Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers. Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew
boats were almost given over to it. "Flower-boats" were probably never unknown to this river, but, besides their use as brothels, they became stocked with little girls under training for vice, under the incitement of an ever-growing slave trade. These little girls were bought, stolen or enticed from the mainland by these river people, to swell the number of their own children destined to the infamous slave trade. Chinese law forbids this kind of slavery, but, as we have seen, the Tanka people were sort of outlaws, the river life facilitated such a business, and Hong Kong was near at hand.
In later years Dr. Eitel, Chinese interpreter to the Governor, stated:
"Almost every so-called 'protected woman,' i.e. kept mistress of foreigners here, belongs to the Tanka tribe, looked down upon and kept at a distance by all the other Chinese classes. It is among these Tanka women, and especially under the protection of these 'protected' Tanka women, that private prostitution and the sale of girls for concubinage flourishes, being looked upon as a legitimate profession. Consequently, almost every 'protected woman' keeps a nursery of purchased children or a few servant girls who are being reared with a view to their eventual disposal, according to their personal qualifications, either among foreigners here as kept women, or among Chinese residents as their concubines, or to be sold for export to Singapore, San Francisco, or Australia. Those 'protected women,' moreover, generally act as 'protectors' each to a few other Tanka women who live by sly prostitution."
When once a man enters the service of Satan he is generally pressed along into it to lengths he did not at first intend to go. So it proved in the case of many foreigners at Hong Kong. The foreigner extended his "protection" to a native mistress. That "protected woman" extended his name as "protector" over the inmates of her secret brothel; and into that house protected largely from official interference, purchased and kidnaped girls were introduced and reared for the trade in women. The sensitive point seems to have been that an enforcement of the anti-slavery laws would have interfered in many instances with the illicit relations of the foreigner, exposing him to ignominy and sending the mother of his children to prison. It was sufficient for the "protected" woman to say, when the officer of the law rapped at her door, "This is not a brothel, but the private family residence of Mr. So-and-So," naming some foreigner—perhaps a high-placed official—and the officer's search would proceed no further.
It was claimed that this slavery, and also domestic slavery, which sprang up so suddenly after the settlement of Hong Kong by the British, was the outgrowth of Chinese customs, and could not be suppressed but with the greatest difficulty, and their suppression was an unwarrantable interference with Chinese customs, Sir Charles Elliott having given promise from the first that such customs should not be interfered with. But, as we have shown, that promise was only made, "pending Her Majesty's pleasure," which had been very plainly and pointedly expressed later as opposed to slavery.
As to the matter of "custom," Sir John Smale, Chief Justice of Hong Kong, said, in 1879, in the Supreme Court, on the occasion of sentencing prisoners for slave trading and kidnaping:
"Can Chinese slavery, as it de facto exists in Hong Kong, be considered a Chinese custom which can be brought within the intent and meaning of either of the proclamations of 1841 so as to be sanctioned by the proclamations? I assert that it cannot. … A custom is 'such a usage as by common consent and uniform practice has become a law.' In 1841 there could have been no custom of slavery in Hong Kong as now set up, for, save a few fishermen and cottagers, the island was uninhabited; and between 1841 and 1844, the date of the Ordinance expressly prohibiting slavery, there was no time for such a custom to have grown up; and slavery in every form having been by express law prohibited by the Royal proclamation of the Queen in 1845, no custom contrary to that law could, after that date, grow up, because the thing was by express law illegal. I go further, and I find that the penal law of China, whilst it facilitates the adoption of children into a family to keep up its succession, prohibits by section 78 the receiving into his house by any one of a person of a different surname, declaring him guilty of 'confounding family distinctions,' and punishing him with 60 blows; the father of the son who shall 'give away' … his son is to be subject to the same punishment. Again, section 79 enacts that whosoever shall receive and detain the strayed or lost child of a respectable person, and, instead of taking it before the magistrate, sell such child as a slave, shall be punished by 100 blows and three years' banishment. Whosoever shall sell such child for marriage or adoption into any family as son or grandson shall be punished with 90 blows and banishment for two years and a half. Whosoever shall dispose of a strayed or lost slave shall suffer the punishment provided by the law reduced one degree. If any person shall receive or detain a fugitive child, and, instead of taking it before the magistrate, sell such child for a slave, he shall be punished by 90 blows and banishment for two years and a half. Whosoever shall sell any such fugitive child for marriage or adoption shall suffer the punishment of 80 blows and two years' banishment. … Whosoever shall detain for his own use as a slave, wife, or child, any such lost, strayed or fugitive child or slave, shall be equally liable to be punished as above mentioned, but if only guilty of detaining the same for a short time the punishment shall not exceed 80 blows. When the purchaser or the negotiator of the purchase shall be aware of the unlawfulness of the transaction he shall suffer punishment one degree less than that inflicted on the seller, and the amount of the pecuniary consideration shall he forfeited to Government, but when he or they are foun have been unacquainted therewith they shall not be liable to punishment, and the money shall be restored to the party from whom it had been received." The Chief Justice continues: "After reading these extracts from the Penal Code of China—an old Code revised from time to time … I cannot see how it can be maintained that any form of slavery was ever tolerated by law in Hong Kong, as it de facto exists here, or how the words of the two proclamations of 1841 could be said to bear the color of tolerating slavery under the British flag in Hong Kong. It is clear to me that the Queen's proclamation of 1845, which I have already quoted at full, declares slavery absolutely illegal here."
The truth, then, seems to be that a great demand had arisen for Chinese women at Hong Kong, the most direct cause being the irregular conduct of foreigners—officials, private individuals, soldiers and sailors—who gathered there at the time of the opium wars, and settled there in large numbers when Hong Kong became a British possession. This demand was responded to from the native side, for it was said: "When the colony of Hong Kong was first established in 1842, it was forthwith invaded by brothel keepers and prostitutes from the adjoining districts of the mainland of China, who brought with them the national Chinese system of prostitution, and have ever since labored to carry it into effect in all its details."[A] The demand that brought this supply was further added to from two sources, first, Chinese residents attracted to Hong Kong had made money there rapidly, and had fallen into profligate and luxurious manners of life, and second, Chinese going abroad to Australia, Singapore and San Francisco, created a demand for immoral women in these foreign lands which called for supplies from Hong Kong, and at Singapore the demand came also from the class of foreigners who resided there.
[Footnote A: Hong Kong was occupied by the British in 1841, but not ceded until 1842.]
The system of management of prostitution was originally Chinese, and differs much from anything known under Western civilization, in that the women are never what we speak of as "fallen women," because not the victims of seduction nor of base propensities that have led to the choice of such a life. They are either slaves trained for or sold into shame, or women temporarily held for debt by a sort of mortgage. To this Chinese system of prostitution, however, there was soon applied at Hong Kong a Government system of regulation or license under surveillance. This modified the system, intensified the slavery, and was the cause of reducing many women from the respectable ranks of Chinese life at once and arbitrarily to the lowest depths of degradation, as we shall explain and demonstrate in subsequent chapters.
The native woman, rented for a monthly stipend from her owners was called "protected" at Hong Kong. What charm this word "protection," and the title "Protector" has held for certain persons, as applied to the male sex! "Man, the natural protector of woman." Forsooth, to protect her from what? Rattlesnakes, buffalo, lions, wildcats no more overrun the country, and why is this relation of "protector" still claimed? Why, to protect woman from rudeness, and insult and sometimes even worse. But from whence comes that danger of rudeness and insult or worse from which man