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 of the Court are specially provided for by Ordinances of 1865 and 1872, prohibiting kidnaping and illegally detaining men, women, and children; and no difficulty ever arose in my mind as to the crimes of which these prisoners are severally convicted, or as to the sentences due to such crimes; and there is no question as to crimes or punishment of cases where women are smuggled into brothels, some licensed and others unlicensed, or otherwise dedicated to immoral purposes. But the enormous extent to which slavery in this Colony has grown up has called into existence a greatly increasing traffic, especially in women and children. The number of Chinamen in this Colony has increased and is increasing rapidly, whilst their great increase in wealth has fostered licentious habits, notably in buying women for purposes sanctioned neither by the laws nor customs on the mainland. I hold in my hand a placard in Chinese, torn down from the wall of the Central School, Cough Street steps, in this city. The translation appears at length in the Hong Kong Daily Press of August 15th, 1879. The purport of that translation is shortly that the advertiser, one Cheong, has lost a purchased slave girl named Tai Ho, aged 13 years. After a full description of the girl a reward is offered in these terms:—'If there is in either of the four quarters any worthy man who knows where she is gone to, and will send a letter, he will be rewarded with four full weight dollars, and the person detaining the slave will be rewarded with fifteen full weight dollars.' These words are subsequently added:—'This is firm, and the words will not be eaten.' I recently spoke in reprobation of slavery from this Bench, and in consequence of my remarks a gentleman who tore down this placard gave it to the editor of the Daily Press, and in a letter in that paper he stated that such placards are common, and that he had torn down a hundred such placards. Has Cuba or has Peru ever exhibited more palpable, more public evidence of the existence of generally recognized slavery in these hotbeds of slavery, than such placards as the one I now hold in my hand, to prove that slavery exists in this Colony? The notices have been posted in a most populous neighborhood, and have been in all probability read—they ought to have been, they must have been read—by scores of our Chinese policemen.
"Important as this Colony is, politically and commercially, it is but a dot in the ocean; its area is about half that of the county of Rutland; the circumference of this island is calculated at about 27 miles, whilst that of the Isle of Wight is about 56 miles. The cultivated land on this island may be to the barren waste about one-half per cent, and there is no agrarian slavery here in nearly the total absence of farms, and on this dot in the ocean it is estimated that the slave population has reached ten thousand souls! I first became fully alive to the existence of so-called domestic slavery in this Colony at the Criminal Sessions in May last, on the trial of two cases…. But it is said that what is called domestic slavery, as it exists in Hong Kong, is mild, and it is said to be the opinion of a gentleman of great experience in Chinese, that, as it exists here, it is not contrary to the Christian religion, and that it is as general a fashion for Chinese ladies in Hong Kong to purchase one or more girls to attend on them as it is for English ladies to hire ladies' maids, and that the custom is so general that it would be highly impolitic, if not impossible, to put down the system. It may be that slavery as it exists in the houses of the better classes in Hong Kong is mild, and that custom among the better classes renders servitude to them a boon as long as it lasts. It is, I believe, an admitted duty that when the young girl grows up and becomes marriageable she is married; but then it is the custom that the husband buys her, and her master receives the price always paid for a wife, whilst he has received the girl's services for simple maintenance; so that, according to the marriageable excess in the price of the bride over the price he paid for the girl, he is a gainer, and the purchase of the child produces a good return. But the picture has another aspect. What, if the master is brutal, or the mistress jealous, becomes of the poor girl? Certain recent cases show that she is sold to become a prostitute here or at Singapore or in California, a fate often worse than death to the girl, at a highly remunerative price to the brute, the master. It seems to me that all slavery, domestic, agrarian, or for immoral purposes, comes within one and the same category."
Every word uttered on this occasion by Sir John Smale, Chief Justice, has value, but it is impossible for us to quote it all. Referring to the purchase of kidnaped children from the kidnapers by well-to-do Chinese residents of Hong Kong, without effort on the part of these purchasers to ascertain from whence the children came, he says:
"In each of these cases I requested the prosecution of these well-to-do persons, purchasers of these human chattels, who had bought these children, whose money had occasioned the kidnaping, just as a receiver of stolen goods buys stolen property without due or any inquiry to verify the patent lies of the vendors. I have reason to believe that H.E. the Governor was desirous that my request should, if proper, be complied with; but on reference to former cases it appeared that a former Attorney-General had found that the system had been almost if not altogether unchecked for many years past, and that in particular, when His Excellency had desired to enforce the rights of a father to recover his child, he was not disposed to enforce that right because the father had sold that child."
He relates the details of yet another case concerning which he says: "I took the responsibility to direct the Acting Attorney General to prosecute this man and his wife." But the Attorney General, it seems, did not.
"Is it possible that such a being as man can, according to law … become a slave even by his own consent?" asks the Chief Justice. "I say it is impossible in law, as Sir R. Phillimore, 1 Phill., International Law, vol. 1, p. 316, has said in a passage I read with the most respectful concurrence, but too long for full quotation." "It is unnecessary for me to trace how it became the Common Law of England that whosoever breathes the air of England cannot be a slave." After reference to notable decisions on the part of England's highest authorities as to the unlawfulness of slavery; to the claim that slavery was secured to the Chinese residents by the promise not to interfere with their customs, and reminding his hearers that the promise was made only "pending Her Majesty's pleasure"; after quoting the Queen's proclamation against slavery at Hong Kong, and the assurance in that proclamation that "these Acts will be enforced by all Her Majesty's officers, civil and military, within this Colony," he asks: