Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers Part 10

"We went in company with a missionary and a native, both of whom could talk both English and Chinese, and visited some 'flower-boats' on the river. Many of these boats are quite pretentious, with their rich wood-carving, fine furniture, and gaudy display of tinsel. There were whole streets of them,--floating houses moored together; we walked along the length of the street on one side, stepping from the bow of one boat to the next, the bows of the boats const.i.tuting front verandahs. We called at almost every place, but a description of one will do for all. First, as we entered, was a couch for opium smoking; just beyond this a reception room, very gaudy, with dozens of hanging lamps, and at one end a shrine for the G.o.ds, and offerings before it. In a room back of the reception room, and also upstairs, there were girls in large numbers. A hard-featured old woman came forward from the back room, who, our interpreter said, was as good a specimen as we could possibly have seen of an old brothel-keeper of Canton, one who had been in the business for many years of buying or otherwise obtaining babies and girls, and training them for prost.i.tution. The girls came crowding to the door of the back room, and looked in upon us with eager curiosity. Our interpreter called our attention to the manner of dressing the hair,--like married women,--as indicating their bad life. The interpreter said they were inducted usually at about thirteen years of age. They were all dressed very showily, and heavily powdered and painted, excepting some mere babies who were plainly dressed. Troops of little girls, from four to five years of age, swarmed out of the neighboring 'flower-boats' and gathered around us, screaming and scrambling, falling, laughing, and following us the full length of the street, which was made up of about twenty such boats on either side. And none of these innocent little things at all realized the fate in store for them. In one place we saw two very old women in the front room. In another, a woman knelt before the idolatrous shrine engaged in her devotions. At one point there was a very large boat brilliantly fitted up for music, dancing, smoking opium, and feasting. At the far end of the street was a 'kitchen-boat,' from which supplies of food, ready cooked, could be bought. All the way along we saw little girls with the unmistakable signs of their destiny upon them. Our interpreter said the girls were usually made to stay upstairs during the day time, but at night the whole place was illuminated and alive; then they were brought down and to the front. Occasionally we would see one of these huge house boats full of painted girls, floating down the middle of the stream, for they move about from place to place at will.

"At Canton, February 18th, 1894, we met and conversed with a missionary lady who had just come from a station in the interior.

She had travelled from her station on a Chinese boat, which had been chartered by her adopted son for his use going up, and for hers coming down the river. When she was about to embark, she required that the men should search the boat, and down below, in the very bottom, were a lot of little girls--_child slaves_--being smuggled to Canton for the trade of a vile life. She made the men take the children off the boat, but with great difficulty. They resisted, but she stood courageously, and saw her commands executed. After she had accomplished this, and started down the river, all alone, so far as any English-speaking person was concerned, the men, who were still deeply enraged at being defeated in their plans, greatly annoyed her by intruding on her constantly, and finally they threatened to kill her; but she presented as brave a front as possible, and at last took hold of one man who was especially insolent, by the shoulder, in an authoritative manner, bidding him to go out of her presence. He went away cowed, and they all said, as was reported to her by one of her attendants, 'She is not afraid'; they then became very superst.i.tious at the idea of a woman taking hold of them, and troubled her no more.

"The five or six Christian friends where we were staying in Canton all agreed that it was the most common occurrence for little girls to be bought and sold for immoral purposes. One of the group has often heard the wretched blind girls singing just under her window, on the river bank, and under conduct of the old brothel-keeper, their owner, thus attracting custom. The proportion of blind people in Oriental countries is much greater, owing to the prevalence of eye diseases and the poverty and ignorance of the people in coping with these, than in the West; and as blind girls do not bring much money when disposed of as wives, so they are sold in large numbers into a life of shame.

Poor little slaves! Because they are deprived of the natural light of day, so they are destined never to see a ray of moral light enter their miserable existence! We saw three or four little blind girls who had been rescued, by these Christian workers, from their terrible fate; but these are only a few rare exceptions out of the thousands that are borne on into the tide of shame and anguish continually."

Of the many girls we interviewed at Hong Kong the story of the following seems typical of her cla.s.s, so we extract it from our journal:

"At the first place we called there were six inmates--four of whom were present at the interview. The keeper went out of the room as we entered, and did not return. The girls were very friendly, and one of them talked a little English. This one told us that she came from Canton, and, in broken English, said that she had 'no father, no mother, no brother; a poor man took her when a _very_ little child and raised her to sell. By and by a woman came and offered to buy poor man's little girl, and as he had but little food, he asks, 'How much?' then she buys the little girl and brings her to Hong Kong. Then woman take her to Englishman and say, 'She first-cla.s.s girl,' and he say, 'I make her my wife,' but he not good; he no husband; he go away to his house--England.'

Thus she described in a few simple words the tragedy of her life with tears in her eyes; her training for vice; her sale; her hopes of marriage; her desertion; the outcome, her consignment to a Government-licensed brothel. She was but one of the tens of thousands at Hong Kong. We asked, 'How would a girl have to do in order to live in this house?' They said, 'She must be registered at the Lock. Hospital, and would have to go to the Court and Mr.

Lockhart (the Registrar-General) would ask her questions; whether she had a father and mother; how old she was; _where the money went to that was paid for her_; and whether she wanted to be a prost.i.tute or not.' We asked, 'If a girl should say that she _did not_ want to be a prost.i.tute what would be done?' They answered, 'No girl would _dare_ to say this _when she had been bought_.' We asked the girl who talked English over again about this, and she said the same.

"All the places of infamy reserved for the use of Europeans which we visited in Hong Kong, were within three minutes' walk of Victoria Hotel, in the very busiest part of the city. Close by our hotel were such world-famed shops as 'Watson and Co.,' 'Kelly and Walsh,' etc.; a short distance down the street were the Postoffice and the Supreme Court buildings. The respectable English residents of Hong Kong cannot go about the streets of the city without seeing these places; there are draper-shops and other places visited daily and hourly by respectable foreigners and natives, occupying the ground floor of these brothels. The fine new building of the Girls' High School, under the management of the Government, is within five minutes' walk; yet all these brothels are glaringly numbered, as registered by the city, in huge figures eight or ten inches high, of red on a white background, painted on the doors of the stairways leading to the second story of the buildings occupied by these shops. The school children cannot pa.s.s by without noting these officially numbered houses, and seeing the girls sitting at all hours of the day and into the night conspicuously in the balconies over the shops of drapers, grocers, tailors, silk-merchants, shoe-dealers, &c., &c., and often hearing them calling to each other from house to house, and to the men in the public streets below. Mrs. Andrew, when in the street, March 2nd, saw a group of these slave-women calling down to three policemen, who were looking up and laughing at them. These are daily sights."

The unblushing parade of forms of vice, which have been manufactured in the Orient especially to meet the demands of renegade members of Christian civilization, can be seen in a peculiarly painful and brazen form in the city of Hong Kong.

While we were at Hong Kong, there occured a great celebration in honor of the repair and rededication of an important Buddhist temple.

There was a grand procession, and many thousands of Chinese from the mainland came over to witness the celebration. The parade formed in the early morning and went at once to the residence of the Governor to do him honor, after which it marched through the princ.i.p.al streets of the city. It was a curious, interesting, and withal a painful sight, in some regards not unlike industrial parades in our own country. At night we saw something totally unique and difficult to describe to those who have not witnessed the same in China. Men bore aloft great dragons and fishes innumerable, of all sizes and shapes, (but very true to life), given a natural color and lighted up within, like Chinese lanterns. These were held aloft on the ends of long poles, and as the men who carried them were invisible, because of the darkness, and trod noiselessly because of bare, or merely sandaled feet, the impression was of an immense train of these creatures floating or swimming silently through the air.

The procession was made up of men of all sorts and kinds. Great fat men with enormous fans panted along, and little boys ran by their side with stools upon which they gravely seated themselves whenever the line of march was halted for a moment. Little boys progressed painfully along with the rest, walking on their hands, with their feet thrown up into the air, or spinning along on all fours like wheels, or going through various other antics. And, contrary to anything that could have happened away from the open ports of China, there were many women in the parade, and girls too. They were on horseback, in sedan chairs, borne on wheeled platforms, like our "G.o.ddess of Liberty"

representations on the Fourth of July; walking, and sometimes riding on bullocks. We counted 150 women in all. These were dressed and painted up in such a style that a single glance showed they belonged to the disreputable cla.s.s, and their old "pocket-mothers," were to be seen walking along close to them and keeping a sharp lookout over their gaudily dressed slaves. Yet more painful was the sight of the little girls, bound to heavy wires and placed in all manner of contortions. Here was a girl about sixteen, standing cross-legged on a moving platform, holding a spear in each hand, the spears crossed in front of her breast, and a little girl dangling from each spear-point.

So it appeared, but in fact all were well wired into the distressing shape they occupied, and it was said that none of them could have endured the position for a moment but for plentiful doses of opium.

Next pa.s.sed a girl standing on the moving platform, holding a spear at arm's length, and a three-year-old girl standing on its point. Then a little boy holding a long rod from which was suspended a tiny child. A girl pa.s.sed sitting on a stool and holding a sword by its point with a child of four suspended from its handle, and next a girl holding a sword by its handle, and the child suspended from its point. One girl sat playing a flute held up high in the air, and a girl of six appeared to be suspended from it. One poor little thing was borne high up in the air, astride a turning-pole, with legs well crossed beneath the pole. And then there came along a little girl swaying about on the end of a long pole carried by men in the procession. We were on the second floor of a great verandah of the hotel, and the child swung so close to us, that we started forward toward her with a cry of pity.

Great tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she seemed to look straight into our eyes, and attempted a sickly smile at our expressions of pity.

Later, after the procession of fishes, we sat in company with two Chinese ministers of the Gospel who came to call upon us, and discussed in sadness the scenes of the day. They said, if we had understood the native language and joined in the procession, as they did at times, we would have heard the old "pocket-mothers" and other owners of these girls driving bargains for their sale, temporarily or permanently, with the men of the crowds. These native Christians marvelled that Englishmen and American men who called themselves "Christians" could have joined in these festivities in honor of a heathen temple, and that the Governor should have made a speech of congratulation, with no rebuke of these scenes of inhuman torture of women and child slaves, when the procession paused at his door. These parades continued two or three days, always accompanied by the great paper dragons, whether in the daytime or at night, by the noise of deafening tom-toms, and the sickening sight of tortured slave-girls.

CHAPTER 15.

"PROTECTION" AT SINGAPORE.

"Ladies, I wish to introduce to you Mr. ---- He is eager to meet you, and I am sure you will be glad to meet him. You are working along much the same lines. Mr. ---- I a.s.sure you, is, in fact, interested in every good thing that is done in this City, and in every good thing that comes this way. We all count on his sympathies. I am glad to have the privilege of bringing you together." With this our friend of many years, the good Doctor, withdrew to speak to another group, and we entered into a short conversation with the white-headed old man to whom we had been introduced. He was profuse in his expressions of sympathy for our purity work, but somehow, we could hardly have defined why, we were not interested in him, and soon turned away.

The occasion that gave the opportunity for his introduction, was a missionary conference at Singapore. The man in question had explained to us that he was not of the same denomination as the church that had called together the reception of that evening, but that he seldom failed to attend all such gatherings, no matter of what denomination, because of his interest in every part of the "Father's Kingdom".

Although we were very weary, and the air was intensely close, Singapore being only about seventy-five miles from the Equator, we spent most of that night and of several others in company with a Christian friend and interpreter, in the worst parts of the city; and this, with visits to various regions during the day, gave us a pretty clear understanding of the situation as to the matter of enforcement or non-enforcement of the Protective Ordinance.

"On the night of February 1st, 1894, we went to Tringanu street, and ascended to the third story of a large building. The front windows of this upper floor were gaily lighted up by many colored lamps, and could be seen far down the street. There was a small opium den at the foot of the stairway, on the ground floor. On reaching the head of the stairs, and turning, we entered a large front room. There were bedrooms at the back of the house, to be let to patrons of the establishment. At the opposite end of the front room from the windows was the ever-present idolatrous shrine. On either side of the room were elegantly-carved ebony chairs, with marble or agate panels. Rich Chinese pictures decorated the walls. Toward the back of the room hung the sign, '283 Licensed Eating House.' There was a large table in the centre of the room. Toward the front, on either side, in alcoves, part.i.tioned off in part from the remainder of the room, were opium couches, with pipes and lamps ready for use. We give this description in full, as it applies, almost without variation, to all the others which we visited in the immediate neighborhood.

Food was furnished on order, intoxicating drinks, and opium. At the second place, on the opposite corner of the same block, the men told us that the place was used for the same purposes. We asked where the women were, and they answered that it was too late to see them, but if we would come earlier we would find them. When asked where the women came from, they pointed down to the street below, to the open brothels, and said there were a great number of degraded women who lived close by; said the brothel-keepers sent them. They said that white men as well as Chinese came to their place. After this we walked the length of the several streets and side-streets, in the near vicinity, and proved the truth of what the men had told us as to the swarming numbers of degraded girls and women.

"The next night we went to the same neighborhood, and revisited the two places already mentioned, and others also. As we reached the top of the stairway and pa.s.sed into the front room of the place where they had invited us to return, there was quite a flutter of excitement, and we instantly saw that there was a number of girls present, all very young, and several mere children. On our left a fat, middle-aged Chinese man sat, with two or three little girls, one in his lap and one on either side of him, in his arms; two more were throwing something that resembled dice on a table within the front alcove, and the rest were sitting on the opium couches. There were ten girls in all; the two youngest could not possibly have been more than eight years old; only one, out of the ten, claimed to be over sixteen; we all doubted her claim, because of her extreme immaturity of appearance. The two youngest children were immediately sent away by order of the fat man, who was evidently in authority. The men explained that these girls belonged to different women who were not their own mothers; that they came to sing and dance, and pour wine for the patrons who came to the place. They also explained that all these girls were brought from the brothels, and were either already living a bad life or were being trained up for prost.i.tution. They were powdered heavily, had flowers and ornaments in their hair, the upper part of the forehead made bare, and the hair dressed elaborately, like married women (even the very youngest children); of course they were not married, for they were declared to be the property of the brothel-keepers, and this manner of dress must, therefore, have been an advertis.e.m.e.nt of their shame.

"A curious musical instrument was brought--somewhat like a dulcimer--on which two of the girls played in succession, singing in a high, monotonous way.

"From here we went to the first place visited the night previous, on the opposite corner of the same block. There was quite an excitement here when we came in. Two men and two girls were playing on native instruments--one of the men on a sort of fiddle, and the other on a rude guitar; the girls, one striking, in sharp staccato fashion, a wooden perforated bowl inverted on a standard or post, and the other a kind of cymbal; they were singing in the same shrill, monotonous way we had heard before. We counted eight girls here. There was a piece of unpainted tin or zinc, about eight by twelve inches, set upon the table toward one end, with a list of fifty names on it, and a Chinese man, who talked fair English, explained it thus: 'These are the names of singing and dancing girls who come here; a man looks over the list and calls for a girl to sing or dance; then he chooses his girl.'

"We then went to a third place on the same side of the street.

Here there was a wild confusion as we reached the top of the second flight of stairs and entered the front room, and several young girls were hustled out through the other door and into the little back rooms, and the list of girls' names was hurried out of sight. The Chinese men were evidently much frightened. A bold little girl, very smartly dressed, was put forward, who answered our questions in a loud, brazen manner. One of our party asking her if she could sing, she thought the statement was made that she was not 'sixteen' (the age under which girls are supposed to be 'protected' from going into prost.i.tution by British rule), and shouted, 'I am _seventeen_.' We stayed only a few minutes, but were informed that they provided opium and intoxicating liquors here."

We told our hostess one day that we desired jinrikshas that we might be conveyed to the Protectorate to interview the Chief Inspector, having heard that he desired an interview. As we were leaving the house she detained us a moment to say, timidly: "Ladies, do pardon me, but I feel I must caution you that that man has a very violent temper, and it will not do in case you see anything, to criticise,--no matter what you think. I don't wish to seem to intrude, but I know the man's reputation as to temper, and I cannot bear to think of his having a chance to treat you rudely." We thanked her heartily, and promised to be doubly careful.

We knew the place. A very imposing Government building standing apart by itself, upon which much money had been expended to give it a fine appearance. We were soon ushered into the presence of the man who held the same relation to the work at Singapore that John Lee holds, or at least held the last we knew, at Hong Kong. Will you believe us, when we tell you that to our amazement it was that same white-haired old man to whom we had been introduced at the church gathering as such an active Christian, "working along much the same lines as ourselves, and at the head and front of every good work in the Colony?" To be sure we had heard the name of this Inspector, but we had never in our remotest conception connected it with the man the Doctor had introduced to us.

Concealing our surprise we sat down for a few moment's interview. The man knew his lesson "like a book." We could have prompted him, had he made a mistake in reciting it, from the State doc.u.ments which we had with us,--the same from which we have compiled the chapters of this little book. "The work of the Protectorate is really rescue work, _and that only_." He had lived in Singapore nearly thirty years. He said he had disapproved of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance, when it was in existence, but a good thing had grown out of it in the matter of provisions for the "protection", of women. We asked, in reference to his remark that the Protectorate was a Rescue Society, if it did not look after men, too. He replied, "Oh yes, the coolies; all are brought here, but the men go to the other side of the building; the women come here." We asked if all the women came before him; he said, "Before the Protector; but in his absence before me." We pondered on the thought of this "rescue work" carried on by this particular Protector of whom we had heard that he had been almost unspeakably vile from boyhood up. He showed us a book which contained a list of all deck-pa.s.sengers coming to Singapore, who had been pa.s.sed under review at the Protectorate; they were listed by families. He then showed us a separate list of women and girls who came alone, without families. He had underscored with red ink the names of those in the list who had gone into brothels. He said that suspicious cases either went to the Protectorate Refuge, or those under whose charge they went to live were obliged to give bonds or securities, 500 Mexican dollars was the usual amount of the security in the cases recorded. He also showed us the form of these bonds, both blank forms and some that had been made out; these bonds required that the girls named therein should not be removed from Singapore, and that the girls should be produced from time to time at the Protectorate, upon demand of the Protector, and within twenty-four hours. The bond was good for a specified time named thereon. Then he showed us a book containing "_Warrants of Removal and Detention to the Chinese Refuge_" for girls under sixteen years of age. He also showed us little tickets (we had already seen them in a brothel) and said these contained the number and address of the girls, and if one of these tickets was sent back by a girl to the Protectorate, by any hand or in any manner, the Protectorate would immediately send for the girl and listen to her complaint. He showed us a book of cases, and read us the story of one girl in particular, Ah Moi, and congratulated himself on the Protectorate being at hand to rescue this girl. We will give this case in full further on. He repeated his a.s.sertion that he abominated the C.D. Ordinance, and said that there were now no compulsory examinations, and no Lock Hospital, and that the Government had nothing to do with examinations in any form. But we replied that we had already visited the Lock Hospital, and that there were about fifteen patients there, and asked him how they came to be there. He said anyone could go there; that it was a general hospital for women, and that all diseases would be treated there; that the patients could go away at any time they wished; the Colonial Surgeon was in charge of it. But we asked him how it happened that the degraded women knew enough to go there in such numbers; he said they might be ill, and any doctor in a private capacity would send them. He had sent them, and would like to send a good many more, when they were very ill. He told us of going over the records, for years back, and of finding that the average of time spent in the brothel by these girls was three years and a half, while, if they stayed in Canton, they would be life-long prost.i.tutes. He made much of this point, and argued that it was better for them to come to Singapore in order to be set free by the Protectorate, but acknowledged that many of them became concubines (in "following a man," as the Chinese express it). He spoke of domestic slavery in Singapore, but declared it was slavery of a very mild sort. We asked who came with the Chinese girls when they came to the Protectorate.

He answered, "Oh, a friend--the woman or 'mother' who owns them." We asked if nothing could be done against these traffickers in girls; he said they could not often get sufficient proof against them. We saw in one of the records something about "women traffickers," and pressed him to know why these could not be caught and banished by means of paid detectives watching the incoming boats. He replied that it was very hard to get evidence; the girls' own statements were not enough; the Protectorate needed more power. When asked what powers were further necessary, he suggested the power to punish the traffickers of girls by simply the statement of the girls who were brought to Singapore through fraud, or who were kidnaped. He then spoke of a drug which was used by the women traffickers to destroy the girls' wits; he believed in its existence and its use. He said of these cases of fraud and kidnaping, "We can usually do nothing." We asked if a woman was found bringing girls over and over again whether she could not be prosecuted: he answered that she might be. We then asked if the Protectorate had ever prosecuted: he replied, "Oh yes, a few times."

But he grew uneasy under these questions; said no one could know or appreciate the present situation who did not know the conditions of the things in the past, but now he thought they had the best arrangement possible for protecting the women and girls, and exclaimed, "But if this ordinance were abolished I do not know what would become of them." He confessed at the close of our talk that he would like to speak freely to us about certain things connected with the work which could not be mentioned publicly, and said there were "perplexities--great perplexities." Yet at the beginning of the conversation, when speaking of the criticism pa.s.sed upon the Protectorate's work, he had said, "Why do they not come here for information instead of going about criticising? our books are all open to public inspection." But we had noticed that throughout the interview he kept the books in his own hands, and only allowed us to see what he himself turned up for our inspection.

Now as to some of this official's statements--we deal with them, not with the object of criticising his _personal_ opinions and views and statements, but as an _official_ representation to us of a Government inst.i.tution.

To begin with, he had told us two absolute falsehoods, at least. One was that there was no Lock Hospital at Singapore, whereas we had visited this Government inst.i.tution and by careful inspection found it was used for _the one purpose only_, having no equipment for any other uses, and there were fifteen prost.i.tutes there. When confronted with this knowledge, which, remembering our hostess' caution as to his temper, we expressed as gently as possible, he then declared it was a general hospital, which it was not. He declared there were no compulsory examinations, and that the Government had nothing to do with examinations in any form. We thought it wisest not to give him the information that we held at that time, and hold to the present day,--dozens of papers of committment to the Lock Hospital for compulsory examinations both in his own handwriting and in that of the Protector. And some of these cases, as the records we have copied show, were those of perfectly innocent girls, acknowledged to be virgins, until a.s.saulted by these abominable medical officials and robbed of the fresh bloom of maidenly chast.i.ty.

The official spoke of the work of the Protectorate as "Rescue work, and that only," in so far as it dealt with women. But it must be borne in mind that the "Protector" of women and girls was likewise the Registrar of brothels; and that the rules and regulations under the Women and Girls' Protection Ordinance provided, in both Singapore and Hong Kong, for every detail in the management of brothels, even to the granting of a permit to keep a brothel, and the description of the "duties" of brothel-keepers. Surely this part of the Protector's work cannot be called "Rescue work," as we are accustomed to use the phrase.

According to the Annual Report of the Protectorate for 1893, 1,183 women and girls entered brothels with the sanction of the Protector; and quite apart from any discussion of whether this sanction should have been given or not, it is quite apparent that this also was not "Rescue work."

During the same year 1,034 women and girls left the brothels of Singapore, and it is apparent that we must look among these mainly for rescued cases. Of this 1,034 the following account is given:

Absconded 63 Died 21 Gone to "Private Houses" 346 Married 69 To be accounted for 451

We have an explanation in the Protector's own words of what is meant by a girl who has "absconded." "It is common now, when an owner notices one of her girls contracting a continued intimacy with a male visitor (and therefore to be suspected of an intention to apply to our office for release), for the owner to sell the girl away to another country. When this has been accomplished, the brothel keeper reports the prost.i.tute has absconded, and, if we cannot prove the contrary, we are obliged to accept the story and strike the name off our books."

What would we think in America of a "Rescue work, and that only," with all the advantages of Government backing; under constant surveillance; every girl registered; that permitted 63 girls in a year to be defeated in their desire to marry by being sold as slaves into foreign parts; that allowed 346 of the girls to "go to private houses," as domestic slaves or concubines; that did not account at all for 451 girls; and saw only 69 married; and all this out of 1,034 cases it had absolutely within its control?

The Inspector spoke of the _personal tickets_ given into the hands of each girl, which if sent to the Protectorate at any time, would secure a hearing for her before the Protectorate. It is also declared that notice is posted up in every brothel in a conspicuous place, that no girl can be detained against her will. We visited a place on Fraser Street the night of February 2nd; quoting from our journal:

"There was a middle-aged woman in charge, with a baby beside her on the couch where she was sitting. There were six girls present, the oldest barely sixteen years old in appearance, and one between fourteen and fifteen--a thin, immature little creature. We asked about this young girl, and one of our interpreters overheard the keeper instruct her to say she had been in the house two years.

Then we asked the girl her name, and the keeper told her to tell us a different name from the one she first gave us. We saw hanging on the wall, a black bag, which we were allowed to take down and examine. It contained a board eight by ten inches square, on which was pasted a paper bearing a list of the inmates. The list was headed by the keeper's name, Moo Lee, in writing. Then was printed across the top in Chinese characters a statement that inmates could not be confined against their will. (The question was whether, in our absence, the girls would be allowed to take this bag down, open it, and read the sentence of liberty inside.) We showed this to the girls, and asked them if they could read the Chinese written thereon, and they all, even to the brothel-keeper, said they could not. We then asked them what was the _meaning_ of the words, and none of them could tell. One girl said, 'We cannot read them, but the great man at the Protectorate can read them.'

We asked them if they had tickets, and they showed us little square pieces of paper exactly similar to one which we hold in our possession. The tickets were all so blurred that the educated Chinese gentleman who accompanied us tried in vain to make out its full meaning. It is by means of these things, put in the hands of Chinese women who are utterly unable to read a word of Chinese, that their liberty is professedly given them."

Now as to the case of Ah Moi, of whom the Inspector spoke as ill.u.s.trating the beneficent work of the Protectorate. He had little idea how much we knew of the case or he would never have brought it up. There is at Singapore a Refuge for girls, managed by the Chinese Society, the Po Leung Kuk, organized originally at Hong Kong and Singapore to put down kidnaping. The Inspector one day, January 4th, 1894, sent a girl of fifteen over to the Refuge with a note to the Matron, and on the following morning, ordered her sent to the Lock Hospital for examination. We saw the recorded result of that examination in the handwriting of the doctor at the hospital, and it was to the effect that the girl was suffering from disease due to vice. After that the Matron got a note from the Inspector saying: "Ah Moi can be written off your books, as she has been sent to hospital, and after she leaves hospital she intends going to a house of ill-fame."

Now the rules forbade all religious instruction, or any sort of instruction in this Refuge, since the Chinese men who contributed to its support were opposed to women being taught anything. But the Matron had threatened to leave if she could not teach and train the girls. So she was allowed, out of her own slender salary, to hire a teacher on her own account, and this she did. The good Christian man whom she had hired came and told her he had learned that Ah Moi was a good girl, and was from a Mission School in Canton, and finally he brought the girl's own mother, who testified that this was true. We have not s.p.a.ce to go into this story in detail, but we later visited the school at Canton from which the girl had been brought, talked with the teachers who had had her under their care for years, and it was literally true,--that she was a perfectly pure girl (and how could she have been suffering from such a disease?), who had been entrapped for such a dreadful fate. She would have been put into a life of shame by the Inspector, never to have escaped her terrible servitude, probably, but for the energetic efforts of this Chinese Christian man and the Refuge Matron, who rescued her from the Protectorate and its wicked business of a.s.signing girls to brothels. And here sat the Inspector, telling us this story, of which we knew so much, (and learned more at Canton later), as an instance of the "rescue work" of his office!

Almost the last day of our painful work at Singapore had come. We had gathered much evidence, and had good hope that something could be done with it in London. "This is my birth-day," one of us said to the other, as we spun along in our jinrikshas toward the Refuge. "I think we ought to have some unusual good fortune in gathering information today. At least we can get some of these little children taken out of their terrible peril in the brothels. The Matron of the Refuge says she _knows_ the officials are ignorant of their presence there. They have so often talked of their extreme care at that point. Will it not be good to see something actually done and at once about that matter?

She was to interview the Inspector yesterday, and will report to us today." And so we chatted on, We had been horrified to encounter in a single night's work some thirty little girls playing about the rooms of brothels. That at least would never be allowed. We were so glad the law was so very strict, and we had been a.s.sured strictly enforced at that point. It read: "Any person who receives a girl under the age of sixteen into a brothel, or harbors any such girl in a brothel, shall (until the contrary be proved) be deemed to have obtained possession of such girl with the intent or knowledge in clause one of sub-section one mentioned." This clause reads: "with the intent that such girl shall be used for the purpose of prost.i.tution," and the penalty, "liability to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to a fine not exceeding $500, or to both." If that law failed because of what would pa.s.s as proof to the contrary, at any rate there was the further provision that the children could be removed to places of safety, at least to the Refuge. "A girl found living in or frequenting a brothel shall be deemed to be a girl who is being trained for immoral purposes." And "The Protector, if on due inquiry he is satisfied that any girl is being ... trained for such purposes, and that such girl is under the age of sixteen years, may ... order such girl to be removed to a place of safety," etc., etc. The way seemed perfectly clear under such laws, to secure the safety of the children.

At the door of the Refuge we were glad to escape from our jinrikshas into the cool shade of the house. The Matron seemed much troubled, and spoke of things that she had not understood previously, but now that she had learned many things from our investigations and from her own questioning of the girls, they had taken on a painful meaning to her.

Our hearts grew heavier and heavier as we talked together. The Matron, said: "Why, I thought when I came here it was to do a regular Christian work for these girls. That was my purpose, but the more I inquire into the matter, and study over the things I am expected to do and ask no questions, such as sending girls over to the Lock Hospital at the Chief Inspector's request, the more I feel that I am being worked for purposes of which I cannot approve. I cannot stay here."

At last we got to ask her about her talk with the Inspector. "What did he say when you told him what we discovered the other night--that little girls go freely to the Licensed Eating Houses, and live in the brothels?" "Is it really true that the authorities have been deceived, and did not know of this flagrant violation of the Ordinance to protect women and girls?"

The Matron's face was sadly troubled. She gazed at us a moment quietly, and then said:

"He told me, Why, of course he knew about those children. There were scores of them."