Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

ling vessels, in the interests of conquest or commerce, and fell victims to their environments and weak wills, far removed from the restraints of religious influences, an

lmost stranded wreck will be found quickened with new life and moored alongside us. The Orient is already feeling the thrill of renewed life. It is responding to the touch of the youth and vigor of the West and becoming rejuvenated; it is drawing closer and closer in its eagerness for the warmth of new interests. The West is no longer alone in seeking a union; the East is coming to the West. And that part of the East which first responds to the West is t

on the other side, the Easterner hurries across from his side to ours with no less eagerness, to pick up gold in a land where it seems so abundant to him. A

y at the door of the Occident, and unless admission is granted soon, measures of retaliation will be operated to force an entrance. How to administer them

Their own children are in danger of being engulfed in the polluting flood of Oriental life in our midst. After many days vices come home. Man sowed the wind; the whirlwind must be reaped. The Oriental slave trader and the Oriental slave promise to become a terrible menace and scourge to our twentieth century civilization. Herein lies great peril to American womanhood. Whether we wish it to be so or not,-whether we perceive from the first that it is so or not, there is a solidarity of womanhood that men and women mus

, we are studying matters of vital importance to us. And in order to a clear understanding of the m

ese are Macao, Canton, Kowloon and Hong Kong, and the women coming to the West from this region all pass through Hong Kong,

d like a pendant from the eastern lip hangs the Island of Hong Kong, separated from the mainland by water only one-fourth of a mile wide. From the opposite or western lip hangs another pendant, a small island upon which is situated the Portugu

uthward toward the Gulf of Mexico and along the banks of the Mississippi, and compressed them on every side until at last

ago, pushed southward by an on-coming civilization until at last, by imperial decree, they were forbidden to live anywhere except on

heir lives was relaxed somewhat by imperial decree, and since then some of them have dwelt in villages along the river bank. But to the present day these people, k

days. They sold their wares to the foreigners; they piloted their boats into port; they did the laundry work for the ships. In many ways they showed friendliness t

in. When Chinese officials at last rose up to check this invasion by foreign trade, wars followed in which China was worsted, and the island of Hong Kong, together with the Kowloon peninsula, became a British poss

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

nd 2nd, 1841, two proclamations in the name of the Queen, to the effect that there would be no interference with the free e

fe 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 slav

d elapsed before a dispatch was returned from the Home Government disallowing the Ordinance as superfluous, slavery being already forbidden, and slave-dealing indictable by law. On the same day, January 24th, 1845, the following proclamation was made: "Whereas, the Acts of the British Parliament f

ablishment by herself, apart from his abode, and here children were born to the foreigner, some to be educated in missionary schools and elsewhere by their illegitimate fathers and afterwards become useful men and women, but probably the major

ing of girls to the foreigner, and the rearing of them for that object. The "protected women," being of the Tanka tribe, were well situated for this purpose, for they had many relations of kindred and friendship all up and down the Canton river, and the business of the preparation of slave girls for the foreigners and for foreign markets (as the trade expanded) gradually extended backwards up the Canton river, until many of its boats were almost given over to it. "Flower-boats" were probably never unknown to

l, Chinese interpreter

stitution and the sale of girls for concubinage flourishes, being looked upon as a legitimate profession. Consequently, almost every 'protected woman' keeps a nursery of purchased children or a few servant girls who are being reared with a view to their eventual disposal, according to their personal

hel; and into that house protected largely from official interference, purchased and kidnaped girls were introduced and reared for the trade in women. The sensitive point seems to have been that an enforcement of the anti-slavery laws would have interfered in many instances with the illicit relations of the foreigner, exposing him to ig

uppressed but with the greatest difficulty, and their suppression was an unwarrantable interference with Chinese customs, Sir Charles Elliott having given promise from the first that such customs

f Hong Kong, said, in 1879, in the Supreme Court, on the occa

ions,' and punishing him with 60 blows; the father of the son who shall 'give away' ... his son is to be subject to the same punishment. Again, section 79 enacts that whosoever shall receive and detain the strayed or lost child of a respectable person, and, instead of taking it before the magistrate, sell such child as a slave, shall be punished by 100 blows and three years' banishment. Whosoever shall sell such child for marriage or adoption into any family as son or grandson shall be punished with 90 blows and banishment for two years and a half. Whosoever shall dispose of a strayed or lost slave shall suffer the punishment provided by the law reduced one degree. If any person shall receive or detain a fugitive child, and, instead of taking it before the magistrate, sell such child for a slave, he shall be punished by 90 blows and banishment for two years and a half. Whosoever shall sell any such fugitive child for marriage or adoption shall suffer the punishment of 80 blows and two years' banishment.... Whosoever shall detain for his own use as a slave, wife, or child, any such lost, strayed or fugitive child or slave, s

said: "When the colony of Hong Kong was first established in 1842, it was forthwith invaded by brothel keepers and prostitutes from the adjoining districts of the mainland of China, who brought with them the national Chinese system of prostitution, and have ever since labored to carry it into effect in all its details."[A] The demand that brought this supply was further added to from two sources,

ccupied by the British in 18

the choice of such a life. They are either slaves trained for or sold into shame, or women temporarily held for debt by a sort of mortgage. To this Chinese system of prostitution, however, there was soon applied at Hong Kong a Government system of regulation or license u

rudeness, and insult and sometimes even worse. But from whence comes that danger of rudeness and insult or worse from which man is to protect woman? From man, of course. Man is, then, woman's natural protector to protect her from man, her natural protector. He is to set himself the task of defending her from his injury of her, and he is charmed with the avocation. He will protect her as Abraham protected Sarah when he took her into Egypt.