Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

by Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew; Katharine C. Bushnell

The Report of the Commission affords the following instructive account of the difference in the moral and social status between the prostitute of the East and West:

"In approaching the subject of prostitution, as it is found in Hong Kong at the present day, it is absolutely necessary for a full and just comprehension of it, to keep in mind two distinct considerations. One is the almost total identity of the whole system of prostitution, which since times immemorial is an established institution all over the large empire of China. The other point to be kept in mind is the radical difference which distinguishes the personal character, the life and the surroundings of Chinese prostitutes from all that is characteristic of the prostitutes of Europe." … "At the present day the Chinese prostitutes of Hong Kong have but very little to distinguish them, either in the past, present, or future of their personal lives, or in their position and surroundings, from the prostitutes of the 18 provinces of China…. Those of the prostitutes of Hong Kong who are inmates of brothels licensed for foreigners only, or who live in sly brothels for foreigners, have adopted a different style of dress, but are otherwise in no essential point differently situated from prostitutes in China, except that the inmates of brothels licensed for foreigners are subject to compulsory medical examination, and consequently far more despised by their countrymen and even other prostitutes."

"Prostitutes in Europe are, as a general rule, fallen women, the victims of seduction, or possibly of innate vice. Being the outcasts of society, and having little, if any, prospect of being again admitted into decent and respectable circles of life, deprived also of their own self-respect as well as the regards of their relatives, occasionally even troubled with qualms of conscience, they mostly dread thinking of their future, and seek oblivion in excesses of boisterous dissipation. The Chinese prostitutes of Hong Kong are an entirely different set of people…. Very few of them can be called fallen women; scarcely any of them are the victims of seduction, according to the English sense of the term, refined or unrefined. The great majority of them are owned by professional brothel-keepers or traders in women in Canton or Macao, have been brought up for the profession, and trained in various accomplishments suited to brothel life…. They frequently know neither father nor mother, except what they call a 'pocket-mother,' that is, the woman who bought them from others…. They feel of course that they are the bought property of their pocket-mother or keeper, but they know also that this is the feeling of almost every other woman in China, liable as each is to be sold, by her own parents or relatives, to be the wife or concubine of a man she never sets eyes on before the wedding day, or liable, as the case may be, to be pledged or sold, by her parents or relatives, to serve as a domestic slave in a strange family…. They have the chance, if they are pretty and accomplished, of being wooed … and they may look forward with tolerable certainty to being made the second, or third, or fourth, or at any rate the favorite wife of some wealthy gentleman. If not possessed of special attractions or wealthy lovers, they look forward to being taken out of the brothel by an honest devoted man to share the lot of a poor man's wife. Or they may endeavor to save money by singing, music and prostitution combined, and not only to purchase their freedom, but to set up for themselves, buying, rearing, and selling girls to act as servants or concubines or prostitutes, or they may finally come to keep brothels as managers for wealthy capitalists or speculators. There is further a certain proportion of prostitutes in Hong Kong who have, by the hand of their own parents or husbands, been mortgaged or sold into temporary servitude as prostitutes, or who of their own will and accord act as prostitutes under personal agreement with a brothel-keeper, for a definite advance of a sum of money, required to rescue the family, or some member of it, from some great calamity or permanent ruin."

"There is, however, one class of women in Hong Kong who can scarcely be called prostitutes, and who have no parallel either in China, outside the Treaty Ports, or in Europe. They are generally called 'protected women.' They may originally have come forth from one or other of the above-mentioned classes of prostitutes, or may be the offspring of protected women…."

The Report describes the situation of the "protected woman" in the following terms:

"She resides in a house rented by her protector, who lives generally in another part of the town; she receives a fixed salary from her protector, and sublets every available room to individual sly prostitutes, or to women keeping a sly brothel, no visitor being admitted unless he have some introduction or secret pass-words. If an inspector of brothels attempts to enter, he is quietly informed that this is not a brothel, but the private family residence of Mr. So and So…. This system makes the suppression of sly brothels an impossibility…. The principal points of difference between the various classes of Chinese prostitutes of Hong Kong and the prostitutes of Europe amount therefore to this, that Chinese prostitution is essentially a bargain in money and based on a national system of female slavery."

"It must not be supposed, however, from what is said above, that the Chinese, as a people, view prostitution as a matter of moral indifference. On the contrary, the literature, the religions, the laws and the public opinion of China, all join in condemning prostitution as immoral, and in co-operation to keep it under a certain check. The literature of the Confucianists, which, as regards purity and utter absence of immoral suggestions, stands unrivalled by any other nation in the world, does not countenance prostitution in any form…. The laws and public opinion … agree in keeping prostitution rigidly out of sight. Although the Chinese are a Pagan nation, they have no deification of vice in their temples, no indecent shows in their theatres, no orgies in their houses of public entertainment, no parading of lewd women in their streets…. In short, as far as outward and public observation goes, China presents a more virtuous appearance than most European countries."

The report goes on to show that nevertheless the practice of polygamy,

"leaving the childless concubines liable to be sold or sent adrift at any moment, the law of inheritance neglecting daughters in favour of sons," and "the universal practice of buying and selling females combined with the system of domestic servitude," makes the suppression of prostitution difficult. "This intermixture of female slavery with prostitution has been noticed in Hong Kong at the very time when the Legislature first attempted to deal with Chinese prostitution."

We now understand the nature of this wretched form of slavery as carried on at Hong Kong. There did not exist a class of women brought to the pitiable plight of prostitution by the wiles of the seducer, or through the mishap of a lapse from virtue, after which all doors to reform are practically closed against such, as in Western civilization, nor were there those known to have fallen through innate perversity; but such as existed among the Chinese were literal slaves, in the full sense of that word. From the standpoint of these officials, for the most part, prostitution was necessary. This was plainly declared in many official documents. The fact that they licensed brothels proves also that prostitution was considered necessary. And since necessary, if the means failed whereby brothels in the Occident are maintained, then they must be maintained by Oriental means,—which was slavery. Under such circumstances, to license prostitution meant, from the very nature of the case, to license slavery. To encourage prostitution, as it always is encouraged by the Contagious Diseases Acts, meant to encourage slavery. Hence they reasoned, and declared—to use the language of the Registrar General, Cecil C. Smith—that it was "useless to try and deal with the question of the freedom of Chinese prostitutes by law or by any Government regulation. From all the surroundings the thing is impracticable."