Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

by Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew; Katharine C. Bushnell

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.