Of the many girls we interviewed at Hong Kong the story of the
following seems typical of her class, so we extract it from our
journal:
"At the first place we called there were six inmates--four of whom
were present at the interview. The keeper went out of the room as
we entered, and did not return. The girls were very friendly, and
one of them talked a little English. This one told us that she
came from Canton, and, in broken English, said that she had 'no
father, no mother, no brother; a poor man took her when a _very_
little child and raised her to sell. By and by a woman came and
offered to buy poor man's little girl, and as he had but little
food, he asks, 'How much?' then she buys the little girl and
brings her
Now listen, reader, to the wonderful chances of becoming a free woman
under the British flag, this "Protector" holds out to the slave girls
who are placed in his officially managed brothels:
"The girls with their promissory notes are passed from hand to
hand in sale, or as pledges for loans; and in one brothel I found
two girls, who had, on arrival in Singapore from China some six
years previous, signed a note for $300 each, of which every cent
had been received and taken back to China by the person who had
disposed of them. During the six years they had been the property
of two or three successive owners, and when I found them in Penang
they were still being detained with the original promissory note
hanging over them, though the sum had been paid over and over
again. On my insisting on accounts being produced by the
brothel-keeper, I discovered that for three years the girls had
been earning from 20 to 30 dollars each per month, all of which
went to the master, who was surprised when the girls were released
and himself threatened with the law." (!)
Fr
381. When we are too young, we do not judge well; so, also, when we are too
old. If we do not think enough, or if we think too much on any matter, we
get obstinate and infatuated with it. If one considers one's work
immediately after having done it, one is entirely prepossessed in its
favour; by delaying too long, one can no longer enter into the spirit of it.
So with pictures seen from too far or too near; there is but one exact point
which is the true place wherefrom to look at them: the rest are too near,
too far, too high or too low. Perspective determines that point in the art
of painting. But who shall determine it in truth and morality?
382. When all is equally agitated, nothing appears to be agitated, as in a
ship. When all tend to debauchery, none appears to do so. He who stops draws
attention to the excess of others, like a fixed point.
383. The licentious tell men of orderly lives that they stray from nature's
path, while they themselves follow it; as people in a ship think those mov