Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers Part 7

The Chief Justice then went on to repeat the little girl's testimony as to these "brokers of mankind," and the child's knowledge, from personal observation of these purchases and sales, to which he adds:

"Let me here ask, Is the trade, or rather profession, 'broker of mankind,' also a sacred China custom? I will not ask the queries which would naturally arise in case the question were answered in the affirmative. At present, however, I must say that, custom or no custom, the practice of this profession is prohibited by statute, and it is my duty to meet its exercise by punishment."

The prisoner was sentenced to two years' penal servitude. The Chief Justice concluded his remarks on that occasion by replying to the statements made in the Chinese pet.i.tion.

He called attention to the Chinese resting their claim on the temporary promise of Governor Elliott in 1841; of the fact that they ignored the proclamation of the Queen in 1845. He said that infanticide was also a Chinese custom in the same sense that slavery was, on the words of the pet.i.tion:

"Amongst the Chinese there has. .h.i.therto been the custom of drowning their daughters. The Chinese threaten the increase of this 'custom' of drowning children if their sale is put down....

I can only say that in case father, mother, or relative were convicted of infanticide, Chinese custom would be no protection, and, unless I am grievously mistaken, the presiding judge would have no alternative but to sentence the perpetrator to death ...

the one custom is tolerated just as the other custom is tolerated, and both alike or neither must be claimed as sanctioned by Governor Elliott's proclamation. All remedies which ever existed by common law or by statute in England up to 1845 against ownership of human beings, against every form of slavery, extend by their own proper force and authority to Hong Kong; and, if that were not enough, all English laws applicable to Hong Kong, including those against ownership in human beings, were by express Ordinances 6 of 1845, and 12 of 1873, embodied into the laws of Hong Kong, whilst the worst forms of slavery are especially punished by Ordinance 4 of 1865, and 2 of 1875. I am bound by my most solemn obligations to enforce all these laws. I must, therefore, without fear, favour or affection, discharge this duty to the best of my ability."

CHAPTER 10.

NOT FALLEN--BUT ENSLAVED.

The Report of the Commission affords the following instructive account of the difference in the moral and social status between the prost.i.tute of the East and West:

"In approaching the subject of prost.i.tution, as it is found in Hong Kong at the present day, it is absolutely necessary for a full and just comprehension of it, to keep in mind two distinct considerations. One is the almost total ident.i.ty of the whole system of prost.i.tution, which since times immemorial is an established inst.i.tution all over the large empire of China. The other point to be kept in mind is the radical difference which distinguishes the personal character, the life and the surroundings of Chinese prost.i.tutes from all that is characteristic of the prost.i.tutes of Europe." ... "At the present day the Chinese prost.i.tutes of Hong Kong have but very little to distinguish them, either in the past, present, or future of their personal lives, or in their position and surroundings, from the prost.i.tutes of the 18 provinces of China.... Those of the prost.i.tutes of Hong Kong who are inmates of brothels licensed for foreigners only, or who live in sly brothels for foreigners, have adopted a different style of dress, but are otherwise in no essential point differently situated from prost.i.tutes in China, except that the inmates of brothels licensed for foreigners are subject to compulsory medical examination, and consequently far more despised by their countrymen and even other prost.i.tutes."

"Prost.i.tutes in Europe are, as a general rule, fallen women, the victims of seduction, or possibly of innate vice. Being the outcasts of society, and having little, if any, prospect of being again admitted into decent and respectable circles of life, deprived also of their own self-respect as well as the regards of their relatives, occasionally even troubled with qualms of conscience, they mostly dread thinking of their future, and seek oblivion in excesses of boisterous dissipation. The Chinese prost.i.tutes of Hong Kong are an entirely different set of people.... Very few of them can be called fallen women; scarcely any of them are the victims of seduction, according to the English sense of the term, refined or unrefined. The great majority of them are owned by professional brothel-keepers or traders in women in Canton or Macao, have been brought up for the profession, and trained in various accomplishments suited to brothel life.... They frequently know neither father nor mother, except what they call a 'pocket-mother,' that is, the woman who bought them from others.... They feel of course that they are the bought property of their pocket-mother or keeper, but they know also that this is the feeling of almost every other woman in China, liable as each is to be sold, by her own parents or relatives, to be the wife or concubine of a man she never sets eyes on before the wedding day, or liable, as the case may be, to be pledged or sold, by her parents or relatives, to serve as a domestic slave in a strange family.... They have the chance, if they are pretty and accomplished, of being wooed ... and they may look forward with tolerable certainty to being made the second, or third, or fourth, or at any rate the favorite wife of some wealthy gentleman. If not possessed of special attractions or wealthy lovers, they look forward to being taken out of the brothel by an honest devoted man to share the lot of a poor man's wife. Or they may endeavor to save money by singing, music and prost.i.tution combined, and not only to purchase their freedom, but to set up for themselves, buying, rearing, and selling girls to act as servants or concubines or prost.i.tutes, or they may finally come to keep brothels as managers for wealthy capitalists or speculators. There is further a certain proportion of prost.i.tutes in Hong Kong who have, by the hand of their own parents or husbands, been mortgaged or sold into temporary servitude as prost.i.tutes, or who of their own will and accord act as prost.i.tutes under personal agreement with a brothel-keeper, for a definite advance of a sum of money, required to rescue the family, or some member of it, from some great calamity or permanent ruin."

"There is, however, one cla.s.s of women in Hong Kong who can scarcely be called prost.i.tutes, and who have no parallel either in China, outside the Treaty Ports, or in Europe. They are generally called 'protected women.' They may originally have come forth from one or other of the above-mentioned cla.s.ses of prost.i.tutes, or may be the offspring of protected women...."

The Report describes the situation of the "protected woman" in the following terms:

"She resides in a house rented by her protector, who lives generally in another part of the town; she receives a fixed salary from her protector, and sublets every available room to individual sly prost.i.tutes, or to women keeping a sly brothel, no visitor being admitted unless he have some introduction or secret pa.s.s-words. If an inspector of brothels attempts to enter, he is quietly informed that this is not a brothel, but the private family residence of Mr. So and So.... This system makes the suppression of sly brothels an impossibility.... The princ.i.p.al points of difference between the various cla.s.ses of Chinese prost.i.tutes of Hong Kong and the prost.i.tutes of Europe amount therefore to this, that Chinese prost.i.tution is essentially a bargain in money and based on a national system of female slavery."

"It must not be supposed, however, from what is said above, that the Chinese, as a people, view prost.i.tution as a matter of moral indifference. On the contrary, the literature, the religions, the laws and the public opinion of China, all join in condemning prost.i.tution as immoral, and in co-operation to keep it under a certain check. The literature of the Confucianists, which, as regards purity and utter absence of immoral suggestions, stands unrivalled by any other nation in the world, does not countenance prost.i.tution in any form.... The laws and public opinion ... agree in keeping prost.i.tution rigidly out of sight. Although the Chinese are a Pagan nation, they have no deification of vice in their temples, no indecent shows in their theatres, no orgies in their houses of public entertainment, no parading of lewd women in their streets.... In short, as far as outward and public observation goes, China presents a more virtuous appearance than most European countries."

The report goes on to show that nevertheless the practice of polygamy,

"leaving the childless concubines liable to be sold or sent adrift at any moment, the law of inheritance neglecting daughters in favour of sons," and "the universal practice of buying and selling females combined with the system of domestic servitude," makes the suppression of prost.i.tution difficult. "This intermixture of female slavery with prost.i.tution has been noticed in Hong Kong at the very time when the Legislature first attempted to deal with Chinese prost.i.tution."

We now understand the nature of this wretched form of slavery as carried on at Hong Kong. There did not exist a cla.s.s of women brought to the pitiable plight of prost.i.tution by the wiles of the seducer, or through the mishap of a lapse from virtue, after which all doors to reform are practically closed against such, as in Western civilization, nor were there those known to have fallen through innate perversity; but such as existed among the Chinese were literal slaves, in the full sense of that word. From the standpoint of these officials, for the most part, prost.i.tution was necessary. This was plainly declared in many official doc.u.ments. The fact that they licensed brothels proves also that prost.i.tution was considered necessary. And since necessary, if the means failed whereby brothels in the Occident are maintained, then they must be maintained by Oriental means,--which was slavery. Under such circ.u.mstances, to license prost.i.tution meant, from the very nature of the case, to license slavery. To encourage prost.i.tution, as it always is encouraged by the Contagious Diseases Acts, meant to encourage slavery. Hence they reasoned, and declared--to use the language of the Registrar General, Cecil C. Smith--that it was "useless to try and deal with the question of the freedom of Chinese prost.i.tutes by law or by any Government regulation. From all the surroundings the thing is impracticable."

It must be admitted that the conditions at Hong Kong favored the development of social impurity. From the moment of British occupation, and before, in fact, there were at that place large numbers of unmarried soldiers and sailors, many of very loose morals; also many men in civil and military positions as officials, and numerous merchants, etc., most of them separated far from their families and the restraints that surrounded them at home. On the Chinese side, there were men accustomed to deal with their women as chattels, willing to sell them to the foreigners.

But we need to inquire a little further into the matter before conceding that because a thing will almost inevitably take place, therefore it is best to license it in order to keep it within bounds.

The superficial sophist says: "Prost.i.tution always has existed and always will exist. Painful as the fact is, such is the frailty of human nature. You cannot make men moral by act of parliament, and it is foolish to try. We will have to license the thing, and thus control it as best we can. That is the only practical way to deal with this evil." Such reasoning as this exhibits the most confused notions as to the nature of law.

No law is ever enacted except with the expectation that an offense against it will take place. Law antic.i.p.ates transgression as much as license; but law provides a _check_ upon offenses and license provides an _incitement_ to them. "The law was not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient." Have not murder and stealing always existed? Are they not likely to exist in spite of laws against them, so long as human nature remains so frail? Then why not license _them_ in order to keep _them_ under control? It is perfectly apparent to all that to license murder and stealing; would be the surest way of allowing them to get quickly beyond control. "But you cannot make men moral by act of parliament, and it is foolish to try; to put a man in jail will not change him from a thief into an honest man." "But," you reply, "we do not punish men for stealing and for murder for their own good, but for the good of the community at large." Certainly. Then what becomes of the argument that because men will not become pure by act of parliament they are to be allowed to commit their depredations unmolested? The primary object of law is not reformatory but protective,--for the victims of lawlessness.

Our great Law-Giver, Jesus Christ, admitted a certain necessity of evil, but He did not say, "therefore license it, to keep it within bounds." He said, "It _must needs be_ that offenses come." But His remedy for keeping the offenses within bounds was, "woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." As inevitably as the offense was committed so invariably must the punishment fall on the offender's head. That is the only way to keep any evil within bounds. This is the principle that underlies all law.

These Hong Kong officials who believed in the licensing of brothel slavery and brought it about, have much to say about the "unfortunate creatures" who were the victims of men. But if the advocate of license is self-deceived in his att.i.tude toward this social evil, we need not be deceived in him. One does not propose a license as a remedy for an evil, except as led to that view by secret sympathy with the evil.

A license of an evil is never proposed excepting upon the mental acquiescence in that evil.

British officials who licensed immoral houses at Hong Kong did not wish the libertine to be disturbed in his depredations. The Chinese merchants were able to see this fact if those officials were not ready to admit it even to themselves. They knew how to throw a stone that would secure their own gla.s.s houses. Hence they said in their memorial to the Governor:

"From 80 to 90 per cent of all these prost.i.tutes in Hong Kong were brought into these [licensed] brothels by purchase, as is well known to everybody. If buying and selling is a matter of criminal character the proper thing would be first of all, to abolish this evil (connected with the brothels). But how comes it that since the first establishment of the Colony down to the present day the same old practice prevails in these licensed brothels, and has never been forbidden or abolished?"

It is to be noted that none of the officials at Hong Kong accused the Chinese merchants of slander in saying that from 80 to 90 per cent of the thousands of prost.i.tutes in the Colony were absolute slaves. The Government was placed in a very awkward position by this challenge on the part of the Chinese. How could a Government that held slaves in its licensed brothels forbid Chinese residents holding slaves in their homes? But the Governor did not propose to be compromised. He wrote to the Secretary of State at London: "I believe I only antic.i.p.ate your instructions, in giving orders that the law, whatever may be the consequences to the brothel system, should be strictly enforced so as to secure the freedom of the women." But he reckoned without his host.

The Secretary of State did not stand by the Governor. So far as the records show, the Governor and Chief Justice stood alone, his entire Executive Council taking the opposing side. What was to be done?

CHAPTER 11.

THE MAN FOR THE OCCASION.

Consistency demanded that either the brothel system at Hong Kong should be abolished, or domestic slavery and so-called "adoption"

should be tolerated. No other courses were open. In his perplexity, the Governor asked his learned Chinese interpreter, Dr. Eitel, to give him further light as to this domestic slavery and "adoption" prevalent among the Chinese. This request was granted in a doc.u.ment ent.i.tled "Domestic servitude in relation to slavery." Dr. Eitel's main points were:

Slavery as known to the Westerner "has always been an incident of race." "Slavery, therefore, has such a peculiar meaning ... that one ought to hesitate before applying the term rashly" to Chinese domestic slavery. Slavery in China grows out of the fact that the father has all power, even to death, over his family. The father, on the other hand, "has many duties as well as rights." Therefore his power over his family "is not a mark of tyranny, but of religious unity." "Few foreigners have comprehended the extent of social equality, ... the amount of influence which woman, bought and sold as she is, really has in China,... the depth of domestic affection, of filial piety, of paternal care." "To deal justly with the slavery of China, we ought to invent another name for it." "The law, although sanctioning the sale of children for purposes of adoption within each clan, and even without, is here in advance of public opinion, as it expressly allows, by an edict, ... the sale of children only to extremely poor people in times of famine, and forbids even in that case re-sale of a child once bought."

This last admission on the part of Dr. Eitel, a fact already pointed out by Sir John Smale, seems to us to clearly demonstrate that a pretext was now being sought to justify at Hong Kong a state of things as to slavery that the laws of China forbade and which in no wise could be justified as Chinese "custom." "The reason for this immense demand for young female domestics lies in the system of polygamy which obtains all over the empire, and which has a religious basis." By this he means that it is from the Chinese standpoint a religious duty for a father to leave a son, upon his death, to continue the family sacrifices. Therefore if the father has no son by his first wife, he will "take a second or third or fourth wife until he procures a son."

"A family being in urgent distress, and requiring immediately a certain sum of money, take one of their female children, say five years old ... to a wealthy family, where the child becomes a member of the family, and has, perhaps, to look after a baby.... But the child may be sold out and out. In that case invariably a deed is drawn up."

And this is the state of things concerning which Dr. Eitel says: "Few foreigners have comprehended the extent of social equality ... the amount of influence which woman, bought and sold as she is, really has in China ... the depth of domestic affection, of filial piety, of parental care," etc.

He adds:

"Considering the deep hold which this system has on the Chinese people, it is not to be wondered at that Chinese can scarcely comprehend how an English judge could come to designate this species of domestic servitude as 'slavery.' On the contrary, intelligent Chinese look upon this system as the necessary and indispensable complement of polygamy, as an excellent counter remedy for the deplorably wide-spread system of infanticide, and as the natural consequence of the chronic occurrence of famines, inundations, and rebellions in an over-populated country. But the abuses to which this system of buying and selling female children is liable, in the hands of unscrupulous parents and buyers, and the support it lends to public prost.i.tution, are too patent facts to require pointing out."

"The moment we examine closely into Chinese slavery and servitude," declares Dr. Eitel, "from the standpoint of history and sociology, we find that slavery and servitude have, with the exception of the system of eunuchs, lost all barbaric and revolting features." (!) "As this organism has had its certain natural evolution, it will as certainly undergo in due time a natural dissolution, which in fact has at more than one point already set in. But no legislative or executive measures taken in Hong Kong will hasten this process, which follows its own course and its own laws laid down by a wise Providence which happily overrules for the good all that is evil in the world."

There was, indeed, a certain justice in defending the Chinese as against the foreigner, on Dr. Eitel's part. But two wrongs do not make a right. From this time onward, the word of sophistry is put in the mouth of the advocate of domestic slavery, just as the word of sophistry had been put in the mouth of the advocate of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance. Mr. Labouchere had spoken of the latter as a means of protection' for the poor slaves, and the expression, 'protection,'

has been kept prominently to the front ever since Dr. Eitel suggested, likewise, not a change in the conditions, but a change in the name by which they were known. Let it be called 'domestic _servitude_' instead of 'domestic _slavery_.' All the advocates of this domestic slavery from that time have called the noxious weed by the sweeter name.

Governor Hennessey asked the opinion of others of his officials. One Acting Police Magistrate replied 'When the servant girls (or slaves girls, as some prefer to term them) in the families in this Colony are contented with their lot, and their parents do not claim them, the police cannot be expected to interfere.' Another said 'Buying and selling children by the Chinese has been considered a harmless proceeding, its only effect being to place the purchaser under a legal and moral obligation to provide for the child until the seller chose to repudiate the bargain, which he could always do under English law.'

The Attorney General, Mr. O'Malley, when asked (at a later period) his opinion as to the utterances Sir John Smale had made from time to time on the subject of slavery, replied to the Governor

"With regard to Sir John Smale's observation, I know that difficulties national, social, official and financial beset the Government in reference to the special questions I have raised, I have only to observe that I have never heard of those difficulties. My own impression is that the respectable parts of the community, Chinese as well as European, including the Government and the police, are fully alive to the brothel and domestic servitude systems, and as well informed as Sir John Smale himself as to the real facts. One would suppose from the tone of his pamphlet that he stood alone in his perception and denunciation of evil. But I believe the fact is that the Executive and the community generally are quite as anxious is he is to insist upon practical precautions necessary to prevent the abuses, and to diminish the evils naturally connected with these systems, but they look for this to practical securities and not to declamation. The obvious line of practical suggestions to take is that of careful registration and constant inspection of brothels, so that full and frequent opportunity may be given to all persons whose freedom may be open to suspicion to know their legal position, and to a.s.sert their liberty if they like ...

Particularly it might be thought right to create a system of registration applicable to domestic servants and strangers in family houses. It would be a good thing if Sir John Smale would place at the disposal of the Government (as I believe he has never yet done) any facts connected with the brothel system or the domestic servitude of which he possesses any real knowledge."

This letter gives us some conception of the almost insuperable difficulties Sir John Smale had to encounter in his endeavor to put down slavery, for not a case could come up in the Superior Court for conviction on the Judge's information, of course, for that would be a.s.suming both prosecuting and judicial powers, and the men who occupied in turn that office, during Sir John Smale's inc.u.mbency, refused to act in unison with him, and this Attorney General's language betrays hot prejudice, lack of candor as regarded the facts, and insolence toward Sir John Smale.

The Attorney General has a fling at the Chief Justice as "impracticable," yet the only practical suggestion that the former makes in his letter as to how to meet the conditions he seems to have taken from Sir John Smale's own words upon which he was asked to express an opinion. The Chief Justice had said:

"I think the evils complained of might be lessened,--(1) By a better registration of the inmates of brothels, and by frequently bringing them before persons to whom they might freely speak as to their position and wishes, and by such authoritative interference with the brothel-keepers as should keep them well in fear of exercising acts of tyranny. (2) By a stringently enforced register of all inmates of Chinese dwelling-houses, &c., (at least of all servants) with full inquiry into the conditions of servitude, and an authoritative restoration of unwilling servants to freedom from servitude. This would apply to 10,000 (according to Dr. Eitel 20,000) bond servants in Hong Kong."

The injustice of the attack of the Attorney General upon Sir John Smale was not ignored by Governor Hennessy, when he forwarded Mr.