Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

not believe in the extermination of slavery, as we shall proceed to s

the previous day, two poor women to imprisonment with hard labor, for detaining a boy 13 years old. The women sold the little boy to a druggist for $17.50. The relatives traced their lost boy,

these poor women as I have done, and allow the druggist to escape. I therefore ask His Excellency to direct that proceedings be forthwith taken agai

ced on May 6th, 1879, to two years' imprisonment w

d to allow Leung A-Luk to go unpunished. I am aware that, according to precedents here and at home, it is within the province of the presiding judge to direct prosecutions such as these to be instituted, but I think it more convenient to ask His Excellency, as the head of the Executive (whose province i

Commission that practices of this kind have prevailed unchecked, or almost unchecked, for many years past in this Colony." The Governor then referred to a case in point that he had submitted to the f

being a well-to-do woman, and having no children of her own, had purchased the girl with a view to adopting her." He adds: "When Acting Superintendent of Police last year, I wished to prosecute a man for detaining a

ntion of the Governor had been bro

to his further report. The magistrate should always be supported if possible; and if he discharged the woman, and put her at the bar as a witness, and she was used again at the Supreme Court, it might look

eferred to the Crow

of others whose parents are too poor to keep them, is a social custom amongst the natives, and is of constant occurrence in Hong Kong. These 'pocket-

on to the cases. It was no wonder, then, that some of the witnesses could not be found. Meanwhile the Governor had left the Colony for a trip to Japan, and W.H. Marsh was acting in his pl

s has been taken both before the committing magistrate and the Supreme Court without any warning having been given them that their evidence might be used against them, it would appear like a breach of faith to treat them now as criminals." "Should the prosecution of these pers

debt. The wife of the man in whose custody the child was left beat the child severely and she ran out of the house. She was found wandering on the street late at night, and the finder took her and sold her to another Chinese party, who threatened to send her to Singapore as a prostitute. It was plain the last purchaser intended either to send her to Singapore or keep her at

They were Chinese in respectable positions, and I was given to understand that buying children by respectable Chinamen as servants was according to Chinese customs, and that to attempt to put it down would be to arouse the prejudices of the Chinese. The practice is on the increase. It is in this port, and in this Colony especially, that the so-called Chinese custom prevails. Under the English flag, slavery, it has been said, does not, cannot ever be. Under that flag it does exist in this Colony, and is, I believe, at this moment more openly practiced than at any former period of its history. Cyprus has been under our rule for about a year, and already, both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords, questions have been asked, and the Members of the present Ministry have a

s of the trial of the

eclared his intention

ai Alan, the woman who

sband. The Chief

the course in England and I will pursue it here." The Attorney General:-"You have publicly directed it; and I will report it to the proper quarter." His Lordship:-"The Attorney General at home is constantly ordered by the Court to prosecute. On my responsibility alone I do this." The Attorney General:-"May I ask your Lordship to say o

n be honorably married. But unless her freedom is purchased for her by some lover, the cases are rare, indeed, that a girl is allowed to earn her own freedom, though they are kept submissive by constant promises that the goal is just ahead of them. A few days after the Oakland papers had triumphantly asserted that it had been demonstrated that there was not a single slave girl in Chinatown-a statement that everyone who had any intelligence on the subject, including the newspapers themselves, knew to be false-a lady in mission work received a cautious hint in a round-about way that one of the girls she had seen when the rounds were made desired to be set at liberty. "How did you learn this?" we eagerly and quite naturally asked the missionary. She replied that on no account could she tell a human being how the intelligence was conveyed to her, as it might cost others very dearly, even to the sacrifice of life, if the knowledge leaked out. "But," she said, "I will show you the girl and you may talk with her yourselves." We gathered from the girl that she was a respectable widow, the mother of two children, living with her parents not far from Hong Kong on the mainland. As they were very poor, she went to Hong Kong to work at sewing to help support the family. An acquaintance there told her that she could earn as much as thirty dollars a month at sewing in California, and he could secure her passage for her at economical cost. She returned to her home and consulted her parents, and they thought the chance a good one, so bidding her little ones good bye, she returned to Hong Kong and paid for the ticket, being instructed that a certain woman would meet her at the wharf at San Francisco whom she must claim as her "mother," since the immigration laws were so strict that she must pass herself off as the daughter of this woman (for this daughter, who was now in China, having lived in the United States was entitled to return to her mother). Reader, have you ever traveled on another's ticket? If so, or if you have known a professing Christian to have done so, do not be too harsh in your judgment of this heathen, and declare she deserved the terrible fate that overtook her. The "mother" met the sewing-woman, brought her to Oakland, and imprisoned her in a horrible den to earn money for her. With utmost cau

unable to support a family, handed over to him his little daughter, aged six years; that the little girl was to become his daughter and to be brought up by him, he paying $23 to the parents. He accused the father of trying to extort money from him, and appealed for "protection" from "impending calamities." Later, further facts came out, showing that the father of the child had borrowed $5 three years before from Leung A-Tsit, which, with interest at ten cents per month for every dollar, now amounted to $23. The September before, his creditor came and demanded payment, and when the father told him he had no money, and found it very difficult to provide for his family, Leung A-Tsit said: "Very well, you can give me your daughter instead, and when she is grown up I will find her a husband." It was finally agreed that he should have the little girl for $25, viz., the $23 already owing, and $2 to the

ned to me with the following opinion of the Attorney General: 'The transaction referred to would not be recognized in our laws as giving any rights, except perhaps as to guardianship, but I am unable to

Acting Attorney General Russell to a somewhat similar ca

sed to enforce the rights of the father, on the ground that he had