Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

CHAPTER 17.

STRUG­GLES FOR FREE­DOM.

A Chi­nese girl of 14 was brought to this coun­try, and served six months as a do­mes­tic slave, and was then put in­to a broth­el. She was res­cued. Her Chi­nese mas­ter got out a writ of habeas cor­pus, went to the Mis­sion with an of­fi­cer and took the girl away at once to court be­fore a cor­rupt judge. It was just at noon-​time, and the mis­sion­ary plead­ed for a lit­tle time in which to sum­mon a lawyer. The judge said: “I have no time to fool with this case.” The lawyer ar­rived in haste and plead­ed for a lit­tle time in which to pre­pare the de­fense. The judge said to the lawyer: “You shut up, or I'll have you im­pris­oned for con­tempt of Court.” He award­ed the slave to the care of her mas­ter.

This and oth­er such cas­es led to a valu­able al­ter­ation of the law at the point of the pro­tec­tion of mi­nors. We will ex­plain the change in the words of Miss Cameron:

“In years past it was nec­es­sary in each case to in a way break the _let­ter_ though not the _spir­it_ of the law when we res­cued a Chi­nese child, for there was no writ­ten law to up­hold us in en­ter­ing a house and car­ry­ing off a child--then, too, be­fore it was pos­si­ble to car­ry out guardian­ship pro­ceed­ings, the ev­er-​avail­able writ of habeas cor­pus would in many cas­es de­liv­er the child back in­to the care of the Chi­nese, un­til the mat­ter could be set­tled in the Su­pe­ri­or Court--in such in­stances we sel­dom won our case. Our at­tor­ney saw where­in the dif­fi­cul­ty lay, and pro­posed an amend­ment to the law of the State in the mat­ter of the guardian­ship of mi­nor chil­dren, which would give pow­er to a pre­sid­ing judge to sign an or­der to the Sher­iff, com­mand­ing him im­me­di­ate­ly to take in­to cus­tody the child whose name ap­peared on the war­rant and place her in the care of those ap­ply­ing for guardian­ship, un­til such time as the hear­ing could be had.”

This means of pro­tec­tion for mi­nors was se­cured by the com­bined ef­forts of mis­sion work­ers and their friends. This ex­pla­na­tion will pre­pare the way for a re­hearsal of some cas­es of res­cue which might puz­zle the read­er as be­ing car­ried out by un­usu­al meth­ods of pro­ce­dure.

The fol­low­ing cas­es are from the records of the Methodist Home for Chi­nese Girls, lo­cat­ed, since the earth­quake, at Berke­ley:

No. 1. Made the fol­low­ing state­ment: “I am 12 years old; born in Can­ton; fa­ther a la­bor­er; moth­er a nurse; par­ents very poor. Moth­er fell sick, and in her need of mon­ey sold me. Took me to Hong Kong and sold me to a wom­an; saw the mon­ey paid, but do not know how much; it looked a great deal. This was 3 years ago. The wom­an promised my moth­er to make me her own daugh­ter, and lit­tle did my moth­er know I was to be a slave, to be beat­en and abused by a cru­el mis­tress. My moth­er cried when she left me; it was very hard to part. The big ship, 'City of Pekin,' took me soon out of sight. I have heard that she is now dead. On ar­riv­ing we did not come ashore im­me­di­ate­ly. I was land­ed af­ter 4 days. There was trou­ble in land­ing me. I had a red pa­per, bought at Hong Kong, that they called a cer­tifi­cate, and there was trou­ble about it. The wom­an who bought me had no trou­ble get­ting ashore be­cause she had lived in Cal­ifor­nia be­fore. She told me what I was to say when I was ques­tioned. She told me I must swear I was her own daugh­ter. The Judge asked, 'Is this your own moth­er?' and I said, 'Yes.' This was a lie, but I did not know it was wrong to do as I was told, and I was afraid of my mis­tress. The Judge said, 'Did this wom­an give you birth?' and I said, 'Yes.' The Judge said, 'Did any­body tell you to say all this?” and I said, 'No,' be­cause my mis­tress had in­struct­ed me how to an­swer this ques­tion, if it was asked me. She taught me on ship-​board what to say if I was tak­en to court. My mis­tress was an opi­um smok­er, and she and her hus­band had aw­ful quar­rels, which made her bad-​tem­pered, and then she would beat me for no rea­son. I used to get so tired work­ing hard, and then she would beat me. She beat me with thick sticks of fire-​wood. She would lay me on the bench, lift my clothes, and beat me on the back. An­oth­er day she would beat me thus with the fire tongs. One day she took a hot flat-​iron, re­moved my clothes, and held it on my naked back un­til I howled with pain. (There was a large scab on her back from this burn when she came to the Mis­sion.) The scars on my body are proof of my bad treat­ment. My fore­head is all scars caused by her throw­ing heavy pieces of wood at my head. One cut a large gash, and the blood ran out. She stopped the bleed­ing and hid me away. She beat my legs one day un­til they were all swollen up. I thought I bet­ter get away be­fore she killed me. When she was hav­ing her hair washed and dressed I ran away. I had heard of the Mis­sion, and in­quired the way and came to it. A white man brought me here. I am very hap­py now." While be­ing brought to the Mis­sion by this gen­tle­man, she laid hold of his coat, and would not let go un­til she was safe­ly in­side. It is sig­nif­icant that in this case and the fol­low­ing, meth­ods of pun­ish­ment al­lowed even un­to death by Chi­nese law, are ad­min­is­tered by the mis­tress­es of slaves in Amer­ica.

No. 2. “One day I was play­ing in the street near my home in Can­ton, and a man kid­naped me. He said: 'Come with me; your moth­er told me to take you to buy some­thing for her, and you are to take it back.' I have nev­er seen my fa­ther and moth­er since. In 3 or 4 days I was tak­en to the Hong Kong steam­er. I dared not cry on the street, but on board the steam­er I cried very much. The kid­naper said: 'Don't you cry, or you will have the po­lice­man af­ter you, and they'll take you off to the for­eign dev­ils' prison.' At Hong Kong he sold me to a wom­an, and af­ter stay­ing at her house a few days she brought me to Cal­ifor­nia. I had a yel­low pa­per giv­en me, but I don't know what it was. The wom­an told me I must say I was born in Cal­ifor­nia. I came here last win­ter. I am 11 years old. I don't re­mem­ber the name of the steam­er. The wom­an sold me to an­oth­er wom­an. I had to work as cook, and nurse her lit­tle bound-​foot­ed child, who was strapped to my back to car­ry. The child I car­ried was 9 years old; and I was 11. My mis­tress was very cru­el. Of­ten she took off all my clothes, laid me on a bench and beat me with a rat­tan un­til I was black all over. Then she said: 'I will get rid of you and sell you.' The keep­er of a broth­el came to buy me, and look me over to see how much I was worth. A Chi­na­man liv­ing next door, know­ing how I was treat­ed and that I was go­ing to be put in a broth­el, when I saw him in the pas­sage­way, asked me if I wished to come to the Mis­sion, and I said 'Yes.' My mis­tress had gone out in­to the next room, leav­ing her daugh­ter and an­oth­er slave girl in the room. I said I would go at once, and he brought me. I am very glad to live here and lead a good life.”

No. 3. The res­cuer was re­quest­ed to meet a girl at the cor­ner of Stock­ton and Jack­son streets. She did so. K---- Y---- was come­ly and re­fined look­ing. She had been sold in­to a broth­el at a ten­der age. When about 22 she met a young Chi­nese man who wished to mar­ry her, and he paid down $600 for her, promis­ing $1,400 more in time. An­oth­er man ob­ject­ed to the sale, be­cause the girl had mort­gaged her­self to him for $600. Through the Mis­sion the girl was re­leased from her bondage, and re­mained at the Mis­sion one year and then mar­ried the first man, and they left San Fran­cis­co and resid­ed for a time in an in­land town. Here an ef­fort was made to kill her in her own gar­den one evening. Her hus­band brought her back to San Fran­cis­co, and lat­er she went back to Chi­na.

No. 4. Came from a broth­el on Spof­ford al­ley. She was oc­ca­sion­al­ly al­lowed to at­tend the (Chi­nese) the­atre. One evening when at the the­atre she had word con­veyed to the Mis­sion to come get her im­me­di­ate­ly. The res­cuer did so, and the girl prompt­ly arose, when the res­cuer en­tered the room, from the front tier of seats, and seiz­ing the hand of the mis­sion­ary in the pres­ence of them all climbed over the backs of two seats, re­gard­less of their oc­cu­pants, and es­caped. Lat­er she was mar­ried and re­turned to Chi­na.

No. 5. In a dark, dis­mal room where the sun nev­er shone lay a poor Chi­nese wom­an help­less with rheuma­tism. She had a ba­by girl 10 months old and was too sick to care for it. The in­valid felt forced to put the child in the hands of a friend she trust­ed, who promised to care for it, and ad­vanced mon­ey for the sick wom­an. When the moth­er got bet­ter she worked two years and saved un­til she had enough mon­ey to buy the child back, but the cru­el wom­an who had got pos­ses­sion of it re­fused to give it up un­less paid three times as much as was orig­inal­ly bor­rowed. The moth­er could not do this, and fi­nal­ly, hear­ing of the Mis­sion, re­port­ed the case there. The ba­by was traced to a hor­ri­ble den in Church al­ley, where it was in the pos­ses­sion of a no­to­ri­ous broth­el-​keep­er. The moth­er se­cret­ly vis­it­ed the Ma­tron at the Mis­sion, who had se­cured the child, urg­ing her to keep pos­ses­sion of the ba­by, say­ing she would not dare tes­ti­fy against the wom­an on the wit­ness stand, as it would cost her her life. The case was a long time in court, but af­ter six months the Judge com­mit­ted the child to the Home, and the moth­er was made very hap­py.

No. 6. She ran in­to the Mis­sion lead­ing her lit­tle son. She was chased to the very door of the Mis­sion, but kept her pur­suers at bay, by means of a po­lice­man's whis­tle which she held in her mouth, walk­ing back­ward and threat­en­ing to blow it if they dared touch her child. She was a wid­ow with this on­ly child, and her rel­atives were bound to sell her in­to an im­moral life and take the boy away. Af­ter be­ing in the Mis­sion a few months she be­came a Chris­tian. Her lit­tle boy was placed in an or­phan­age. Lat­er the wid­ow mar­ried re­spectably.

No. 7. This girl was aged 14 when res­cued, and had been placed in a vile life four weeks be­fore. Two days lat­er she was tak­en to court on a writ of habeas cor­pus. Her case was put off three times, and fi­nal­ly came to tri­al. The Judge re­mand­ed the girl to the cus­tody of the M.E. Mis­sion Home. He said, on dis­miss­ing the case, that nev­er in all his ex­pe­ri­ence had he lis­tened to such per­jury, and that the al­leged moth­er should be pun­ished to the fullest ex­tent of the law for her ly­ing. The girl seemed very hap­py and con­tent­ed in the Home, but nine days af­ter she was com­mit­ted to it she was again tak­en out on a writ of habeas cor­pus and ap­peared be­fore an­oth­er Judge, who re­turned her to the broth­el-​keep­er. (This was be­fore the new guardian­ship law came in­to op­er­ation).

No. 8 proves that the buy­ing and sell­ing of chil­dren takes place in Amer­ica up to the present day. It is but one in­stance of this sort out of scores of oth­ers giv­en by the mis­sion­ary:

"She was sold when she was but four weeks and five days old. Her par­ents be­ing very poor and hav­ing sev­er­al oth­er chil­dren, she was dis­posed of to a man who was a friend of the fa­ther. The wife, how­ev­er, was an in­mate of an im­moral house. Part of the time the child was kept there and part of the time in a fam­ily house where we of­ten saw her in our rounds of vis­it­ing pri­or to the earth­quake and fire. We did not know but that she be­longed to the fam­ily in whose care we saw her.

"Af­ter the fire the man re­turned to Chi­na, leav­ing the wom­an and child. The wom­an took to abus­ing the child, and word was brought to us of the con­di­tion of things. We ap­peared on the scene one morn­ing about 10 o'clock with an of­fi­cer. Leav­ing him out­side, we en­tered, and found the wom­an and child eat­ing break­fast. Three oth­er wom­en and two men soon came in. Af­ter talk­ing for a while I saw the wom­an was anx­ious to get the child away from the ta­ble, so I in­formed her we had come to take her, and pro­ceed­ed to do so, catch­ing the child up and dart­ing in­to the street, leav­ing my in­ter­preter and the of­fi­cer to fol­low. We ran sev­er­al blocks, fol­lowed by the irate wom­an. Fi­nal­ly hail­ing a man with a horse and wag­on, we sprang in and were driv­en away to where we could take the street cars for home. The child did some scream­ing and cry­ing, at first. But once we were seat­ed in the street car, her tears were dried and her lit­tle tongue rat­tled along at a rapid rate; she was de­light­ed to get away.

“The case was in court for some weeks, but the wom­an was afraid to ap­pear, and had no one to as­sist her but the lawyer, and as he could not prove any good rea­son why the child should re­main with an im­moral wom­an, we were giv­en the guardian­ship.”

No. 9. A young girl came to San Fran­cis­co from Chi­na as a mer­chant's wife, and mis­sion­ar­ies used to vis­it her at her home in Chi­na­town. Once when they went they were told that the wife had gone to San Jose, but she could not be traced at the lat­ter place, and the mis­sion­ary was sus­pi­cious. A year passed, and one night the door bell at the Mis­sion rang, and when it was opened a Chi­nese girl fell in a faint from ex­haus­tion, across the thresh­old. A col­ored girl stood by her hold­ing her by the cue. The col­ored girl said she saw her run­ning, and di­vined where she wished to go, and seiz­ing her by the hair to pre­vent her be­ing dragged back, rushed her to the Mis­sion. It was the mer­chant's young wife. She had been con­fined in a broth­el not two blocks from the Mis­sion, and of­ten saw the mis­sion­ary pass by, but had no means of at­tract­ing her at­ten­tion. The mer­chant told her one day that he wished to take her to a cousin to learn a dif­fer­ent way of dress­ing her hair, and he would leave her there a day or two while he was away from town on busi­ness. The young wife went with­out fear, but nev­er to re­turn to virtue un­til she es­caped to the Mis­sion. She was tied to a win­dow by day to at­tract cus­tom, and at night tied to a bed, for she was no will­ing slave. When res­cued she was hor­ri­bly dis­eased. Three days be­fore her res­cue, the Chief of Po­lice and an in­ter­preter had gone through the house ques­tion­ing ev­ery in­mate as to whether they wished to lead a life of shame or not. She was asked the ques­tion in the pres­ence of the broth­el-​keep­er, the head mis­tress, and all the girls. She had been told be­fore­hand, “If you dare say you want to es­cape, we will kill you.” The Chief of Po­lice had it an­nounced in the pa­pers that he had made this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and that no slaves ex­ist­ed in Chi­na­town. Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter his vis­it, she was re­moved to a fam­ily house, lest her res­cue might be ef­fect­ed, and one man and two wom­en set to watch her day and night. She feigned will­ing­ness to lead a bad life, and the two wom­en, lulled in­to a sense of se­cu­ri­ty, turned aside to gos­sip, while the man dropped off asleep. She sud­den­ly rushed out of the house, and but for the quick wit and good of­fices of the col­ored girl might have missed the way to a safe har­bor.

The fol­low­ing are cas­es of res­cue re­port­ed from the Mis­sion Home of the Oc­ci­den­tal Board of Mis­sions of the Pres­by­te­ri­an Church:

No. 1. Qui Que. This lit­tle girl was tak­en from a gam­bling den at Isle­ton, a small town on the Sacra­men­to riv­er. The wom­an who brought her from Chi­na died, and she was thus left to the care of this gang of gam­blers. When Miss Cameron and her es­cort ar­rived at the house, the lit­tle girl of six or sev­en years sat on a ta­ble rolling cigarettes for the men who sat around it gam­bling. They were tak­en by sur­prise, and be­fore they quite un­der­stood the sit­ua­tion the res­cuers were gone with the lit­tle girl. When they dis­cov­ered this, they fired sev­er­al shots af­ter the par­ty, but no harm was done. The of­fi­cer, with one hand on his re­volver, drove rapid­ly for the boat land­ing, and Qui Que, safe in Miss Cameron's arms, will prob­ably nev­er know the dan­ger risked in se­cur­ing her free­dom.

No. 2. Ngun Fah. This child was a do­mes­tic slave in the fam­ily of a well-​to-​do mer­chant in Chi­na­town, but so cru­el­ly was the child over­worked and abused that the mat­ter was fi­nal­ly re­port­ed to the Mis­sion, and lit­tle Ngun Fah res­cued. When found at the home of her mas­ter, she was in a most pitiable con­di­tion. Weary from hard work and worn out with cry­ing, af­ter the cru­el pun­ish­ment which had just been ad­min­is­tered, the lone­ly lit­tle girl crawled on to the hard wood­en shelf which served as a bed, and with no cov­er­ing but the dirty, for­lorn gar­ment worn through the day, had dropped off to sleep. Thus she was eas­ily cap­tured and car­ried to the Mis­sion, where up­on ex­am­ina­tion it was found that her head had been severe­ly cut from blows ad­min­is­tered with a meat knife, the hair was mat­ted with blood and the child's whole body was cov­ered with filth, and showed signs of for­mer pun­ish­ments. Af­ter the first fears of “be­ing poi­soned” were al­layed, Ngun Fah ex­pressed her­self as be­ing very hap­py to be res­cued from the suf­fer­ing and weari­ness of her life in Chi­na­town. Her mas­ter sent many emis­saries to the Home with of­fers of bribes, and many promis­es of bet­ter treat­ment in the fu­ture, but all these over­tures were re­ject­ed, and when at length the mat­ter of guardian­ship came up, there was no one present to claim the child but her new friends at the Mis­sion Home.

No. 3. Suey Ying. Our dear ba­by was sure­ly sent to dis­pel any clouds of sad­ness which may be hov­er­ing round, for she takes all of life as a huge joke. And where did Suey Ying come from? From a part of Chi­na­town, dear friend, that you would not dare to en­ter, and the strangest thing about her com­ing is that she was car­ried to the Home by a fugi­tive slave wom­an, who was es­cap­ing to Chi­na. Long ago this wom­an had spent a day or two in the Mis­sion and was im­pressed by the hap­py life of the chil­dren here and by the kind treat­ment she her­self re­ceived. Lat­er on she pur­chased for $120 a lit­tle ba­by girl. She grew to love the tiny waif, and when at length trou­bles of many kinds drove her to sud­den flight across the ocean, in­stead of sell­ing the ba­by she brought it to this Home of hap­py mem­ory and asked that we keep it al­ways.

No. 4. How Wan. A frail young girl with bound feet was brought to this coun­try to be the wife of a man who had died while she was en route. Re­fused a land­ing, she was de­tained in the Mis­sion by im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials, while the young man's par­ents made fran­tic ef­forts to se­cure her ad­mis­sion to the coun­try. She re­mained here, a pris­on­er, for two years. Thou­sands of dol­lars were ex­pend­ed with­out avail, and How Wan was de­port­ed. Noth­ing daunt­ed, they ac­com­pa­nied her as far as Japan, and re­turned with her, se­cured a li­cense and land­ed her as a mer­chant's wife. She lived with the fam­ily in a dark base­ment on Sacra­men­to street, where the moth­er-​in-​law abused her with such cru­el­ty that, shrink­ing girl as she is, she found courage to send word to us if we did not come to her res­cue she must re­lieve her­self by sui­cide--the Chi­nese wom­an's on­ly hope. We be­gan at once to plan to get her tak­en to the steam­er to hid good-​bye to some friends, and res­cued her at the Pa­cif­ic Mail dock. She is now a grate­ful mem­ber of our house­hold fam­ily, and is un­bind­ing her feet.

No. 5. Dur­ing the St. Louis Ex­po­si­tion a Chi­nese com­pa­ny brought from Chi­na a large num­ber of wom­en for ex­hi­bi­tion in the Fair.

Four of these, up­on learn­ing that they were not to be re­turned at the close of the ex­po­si­tion, as agreed, but were des­tined to be sold in­to hous­es of pros­ti­tu­tion in San Fran­cis­co, re­fused to land, and were brought to the Mis­sion by the Com­mis­sion­ers of Im­mi­gra­tion.

These Chi­nese were ar­rest­ed, the case tried in Fed­er­al Court, these girls be­ing the prin­ci­pal wit­ness­es; yet twelve sup­pos­ed­ly good men dis­missed the crim­inals, and the case was lost.

Sur­round­ed by the ge­nial en­vi­ron­ment of our Mis­sion, the minds of these four girls un­fold­ed in a re­mark­able man­ner; fas­ci­nat­ed with their stud­ies, they con­stant­ly begged us to in­ter­cede with the au­thor­ities that they might re­main in the Mis­sion and ob­tain an ed­uca­tion; but, al­though ev­ery ef­fort was made, they were de­port­ed af­ter a sev­en months' stay.

They had learned to love our Home life, had unit­ed with our Chris­tian En­deav­or So­ci­ety and had be­come in­ter­est­ed in all our work, and we would be quite un­rec­on­ciled to their de­par­ture did we not know that our mis­sion­ar­ies in Shang­hai stand ready to re­ceive and care for them when they ar­rive.

No. 6. Seen Fah. The first beams of the ris­ing sun shone bright and hope­ful­ly in­to a pleas­ant room in the Pres­by­te­ri­an Mis­sion Home one morn­ing last au­tumn. It threw its cheer­ful ra­di­ance over a group of three gath­ered there to plan an im­por­tant un­der­tak­ing, light­ing the bright, ea­ger faces of two young Chi­nese girls, and giv­ing re­newed courage to the anx­ious heart of the Su­per­in­ten­dent. What im­por­tant event had to be dis­cussed? What se­ri­ous mat­ter de­cid­ed? News had reached the Mis­sion Home, a few hours be­fore, of a young Chi­nese girl just land­ed in San Fran­cis­co and sold for three thou­sand dol­lars. Plans to save this help­less and in­no­cent child, be­fore it was too late, were the sub­ject of dis­cus­sion at that ear­ly morn­ing meet­ing. In such a se­ri­ous un­der­tak­ing ev­ery pos­si­bil­ity of fail­ure must be care­ful­ly guard­ed against. Each pos­si­ble de­vice of the wily High­binder slave-​own­er must he con­jec­tured and frus­trat­ed. So the three planned this cam­paign: “When is De­tec­tive ---- com­ing?” asked Chan Yuen, as a step sound­ed on the qui­et street be­low. “At six he promised to be here with one of his trusti­est men. It is best to reach Chi­na­town ear­ly, that our com­ing may not be sig­naled by those on the streets at a lat­er hour. If the alarm is giv­en, ev­ery slave den will be dou­bly bolt­ed and barred; and per­haps lit­tle Seen Fah, whom we wish to save, will be spir­it­ed away be­yond reach of help.” Well did the ques­tion­er know the ter­ri­ble truth of these words. A sym­pa­thet­ic shade of sor­row and anx­iety crossed her bright face. She, too, was a res­cued girl and had not for­got­ten the dark, mys­te­ri­ous ways of Chi­na­town. The Su­per­in­ten­dent rose to an­swer the sum­mons of a small elec­tric bell. Two trust­ed de­tec­tives had ar­rived. Af­ter a short con­fer­ence, the res­cu­ing par­ty set forth on its strange mis­sion. One who had ea­ger­ly thought and planned for the suc­cess of the un­der­tak­ing felt her heart throb­bing be­tween hope and fear, but was re­as­sured when a slen­der hand slipped in­to hers and a sweet, en­cour­ag­ing voice whis­pered: “I have faith to be­lieve God will give us the girl.” Faith tri­umphed that day. Through two of Chi­na­town's most des­olate old ten­ements, up­stairs and down­stairs in dark clos­ets and un­ex­pect­ed cor­ners, while High­binders ut­tered im­pre­ca­tions in the al­leys be­low, the res­cue par­ty kept up a dili­gent search for many hours. When at last the quest was about to be aban­doned as hope­less, sud­den­ly a cry of suc­cess echoed through ev­ery gloomy cor­ner of the old build­ing--Seen Fah was found! A small, dark clos­et, over­looked in the ear­li­er hours of the search, was dis­cov­ered. A light­ed can­dle soon re­vealed a pile of emp­ty rice bags and bro­ken box­es. Pulling these away, the ob­ject of the long search was dis­cov­ered, near­ly smoth­ered be­neath the de­bris. Dazed and ter­ri­fied, but safe, Seen Fah was at last in the hands of friends--and the slave ring had lost just three thou­sand dol­lars. Lat­er on, Seen Fah and her new friends were haled in­to court. As usu­al, the sleek, well-​paid at­tor­ney ap­peared for the Chi­nese own­ers. But they and he were alike pow­er­less to drag back in­to slav­ery the res­cued girl. There was but one course for the court to pur­sue. _Find­ing that Seen Fah was over four­teen, she was al­lowed to choose for her­self_ be­tween the life of Chi­na­town and that of­fered by the Mis­sion. She chose the Chris­tian Home; so to its care Judge Cook con­signed her. To-​day, a free hap­py girl, Seen Fah joins gay­ly in the sim­ple, whole­some life of her new sur­round­ings. Res­cued be­fore the blight of slav­ery ac­tu­al­ly dark­ened her life, she will nev­er ful­ly un­der­stand from how great a dan­ger her guardian an­gel snatched her. But we who do know thank dai­ly the kind Prov­idence who thus pro­tects His own.

No. 7. Kum Ping. She was mar­ried in the Amer­ican Con­sulate at Hong Kong in the most ap­proved Eu­ro­pean way. Her new hus­band had made a good im­pres­sion on the old aunt who was her guardian, and for a small con­sid­er­ation in Mex­ican coin, Kum Ping be­came his prop­er­ty ac­cord­ing to Chi­nese cus­tom, as well as his le­gal wife by Amer­ican law. When these ar­range­ments were com­plet­ed, pas­sage was im­me­di­ate­ly en­gaged on the Ko­rea, bound for that har­bor of ro­mance, San Fran­cis­co Bay. There was, how­ev­er, to be lit­tle ro­mance in the life of our small Chi­nese hero­ine. The man who made her his wife did so sim­ply as a means to­ward an end, and that end was to be a life of slav­ery and degra­da­tion in Cal­ifor­nia. The land­ing of slave girls in free Amer­ica is pro­hib­it­ed by law, thus the slave-​deal­ers must re­sort to the best means at their com­mand to thwart or cir­cum­vent our laws. A wit­nessed mar­riage in Chi­na gives an Amer­ican-​born Chi­na­man the right to land his wife in this coun­try, so many an in­no­cent vil­lage girl cross­es the ocean se­cure in the be­lief that she is the hon­ored wife of a re­spectable hus­band. She is land­ed as such, and, alas! of­ten finds out when too late that she is mere­ly the chat­tel of an evil and un­scrupu­lous High­binder so­ci­ety, whose paid agent is the man to whom she is bound. Soon af­ter the Ko­rea's ar­rival in port, on the voy­age in which we are in­ter­est­ed, I vis­it­ed the ship to in­ter­view the Chi­nese wom­en on board, and there for the first time met our lit­tle dark-​eyed friend, Kum Ping. She had been care­ful­ly coached on the way as to the vis­its she might re­ceive from for­eign mis­sion­ar­ies, and the replies to all our ques­tions showed a guard­ed sus­pi­cion that seemed quite hope­less. Our cheer­ful in­ter­preter talked on, nev­er­the­less, and fi­nal­ly won a qui­et smile and the of­fer of some roast duck (a great del­ica­cy among Chi­nese). All warn­ings about the dan­gers and wicked­ness of Chi­na­town ap­par­ent­ly fell on deaf ears. “I am a mar­ried wom­an, my hus­band can take care of me. I do not need your pro­tec­tion!” was the rather in­dig­nant re­sponse. So we pre­sent­ed some bright flow­ers as a to­ken of good will and friend­ship, and with them slipped in­to the small, soft hand a tal­is­man that might help her out of fu­ture trou­ble. Just a slip of pa­per, but the mag­ic of the name and num­ber writ­ten there many an es­caped slave girl can bear wit­ness to. Some weeks passed by af­ter our vis­it to Kum Ping on the steam­er. She had land­ed, and, like hun­dreds of oth­ers, had sim­ply dis­ap­peared from view in that place of many mys­ter­ies, old Chi­na­town. One night per­haps a month lat­er, I was called to the re­cep­tion room to see a strange vis­itor (Chi­nese) who re­fused to di­vulge ei­ther name or busi­ness to any one else. On meet­ing this mes­sen­ger I no­ticed his great ex­cite­ment and ner­vous­ness. On­ly af­ter the door was tight­ly shut did he tell his er­rand. We lis­tened with in­ter­est to his sto­ry of a young girl sold to a very cru­el mas­ter, who beat her dai­ly and nev­er al­lowed her to leave the place in which she was close­ly guard­ed. Un­less re­lief came soon she must end her life. Would the Mis­sion try to save this poor girl? We glad­ly promised what help we could give, and our vis­itor left as quick­ly and mys­te­ri­ous­ly as he came, on­ly leav­ing for our guid­ance a rough­ly sketched di­agram of al­ley and house where the lit­tle cap­tive could be found. There fol­lowed much plan­ning and plot­ting. Our staunch friend, Sergeant Ross of the Chi­na­town squad, was sum­moned and con­sult­ed. The place was a dif­fi­cult one to reach, but at last sat­is­fac­to­ry plans were made, the day and hour set. There were three of­fi­cers and three Chi­nese girls from the Mis­sion. It was a good-​sized res­cue par­ty and di­vid­ed in­to three com­pa­nies, we guard­ed well the three ex­its from the low-​roofed house on Spof­ford al­ley. With Sergeant Ross lead­ing and our coura­geous young in­ter­preter at our side, we stealthi­ly as­cend­ed the dark, nar­row stairs to the sec­ond floor, where a heavy door barred the way, but for such ob­sta­cles our good of­fi­cer was pre­pared. A few blows of his strong ham­mer made bolts and bars yield. We passed through in­to a small dark pas­sage. From there could be heard on all sides sounds of ex­cite­ment; light feet run­ning hith­er and thith­er to places of es­cape, on­ly to be turned back by the sight of our guards, who stood on watch. As we cau­tious­ly felt our way fur­ther in we were met by the baf­fled and an­gry keep­er of the den--a wom­an, but not wor­thy the name. She fierce­ly de­mand­ed our busi­ness--there was no need to tell it, for she knew as well as we; but she wished to find some means of hin­der­ing our search for her newest and most valu­able slave. A room was at length dis­cov­ered in which we felt sure the trea­sure was hid­den. Again Sergeant Ross had to force open a door. As it gave way, a small, dim­ly-​light­ed room opened be­fore us. In the cen­ter cow­ered a Chi­nese girl. It need­ed not a sec­ond look to rec­og­nize in the fright­ened, anx­ious face be­fore me Kum Ping of the steam­er. Our tal­is­man had worked its charm. She had proved to the depths the ter­ri­ble truth of our warn­ing, and now glad­ly en­trust­ed her­self to our care, while her al­most fran­tic own­er stormed, threat­ened and at last laid vi­olent hands on the of­fi­cer who was help­ing us. As we led the trem­bling Kum Ping out, a great­ly ex­cit­ed crowd of chat­ter­ing Chi­nese met us at the end of the pas­sage at Spof­ford al­ley, and the news passed from lip to lip, “The Mis­sion peo­ple have tak­en Woon Ha's new slave girl!” We would be glad to end the sto­ry of our lit­tle friend's trou­bles and safe es­cape with her ar­rival at last in the Mis­sion Home that day. But how few res­cues ev­er do end in that peace­ful and pleas­ant way! There fol­lowed the usu­al train of lawyers and war­rants. To avoid these un­pleas­ant ex­pe­ri­ences, Kum Ping had to change her place of res­idence sev­er­al times, the last time be­ing the night be­fore the fa­tal eigh­teenth of April. A war­rant was served at ten o'clock that night, but be­ing fore­warned, the one named in it was with friends at some dis­tance from the city. The war­rant sum­moned us to court at two o'clock next day. God dis­posed of that case! No court has ev­er passed judg­ment on it. Long af­ter the ex­cite­ment of these days was over, Kum Ping re­turned to our Home; coun­try air and a free life are work­ing their spell. It is hard to rec­og­nize in the round, sun-​tanned, hap­py face we see to­day, the un­hap­py slave girl of Woon Ha's den on Spof­ford al­ley.