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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 a crime against
society, calling for active suppression. On the same occasion, in
sentencing a woman who had severely beaten an adopted child, Sir
John Smale said, 'In finally disposing of these three cases, with
all their enormity, sources of satisfaction present themselves in
the fact that, in each of these cases, it has been owing to the
spontaneous indignation of Chinese men and women that these crimes
have been brought to the knowledge of the police.' The Governor
closes his letter with the statement, 'It is only due to Sir John
Smale to add that his own action has greatly contributed to foster
the "healthy" public opinion of the native community, which
induced him, when quitting the Supreme Court, to take a hopeful
view of the future of this important subject.'"
CHAPTER 12.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE ANSWERS HIS OPPONENTS.
The Acting Attorney General at the time of Sir John Smale's first
pronouncement against slavery had suggested to Governor Hennessy that
Sir John Smale's statements should be sent to London to the Secretary
of State for the Colonies; and he and other advisers recommended that
no prosecutions in connection with "adoption" and "domestic servitude"
should be instituted, pending the receipt of instructions from the
Home Government. The Chief Justice concurred in these views, and also
suggested that the Chinese be told that no prosecutions as to the past
should take place, but that in future, in every case where _buying and
selling_ occurred in co
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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
Government in reference to the special questions I have raised,
I have only to observe that I have never heard of those
difficulties. My own impression is that the respectable parts
of the community, Chinese as well as European, including the
Government and the police, are fully alive to the brothel and
domestic servitude systems, and as well informed as Sir John Smale
himself as to the real facts. One would suppose from the tone
of his pamphlet that he stood alone in his perception and
denunciation of evil. But I believe the fact is that the Executive
and the community generally are quite as anxious is he is to
insist upon practical precautions necessary to prevent
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particular as to the means they employ in obtaining them. Nothing
is required of the recruit except a willingness to hand himself
over with his scanty outfit to the tender mercies of the broker,
who pays his passage and provides him with food and such things as
he considers needful. While the vessels, however, with their decks
crowded with emigrants, are leaving the Chinese ports, it is a
common occurrence for the cry of "man overboard" to be raised, so
common indeed that few Captains now take the trouble to stop their
ships, leaving the fugitive coolie to his fate or to be picked up
by one of the native craft which are usually close at hand. The
readiness of the Chinese emigrant thus to risk his life for the
purpose of regaining his freedom, is explained by the advocates of
the depot and broker system as arising from a desire on his part
to outwit the broker and perhaps obtain another bonus by offering
himself a second time as a cand
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faults, if we wish to follow them out mercilessly!
507. The spirit of grace; the hardness of the heart; external circumstances.
508. Grace is indeed needed to turn a man into a saint; and he who doubts it
does not know what a saint or a man is.
509. Philosophers.--A fine thing to cry to a man who does not know himself,
that he should come of himself to God! And a fine thing to say so to a man
who does know himself!
510. Man is not worthy of God, but he is not incapable of being made worthy.
It is unworthy of God to unite Himself to wretched man; but it is not
unworthy of God to pull him out of his misery.
511. If we would say that man is too insignificant to deserve communion with
God, we must indeed be very great to judge of it.
512. It is, in peculiar phraseology, wholly the body of Jesus Christ, but it
cannot be said to be the whole body of Jesus Christ. The union of two things
without change does not enable us to say that one becomes the other; the
soul thus being united to the body, the fire to the timber, without change.
But change is necessary to make the form of the one become the
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sincere nor reasonable, if it does not make us admit that, not knowing of
ourselves what we are, we can only learn it from God.
"I do not mean that you should submit your belief to me without reason, and
I do not aspire to overcome you by tyranny. In fact, I do not claim to give
you a reason for everything. And to reconcile these contradictions, I intend
to make you see clearly, by convincing proofs, those divine signs in me,
which may convince you of what I am, and may gain authority for me by
wonders and proofs which you cannot reject; so that you may then believe
without... the things which I teach you, since you will find no other ground
for rejecting them, except that you cannot know of yourselves if they are
true or not.
"God has willed to redeem men and to open salvation to those who seek it.
But men render themselves so unworthy of it that it is right that God should
refuse to some, because of their obduracy, what He grants others from a
compassion which is not due to them. If He had willed to overcome the
obstinacy of the most hardened, He could have done so by revealing Himself
so manifestly to them that they could not have doubted of the truth of His
essence; as it will appear at the last day, with such thunders and such a
convulsion of nature that the dead will rise again, and the blindest will
see Him.
"It is not in this manner that He has willed to appear in His advent of
me