Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

by Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew; Katharine C. Bushnell

"The name of the deceased was Chan Ngan-Kin…. She was registered as a prostitute in this brothel on the 23rd of December, 1890. When registering her name she said she had no pocket-mother, that her parents were both dead, and that she became a prostitute of her own free will. The inspector said that that was the description of themselves that nearly all prostitutes give, and that it was very rarely that it was true. The further evidence went to prove that she and a young man were mutually attached to each other, and he was anxious to redeem her, and that she was desirous of being redeemed, but that the price asked, two thousand three hundred dollars, was more than he was willing to give, though he was willing to give two thousand dollars…. There is little doubt that his inability to redeem her caused her to commit suicide…. The pocket-mother was not produced [at the inquest], and there was a general disposition on the part of the Chinese witnesses to withhold information."

Lord Ripon said in his letter of inquiry: "If the facts were as stated in the above-mentioned paper, it would seem to prove that it is not generally understood in the Colony that a brothel keeper has no legal right to demand any redemption money for the release of one of the inmates." To this the Magistrate replies, in explanation:

"It is not quite correct to speak of the brothel-keeper as demanding redemption money. The person whose property the prostitute is is the pocket-mother, that is to say, the purchaser of the girl. Nearly every prostitute has her own pocket-mother, and she it is who has sole control over the prostitute's movements. All the earnings go to her, and the redemption money when redemption takes place. The 'brothel-keeper' is a creation of the Government, and the term has, I think, led to some misappreciation of the actual state of things. It is true that, being registered by the Government, she becomes in a manner responsible for the proper conduct of the establishment, but the property in the girl does not rest in her, except in the case of the two or three girls to whom she may herself be pocket-mother, that is to say, whom she may herself have purchased. The pocket-mothers are the real proprietresses of their purchases, and a brothel-keeper would not regard herself as in any way connected with such girls, beyond the obligation devolving upon her of registering the inmates of the house of which she, as tenant or owner, was the proprietress. A Chinese brothel is in fact merely a collection under one roof of several different establishments, consisting of the pocket-mothers and their purchases, the pocket-mothers for the most part being the body-servants of their charges, and administering to their daily wants, though in reality their mistresses and their absolute owners."

The document scarcely needs comment. It illustrates the fact that one may have most ideal laws, but laws never operate automatically, and in the absence of any desire to "let the oppressed go free," but rather an eager desire to hold them in subjection to the base propensities of profligate men, as all the State documents representing the situation tend to show, there is small proof that the "Women and Girls' Protective Ordinance of 1889" has had any appreciable effect in altering the slave conditions at Hong Kong. The same old notorious inspector, John Lee, who, Governor Hennessy thought, ought to have been prosecuted for manslaughter, after he hounded those native women to their death, was Chief Inspector of Brothels at Hong Kong in 1894, when we made investigations in that Colony, and personally interviewed many of these slave girls, and heard their stories.

The most recent official documents relating to the matter have been commented upon in The Shield (organ of the British Committee of the International Purity Federation), in its issue dated London, June, 1906, as follows:

"One of the most important parliamentary papers of recent years on our question has just been issued in response to questions put in the House of Commons by Mr. Henry J. Wilson, M.P., on March 8th last. The title is, 'Further Correspondence relating to Measures Adopted for Checking the Spread of Venereal Disease' (Cd. 2903), and relates to enactments in the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, and Gibraltar, during the period in which the Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain was at the head of the Colonial office.

"The correspondence in question further reveals the existence and extent of a 'Yellow Slave Trade' in the East of large dimensions. The girls in question are stated to be 'bought when young,' and 'believe themselves bound body and soul to the brothel-keepers.' Nine hundred and sixty-eight Chinese women, presumably of this kind, are reported at Penang, and 62 Japanese women. There were 176 admissions of Japanese women, and 141 admissions of Chinese women in 1899 to the public hospital at Singapore, besides numbers of other cases to private hospitals maintained by the keepers of the houses of ill-fame.

"Many passages in the correspondence give evidence of a continual import traffic going on, which the head of the Regulation Department, the 'Protector of Chinese,' at Singapore, seems to have made some effort to counteract. He speaks of ten girls between 9 and 15 that he attempted to rescue from sale to a traveling dealer, but who were returned to their former surroundings on a writ of habeas corpus by the Supreme Court; but upon information in regard to this case reaching the Colonial office in London, correspondence ensued which resulted in Mr. Chamberlain directing an alteration of the law to meet the case of the prosecution which had so lamentably failed.

"The Protector of Chinese also tells of 'girls under ten years of age who are bought and sold in the colony,' 'brought from China for purposes of sale,' 'generally sold to inmates of brothels,' and of women who are 'in the habit of arriving from China with relays of babies' for the same purpose. The Straits Settlements Government thus attempts to cut off a twig here and there of the tree of this evil traffic, whilst leaving untouched the root and trunk of the tree itself, the State protection of vice, by which it is made practicable safely to invest large capital in this most nefarious but lucrative traffic.

"Page 4 of this Correspondence shows that an ordinance was passed in 1899, imposing very heavy fines and imprisonment on any keeper of a brothel who allowed any of the inmates suffering from contagious disease to remain in the house. This has led to a system of private arrangements with medical men for the periodical sanitary inspection and treatment of the inmates.