Re: alt.winsock.trumpet scheduled for sporge flood
supe...@alt.winsock.trumpet
The Tankas helped the British in many ways in waging these wars, and
when peace was established went to live with them on the island. This
action on the part of these "river people" is significant as showing
as much or more attachment to the foreigner than to the other classes
of Chinese. There seems always to be less conscience in wronging
an alien people than in injuring a people to whom one is closely
attached, and this sense of estrangement from other Chinese may
account to some extent for the facility with which this aboriginal
people engaged, a little later, in the trade in women and girls
brought from the mainland to meet the demands of profligate
foreigners.
Sir Charles Elliott, Governor of Hong Kong, wishing to attract Chinese
immigration to the island, issued, on February 1st and 2nd, 1841, two
proclamations in the name of the Queen, to the effect that there would
be no interference with the free exercise on the part of the Chinese
of their religious rites, ceremonies and social customs, "pending Her
Majesty's pleasure."
Following the custom of all Oriental people, to whom marriage is a
trade in the persons of women, when the Tankas saw that the foreigners
had come to that distant part almost universally without wife or
family, they offered to sell them women and girls, and the British
seem to have purchased them at first, but afterwards they modified the
practice to merely paying a monthly stipend. All slavery throughout
British possessions had been prohibited only a few years before the
settlement of Hong Kong, in 1833, when 20,000,000 pounds had been
distributed by England as a boon to slave-holders.
Hong Kong's first Legislative Council was held in 1844, and its first
ordinance was an anti-slavery measure in the form of an attempt to
define the law relating to slavery. It was a long process in those
days for the Colon
supe...@alt.winsock.trumpet
They are bought and sold for the purpose of prostitution, here and
elsewhere, and instead of being apprenticed to the domesticities,
and of being brought up to be good wives and mothers, they
are bought and sold,--brought up and trained for a life of
prostitution, a life of the most abject and degrading slavery....
By the last census [this was written in 1880], there were in Hong
Kong 24,387 Chinese women to 81,025 men. Of these 24,387 women
the late Mr. May [Superintendent of Police] was of opinion that
20,000, or five-sixths, come under the denomination of prostitutes
... A Chinese doctor of large experience fixed the number of
quasi-respectable women at one-fourth the whole number, or say
6,000, leaving 18,000 prostitutes. These opinions were taken and
adopted by the Commission of 1877-1879 ... Who and what are these
prostitutes who form by far the greater bulk of the Chinese female
population of Hong Kong? The Report of the Commission answers the
question: 'The great majority of them are owned by professional
brothel-keepers or traders in women in Canton or Macao; they
have been brought up for the profession, and trained in various
accomplishments suited to their life ... They frequently
know neither father nor mother, except what they call a
pocket-mother,--that is, the woman who bought them from others ...
They are owned in Macao and Canton. They are bought as infants.
They come to Hong Kong at 13 or 14, and are deflowered at a
special price which goes to the owners. Th
supe...@alt.winsock.trumpet
what becomes of the argument that because men will not become pure by
act of parliament they are to be allowed to commit their depredations
unmolested? The primary object of law is not reformatory but
protective,--for the victims of lawlessness.
Our great Law-Giver, Jesus Christ, admitted a certain necessity of
evil, but He did not say, "therefore license it, to keep it within
bounds." He said, "It _must needs be_ that offenses come." But His
remedy for keeping the offenses within bounds was, "woe to that man by
whom the offense cometh." As inevitably as the offense was committed
so invariably must the punishment fall on the offender's head. That
is the only way to keep any evil within bounds. This is the principle
that underlies all law.
These Hong Kong officials who believed in the licensing of brothel
slavery and brought it about, have much to say about the "unfortunate
creatures" who were the victims of men. But if the advocate of license
is self-deceived in his attitude toward this social evil, we need not
be deceived in him. One does not propose a license as a remedy for an
evil, except as led to that view by secret sympathy with the evil.
A license of an evil is never proposed excepting upon the mental
acquiescence in that evil.
British officials who licensed immoral houses at Hong Kong did not
wish the libertine to be disturbed in his depredations. The Chinese
merchants were able to see this fact if those officials were not ready
to admit it even to themselves. They knew how to throw a stone that
would secure their own glass houses. Hence they said in their memorial
to the Governor:
"From 80 to 90 per cent of all these prostitutes in Hong Kong were
brought into these [licensed] brothels by purchase, as is well
known to everybody. If buying and selling is a matter of criminal
character the proper thing would be first of all, to abolish this
evil (connected with the brot
supe...@alt.winsock.trumpet
in regionem suam, et post deinde temporibus Artaxerxis Persarum regis,
inspiravit Esdrae sacerdoti tribus Levi praeteritorum prophetarum omnes
rememorare sermones, et restituere populo eam legem quae data est per
Moysen.[114]
633. Against the story in Esdras, 2 Maccab. 2.; Josephus, Antiquities, II,
i.--Cyrus took occasion from the prophecy of Isaiah to release the people.
The Jews held their property in peace under Cyrus in Babylon; hence they
could well have the law.
Josephus, in the whole history of Esdras, does not say one word about this
restoration. 2 Kings 17:27.
634. If the story in Esdras is credible, then it must be believed that the
Scripture is Holy Scripture; for this story is based only on the authority
of those who assert that of the Seventy, which shows that the Scripture is
holy.
Therefore, if this account be true, we have what we want therein; if not, we
have it elsewhere. And thus those who would ruin the truth of our religion,
founded on Moses, establish it by the same authority by which they attack
it. So by this providence it still exists.
635. Chronology of Rabbinism. (The citations of pages are from the book
Pugio.)
Page 27. R. Hakadosch (anno 200), author of the Mischna, or vocal law, or
second law.
Commentaries on the Mischna (anno 340): The one Siphra.
Barajetot.
Talmud Hierosol.
Tosiphtot.
Bereschit Rabah, by R. Osai