Re: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk33qVgCWmc
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of his principal executive officers held to the same views as the
Attorney General.
CHAPTER 9.
THE CHINESE PETITION AND PROTEST.
We get additional and valuable light on social conditions at Hong
Kong, through statements drawn up by prominent Chinese men and laid
before the Governor. As a representation from the Chinese standpoint
it has peculiar value at all points excepting where self-interest
might afford a motive for coloring the truth.
The occasion of these statements was as follows: On November 9, 1878,
a month before the report of the Commission was published, certain
Chinese merchants had petitioned the Governor to be allowed to form
themselves into a society for suppressing kidnaping and trafficking
in human beings. This petition states that the worst kidnapers are
"go-betweens and old women who have houses for the detention of
kidnaped people." They declare that these
"inveigle virtuous women or girls to come to Hong Kong, at first
deceiving them by the promise of finding them employment (as
domestic servants), and then proceeding to compel them by force
to become prostitutes, or exporting them to a foreign port, or
distribute them by sale over the different ports of China, boys
being sold to become adopted children, girls being sold to be
trained for prostitution." "Your petitioners are of opinion
that such wicked people are to be found belonging to any of the
[neighboring] districts, but in our district of Tung Kun such
cases of kidnaping are comparatively frequent, and all the
merchants of Hong Kong, w
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of doubt and concern. If I saw nothing there which revealed a Divinity, I
would come to a negative conclusion; if I saw everywhere the signs of a
Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith. But, seeing too much to deny
and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied; wherefore I have a
hundred times wished that if a God maintains Nature, she should testify to
Him unequivocally, and that, if the signs she gives are deceptive, she
should suppress them altogether; that she should say everything or nothing,
that I might see which cause I ought to follow. Whereas in my present state,
ignorant of what I am or of what I ought to do, I know neither my condition
nor my duty. My heart inclines wholly to know where is the true good, in
order to follow it; nothing would be too dear to me for eternity.
I envy those whom I see living in the faith with such carelessness and who
make such a bad use of a gift of which it seems to me I would make such a
different use.
230. It is incomprehensible that God should exis