Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

CHAPTER 6.

THE PRO­TEC­TOR'S COURT AND SLAV­ERY.

The jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the pas­sage of the Con­ta­gious Dis­eases Or­di­nance at the be­gin­ning, as set forth in Mr. Labouchere's dis­patch on the 27th of Au­gust, 1856, to Sir John Bowring was, that the “wom­en” “held in prac­ti­cal slav­ery” “through no choice of their own,” “have an ur­gent claim on the _ac­tive pro­tec­tion_ of Gov­ern­ment.” It has been claimed again and again by of­fi­cials at Hong Kong and Sin­ga­pore that pro­tec­tion is in large part the ob­ject and aim of the Or­di­nance. For in­stance: In 1877, Ad­min­is­tra­tor W.H. Marsh, of Hong Kong, learn­ing that there was a like­li­hood of the Con­ta­gious Dis­eases Or­di­nance be­ing dis­al­lowed by the Home Gov­ern­ment, wrote to the Sec­re­tary of State for the Colonies:

“It is the unan­imous opin­ion of the Ex­ec­utive Coun­cil that the laws now in ex­is­tence have had, when they have been prop­er­ly worked, a most ben­efi­cial ef­fect in this Colony ... in putting the on­ly prac­ti­cal check on a sys­tem of broth­el slav­ery, un­der which chil­dren were ei­ther sold by their par­ents, or more fre­quent­ly were kid­naped and sold to the pro­pri­etors of broth­els. These un­for­tu­nate girls were so ful­ly con­vinced that they were the goods and chat­tels of their pur­chasers, or were so ter­ri­fied by threats, that they rarely if ev­er made any com­plaints even when in­ter­ro­gat­ed. It was very sel­dom that suf­fi­cient ev­idence could be ob­tained to pun­ish such ne­far­ious traf­fick­ers.”

A doc­ument en­closed in this let­ter to the Colo­nial Sec­re­tary at Lon­don, signed by the Act­ing Colo­nial Sec­re­tary at Hong Kong, the Colo­nial Sur­geon, and the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al, states: “Per­haps the strongest ar­gu­ment in fa­vor of the Or­di­nances is the means they place in the hands of the Gov­ern­ment for cop­ing with _broth­el slav­ery_.” From the mo­ment Mr. Labouchere put this false claim to the front it has been the chief ar­gu­ment ad­vanced by of­fi­cials ea­ger for the Con­ta­gious Dis­eases Or­di­nance as a method of pro­vid­ing “clean wom­en,” in or­der to win to their side the benev­olent-​mind­ed.

On this point the Com­mis­sion re­port­ed: “In re­gard to the on­ly re­sult wor­thy of a mo­ment's con­sid­er­ation, viz., that re­ferred to by Mr. Labouchere's dis­patch, of putting down the vir­tu­al slav­ery of wom­en in broth­els, the con­clu­sions of those in the best po­si­tion to form trust­wor­thy opin­ions is not en­cour­ag­ing.” Mr. Smith, who took over charge of the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al's of­fice in Oc­to­ber, 1864, and who had many years of ex­pe­ri­ence in that po­si­tion, is quot­ed as say­ing: “I think it is use­less to try and deal with the ques­tion of the free­dom of Chi­nese pros­ti­tutes by law or by any Gov­ern­ment reg­ula­tion. From all the sur­round­ings the thing is im­prac­ti­ca­ble.” Mr. Lis­ter, an­oth­er Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al, says: “I don't think the new Or­di­nance had any re­al ef­fect, or could have had any ef­fect up­on the sale of wom­en. I don't think any good is done by pre­vent­ing wom­en em­igrat­ing to San Fran­cis­co or oth­er places, as their fate is just the same whether they go or not.”

The Com­mis­sion­ers state:

“The well-​meant sys­tem de­vised by the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al's De­part­ment which re­quires ev­ery wom­an per­son­al­ly to ap­pear be­fore an In­spec­tor at the of­fice, and de­clare her will­ing­ness to en­ter a li­censed broth­el, and that she does so with­out co­er­cion, be­fore she can be reg­is­tered, may prob­ably act as some check up­on glar­ing cas­es of kid­nap­ing, so far as the li­censed broth­els are con­cerned. But it seems clear that for the sup­ply of such es­tab­lish­ments, there is no need to re­sort to kid­nap­ing, in the or­di­nary ac­cep­tance of the term. There can be no doubt that, with the ex­cep­tion of a com­par­ative­ly few who have been driv­en by ad­ver­si­ty to adopt a life of pros­ti­tu­tion, when ar­rived at a ma­ture age, the bulk of the girls, in en­ter­ing broth­els, are mere­ly ful­fill­ing the ca­reer for which they have been brought up, and even if they re­sent it, a few min­utes' con­ver­sa­tion with a for­eign­er, prob­ably the first many of them have ev­er been brought in­to com­mu­ni­ca­tion with, is but lit­tle like­ly to lead them to stul­ti­fy the re­sults of ed­uca­tion, ac­cord­ing to whose teach­ings they are the prop­er­ty of oth­ers and un­der the ne­ces­si­ty of obey­ing their di­rec­tions. The idea that they are at lib­er­ty not to en­ter a broth­el un­less they wish it, must, to girls so brought up, be un­in­tel­li­gi­ble. To what oth­er source in­deed could they turn for a liveli­hood? Who can tell, more­over, what hopes or as­pi­ra­tions have been in­stilled in­to the minds of these girls? The life on which she is about to en­ter has prob­ably not been paint­ed to her in its true col­ors. Why should they shrink from it? As a mat­ter of fact they nev­er do.... Mr. Smith, how­ev­er, thinks, with re­gard to these wom­en, Gov­ern­ment su­per­vi­sion does ame­lio­rate their con­di­tion some­what. The wom­en are pe­ri­od­ical­ly seen in their hous­es by the in­spec­tors, and the clean­li­ness and com­fort of the hous­es is care­ful­ly looked af­ter.' With the in­ter­nal clean­li­ness and com­fort of broth­els, we think the Gov­ern­ment has lit­tle to do. But the ame­lio­ra­tion of the in­mates is a mat­ter which cer­tain­ly stands on a dif­fer­ent foot­ing, and is one in which the Gov­ern­ment has a deep in­ter­est.”

The Re­port goes on to state that the Com­mis­sion­ers do not en­dorse the views of Mr. Smith as to the ame­lio­ra­tion of the con­di­tion of the in­mates of broth­els, through Gov­ern­men­tal reg­is­tra­tion and su­per­vi­sion, and states:

“Young girls, vir­gins of 13 or 14 years of age, are brought from Can­ton or else­where and de­flow­ered ac­cord­ing to bar­gain, and, as a reg­ular busi­ness, for large sums of mon­ey, which go to their own­ers.... The reg­ular earn­ings of the girls go to the same quar­ters, and the un­for­tu­nate crea­tures ob­vi­ous­ly form sub­jects of spec­ula­tion to reg­ular traders in this kind of busi­ness, who re­side be­yond our ju­ris­dic­tion. In most of the reg­ular hous­es, the in­mates are more or less in debt to the keep­ers, and though such debts are not legal­ly en­force­able, a cus­tom stronger than law for­bids the wom­an to leave the broth­el un­til her debts are liq­ui­dat­ed, and it is on­ly in rare cas­es that she does so.” “As to the broth­el-​keep­ers, there is noth­ing known against them, and they are sup­port­ed by cap­ital­ists. Mr. Lis­ter speaks of them as 'a hor­ri­ble race of cru­el wom­en, cru­el to the last de­gree, who use an in­ge­nious form of tor­ture, which they call pre­ven­tion of sleep,' which he de­scribes in de­tail.... It seems that al­though the Broth­el Or­di­nances did not call in­to be­ing this 'hor­ri­ble,' 'cru­el,' and 'haughty' race of wom­en, they have armed them with ob­vi­ous pow­ers, which they would not oth­er­wise have pos­sessed, and there is con­se­quent­ly rea­son to ap­pre­hend that Gov­ern­ment su­per­vi­sion ac­cen­tu­ates in some re­spects rather than re­lieves the hard­ships of the servi­tude of the in­mates.”

The records fur­nish many in­stances to prove that the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al's De­part­ment was not op­er­at­ed with the least idea of re­liev­ing the slave from her bondage. These are culled from the court records. We will con­dense some of them.

1. Three sis­ters were brought by their fos­ter-​moth­er from Macao to Hong Kong, on the promise of a feast; they were tak­en to the house of an old broth­el-​keep­er, to whom the fos­ter-​moth­er sold the girls, re­ceiv­ing ten dol­lars apiece for them, to bind the bar­gain, and she went away, leav­ing the girls with this old wom­an, who be­gan im­me­di­ate­ly to urge them to be­come pros­ti­tutes; they cried and re­fused, ask­ing to be al­lowed to go to their fos­ter-​moth­er who had brought them up,--not sus­pect­ing that they had been al­ready sold by her in­to shame­ful slav­ery. The old wom­an locked them up, and beat one of the girls, who had re­sist­ed her cru­el fate. Their meals were all tak­en in­to the room where they were kept close pris­on­ers from that time. Brought in­to court, the fos­ter-​moth­er was set at lib­er­ty, al­though the his­to­ry was ful­ly set forth, and the old wom­an de­clared: “She pledged the girls in my house, by re­ceiv­ing thir­ty dol­lars from me.... I have a wit­ness who saw the mon­ey paid.” The broth­el-​keep­er was con­vict­ed on­ly of as­sault for beat­ing the girl, and sen­tenced to three months' im­pris­on­ment with hard la­bor. No ref­er­ence was made to her own ad­mis­sions as to buy­ing these girls, and en­deav­or­ing to force them in­to pros­ti­tu­tion. Ten days lat­er, her case was brought up again, and the re­main­ing por­tion of her sen­tence was re­mit­ted, and she was fined twen­ty-​five dol­lars. No record is made as to what be­came of these hap­less girls; it is to be as­sumed that they were sent back to the broth­el.

2. Two girls brought be­fore the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al, both of whom plead­ed for pro­tec­tion against their own­er, stat­ing that she in­tend­ed to sell them to go to Cal­ifor­nia. One of these had been bought by this wom­an for eighty dol­lars; the girl saw the price paid for her; the oth­er said her moth­er was very poor, and sold her for twen­ty dol­lars. Each de­clared she had been liv­ing un­der the “pro­tec­tion” of a for­eign­er un­til re­cent­ly, and that she had not “act­ed as a pros­ti­tute”; they now feared be­ing “sold in­to Cal­ifor­nia” by the wom­an in charge. The In­spec­tor said: “There has been at times a num­ber of wom­en re­sid­ing in the house, and I do not know what has be­come of them. I be­lieve that they have been sent to Cal­ifor­nia by the de­fen­dant.” One of the girls be­ing re­called, and seem­ing to have gained courage, wit­nessed that she had been in the house when sev­er­al wom­en had been brought there and af­ter some time had been sent away to Cal­ifor­nia. She had been present when bar­gains were struck for the wom­en, the price be­ing var­ious; bought here, the wom­en cost from fifty to one hun­dred and fifty dol­lars, and when sold in Cal­ifor­nia they were to be dis­posed of from two hun­dred and fifty to three hun­dred and fifty each.[A] She said the wom­an had “made a great deal of mon­ey. She has told me so.” She al­so said some were un­will­ing to go, but were afraid to re­sist. She said be­tween ten and twen­ty wom­en had passed through the wom­an's hands, to her knowl­edge. The broth­el-​keep­er's re­ply was, that the last wit­ness owed her mon­ey, and had tak­en some or­na­ments which be­longed to her--to­geth­er with a de­nial that she had bought any­body or sent any­one to Cal­ifor­nia. What was the out­come of this dread­ful ar­raign­ment of crimes against Chi­nese girls? The wom­an was “or­dered to find se­cu­ri­ty (two sureties of $250 each) for her ap­pear­ance in any court, for any pur­pose and at any time with­in twelve months.” No record as to the fate of the two girls who had sought “pro­tec­tion” of the au­thor­ities.

[Foot­note A: The mar­ket price of a Chi­nese girl at the present time (1907) in Cal­ifor­nia is $3000.]

3. Two young girls were found in a li­censed house of shame, whose names were not on the list, the keep­er and a wom­an, Ho-​a-​ying, who had brought the girls from Can­ton to Hong Kong, were sum­moned be­fore the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al. Ho-​a-​ying rep­re­sent­ed the girls as sis­ters, and that she vis­it­ed them in Can­ton and found their moth­er dead, and that she brought them to Hong Kong be­cause of their ap­peal to her to find them work, and that she put them in­to de­fen­dant's broth­el. She con­tra­dict­ed her­self in her tes­ti­mo­ny as to the name and house of the girls' moth­er, and the girls them­selves de­clared that they were not sis­ters, and had nev­er seen each oth­er un­til they met on the steam­er at Can­ton the day be­fore. One of the girls de­clared: “I was sold by Ho-​a-​ying to the mis­tress of the broth­el. I heard them talk­ing about it, and so I know it. Ho-​a-​Ying al­so told me that I had been sold. I do not know for what sum.” The broth­el-​keep­er stat­ed that Ho-​a-​Ying came and asked if she want­ed two girls, as she had two who had come from Can­ton. “The girls were brought, and af­ter be­ing in the house a short time the In­spec­tor came. I pur­posed hav­ing their names en­tered on the fol­low­ing morn­ing.” The broth­el-​keep­er was fined five dol­lars for keep­ing an in­cor­rect list of in­mates. Ho-​a-​Ying was con­vict­ed of giv­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny, and fined fifty dol­lars; in de­fault, three months' im­pris­on­ment. No in­for­ma­tion as to the dis­pos­al of the girls, and no pun­ish­ment for this bar­gain­ing in hu­man flesh.

4. Six Chi­nese per­sons from li­censed broth­el No. 71, Welling­ton Street, were ar­raigned be­fore the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al, charged with buy­ing and sell­ing girls for evil pur­pos­es, and al­so with sell­ing girls to go to Cal­ifor­nia, and with dis­turb­ing the peace. The In­spec­tor de­scribed the house thus: “I found all the de­fen­dants on the first floor. I found six girls in the house and three chil­dren. The floor was very crowd­ed ... four of the girls were in a room by them­selves at the back of the house. They were all hud­dled up to­geth­er, and seemed fright­ened. The de­fen­dants were in the front part of the house. The girls at the back part of the house could not have got out with­out pass­ing through the room where the de­fen­dants were. This house has been known to me for a long time as one where young girls were kept to be shipped off to Cal­ifor­nia.”

A watch-​re­pair­er and jew­el­er who had resid­ed op­po­site this place for three or four years de­clared that he knew the first de­fen­dant, A-​Ne­ung, and that she had lived there some years, on the first floor; that he had seen a num­ber of girls go­ing in and out of the house, seem­ing to ar­rive by steam­er, some in chairs and some walk­ing, and that he knew from what he had seen of her and the girls that she was a buy­er and sell­er of girls. A car­pen­ter liv­ing be­low in the same house de­posed: “I have al­ways seen a num­ber of young girls be­ing tak­en in and out of the house. The age of the girls ranged from 10 to 20 years. There was al­ways a great deal of cry­ing and groan­ing amongst the girls up-​stairs. I have not heard any beat­ing, but the girls were con­stant­ly cry­ing. The cry­ing was an­noy­ing to me and the oth­er peo­ple in the shop. The peo­ple liv­ing in the neigh­bor­hood have, to­geth­er with my­self, sus­pect­ed that the girls were bought and sold to go to Cal­ifor­nia.” An­oth­er neigh­bor de­posed to know­ing the third de­fen­dant as “in the habit last year of tak­ing young girls of var­ious ages, from 10 to 20, about the Colony for sale. I knew this de­fen­dant want­ed to sell the girls, as she asked me if I knew any wom­an who want­ed to buy them. She comes from Can­ton.” A girl from Wong-​Po found in No. 71 broth­el, told of be­ing tak­en to Can­ton at eleven years of age and sold by her sis­ter as a ser­vant to the Lam fam­ily. Af­ter be­ing in this fam­ily three or four years, her mis­tress and the sec­ond de­fen­dant, Tai-​Ku, a re­la­tion of her mis­tress and daugh­ter to the first de­fen­dant (A-​Ne­ung, keep­er of the broth­el), took her to a “flow­er-​boat,” and the next day by steam­er to Hong Kong, and she was tak­en to the house of A-​Ne­ung. Her mis­tress stayed in the house three days, and sold her to the first and sec­ond de­fen­dants (moth­er and daugh­ter) for $120. She added: “This was in the tenth month last year.... I was nev­er al­lowed to go out. I have nev­er been out of the house since I came to Hong Kong [near­ly six months]. First, sec­ond and third de­fen­dants nev­er went out of the house to­geth­er [some one al­ways be­ing on guard]. Last year Tai-​Ku and A-​Ne­ung told me that I should have to go to San Fran­cis­co. This year I was again told that I was go­ing to San Fran­cis­co. I said I did not want to go. Tai-​Ku then beat me.” An­oth­er girl on­ly 19 years old, mar­ried about four years, de­clared that in con­se­quence of a quar­rel be­tween her­self and an­oth­er wife of her hus­band, he sold her to Sz-​Shan, fifth de­fen­dant, for $81, who brought her from Tamshui by steam­er to Hong Kong, and took her to A-​Ne­ung's house, where she was be­ing held for sale. She fin­ished her tes­ti­mo­ny thus: “Sev­er­al men have been up to the house to see me. They were go­ing to buy me if they liked me.” A let­ter was pro­duced by the In­spec­tor, which he found in A-​Ne­ung's house, from Can­ton to the writ­er's sis­ter-​in-​law in Hong Kong, urg­ing that as the own­er had lost mon­ey on the “present car­goes,” a high­er price must be set on them and the sale has­tened, as soon as the let­ter should ar­rive, and word re­turned that they had been dis­posed of; al­so di­rect­ing that “af­ter the trans­ac­tion, one cue-​tas­sel and one shirt­ing trous­er” were to be tak­en back and sent to Can­ton by the hand of a friend at first op­por­tu­ni­ty. (This as a pledge of good faith.)

A-​Ne­ung, first de­fen­dant, de­clared that she was “a wid­ow, sup­port­ed by her son-​in-​law now in Cal­ifor­nia. Mine is a fam­ily house. The girls are vis­itors at my house.” The sec­ond de­fen­dant, Tai-​Ku, daugh­ter of the pre­ced­ing, de­clared her­self to be a mar­ried wom­an, and that her hus­band was in Cal­ifor­nia, on a steam­er; that the girls were not hers, and that she was “not in the habit of send­ing girls to Cal­ifor­nia.” The third de­fen­dant de­posed that she came from Can­ton to ask A-​Ne­ung for some mon­ey, and added: “I nev­er buy and sell girls.” Fourth de­fen­dant claimed to be ut­ter­ly ig­no­rant of the girls be­ing sent to Cal­ifor­nia, and said she was sup­port­ed by Tai-​Ku; the fifth de­fen­dant de­clared she knew noth­ing of the buy­ing and sell­ing of girls; and the sixth de­fen­dant claimed she had gone to the house to ob­tain the pay­ment of a debt; she was dis­charged.

The sen­tence was:--First, sec­ond, third, fourth and fifth de­fen­dants to find two se­cu­ri­ties, house­hold­ers, in $500 each, to ap­pear at any time with­in the next six months, to an­swer any charge in any court in the Colony.

Whether the girls were sent to Cal­ifor­nia to swell the num­ber of wretched slaves on the Pa­cif­ic Coast, or re­mained in slav­ery in Hong Kong, there is no record to be found; nor, even with abun­dant ev­idence con­cern­ing this li­censed broth­el which the In­spec­tor him­self de­clared he was long fa­mil­iar with as a place “where young girls were kept to be shipped off to Cal­ifor­nia,” and with the ev­ident col­lu­sion be­tween A-​Ne­ung and Tai-​Ku with the son-​in-​law and hus­band re­spec­tive­ly of the two wom­en, sit­uat­ed most fa­vor­ably on a steam­er for man­ag­ing this wicked busi­ness at the Cal­ifor­nia end of the line, and with all the tes­ti­mo­ny of the neigh­bors and the girls, yet no ef­fort was made by the Reg­is­trar-​Gen­er­al to pun­ish these peo­ple for traf­fick­ing in hu­man flesh.

5. An old man com­plained be­fore the Reg­is­trar-​Gen­er­al, that his grand­daugh­ter, A-​Ho, had got in­to debt be­cause of sick­ness, and in or­der to pay the mon­ey, she was in­duced by an un­cle of Su-​a-​Kiu to ap­ply to the lat­ter for help. Su-​a-​Kiu promised to ad­vance her the mon­ey, $52, if A-​Ho would serve her eight months in a broth­el kept by a “friend” of the wom­an in Sin­ga­pore. A-​Ho's stress was so great that she en­tered in­to these hard terms, the wom­an pay­ing her $52 at the steam­er, as it was go­ing, and A-​Ho hand­ed it to her grand­fa­ther to pay her debt. A-​Ho left on the “26th of the 8th moon” for Sin­ga­pore. On the evening of “the fourth day of the 10th moon” he re­ceived a let­ter from A-​Ho to the ef­fect that she had been sold for $250, to an­oth­er par­ty. When the grand­fa­ther went to Su-​a-​Kiu and asked her why she had sold his grand­daugh­ter, she ca­joled him by promis­ing to take him to Sin­ga­pore to see A-​Ho. Lat­er, the man who lived with Su-​a-​Kiu, came and threat­ened to ac­cuse him of ex­tor­tion, ac­knowl­edg­ing of him­self that he “lived by sell­ing wom­en in­to broth­els of Sin­ga­pore.” The grand­fa­ther re­port­ed the case to the Reg­is­trar-​Gen­er­al. The wom­an Su-​a-​Kiu stat­ed: “I took A-​Ho to Sin­ga­pore. I took her to the ”Sai-​Shing-​Tong Broth­el“ in Macao Street. She is still in that broth­el.” The Reg­is­trar-​Gen­er­al or­dered her to find se­cu­ri­ty in the sum of $100 to ap­pear to an­swer any charge with­in the next three months. The grand­fa­ther was al­so or­dered to find sim­ilar se­cu­ri­ty in the sum of $70.

The girl A-​Ho, in seek­ing to pay her debt con­tract­ed through sick­ness, by servi­tude for eight months, was en­trapped and sold as a slave for life, and the Reg­is­trar-​Gen­er­al, when ac­quaint­ed with the facts, seems to have tak­en no steps to pun­ish this slave-​trad­er. Gov­er­nor Hen­nessey, in call­ing the at­ten­tion of the Home Gov­ern­ment to these, out of many sim­ilar ones, says: “The ac­com­pa­ny­ing ex­tracts from the print­ed ev­idence [tak­en by the Com­mis­sion] show that the Reg­is­trar-​Gen­er­al's De­part­ment was not ig­no­rant of the fact that Chi­nese wom­en were pur­chased for Hong Kong broth­els, and that the head of the De­part­ment thought it use­less to try to deal with the ques­tion of the free­dom of such wom­en.... That the buy­ing and sell­ing was not con­fined to places out­side the Colony is clear from the ev­idence of oth­er wit­ness­es, and from the notes of cas­es tak­en by the Reg­is­trar-​Gen­er­al him­self. It will al­so be seen that where the per­sons guilty of such of­fences were some­times pun­ished, it was gen­er­al­ly for some mi­nor of­fence, such as not keep­ing a cor­rect list of in­mates, or for an as­sault.”

Doubt­less slav­ery would spring in­to promi­nence in al­most any land when once it be­came known that in places ac­tu­al­ly li­censed by Gov­ern­ment, such as were the hous­es of ill-​fame at Hong Kong, where the in­spec­tors made al­most dai­ly vis­its, slaves could be held with im­puni­ty, and that when slave girls made a com­plaint, and their cas­es were ac­tu­al­ly brought in­to court, charg­ing the buy­ing and sell­ing of hu­man be­ings, the of­fi­cers of the law would ig­nore the com­plaints.