Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers by Andrew, Elizabeth Wheeler, Bushnell, Katharine Caroline - CHAPTER 5.

Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

CHAPTER 5.

HOUNDED TO DEATH.

Sir John Pope Hennessy went to Hong Kong as Governor of the Colony in the early Spring of 1877. In the following October a tragedy occurred, which drew his attention to the administration of the Registrar General, and he set himself to the task of trying to right some of the wrongs of the Chinese women.

The case last mentioned in the previous chapter related to a woman by the name of Tai-Yau, whom an informer humbled “against her will,” which led to his being rewarded and her being fined $100, to pay which she sold her little boy. This seems to have been the only way open for her to escape a life of prostitution. To make this point clear, we will here insert the explanation of conditions given by Dr. Eitel in a communication for the information of Governor Hennessy at a little later period than the incident we are about to relate. He speaks of Chinese women who secretly practiced prostitution [but, as we have shown, many respectable Chinese women suffered also], as

“preyed upon by informers paid with Government money, who would first debauch such women and then turn against them, charging them before the magistrate under the Ordinance 10, 1867, before the Registrar General as keepers of unlicensed brothels in which case a heavy fine would be inflicted, to pay which these women used to sell their children, or sell themselves into bondage worse than ordinary slavery, to the keepers of brothels licensed by the Government. Whenever a so-called sly brothel was broken up these keepers would crowd the shroff's office [money exchanger's office] of the police court or the visiting room of the Government Lock Hospital to drive their heartless bargains, _which were invariably enforced with the weighty support of the inspectors of brothels_,[A] appointed by Government under the Contagious Diseases Ordinance. The more this Ordinance was enforced, the more this buying and selling of human flesh went on at the very doors of Government offices.”

[Footnote A: We italicise this to call attention to the active part officials took in encouraging slavery.]

We can then readily imagine Tai-Yau as sentenced to pay her fine of one hundred dollars, and nothing to pay with. The money exchanger's office next the court room was crowded with slave-dealers, waiting to offer to pay the fines of such unhappy creatures, and she probably turned to them. If she were sent to jail what would become of her little boy? And if she sold herself to the licensed brothel-keepers, as the inspectors of brothels were urging her to do, the fate of her boy would be even worse. She could see a hope that if she sold the boy for “adoption,” a form of slavery the Hong Kong Government permitted, of which we will tell more,--then if she had her freedom she could at least hope to redeem him some time. So the little fellow was sold for about forty dollars, and she went away sixty dollars in debt,--probably to the brothel-keepers, who would never let her out of their sight until, through the debt and the interest thereon, they would in time be enabled to seize her as their slave. But she went out hoping for some honest way of earning the money, or else she would have bargained with them at once to work off the debt by prostitution. But what could a Chinese woman do in the face of such a debt? A painter's wages at Hong Kong at this time were five dollars a month. A woman's wages at any respectable occupation would not have been more than half that amount. Ten cents a day would be a fair computation. And all the time she would be trying to earn the money the debt would be increasing by the interest on it; and her little boy would increase more rapidly in value than in years.

All this occurred in November, 1876. About the first of October, 1877, nearly a year later, she engaged a single room for herself and a servant[A] at 42 Peel street, of a woman named Lau-a Yee. Mrs. Lau, the landlady, had the top floor of a little house. Another family had the first floor, and the street door leading up to Mrs. Lau's apartments ended in a trap door which was shut down at night. There were also folding doors half way up the stairway, not reaching to the ceiling, however, that could be locked at night to make the place doubly secure from intruders. The little upper flat consisted of only three rooms. Mrs. Lau occupied the front room, and her servant woman slept on the floor in the passage-way, and took care of Mrs. Lau's little child. This servant woman had a friend come over from Canton to spend the night with her and seek for employment. The middle room was occupied by Tai Yau, the woman who had sold her little boy into slavery, and her servant. The back room was vacant. Tai Yau was about twenty-six years old, and her servant nearly sixty.

[Footnote A: The evidence does not make it clear how so poor a woman should have a servant. Might she not in reality have been acting the part of “pocket-mother” to the girl?]

On the evening of October 16th, 1877, Inspector Lee gave ten one dollar bills to his interpreter, telling him to go out and use it in catching unlicensed women. The interpreter found two friends and gave one three dollars and the other seven dollars to help him in his errand. Think of it! The man to whom the three dollars were given was a worthless fellow who in his own words, lived “on his friends.” When he worked he earned about 14 cents a day. The other man to whom was given seven dollars for a night of pleasure, earned five dollars a month when he worked at his trade--painting.

These men went to an opium shop where they found a pander. Apparently they did not know where to find unlicensed women without his help. Two other men joined them, and they all went to No. 9 Lyndhurst Terrace, the interpreter lingering about in waiting somewhere outside. When two of the men learned that they had been brought with the purpose of using their testimony against the women they withdrew. There were three women in the house. One was of loose morals, or at any rate she trifled with temptation; the other two managed to withdraw. A supper of fowls, stuffed pigs' feet, sausages, eggs, and plenty of native wine was brought in, and they feasted, the men getting under the influence of drink. A-Nam, the pander, went out and hunted up two more girls for the feast. Perhaps these suspected a plot, for they withdrew. Then A-Nam went again, and returned with Tai-Yau.

It was about nine o'clock when A-Nam came to 42 Peel street and called Tai Yau out. Mrs. Lau saw her go out with him, but was not uneasy, for she had seen him there before as a friend of Tai Yau. Is it not quite likely it was from him she borrowed the money? He was the kind of man whose profession would lead him to hang around the Registrar's court in order to get on the track of unlicensed women and to get them in his power. If such were the case, and she owed him money, she would be terribly in his power.[A] She went away with him to the feast near by at No. 9 Lyndhurst Terrace, and at twelve o'clock she returned in company with A-Nam and a strange man. Mrs. Lau was up and worshipping in her room. She came and said to Tai Yau: “Who is this?” seeing the strange man sitting on a chair. “What is this strange man doing here?” Tai Yau replied, “Oh, he is a shopman and is my husband.”

[Footnote A: Chief Inspector Whitehead testified before the Commission: “When an unlicensed brothel is broken up the women have to resort in most cases to prostitution for a living.” Though the wrong done Tai Yau had been “against her will,” yet it had brought her into court upon the charge of being a “common prostitute,” and thrown her heavily into debt. It is not unlikely she now found it almost beyond her power to resist becoming enslaved as a prostitute.]

The name of the man with A-Nam was A-Kan, and A-Kan had been a witness against her when she had been condemned before and fined $100. Now he was here in her room again at this time of night, with the man who had brought them together.

Meanwhile Inspector Lee and the interpreter who had given this A-Kan seven dollars to entrap an unlicensed woman, were hunting along the street below to trace the house into which A-Kan had managed to get an entrance. They began to call “A-Kan! A-Kan!” Someone, probably quite innocently said, “I think the man you are looking for went into the house opposite. I saw some one enter there.” This was all the clue they had, yet on that evidence alone, Inspector Lee began to pound on the street door of the house, No. 42. A woman on the first floor looked out, and the Inspector ordered her to open the street door. If she recognized him as an officer she would not have dared refuse. The inspector and the interpreter went up the stairs, but encountered folding doors half way up, locked across the stairs. The Inspector managed to get over them and unlock them from the inside, and on they went, and paused to listen beneath the trap door. They did not hear A-Kan's voice, and did not know whether he was there. They had only the conjecture of the woman across the street to proceed upon, nevertheless they had forced their way into this private abode occupied by women, knowing nothing whatever about the place, whether it was respectable or not. At this moment Mrs. Lau heard voices of men on her stairs, and said in alarm to A-Kan, “The inspector is coming, looking for you, isn't he?” A-Kan said “Yes.” Then Tai Yau threw herself at the feet of A-Kan and begged for mercy, saying: “I was arrested before and fined a hundred dollars. I sold my son to pay the fine, and you must not say anything now.” He sanctimoniously shook his head, as though weighing his responsibility, saying: “I don't know, I don't know.” She did not recognize him, but he was the very man who had before informed against her and secured her conviction, when she was humbled “against her will.” He now opened the trap door to let the inspector and his interpreter in. Tai Yau exclaimed to Mrs. Lau, “He is coming to arrest women for keeping an unlicensed brothel, let us flee!” Tai-Yau ran up a ladder through a scuttle out upon the flat roof of the house, her old servant following and Mrs. Lau behind. The inspector and interpreter followed, while the informer escaped from the house. Mrs. Lau managed to reach the hatch of the next house, No. 44, and ran down that into the street, hotly chased by the inspector. He said in his testimony: “I pursued the woman down the trap, and followed her right into the street. I pursued and she ran up the steps of Peel street and up to Staunton street, and a Lokong [Chinese constable] caught her about ten yards from Aberdeen street.” Then the occupants of the ground floor of 44 Peel street called to Inspector Lee and told him that some people had fallen from the roof into their cook-house, and Inspector Lee said in his testimony: “I went into the cook-house and saw the deceased [the old servant of Tai Yau] lying on the granite on her face, with her head close to an earthenware chatty [water-bottle] which I pointed out, and the bundle of clothing with a Chinese rule lying on the top of her head, or on the back of the neck. Close beside her was another woman lying on the other side of the chatty with her feet against the wall and her head out toward the cook-house door. I had a Chinese candle. I took up the bundle of clothes off deceased's head, and turned her on her back, and there were no signs of life apparent. The other woman was bleeding from the face, and her face and neck were covered with blood. She was moving as if in great pain. I sent for the ambulance at once, and by this time the whole street was aroused.” The two women, Tai Yau and the old servant, had fallen through a smoke-hole in the roof.

Tai Yau had a fractured jaw and left thigh, besides internal injuries. She lived but ten days. The verdict rendered in each of these cases was nearly the same. That of Tai Yau's calamity reads in part:

“Mok Tai-Yau, on the morning of the 17th of October, in the year aforesaid, being on the roof of a house, known as 44, Peel Street, Victoria, and having fled there in consequence of the entry of an Inspector of Brothels into the house known as 42, Peel Street, where she lived, accidentally and by misfortune fell down an open area, known as a smoke-hole, unto the granite pavement beneath, and by means thereof did receive mortal bruises, fractures and contusions, of which she died.... The jury aforesaid are further of opinion that Inspector Lee, the aforesaid Inspector of Brothels, exceeded his powers by entering the house, No. 42, Peel Street, without a warrant, or any direct authority from the Registrar General or the Superintendent of Police, and would strongly recommend that the whole system of obtaining convictions against keepers of unlicensed brothels be thoroughly revised, as the present practice is, in our opinion, both illegal and immoral.”[A]

[Footnote A: Inspector Lee testified on this occasion that he sometimes had chased women over the roofs of as many as twenty contiguous houses.]

On Nov. 1st, 1877, Governor Hennessy wrote to the Colonial Office, London:

“I have taken the responsibility of putting a stop to a practice which has existed in this Colony since September, 1868, when Sir Richard MacDonnell sanctioned the appropriation of Government money for the pay of informers who might induce Chinese women to prostitute themselves, and thus bring them under the penal clauses of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance. For many years past this branch of the Registrar General's office has led to grave abuses. It has been a fruitful source of extortion, but what is far worse, a department of the State, as one of the local papers now points out, which is supposed to be constituted for the protection of the Chinese, has been employing a dangerously loose system, whereby the sanctity of native households may be seriously compromised. I had no idea that the Secret Service Fund was used for this loathsome purpose until my attention was drawn to an inquest on the bodies of two Chinese women who were killed by falling from a house in which one of the informers employed by the Registrar General was pursuing his avocations.... I am taking steps to institute a searching inquiry into the whole subject. The European community are ashamed at the revelations that have been made at the inquest, and amongst the Chinese the practice that has been brought to light is, viewed with abhorrence.”

This was the incident which led to the appointment of the Commission of Inquiry into the working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance, the report of which Commission we have already had occasion to quote from more than once.

Later, Governor Hennessy wrote to the Colonial Office:

“Whilst the Attorney General is of opinion that, strictly speaking, there is a _prima facie_ case of manslaughter made out against Inspector Lee, and that possibly a conviction might be obtained, he advises against a prosecution. I do not concur with the Attorney General in the reasons he gives for not instituting a prosecution in this case.”

During the year previous, 1876, Ordinance No. 2 had been passed, depriving the Registrar General of the much-abused judicial powers he had exercised since 1867, and transferring them to the police magistrates.

Speaking of the incident of Tai Yau having sold her boy to pay her fine, Governor Hennessy wrote the Colonial Office, under date of December 6th, 1877:

“I am now informed that the Commissioners have obtained from the records of the Registrar General's department and from Mr. Smith's evidence the clearest proof that this practice of selling human beings in Hong Kong was well known to the department. One of the records has been shown to me in which a witness swears, 'I bought the girl Chan Tsoi Lin and placed her in a brothel in Hong Kong'; and on that particular piece of evidence no action was taken by the department.”

Lord Carnarvon was Secretary of State for the Colonies at this time, and his replies to Sir John Pope Hennessy were small encouragement to the course the Governor had taken. He criticises his “somewhat unusual course” in the appointment of a Commission “composed of private persons to inquire into the administration of an important department of the Government.” He says: “I am unable to concur in the suggestion made in your despatch as to the advisability of prosecuting Inspector Lee.” He implies that in his opinion “Inspector Lee was acting strictly within his powers on this unfortunate occasion.” “It is quite possible,” Lord Carnarvon continues, “that there may be abuses connected with the Contagious Diseases Ordinance which ought to be removed; but I would point out that such abuses arise from the imperfections in the system as established by law.... While ready to give consideration to the subject of amending the system, if necessary, I fail at present to observe wherein the officers ... have exceeded the duty imposed upon them by law.”

From such responses as these we readily learn that it was not alone in Hong Kong that these outrageous abuses of every principle of justice in dealing with Chinese women failed to arouse more than a lukewarm interest in their behalf, and all the way through Sir John Pope Hennessy, with one or two notable exceptions, so far as the records go, was shown but scant sympathy in his efforts to correct these abuses.

On April 2nd, 1878, Sir Harcourt Johnstone asked in the House of Commons the Secretary of State for the Colonies, “whether his attention has been directed to a recent outrage committed ... at Hong Kong, which is now forming the subject of inquiry by a Commission appointed by the Governor. And if he will cause special investigation to be made as to the manner in which the revenue derived from licensing houses of ill-fame is raised and expended for the service of the Colony.”

In answer to this question, the Commission reported that, “the monies raised both by the licenses from houses of ill-fame, and from the fines inflicted under the provisions of these Ordinances, have been expended in the general services of the Colony; and that the actual revenue derived from this source, since and including 1857 down to the end of 1877, amounted to $187,508, to which must be added the Admiralty allowance from 1870 to 1877, amounting to $28,860, and fines estimated at $5,000, making a total of $221,368.00.”

After July 1st, 1878, the fund derived from brothels was used for the operation of the provisions of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance only.

Later, on July 28, 1882, Governor Hennessy received in London a large deputation of gentlemen interested in the abolition of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance of Hong Kong. To these he addressed the following words descriptive of the condition of things at Hong Kong unearthed by the Commission:

“I saw in the Colony abuses existing which have effect far beyond the range of Hong Kong. Let me instance one or two only. We get from Great Britain some European police. They are men selected with care for good conduct, and they are sometimes married men; their passages and their wives' passages have been paid to Hong Kong, where married police quarters are provided. But what transpired when that Commission was held? The Registrar General had recorded in his book, morning after morning, the evidence of informers _selected from that police force_, whom _he had employed to commit adultery_ with unlicensed Chinese women; and borne of these men were married police, whose wives were brought to Hong Kong; so that in point of fact, he was _not only encouraging adultery but paying for it with the money of the State_. Well, I stopped that, of course.... At the head of the Registrar General's Department in Hong Kong, we appoint an officer, as we believe, of the highest character. One of the gentlemen so employed puts on a false beard and moustache, he takes marked money in his waistcoat pocket, and proceeds to the back lanes of the Colony, knocks at various doors, and, at length, gains admission to a house. He addresses the woman who opens the door and tells her he wants a Chinese girl. There is an argument as to the price, and he agrees to give four dollars. He is shown up to the room, and gives her the money. What I am now telling you is the gentleman's own evidence. He records how he flung up the window and put out his head and whistled. The police whom he had in attendance in the street, broke open the door and arrested the girl. She is brought up the next day to be tried for the offence; but, before whom? Before the Acting Registrar General--before the same gentleman who had the beard and moustache the night before. He tries her himself, and on the books of the Registrar General's office (I have turned to them and read his own evidence recorded in his own handwriting) there is his own conviction of the girl, of the offence, and his sentence, that she be fined fifty dollars and some months' imprisonment! I mention this for this reason--that the officer who did this was appointed because he was supposed to be a man of exceptionally high moral tone, and good conduct and demeanour. But what would be the effect on any man having to administer such an Ordinance? There was laid before my Legislative Council a case of one of the European Inspectors of brothels, and I was struck by this fact in his evidence. He says: 'I took the marked money from the Registrar General's office, and followed a woman, and consorted with her, and gave her the money; and the moment I had done so, I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the badge of office, and pointed to the Crown, and arrested the woman.' She was henceforth 'a Queen's woman'.”

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