Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

by Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew; Katharine C. Bushnell

CHAPTER 4.

MORE POWER DEMANDED AND OBTAINED.

In 1866 the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell, determined upon the repeal of Ordinance 12, 1857, in order to inaugurate "a more vigorous policy of coercion," (says the Commission's report): "The key note of the new regime was struck by the Governor's first minute on the subject, dated 20th October, 1866, in which he wrote he was 'anxious early to introduce to the Council an amended Brothel Ordinance, conferring necessarily almost despotic powers on the Registrar General." … Be it said to the honor of Attorney General (now Sir Julian) Pauncefote, that in the face of this he urges the most weighty objections to the policy of "subjecting persons to fine and imprisonment without the safeguards which surround the administration of justice in a public and open court." But these objections were not allowed to prevail.

It appears that some hesitation was felt on the part of the home authorities in giving approval to the new ordinance. It may have been the warning given by Attorney General Pauncefote, it may have been something else. Whatever it was, the Commission informs us: "The Ordinance 10 of 1867 received its final sanction when the conclusion arrived at by the Colonial Government was before the home authorities, showing that in the event of the ordinance becoming law, revenue would be derived from the tainted source of prostitution among the Chinese." (The italics are the authors').

Ordinance 10, 1867 now came into operation, with the following additional powers in the hands of the "Protector" of Chinese, the Registrar General:

1st, Not only were keepers of unregistered houses to be fined or sent to prison, but the women—"held in practical slavery for the purposes of prostitution"—when found in unregistered houses were also subject to fine and imprisonment.

2nd, The Registrar-General, otherwise the "Protector" of Chinese, could break into any house suspected of being a brothel, and arrest the keeper thereof without warrant. And he could authorize his underlings to do the same.

3rd, The Registrar General could exercise both judicial and executive powers in the prosecution of the duties of his office.

4th, All outdoor prostitutes could be arrested without warrant, fined and imprisoned.

The new law possessed one virtue over the old. It frankly, and more honestly, employed the word "licensed," where the old law said "registered," brothels.

The report of the Commission says:

"Although the new Ordinance conferred such extensive and unusual powers on the Registrar General and Superintendent of Police as to breaking into and entering houses and arresting keepers without warrant, no serious difficulty whatever, so far as the records show,—and we have paid special attention to the point,—seems to have been experienced under the previous enactments in bringing the keepers of such houses before the court…. Nor can we in the second place find among the foregoing records proof of the necessity of the transfer to the Registrar General of the judicial powers…. As a matter of fact, witnesses do not seem to have been at all squeamish in divulging repulsive details in open Court, nor, on the other hand, do the magistrates ever seem to have shown too exacting a disposition as to the nature or amount of the evidence they required to sustain convictions; and the astonishing system of detection which had grown up had met, so far as we can see, with neither discouragement nor remonstrance."

We pause to lift our hearts to God in prayer before venturing to lift the curtain and disclose even a faint outline of the reign of terror now instituted over poor, horror-stricken Chinese women of the humbler ranks of life at Hong Kong. But, in order that we may understand the conditions under which the slave women coming to our Pacific Coast have lived in times past, the recital is necessary. Happy for us if we never needed to know any of these dark chapters of human history and human wrongs! Sad indeed for the thoughtless, and bringing only harm, if such an account as we have to give should be read merely out of curiosity or for entertainment. There is either ennoblement or injury in what we have to say, according to the spirit brought to the task of reading it. Think quietly, then, dear reader, for one moment. From what motive will you read our recital? We do not write what is lawful to the merely inquisitive. Then, will you continue to read from a worthier motive? If not, we pray you, close the book, and pass it on to someone more serious minded. Our message is only for those who will hear with the desire to help. But do not say: "I am too ignorant as to what to do, I am too weak, or I am too lowly, and without talents or influence." No, you are not. There is a place for you to help. God will show it to you, if this book does not suggest a practicable plan for you. What we wish to accomplish, and what we must accomplish, if at all, by just such aid as you can give, sums itself up in this: We must make our officers of the law understand that the question of slavery has been settled once for all in the United States, by the Civil War, and we will have none of it again. It will never be tolerated under the Stars and Stripes; and when you can think of nothing else to do, you can always go aside and cry to the Judge of all the earth to "execute righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed," as He has promised to do, if we but call upon Him.

Now read on with a heart full of courage, not caring for the haunting pain that will be left when you lay the book aside. What others have had to suffer, you can at least endure to hear about, in order to put a check upon like suffering in the future, and in our own land, too. A country bathed in blood as ours has once been has met already its terrible judgment for not throttling the monster, Slavery, in its infancy, before it cost so much blood and treasure. We will be wiser another time, and refuse to trifle with such great wrongs. We cannot brave the Omnipotent wrath in a second judgment for the same offense, lest He say to us: "Ye have not hearkened unto Me, in proclaiming liberty, everyone to his brother, and every man to his neighbor; behold, I proclaim a liberty unto you, saith the Lord, to the sword and to the pestilence and to the famine."

From the first days of the enactment of this measure, and all the way through until 1877, the inspectors of brothels had standing orders to enter any native house that they suspected of containing any women of loose character, and arrest its inmates in accordance 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 decency and obliging them if inclining to go wrong to sink at once to the lowest depths of infamy? But that is what the attempt to localize vice in one section of a town, or to legalize it always means. When the informer at Hong Kong had insinuated himself into a native house and by means of the bait of "marked money" caught a victim and sinned with her, at once he threw open the window and summoned the Inspector, who was in waiting outside, who would rush in and arrest all the women and girls in the house, down to children often only 13 or 14 years old. This was not all according to law, but it seems to have been the regular practice. Says Mr. Lister, who was Registrar General for the first year after the Ordinance of 1867 came into operation: "As a general rule, the first thing I knew of a case of an unlicensed brothel coming before me was the finding of a string of women in my office in the morning." "Almost despotic powers" had been put into the hands of the "Registrar General," and these were some of the results. The "marked money" that had caught the victim would now be sanctimoniously taken away from her and restored to the Secret Service Fund. The woman would be fined or imprisoned, and the other inmates of the house put through trial as accused of being "common prostitutes" and inmates of an unlicensed brothel, and if the Registrar General so decided, the house from which they came declared in the Government Gazette as a licensed house of prostitution. The keepers of licensed brothels, slave-dealers, procurers and such characters hung around the court room to help these women pay their fines, and so get them under bonds to work off these fines by prostitution. Sometimes the women sold their children instead of themselves. If boys, for "adoption," as it is called; a form of slavery which is permitted in Hong Kong. If girls, into domestic slavery or worse, probably with the thought that they could buy them back soon, but if the mother herself went the daughter would be sure to be caught by kidnapers, or fall into prostitution anyway, as the only means she would have of getting along without her mother's protection. Mr. Lister said before the Commission: "I became suspicious of the whole system of convictions against houses for Chinese. I was certain that the informers could not be depended on for one moment. My inspector employed his own boatmen as informers. I became convinced that I could lock up the whole Chinese female population by this machinery." Married men were often knowingly hired on Government money to commit adultery with native women, then the money would be taken away from the woman and she could not even have that toward her fine, while the man would be given a further reward for hunting down an "unlicensed woman." Quickly, strong organizations of brothel-keepers were formed, and the whole infernal system from that day to this of brothel slavery passed under the secret management of "capitalists"—Chinese merchants of large means.

We have made a general statement as to abuses; now for some specified details. Sometimes the inspectors took their turn as informers, and often men of higher official rank did so, even to the Registrar General himself. In 1868, Inspectors Peterson and Jamieson visited houses as informers, dressed in plain clothes. Jamieson went once disguised as a soldier. Inspectors Burns, Sieir and Deane were also employed as informers, this year. In one case, a woman escaped the persecution of an informer who had intruded into her house by means of ladder; in another case, a woman risked her life getting out of the window upon a flimsy shade adjusted to keep the sun out; in another, a woman managed to escape to the roof; one poor creature let herself down to the ground from an upper window by means of a spout. When women were ready to take such risks as these (and undoubtedly the official records would mention only a few such cases out of the many) rather than be compelled to keep open houses of prostitution, one would have thought it would have counted as some proof of the respectable character of the women,—but it does not seem to have been reckoned so. The women were generally driven into the business of keeping an open house of prostitution anyway, and the Government benefited in cash by just so much more.

"It may be mentioned here," says the report of the Commission, from which we cull these cases, "that from this date (July 6th, 1868) the practice has apparently prevailed of apprehending all the women found in unlicensed brothels" (in more correct language, those houses penetrated into by informers and reported to the Registrar as brothels). These accusations were not always true, by any means. Seven women were apprehended at one time during this year, on the charge of a watchman, that they kept and were inmates of an unlicensed brothel, "the chief witness being a child 10 years old … five of the women were married, and two, children of 13 and 14 years old, are described as unmarried." They were all, even the children, convicted, and sent to the Lock Hospital for the indecent examination, in order to determine if they were in proper health to practice vice. Afterwards the Registrar concluded that the case had been got up by the watchman to extort money from the women. But the establishment of their innocence did not put them right again. Think of the horrible ordeal and the dirty court details through which these young girls had been put, on the testimony of a child of ten, and of a watchman determined that they should learn to give him money when he demanded it, or he would drive them into prostitution. One wonders how many hundreds of respectable families were thus bled of their small incomes by the vile informers who were being rewarded by Government for their extortion. Imagine the terror that respectable Chinese women suffered, knowing that any man might denounce them, out of malice, and thereby reduce them to the very worst conceivable form of slavery! Within a few years, nearly all the respectable Chinese women had disappeared from Hong Kong. Chief Inspector Whitehead testified before the Commission: "When an unlicensed brothel [i.e., a native house accused of being such] is broken up, the women have to resort to prostitution in most cases for a living." During 1869, one poor woman signed a bond to deport herself for five years rather than be taken to the Lock Hospital. But the "protected women," with their nursery of children they were raising for brothel slavery, being the mistresses of foreigners, were not persecuted in this manner, so, by a kind of mad infatuation the Government seemed bent on encouraging and developing immoral women and driving decent women either into prostitution, or, by the reign of terror, out of the Colony. In 1869, five women were charged before the Registrar General, and three of them were discharged as innocent. Then the Registrar General decided to make the punishment of the first of the remaining two depend upon the state of health of the second. This second was examined and found diseased, and in consequence of that fact, the first one was fined fifty dollars or two months' imprisonment! The Commission speaks of this as a "somewhat curious" case. We wonder how the punished woman described it. Afterwards, the case was reopened, and "evidence was given calculated to throw the gravest doubts on the credibility of the informers" against these five women. What was then done? Were the informers punished for giving false evidence designed to work incalculable injury to five innocent women? Not at all. A few days later the same informers were employed again as witnesses, and secured the conviction of three more women. In one case, in 1870, it was proved that an informer had entered a house and made an indecent assault upon a woman, doubtless expecting to get his reward as usual. But he was fined ten pounds instead. But how many others may have done the same thing under circumstances where a sufficient number of witnesses to the assault could not be produced. And then, the man would be rewarded and the woman forced at once to take up her residence in a licensed house of shame. The Acting Registrar General played the part of informer during 1870, and punished as judge the woman he accused before himself,—for the law, as we have said, that came into force in 1867 gave the Registrar General both prosecuting and judicial powers. He probably also induced the woman on Government money to commit adultery with him. Then as the judge he would confiscate the money again, and give her a fine of fifty dollars instead. We wonder if he likewise gave himself a "substantial award from the bench," as the Registrar General was accustomed to give other informers when they succeeded in getting evidence sufficient for conviction. It is noticed by the Commission that one woman this same year escaped by the roof at the peril of her life. No one knows how many more may have done the same.

An inspector, Peterson, and a constable, Rylands, each induced women on the street to accept money of them, and these women were punished as prostitutes in hiding and not registered. Two prosecutions during this same year are mentioned as having been instituted from malice. One woman jumped from her window and severely injured herself, trying to escape Inspector Douglass. One woman dared to assault an informer who was after her, and was punished by ten days' imprisonment, with hard labor. Inspector Jamieson brought charges against three women for obstructing him in the discharge of his official duties, and was himself found guilty of illegal conduct.

In the records of 1871 is the case of two men who had a falling out, Alfred Flarey and Police Constable Charles Christy, for some reason not mentioned. Each of these men kept a private mistress. Flarey went to an inspector, and obtained money to be used in tempting the mistress of Christy. He then accused her before the courts, she was condemned, and paid a fine of ten dollars. On the following day, Christy appeared in court against the mistress of Flarey, with two fellow-policemen, to describe their own vileness in order to get revenge on Flarey by depriving him of his mistress and reducing her to the level of a common prostitute. The woman was discharged, indicating that it was a trumped up case. The Commission's report, in describing the details declares: "The law, in these two instances, was put in motion obviously for the vilest of purposes."

In 1872, Inspector Lee, who had become an inspector in 1870, and of whom we shall have more to say, acted himself as informer, and employed his boy twice in the same capacity. Inspector Horton acted as informer eleven times, and Inspector King four times. During this year the Registrar General so far forgot that there was even a sanitary pretext for the Ordinance for the law he was set to operate as to employ as an informer one Vincent Greaves, whom he knew to be diseased. From about this time on, many cases of conviction were secured against women where it was evident the matter had gone no further than that they had accepted the marked money of the informers, or, as was actually proved in some cases, this marked Government money had been secreted by the informers in the rooms occupied by women. Inspector Lee in one instance found the money on a table in a room into which an informer had insinuated himself. The woman denied having ever accepted it of him, yet she was convicted on that evidence alone. With rewards offered to men of the lowest character, who would secure the conviction of women so that the latter could be forced into the life of open prostitution, all the presumptive evidence should have turned such a case as this against the informer. Many similar cases of the conviction of women of being keepers and inmates of secret brothels, were secured on this sort of evidence. One young girl of 14 was entrapped by marked money being found in her toilet table. The court records showed that this was the second time she had been entrapped in this manner. This second time she was convicted and sent to the Lock Hospital where, upon examination, exceptional conditions demonstrated beyond doubt that she was still a virgin. But what of the many young girls with whom exceptional conditions did not exist, when they were brought to the examination table?

During the year 1873, two women were severely injured by jumping out of their windows to escape the informers. One fractured her leg.

The cook of Inspector King testified in the Registrar General's court: "Yesterday I received orders of Mr. King to go to Wanchai, and see if I could catch some unlicensed prostitutes." This man was employed, and his employer orders him off to this wicked business, and he must either obey or take his discharge. A Chinese servant ordered to go commit adultery by the man who employed him as his cook. These things were constantly done by employers of Chinese men. Yet these native servants are all married men, for they marry so young in the Orient. And Government money was furnished them besides to pay for the debauchery, and if they brought in a good case for prosecution they got a reward in money besides. So this cook is ordered off by his master to "catch some unlicensed prostitutes," with the same sang froid as though ordered to go catch some fish for dinner. The cook seemed to know where to get the most ardent assistance for the task his employer had set him, for he says: "I got the assistance of a man who is master of a licensed brothel in Wanchai." To be sure; who would be so interested in capturing women and getting them condemned to go and live in a house licensed by the Government as the man in the town at the head of the licensed house? The cook was given a dollar as bait, with which to catch the woman. Inspector Lee, who followed up the men to make sure of the capture, found the dollar given by King to his cook "lying on the bed" in the room occupied by the women, and they were convicted on no other evidence than this and Lee's "suspicions."

Private Michael Smith of the 80th Regiment was given four dollars by Inspector Morton and instructed to go to a certain Mrs. Wright at her quarters, and try to debauch her; he drank brandy with her [at Government expense?] from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m., but failed in his errand. Why did she not turn him out of the house? Women were frequently fined for daring to resent the aggressions of these informers. In one case a man was struck for trying to obstruct the arrest of a girl of 14, and later was punished. This girl was proved to be a virgin afterwards. Many women and girls, against whom there was no sufficient evidence, were sent to the Lock Hospital for examination in order to determine in that manner their character. In half-a-dozen cases or so, it is recorded that the result determined the virginity of the person. But such a test as this rests upon the accidental presence of an exceptional condition among even virgins, and what became of those who did not answer to the exceptional test, and yet were as pure as the rest? They would everyone of them be consigned to the fate of a brothel slave.

One informer, "with the assistance of public money, and in the interests of justice," according to the Commission's report, sinned with a child of fifteen in order to get her name on the register. Inspector Horton bargained for the deflowering of a virgin of 15, "in the interests of justice," with the owner of the slave child. The child as well as the owner were then taken to the Lock Hospital, where the latter was proved to be a virgin. A Chinese informer consorted with a girl named Tai-Yau "against her will, which led to his being rewarded, and to her being fined one hundred dollars." She was unable to pay the fine, and sold her little boy in part payment for it, in order to escape a life of prostitution.

But need we go into further painful details? There are hundreds more of such cases of cruel wrong on record, and God alone knows how many thousands of cases there are that have never been put on record. We only aim to give a case here and there in illustration of the many forms of cruelty practiced upon innocent women in order to force them into prostitution, and to demonstrate that brothel slavery at Hong Kong cannot truthfully be represented as the outcome of Chinese customs which foreign officials have found difficulty in altering.

But why should Americans be called upon to acquaint themselves with such loathsome details? In order that Americans may have some just conception of their duty toward the large number of these poor, unhappy slaves who have been brought from Hong Kong to their own country.