Many cases are on record of the attempts of missionary workers, some successful and some unsuccessful, to snatch these victims from their owners. One missionary told of an instance where she had been informed that one of five girls confined in a certain room in a house of ill-repute desired to escape. With the help of an honest policeman and two assistants the missionary forced her way into the room. When she found the five girls she was at a loss to determine what to do, because she could not recognize which one wished to escape. She had been informed that the girl she sought would be afraid to indicate her wish. After hesitation the missionary selected one girl and told the detective to seize her. The girl screamed, kicked, scratched and fought her rescuers with the greatest energy, but was carried into the street and into the mission house. As soon as she was inside the house she fell at the feet of the teacher and said, "Teacher, you know I didn't mean what I said. I did not dare to show any desire to go for fear I might be taken back." It happened that the missionary got the girl whom she sought and who desired her liberty. Other attempts at rescue have been less successful. On one occasion a rescue party sought a Chinese girl, whom it was agreed should hold to her mouth a white handkerchief as a signal that she was the one to be taken. When the rescue party entered the place, they saw the girl with the handkerchief to her face, at the soliciting window. Unfortunately, in the excitement of the moment the girl lost her presence of mind, and, waving her handkerchief, cried out, "O teacher!" But a locked door still separated her from her rescuers, and her keepers, suspecting the truth, dragged her back, and she was lost in the house before the door could be forced. Other girls who escaped from the den afterwards told her fate. Her enraged owner kicked her to death in one of the rooms of her slave prison where there was none to defend her. No one was ever punished for this crime.
Horrible as these incidents were, they are but the regular accompaniments of slavery. They have been paralleled in all ages and in all countries where slavery has existed. The shame of it is that in America in the twentieth century such slavery should still be tolerated.
Ought we not to give active support to our government in its fulfillment of its treaty agreement with the nations of Europe? And should not our example in the Orient and our conduct in our own country be more worthy of our national moral standards? If so, then such an association as this has a more than local service to render. Placed in this important center, it must reach out both to the East and to the West, awaken interest, give warning, and help to provide a chain of national protective agencies to combat and destroy the closely linked chain of purveyors of vice.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE YELLOW SLAVE TRADE.
During the administration of President Hayes the United States consul general at Shanghai, Mr. D. H. Bailey, made a report to the president, relating to slavery in China and the menace to our country from that cause. He enclosed with his report a translation of the laws governing slaves, some of which are as follows:
"If a female slave deserts her master's house she shall be punished with eighty blows. Whoever harbors a fugitive wife or slave, knowing them to be fugitives, shall participate equally in their punishment.
"A slave guilty of addressing abusive language to his master shall suffer death by being strangled.
"The master or the relatives of a master of a guilty slave may chastise such slave in any degree short of death, without being liable to any punishment.