Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

by Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew; Katharine C. Bushnell

CHAPTER 5.

HOUNDED TO DEATH.

Sir John Pope Hennessy went to Hong Kong as Governor of the Colony in the early Spring of 1877. In the following October a tragedy occurred, which drew his attention to the administration of the Registrar General, and he set himself to the task of trying to right some of the wrongs of the Chinese women.

The case last mentioned in the previous chapter related to a woman by the name of Tai-Yau, whom an informer humbled "against her will," which led to his being rewarded and her being fined $100, to pay which she sold her little boy. This seems to have been the only way open for her to escape a life of prostitution. To make this point clear, we will here insert the explanation of conditions given by Dr. Eitel in a communication for the information of Governor Hennessy at a little later period than the incident we are about to relate. He speaks of Chinese women who secretly practiced prostitution [but, as we have shown, many respectable Chinese women suffered also], as

"preyed upon by informers paid with Government money, who would first debauch such women and then turn against them, charging them before the magistrate under the Ordinance 10, 1867, before the Registrar General as keepers of unlicensed brothels in which case a heavy fine would be inflicted, to pay which these women used to sell their children, or sell themselves into bondage worse than ordinary slavery, to the keepers of brothels licensed by the Government. Whenever a so-called sly brothel was broken up these keepers would crowd the shroff's office [money exchanger's office] of the police court or the visiting room of the Government Lock Hospital to drive their heartless bargains, which were invariably enforced with the weighty support of the inspectors of brothels,[A] appointed by Government under the Contagious Diseases Ordinance. The more this Ordinance was enforced, the more this buying and selling of human flesh went on at the very doors of Government offices."

[Footnote A: We italicise this to call attention to the active part officials took in encouraging slavery.]

We can then readily imagine Tai-Yau as sentenced to pay her fine of one hundred dollars, and nothing to pay with. The money exchanger's office next the court room was crowded with slave-dealers, waiting to offer to pay the fines of such unhappy creatures, and she probably turned to them. If she were sent to jail what would become of her little boy? And if she sold herself to the licensed brothel-keepers, as the inspectors of brothels were urging her to do, the fate of her boy would be even worse. She could see a hope that if she sold the boy for "adoption," a form of slavery the Hong Kong Government permitted, of which we will tell more,—then if she had her freedom she could at least hope to redeem him some time. So the little fellow was sold for about forty dollars, and she went away sixty dollars in debt,—probably to the brothel-keepers, who would never let her out of their sight until, through the debt and the interest thereon, they would in time be enabled to seize her as their slave. But she went out hoping for some honest way of earning the money, or else she would have bargained with them at once to work off the debt by prostitution. But what could a Chinese woman do in the face of such a debt? A painter's wages at Hong Kong at this time were five dollars a month. A woman's wages at any respectable occupation would not have been more than half that amount. Ten cents a day would be a fair computation. And all the time she would be trying to earn the money the debt would be increasing by the interest on it; and her little boy would increase more rapidly in value than in years.

All this occurred in November, 1876. About the first of October, 1877, nearly a year later, she engaged a single room for herself and a servant[A] at 42 Peel street, of a woman named Lau-a Yee. Mrs. Lau, the landlady, had the top floor of a little house. Another family had the first floor, and the street door leading up to Mrs. Lau's apartments ended in a trap door which was shut down at night. There were also folding doors half way up the stairway, not reaching to the ceiling, however, that could be locked at night to make the place doubly secure from intruders. The little upper flat consisted of only three rooms. Mrs. Lau occupied the front room, and her servant woman slept on the floor in the passage-way, and took care of Mrs. Lau's little child. This servant woman had a friend come over from Canton to spend the night with her and seek for employment. The middle room was occupied by Tai Yau, the woman who had sold her little boy into slavery, and her servant. The back room was vacant. Tai Yau was about twenty-six years old, and her servant nearly sixty.

[Footnote A: The evidence does not make it clear how so poor a woman should have a servant. Might she not in reality have been acting the part of "pocket-mother" to the girl?]

On the evening of October 16th, 1877, Inspector Lee gave ten one dollar bills to his interpreter, telling him to go out and use it in catching unlicensed women. The interpreter found two friends and gave one three dollars and the other seven dollars to help him in his errand. Think of it! The man to whom the three dollars were given was a worthless fellow who in his own words, lived "on his friends." When he worked he earned about 14 cents a day. The other man to whom was given seven dollars for a night of pleasure, earned five dollars a month when he worked at his trade—painting.