Found Collection

happy, and expressed their eager wish to remain. A Chinese
woman came to call at the mission home, in the absence of the
superintendent, and, unfortunately, was allowed to get access to an
acquaintance of these girls, and she conveyed to them a promise that
if they would come back, in a very little while they would all be
given their liberty. After that the girls said they wished to go, and
for the following reasons: They could not dwell in safety among their
Chinese people, if in debt to a ***-keeper, for he would be always
on their track, and if he could not capture them and they would
not return, he would certainly secure their death at the hands of
high-binders. The case came up in court. The girls told there all the
details of their being recently smuggled into this country; that they
were bought by their present owner for $3,030 each; that they were
flogged when their earnings for their owner fell below $300 a month,
and other similar details,--_but_ they also declared their wish to go
back to the *** and to their owner. To be sure, they had expressed
elsewhere a contrary wish, and the wish to return had been begotten in
their hearts by the threats and inducements conveyed to them by the
woman who came to the home. The judge was one who could not be bought
nor bribed, and who sincerely wished the good of the girls, but they
said they chose a life of prostitution, and to that life they were
returned.

We do not pretend to underst

slave girls in Oakland at this time, and one might say they all had a
chance to escape, and of their own will chose to remain. But was that
the truth? Not at all; the result did not prove at all that one, and
only one wished to come away. It proved merely that only one was
inspired with sufficient confidence and courage, after her long,
hard experience with foreigners, to _say what she wished._ It is the
universal testimony of all the girls who have been rescued, so we have
been told, by those who have been engaged in this rescue work for many
years--that every slave in Chinatown plans and dreams of nothing else
but of the day when, having served long enough to buy her freedom,
she will be granted it by her master or ***, and then she can be
honorably married. But unless her freedom is purchased for her by some
lover, the cases are rare, indeed, that a girl is allowed to earn her
own freedom, though they are kept *** by constant promises that
the goal is just ahead of them. A few days after the Oakland papers
had triumphantly asserted that it had been demonstrated that there was
not a single slave girl in Chinatown--a statement that everyone
who had a

with the
following plan: The inspector would secure an accomplice, called an
informer, or often more than one. The accomplice would enter a native
house plentifully supplied with marked money out of the Secret Service
Fund. This accomplice was often a friend or relative of the family he
called upon. He would often offer them a feast and drinks, and send
to a near-by restaurant and procure them at Government expense. After
feasting and drinking, he would try to induce some woman of the house
to consort with him, showing her a sufficient sum of money to fairly
dazzle her eyes. This he could well afford to do, for the Government
put the money in his hands to offer, and if the woman accepted, it
would not be a loss to the Government, for it would be taken back
again afterwards. Perhaps some poor half-starved creature would yield
to the tempter; perhaps some heathen man would press his wife to
accept the offer, in his greed for the money; perhaps some foolish
young girl would think she had suddenly come into great fortune in
having a man of such great wealth proposing marriage to her. It must
not be forgotten that the poorest people in China often marry in
a manner which is _almost devoid of all ceremony_, and yet it is
considered perfectly right and honorable, and the couple remain
faithful to each other afterwards. It is not unlikely, then, a young
woman might, with the consent of her parents, look upon such a
proposal as this as about to eventuate in real marriage, if it were so
put before her. No such thing as courting ever takes place in China,
previous to marriage. In other cases, doubtless, the informer who had
thus intruded himself for the basest reasons into a native house,
might really find a woman of loose character there. It were certainly
more to the credit of such a woman that she was in hiding, and
preferred it to flaunting her shame in a licensed house of infamy.
What business have Governments hounding down these women, tearing away
their last shred of d

laws as giving any rights, except perhaps as to guardianship,
    but I am unable to say there is anything illegal in the matter
    beyond that. I do not think it a criminal offence if it goes no
    further than the adoption of a child and the payment of money to
    its parents for the privilege.'"

Later, when His Excellency was calling the attention of Acting
Attorney General Russell to a somewhat similar case, he states, in
reference to this above-described case:

    "Mr. Phillipo, before whom the papers were laid, did not seem
    disposed to enforce the rights of the father, on the ground that
    he had sold the child. I did not agree with Mr. Phillipo's view of
    the law."

CHAPTER 8.

JUSTICE FROM THE SUPREME BENCH.

On October 6th, 1879, Sir John Smale, the Hon. Chief Justice for Hong
Kong, passed judgment in three cases on prisoners convicted of various
degrees of crime connected with the enticing, detaining, buying and
selling of children. Governor Hennessy, in reporting the remarks made
by the Chief Justice on that occasion to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies, pronounced it "an able and elaborate judgment on the
existence of slavery at Hong Kong."

Said Sir John Smale:

    "Various causes have occasioned delay in passing sentence, of
    which I will only refer to one: The gravity of the fact that these
    and other cases have recently brought so prominently to the notice
    of the Court that two specific classes of slavery exist in this
    Colony to a very great extent, viz., so-called domestic slavery,
    and slavery for the purposes of prostitution. The three cases now
    awaiting the sentence

capable of use in two senses, individual and political. We apply the
words "Hindoo" and "Mahommedan" in these two senses also. A man who
has been born and brought up in the environment of the Hindoo or
Mahommedan religions, and who has not avowed some other form of faith,
but has yielded at least an outward allegiance to these forms, we
declare to be a man of one or the other faith. Moreover, we judge of
his religion by the fruits of it in his m***character. Just so,
every European or American who has not openly disavowed the Christian
religion for some other faith is called a "Christian." Furthermore,
such men, when they mingle with those of other religions, as in the
Orient, call themselves "Christians," in distinction from those of
other faith about them. They claim the word "Christian" as by right
theirs in this political sense, and it is in this sense that we employ
the word "Christian" in the title of this book. The word is used thus
when reckoning the world's population according to religions.

As we treat the Hindoo or Mohammedan so he treats us. Our Christianity
is judged, and mu

purpose
    of inspecting the coolies. When permission is given to disembark,
    the unpaid passengers are made up into small parties and marched
    through the town to the depots under the escort of the brokers and
    several of their assistants, with much yelling and good deal of
    rough handling, and an occasional halt while a straggler or a
    would be runaway is brought back to the party. That the coolies
    are frequently successful in their attempts to escape is shown
    in the Report of the Chinese Protectorate, 160 being returned as
    'absconded either when landing or at depot' in Singapore, and 101
    at Penang, or about 1-3/4 per cent of the "unpaid passengers". On
    arrival at the depot, the coolies are probably surprised to find
    themselves securely confined in houses which look uncomfortably
    like prisons, and the passer-by may see the dirty and unkempt
    _sin-khehs_ or "new men," as these emigrants are called, peering
    out between the thick wooden bars of the windows. The coolies
    are thus forcibly detained at the depots until the brokers are
    successful in finding employers who are prepared to pay the price
    per head which they demand, a sum of about 10. In the meanwhile
    however, it appears from the Report that nearly 4-1/2 per cent of
    the inmates of the depots are discovered and redeemed by their
    friends, the numbers being 414 at Singapore, and 278 at Penang,
    and a further 1-3/4 per cent, or 236 at Singapore

that trickles through a wall, so long as it is thought to be
merely a natural spring of water; but when one is informed that this
is the trickling of water through a dike which dams out the raging
sea, the sensations are changed to a realizing sense of imminent
peril. If some are disposed to criticise this book for leading its
readers into past history and far distant countries, to tell them
harrowing tales, let them know it is intended to take them for a view
behind the dike,--that they may understand the source of the trickling
stream of *** slaves that, almost unobserved, flows steadily into
our fair land, and know that the stream is the precursor of a flood.
No mere wall of immigration restrictions will ever get control of the
flow so long as men are permitted to hold slaves after they have once
been landed. And for the further reason, that so soon as China and
Japan have drilled a little longer with the fire-arms furnished them
by Western nations, they will force a free entrance to America. The
yellow flood is sure to come, and we must make ready for it. We must
realize what may happen to American women if almond-eyed citizens,
bent on exploiting women for gain, obtain the ballot in advance of
educated American women. We must realize how impossible it is to
throttle this monster, Oriental ***-Slavery, unless we take it
in its infancy. For these reasons, we wish to sound the cry long and
loud: "At once to arms! Not a moment to be lost! We cannot build a dam
in the midst of the raging sea. The new dam must be finished befo