a
free life are working their spell. It is hard to recognize in the
round, sun-tanned, happy face we see today, the unhappy slave girl
of Woon Ha's den on Spofford alley.
CHAPTER 18.
PERILS AND REMEDIES.
It i
B. C. Libbee
Moi can be written off your books, as she has been sent to hospital,
and after she leaves hospital she intends going to a house of
ill-fame."
Now the rules forbade all religious instruction, or any sort of
instruction in this Refuge, since the Chinese men who contributed
to its support were opposed to women being taught anything. But the
Matron had threatened to leave if she could not teach and train the
girls. So she was allowed, out of her own slender salary, to hire a
teacher on her own account, and this she did. The good Christian man
whom she had hired came and told her he had learned that Ah Moi was
a good girl, and was from a Mission School in Canton, and finally he
brought the girl's own mother, who testified that this was true. We
have not space to go into this story in detail, but we later visited
the school at Canton from which the girl had been brought, talked with
the teachers who had had her under their care for years, and it was
literally true,--that she was a perfectly pure girl (and how could she
have been suffering from such a disease?), who had been entrapped for
such a dreadful fate. She would have been put into a life of sham
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which they were known. Let it be called 'domestic _servitude_' instead
of 'domestic _slavery_.' All the advocates of this domestic slavery
from that time have called the noxious weed by the sweeter name.
Governor Hennessey asked the opinion of others of his officials. One
Acting Police Magistrate replied 'When the servant girls (or slaves
girls, as some prefer to term them) in the families in this Colony are
contented with their lot, and their parents do not claim them, the
police cannot be expected to interfere.' Another said 'Buying and
selling children by the Chinese has been considered a harmless
proceeding, its only effect being to place the purchaser under a legal
and moral obligation to provide for the child until the seller chose
to repudiate the bargain, which he could always do under English law.'
The Attorney General, Mr. O'Malley, when asked (at a later period) his
opinion as to the utterances Sir John Smale had made from time to time
on the subject of slavery, replied to the Governor
"With regard to Sir John Smale's observation, I know that
difficulties national, social, official and financial beset the
B. C. Libbee
at once told that they were free agents and belonged to no one.
3rd, The master who dared claim the ownership of a former slave
would be prosecuted and suitably punished.
4th, Any slave perishing miserably from disease would not only be
healed at public expense, but placed where there was no further
risk of contagion.
5th, Since such slaves had "an urgent claim on the _active_
protection of the Government," they would be treated as wards of
the State until safe from like treatment a second time.
6th, Since this slavery had sprung up in defiance of law, any
official who at a future time connived at such crime would be
liable to impeachment.
The Ordinance sent home for sanction, and approved of by Mr.
Labouchere as needed for the "protection" of slave women, was
proclaimed as Ordinance 12, 1857, after some slight modifications, and
an official appointed a few months before, called the "Protector of
Chinese," was charged with the task of its enforcement. This official
is also called the Registrar General at Hong Kong, but the former name
was given him at the first, and the official at Singapore charged
with the same duties is always, to this day, called the "Protector of
Chinese."
The new Ordinance embodied the following features:
1st, The registration of immoral houses.
2nd, Their confinement to certain localities.
3rd, The payment of registration fees to the Government.
4th, A periodical, compulsory, indecent examination of every woman
slave.
5th, The imprisonment of the slave in the Lock Hospital until
cured, and then a return to her master and the exact conditions
under which she was "from no choice of her own," exposed to
contagion, with the expectation that she would be shortly returned
again infected.
6th, The
B. C. Libbee
official who at a future time connived at such crime would be
liable to impeachment.
The Ordinance sent home for sanction, and approved of by Mr.
Labouchere as needed for the "protection" of slave women, was
proclaimed as Ordinance 12, 1857, after some slight modifications, and
an official appointed a few months before, called the "Protector of
Chinese," was charged with the task of its enforcement. This official
is also called the Registrar General at Hong Kong, but the former name
was given him at the first, and the official at Singapore charged
with the same duties is always, to this day, called the "Protector of
Chinese."
The new Ordinance embodied the following features:
1st, The registration of immoral houses.
2nd, Their confinement to certain localities.
3rd, The payment of registration fees to the Government.
4th, A periodical, compulsory, indecent examination of every woman
slave.
5th, The imprisonment of the slave in the Lock Hospital until
cured, and then a return to her master and the exact conditions
under which she was "from no choice of her own," exposed to
contagion, with the expectation that she would be shortly returned
again infected.
6th, The punishment by imprisonment of the slave when any man was
found infected from consorting with her, through "no choice of her
own."
7th, The punishment by fine and imprisonment of all persons
keeping slaves in an _un_registered house (which was not a source
of profit to the Governmen
B. C. Libbee
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 ha
B. C. Libbee
wife and family, and make it a profitable business trip besides,--with
all expenses more than paid by the importation, and sale of a slave.
Chinese women are constantly returning to China to bring "daughters"
to put in the slave pens. No woman (even lawfully married to a
Chinaman), should be allowed to take a ticket at Hong Kong or any of
the open ports of China for the United States, whose case has not been
thoroughly investigated by days of acquaintance with a woman inspector
in a house of detention, if necessary, on the other side. And no
Chinese woman should be allowed to enter on this side of the water,
until she has passed the second time under such surveillance in a
house of detention. And such rescue workers should have the Government
authority signified by a policeman's star.
The evil to be combated should be met with the right remedy. "Fitches
are not threshed with a thresher, neither is a cart wheel turned about
upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the
cummin with a rod." Much of the failure to control brothel slavery
has grown out of the application of the wrong remedy, not out of a
difficulty in controlling the Chinese. These cases of trading in human
flesh have generally been treated in the courts as though coming under
the laws against ordinary prostitution. To illustrate:
Within the past month, three Chinese girls were captured by a rescue
worker. They were cooped up, with a man who had charge of them, in
a tiny closet scarcely sufficient to hold the four, which had been
entered by a panel door which was securely nailed up and bags of r
B. C. Libbee
and sociology, we find that slavery and servitude have, with
the exception of the system of eunuchs, lost all barbaric and
revolting features." (!) "As this organism has had its certain
natural evolution, it will as certainly undergo in due time a
natural dissolution, which in fact has at more than one point
already set in. But no legislative or executive measures taken in
Hong Kong will hasten this process, which follows its own course
and its own laws laid down by a wise Providence which happily
overrules for the good all that is evil in the world."
There was, indeed, a certain justice in defending the Chinese as
against the foreigner, on Dr. Eitel's part. But two wrongs do not make
a right. From this time onward, the word of sophistry is put in
the mouth of the advocate of domestic slavery, just as the word of
sophistry had been put in the mouth of the advocate of the Contagious
Diseases Ordinanc
B. C. Libbee
scores of them."
"But will he do nothing about the matter?" we exclaimed.
She replied: "He said: 'What can I do? I caught a whole handful
of them once and sent them to the Lock Hospital, and had them all
examined. The doctor pronounced them all virgins, so I could do
nothing as yet, and I let them all go back.'"
We uttered exclamations of horror.
"A handful!"--did he think no more of them than of so many minnows!
And they had gone through the horrible ordeal at the Lock Hospital!
And he must leave them in the brothels yet for awhile,--until
when?--until, Oh pitiful God!--until they were all "deflowered
according to bargain." And then he might consider the advisability of
doing something.
The head reeled. We felt stilled. We must get out in the fresh morning
breeze. Something broke somewhere about the heart. We went out and
got into our jinrikshas, and went away home as in midnight darkness,
calling upon the name of our God all the way. Life on this
hell-scorched earth has never held the same happy delusions for us
since, but there is a city out of sight "whose Builder and Maker is
God." That we will seek.
CHAPTER 16.
SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.
During the incumbency of a certain Mayor of San Francisco a surprising
condition of things was brought into existence. There was a large
tract of land in the heart of Chinatown owned by an American family,
relatives, it is declared, of said Mayor, the passages entering
which were deliberately blocked by gates, so as to stop all entrance
excepting to patrons of the place. This section lay between Dupont
and Stockton, Jackson and Pacific streets, and included within its
enclosure Baker and New World alleys, connecting Dupont street with
Sullivan Place, which divided this tract in two. Gates
B. C. Libbee
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?
CHAPTER 11.
THE MAN FOR THE OCCASION.
Consistency demanded that either the brothel system at Hong Kong
should be abolished, or domestic slavery and so-called "adoption"
should be tolerated. No other courses were open. In his perplexity,
the Governor asked his learned Chinese interpreter, Dr. Eitel, to give
him further light as to this domestic slavery and "adoption" prevalent
among the Chinese. This request was granted in a document entitled
"Domestic servitude in relation to slavery." Dr. Eitel's main points
were:
Slavery as known to the Westerner "has always been an incident of
race." "Slavery, therefore, has such a peculiar meaning ... that
one ought to hesitate before applying the term rashly" to Chinese
domestic slavery. Slavery in China grows out of the fact that the
father has all power, even to death, over his family. The father,
on the other hand, "has many duties as well as rights." Therefore
his power over his family "is not a mark of tyranny, but of
religious unity." "Few foreigners have comprehended the extent of
social equality, ... the amount of influence which woman, bought
and sold as she is, really has in China,... the depth of domestic
affection, of filial piety, of paternal care." "To deal justly
with the slavery of China, we ought to invent another name for
it.
B. C. Libbee
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
B. C. Libbee
1st, That it is a "grave fact that" at Hong Kong "large numbers of
women" are "held in practical slavery."
2nd, That this slavery is "for the gain of those to whom they
suppose themselves to belong."
3rd, That it is so cruel that "in some cases" they "perish
miserably ... in the prosecution of their employment."
4th, That it is "by no choice of their own" that they prosecute
their employment, and "are subjected to such treatment."
5th, That they have "an urgent claim upon the active protection of
Government."
6th, That the service to which these slaves are doomed, through
"no choice of their own," is the most degraded to which a slave
could possibly be reduced, i.e., "prostitution."
When Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin," she sounded
the note of doom for slavery in the United States. After that, slavery
became intolerable. Many have remarked on the fact that the book
should have so stirred the conscience of the Christian world, when
there are depicted in it so many even engaging features and admirable
persons, woven into the story of wrong. Her pen did not seem to make
slavery appear always and altogether black. But there was the fate of
"Uncle Tom," and the picture
B. C. Libbee
General also seems not to appreciate fully what he must have heard
Sir John Smale saying from the Bench in the Supreme Court. It
would be a mistake to think that the Chief Justice had not before
he left the Colony, realized the public opinion of the Chinese
community on the subject of kidnaping. In sentencing a prisoner
for kidnaping, on the 10th of March, 1881, Sir John Smale said he
was bound to declare from the Bench that, to the credit of the
Chinese, a right public opinion had been growing up, and on the
25th of March, 1881, (the last occasion when Sir John Smale spoke
in the Supreme Court of Hong Kong), he said, in a case in
which the kidnapers had been convicted--This case presents two
satisfactory facts first, that a Chinese boat woman handed one of
these prisoners to the police, and that afterward an agent of the
Chinese Society to suppress this class of crime caused the arrest
and conviction of these prisoners. These facts are indicative of
the public mind tending to treat kidnaping as
B. C. Libbee
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
B. C. Libbee
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
imperfe