Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

f coercion," (says the Commission's report): "The key note of the new regime was struck by the Governor's first minute on the subject, dated 20th October, 1866, in

most weighty objections to the policy of "subjecting persons to fine and imprisonment without the safeguards which

ave been something else. Whatever it was, the Commission informs us: "The Ordinance 10 of 1867 received its final sanction when the conclusion arrived at by the Colonial Government was before t

the following additional powers in the hands of t

on, but the women-"held in practical slavery for the purposes of prostitution

eak into any house suspected of being a brothel, and arrest the keeper the

both judicial and executive powers in th

could be arrested without w

rankly, and more honestly, employed the word "licen

of the Comm

ienced under the previous enactments in bringing the keepers of such houses before the court…. Nor can we in the second place find among the foregoing records proof of the necessity of the transfer to the Registrar General of the judicial powers…. As a matter of fact, witnesses do not seem to have been at all squeamish in divulging repu

is either ennoblement or injury in what we have to say, according to the spirit brought to the task of reading it. Think quietly, then, dear reader, for one moment. From what motive will you read our recital? We do not write what is lawful to the merely inquisitive. Then, will you continue to read from a worthier motive? If not, we pray you, close the book, and pass it on to someone more serious minded. Our message is only for those who will hear with the desire to help. But do not say: "I am too ignorant as to what to do, I am too weak, or I am too lowly, and without talents or influence." No, you are not. There is a place for you to help. God will sho

y bathed in blood as ours has once been has met already its terrible judgment for not throttling the monster, Slavery, in its infancy, before it cost so much blood and treasure. We will be wiser another time, and refuse to trifle with such great wrongs. We cannot brave the Omnipotent w

were so put before her. No such thing as courting ever takes place in China, previous to marriage. In other cases, doubtless, the informer who had thus intruded himself for the basest reasons into a native house, might really find a woman of loose character there. It were certainly more to the credit of such a woman that she was in hiding, and preferred it to flaunting her shame in a licensed house of infamy. What business have Governments hounding down these women, tearing away their last shred of decency and obliging them if inclining to go wrong to sink at once to the lowest depths of infamy? But that is what the attempt to localize vice in one section of a town, or to legalize it always means. When the informer at Hong Kong had insinuated himself into a native house and by means of the bait of "marked money" caught a victim and sinned with her, at once he threw open the window and summoned the Inspector, who was in waiting outside, who would rush in and arrest all the women and girls in the house, down to children often only 13 or 14 years old. This was not all according to law, but it seems to have been the regular practice. Says Mr. Lister, who was Registrar General for the first year after the Ordinance of 1867 came into operation: "As a general rule, the first thing I knew of a case of an unlicensed brothel coming before me was the finding of a string of women in my office in the morning." "Almost despotic powers" had been put into the hands of the "Registrar General," and these were some of the results. The "marked money" that had caught the victim would now be sanctimoniously taken away from her and restored to the Secret Service Fund. The woman would be fined or imprisoned, and the other inmates of the house put t

one case, a woman escaped the persecution of an informer who had intruded into her house by means of ladder; in another case, a woman risked her life getting out of the window upon a flimsy shade adjusted to keep the sun out; in another, a woman managed to escape to the roof; one poor creature let herself down to the ground from an upper window by means of a spout. When women were ready to take such risks as these (and undoubtedly the

nowing that any man might denounce them, out of malice, and thereby reduce them to the very worst conceivable form of slavery! Within a few years, nearly all the respectable Chinese women had disappeared from Hong Kong. Chief Inspector Whitehead testified before the Commission: "When an unlicensed brothel [i.e., a native house accused of being such] is broken up, the women have to resort to prostitution in most cases for a living." During 1869, one poor woman signed a bond to deport herself for five years rather than be taken to the Lock Hospital. But the "protected women," with their nursery of children they were raising for brothel slavery, being the mistresses of foreigners, were not persecuted in this manner, so, by a kind of mad infatuation the Government seemed bent on encouraging and developing immoral women and driving decent women either into prostitution, or, by the reign of terror, out of the Colony. In 1869, five women were charged before the Registrar General, and three of them were discharged as innocent. Then the Registrar General decided to make the punishment of the first of the remaining two depend upon the state of health of the second. This second was examined and found diseased, and in consequence of that fact, the first one was fined fifty dollars or two months' imprisonment! The Commission speaks of this as a "somewhat curious" case. We wonder how the punished woman described it. Afterwards, the case was reopened, and "evidence was given calculated to throw the gravest doubts on the credibility of the informers"

ar are mentioned as having been instituted from malice. One woman jumped from her window and severely injured herself, trying to escape Inspector Douglass. One woman dared to assault an informer who was after her, and w

sty. He then accused her before the courts, she was condemned, and paid a fine of ten dollars. On the following day, Christy appeared in court against the mistress of Flarey, with two fellow-policemen, to describe their own vileness in order to get revenge on Flarey by depriving him of

ccepted the marked money of the informers, or, as was actually proved in some cases, this marked Government money had been secreted by the informers in the rooms occupied by women. Inspector Lee in one instance found the money on a table in a room into which an informer had insinuated himself. The woman denied having ever accepted it of him, yet she was convicted on that evidence alone. With rewards offered to men of the lowest character, who would secure the conviction of women so that the latter could be forced into the life of open prostitution, all the presumptive evidence should have turned such a case as this agai

y injured by jumping out of their windows to

y so young in the Orient. And Government money was furnished them besides to pay for the debauchery, and if they brought in a good case for prosecution they got a reward in money besides. So this cook is ordered off by his master to "catch some unlicensed prostitutes," with the same sang froid as though ordered to go catch some fish for dinner. The cook seemed to know where to get the most ardent assistance for the task his employer had set him, for he says: "I got the assistance of a man who is master of a licensed br

he aggressions of these informers. In one case a man was struck for trying to obstruct the arrest of a girl of 14, and later was punished. This girl was proved to be a virgin afterwards. Many women and girls, against whom there was no sufficient evidence, were sent to the Lock Hospital for examination in order to determine in that manner their character. In half-a-do

ering of a virgin of 15, "in the interests of justice," with the owner of the slave child. The child as well as the owner were then taken to the Lock Hospital, where the latter was proved to be a virgin. A Chinese informer consorted with

er been put on record. We only aim to give a case here and there in illustration of the many forms of cruelty practiced upon innocent women in order to force them into prostitution

? In order that Americans may have some just conception of their duty toward the large num