HOW THE PROTECTOR PROTECTED.
Dr. Bridges, the Acting Attorney General at Hong Kong, who had framed
the Contagious Diseases Ordinance of 1857, had given an assurance
concerning it expressed in the following words: "There will be less
difficulty in dealing with prostitution in this Colony than with the
same in any other part of the world, as I believe the prostitutes here
to be almost, without exception, Chinese who would be thankful to
be placed under medical control of any kind; that few if any of the
prostitutes are free agents, having been brought up for the purposes
of prostitution by the keepers of brothels, and that whether as
regards the unfortunate creatures themselves, the persons who obtain
a living by these prostitutes, or the Chinese inhabitants in general,
there are fewer rights to be interfered with here, less grounds for
complaint by the parties controlled, and fewer prejudices on the
subject to be shocked among the more respectable part of the community
than could be found elsewhere." Mr. D.R. Caldwell, Protector,
confirmed these views. But the views of the Chinese themselves had
never been elicited, and immediately such prejudice was aroused among
them that it was considered wise to subject only those houses resorted
to by foreigners and their inmates, to medical surveillance. Says the
report of the Commission: "So great has been the detestation of the
Chinese of the system of personal examination, that it has been
found practically impossible to apply it to purely Chinese houses of
ill-fame [that is, places resorted to by Chinese only], to the present
day." At once, then, the business of the Ordinance, as far as disease
was concerned, became restricted to a fancied "protection" of foreign
men given over to the practice of vice. But, as we show elsewhere
on the statements of the officials who operated the Ordinance (made
confidentially, but not intended for publication), that object was not
realized, and in the very nature of things, never will be, by such
measures. When the State guarantees the service of "clean women" to
men of vicious habits, it actively encourages those vicious habits;
and since these diseases are the direct outcome of such vice, the
more the vice itself is encouraged the more the diseases resulting
therefrom will increase in frequency.
The treachery and perfidy of the profession that this Ordinance was
in large measure one intended to "protect" poor slaves, is clearly
exposed in this letter of Dr. Bridges. "There will be less difficulty"
in operating the measure because the women are not "free agents!" The
very success of the measure, their own language betrays, depended
upon their servitude. Then were they likely to strike a blow at that
slavery? Their measure would, then, of course, lead to an increase and
not to a mitigation of the hardships of servitude. They had "fewer
rights to be interfered with" in Hong Kong "than could he found
elsewhere." Away with a measure of "protection" which finds its chief
source of gratulation in the curtailed rights of the "protected!"
The much-vaunted "protection" of the slaves, through medical
surveillance, became limited at once to a certain class who associated
with foreigners, whose interests were supposed to be "protected" by
that surveillance. Nevertheless from that time almost to the present
hour whenever it has been proposed to discontinue the compulsory
medical examination, officials have raised a cry of pity for the poor
slave-girls who would be left without "protection."
Since each registered house was to pay a fee to the Colonial
Government, which was turned into the fund to meet general expenses
(although the express reading of the Ordinance was against this
practice), this gave additional reason for registering all immoral
houses, beyond their being listed for the compulsory examinations,
hence all houses of prostitution were registered whether for
foreigners or for Chinese.
The Commission's report says: "This Ordinance seems to have been
worked with energy by all concerned. Dr. Murray, who assumed charge of
the Lock Hospital on the 1st of May, 1857,... discharged his duty with
undoubted zeal. The Magistrates certainly threw no obstruction in the
way of the working of the Ordinance; and the Government having, at a
very early stage, determined that its efficacy 'should have a fair
trial,' it doubtless received it at all hands."
During the ten years this law was in operation, there were 411
prosecutions, of which 140 were convictions for keeping unregistered
houses, or houses outside the prescribed bounds. Fines were inflicted
for these offenses and others, adding considerably to the amount
collected regularly each month from each registered house. The
Superintendent of Police, having refused to allow his force to operate
as inspectors of brothels, in 1860 the first inspector was appointed,
and he engaged an English policeman named Barnes to render services as
an informer. This man brought charges in two cases, as to unlicensed
(unregistered) brothels. The second case ended in acquittal,
manifestly on the ground that the charges were trumped up. In the same
year another inspector, Williams, acted as informer, and secured a
conviction against a woman. Later, an inspector by the name of Peam,
who succeeded Williams, employed police constables as informers, and
lent them money for the purpose. All these performed their tasks in
"plain clothes," as was the practice through subsequent years. In
1861, constables (Europeans) acted frequently as informers, and in
one instance the Acting Registrar General,--in other words, the
"Protector,"--played the role of informer. He took a European
constable with him to a native house and caused him to commit adultery
there, and on this evidence prosecuted the woman for keeping an
unregistered brothel. During this year, an inspector named Johnson
presented a woman with a counterfeit dollar, and because she accepted
the money she was condemned as a keeper of an unregistered house, and
fined twenty-five dollars. This sum she would be less able to pay than
the average American woman ten times as much, so low are wages in that
country.
In 1862, an inspector of brothels, a policeman, and the Bailiff of
the Supreme Court, acted as informers; also in eleven cases European
constables in plain clothes, and on two occasions a master of a ship.
In 1863 the sworn belief alone of the inspector secured convictions in
10 cases. In 1864, as far as the records show, public money was first
used by informers to induce women to commit adultery with them, in
order to secure their conviction, fine them, and enroll their abodes
as registered brothels. Inspector Jones and Police Sergeant Daly,
having spent ten dollars in self-indulgence in native houses, the
Government reimbursed them and punished the women.
In 1865, on three separate occasions, the "Protector," (Acting
Registrar General Deane), "declared" houses, nine in number. Soon any
sort of testimony was gladly welcomed, and Malays, East Indians and
Chinese all turned informers, and money was not only given them with
which to open the way for debauchery, but awards upon conviction of
the women with whom they consorted. "The Chinese used for this work
were chiefly Lokongs, [native police constables], Inspector Peterson's
servant and a cook at No. 8 Police Station. The depositions show
that in at least five cases the police and their informers received
rewards. Three times their exertions were remunerated by sums of
twenty dollars, although in one of these instances the evidence was
apparently volunteered. Arch and Collins [Europeans] once got five
dollars each, and Chinese constables received similar amounts." In
many of these cases the immorality on the part of the informers who
brought the charges seems to have been unblushingly stated. "The
zeal of inspectors of brothels and informers had been stimulated by
occasional solid rewards from the Bench, and the numerous prosecutions
commenced seldom failed to end in conviction and substantial
punishment."
Ten years after the Ordinance of 1857 had been in operation, the
Registrar General, C.C. Smith, wrote:
"There is another matter connected with the brothels, licensed
and unlicensed, in Hong Kong, which almost daily assumes a graver
aspect. I refer to what is no less than the trafficking in human
flesh between the brothel-keepers and the vagabonds of the Colony.
Women are bought and sold in nearly every brothel in the place.
They are induced by specious pretexts to come to Hong Kong, and
then, after they are admitted into the brothels, such a system of
espionage is kept over them, and so frightened do they get, as to
prevent any application to the police. They have no relatives, no
friends to assist them, and their life is such that, unless goaded
into unusual excitement by a long course of ill-treatment, they
sink down under the style of life they are forced to adopt, and
submit patiently to their masters. But cases have occurred where
they have run away, and placed themselves in the hands of the
police; who, however, can do nothing whatever toward punishing the
offenders for the lack of evidence, the women being afraid to
tell their tale in open court. Women have, it is true, willingly
allowed themselves to be sold for some temporary gain; but that
brothel-keepers should be allowed to enter into such transactions
is of serious moment. I have myself tried to fix such a case on
more than one brothel-keeper, but failed to do so, though there
was no doubt of the transaction, as I held the bill of sale. The
only mode of action I had under the circumstances was to cancel
the license of the house. In the interest of humanity, too, it
might be enacted that any brothel-keeper should be liable to a
fine for having on his or her premises any child under 15 years of
age."
This statement as to the increase of slavery under this Ordinance is
just what might have been expected, but it is especially valuable as
made by the Registrar General who knew most about the matter, and it
contains most damaging admissions against himself, for as the Colonial
Secretary, W.T. Mercer, states in a foot-note in the State document
printing the Registrar General's statement: "Surely the bill of sale
here would have been sufficient evidence." It is plainly to be seen
from such statements that after a few efforts to take advantage of
anti-slavery laws at Hong Kong, after a few appeals to the police for
protection and liberty, slave girls would learn by terrible experience
to cease all such efforts. Think of the fate of a girl when thrust
back into the hands of her cruel master or mistress, by the heartless
indifference of the "Protector," after having ventured to go to the
length of producing her bill of sale into slavery. We should remember
these things, when we hear of American officials going through
Chinatown and asking the girls if they wish to come away, and in case
they do not at once declare they wish it, reporting that there are no
slave girls in Chinatown. These poor creatures have been trained in a
hard school, and have no reason to believe that any foreign officials
have the least interest in helping to obtain their liberty. And if
they cannot secure protection by complaint, far better never admit
that there is reason for complaint.
Note the calm admission of the Registrar General that nothing was
being done to prevent the rearing of children in these registered
brothels, where every detail was subject to Government surveillance.
"It might be enacted," says the "Protector," that such a
brothel-keeper should be "liable to a fine!" But why, in the face of
such frank acknowledgement of the existence of slavery, were not the
Queen's proclamation against slavery, and the many other enactments of
the same sort, enforced? Listen, and we will tell why. These officials
believed _vice was necessary_, and as there was no class of "fallen
women," in our understanding of the term, the Oriental prostitute
being a literal slave, then _slavery was necessary_ when it ministered
to the vices of men. Hence the Government-registered brothels were
filled with women slaves. As to the unregistered brothels, the
"protected woman" protected that, and also the nursery of purchased
and stolen children being brought up and trained for the slave market,
excepting those children which, as we have seen, were being trained in
the registered houses. If an officer attempted to enter the house of
a "protected woman," he was told: "This is not a brothel. This is the
private family residence of Mr. So and So," mentioning the name of
some foreigner. Thus the foreigners who kept Chinese mistresses
furnished, in effect, that protection to slavery that led the Chinese
to go forward so boldly in their business of buying and kidnaping
children. Even when women were brought into court for keeping
unregistered brothels, and although they were keeping them, yet if
they could show that they were "protected women," they had a fair show
of being acquitted.
Legislative enactments directed to the object of making the practice
of vice healthy for men are called, in popular language, "Contagious
Diseases Acts," because that was the first name given them. But of
late years all such laws have met with such bitter opposition, that,
like an old criminal, the measures seek to hide themselves under all
sorts of _aliases_. Mrs. Josephine Butler describes such legislation
in general in the following simple, lucid manner:
"By this law, policemen,--not the local police, but special
Government police, in plain clothes,--are employed to look after
all the poor women and girls in a town and its neighborhood. These
police spies have power to take up any woman they please, on
_suspicion_ that she is not a moral woman, and to register her
name on a shameful register as a prostitute. She is then forced to
submit to the horrible ordeal of a personal examination of a kind
which cannot be described here. It is an act on the part of the
Government doctor such as would be called an indecent or criminal
assault if any other man were to force it upon a woman. And it is
the _State_ which forces this indecent assault on the persons of
the helpless daughters of the poor.
"If a woman refuses to submit to it, she is punished by
imprisonment, with or without hard labor, _until_ she does submit.
"If, after she has endured this torture, she is found to be healthy
and well, she is set free, with a certificate that she is _fit
to practice prostitution_; but observe, she is never more a free
woman, for her name is on the register of Government prostitutes,
and she is strictly under the eye of the police, and is bound to
come up periodically,--it may be weekly or fortnightly,--to be
again outraged.
"If she is found to have signs of disease, she is sent to a
hospital, which is practically a prison, where she is kept as
long as the doctors please. She may be kept for weeks or months,
without any choice of her own. When cured, she is again set free
with her certificate. During the first years of this law, a
certificate on paper was given to every woman who had passed
through this cruel ordeal; on this paper was the name of the
woman, and the date of the last examination. The Abolitionist
party, however, represented so strongly the shame of the whole
proceeding, that the Government ordered that the piece of paper
or ticket should not be given to the women any longer. But this
change made no real difference, for it was well known that
the women were forced to submit to the outrage of enforced
examination.... You know that every criminal,--murderer, or thief,
or any other,--has the benefit of the law; he or she is allowed an
open trial, at which witnesses are called, and a legal advocate
appears for the defense of the accused. But these State slaves
are allowed no trial. It is enough that the police suspects and
accuses them; then they are treated as criminals.... It will be
clear to you that this law is not for simple healing, as Christ
would have us to heal, caring for all, whatever their character
or whatever their disease. This law is invented to _provide
beforehand_ that men may be able to sin without bodily injury (if
that were possible, which it is not). If a burglar, who had broken
into my house and stolen my goods, were to fall and be hurt, I
would be glad to get him into a hospital and have him nursed and
cured; but I would not put a ladder up against my window at night
and leave the windows open in order that he might steal my goods
without danger of breaking his neck.
"You will see clearly, also, the cowardliness and unmanliness of
this law, inasmuch as it sacrifices women to men, the weak to the
strong; that it deprives the woman of all that she has in life, of
liberty, character, law, even of life itself (for it is a process
of slow murder to which she is subjected), for the supposed
benefit of men who are mean enough to avail themselves of this
provision of lust.
"Besides being grossly unjust, as between men and women, this law
is a piece of class legislation of an extreme kind. The position
and wealth of men of the upper classes place the women belonging
to them above any chance of being accused of prostitution. Ladies
who ride in carriages through the street at night are in no danger
of being molested. But what about working women? what about the
daughters, sisters and wives of working men, out, it may be, on
an errand of mercy at night? and what, most of all, of that girl
whose father, mother, friends are dead or far away, who is
struggling hard, in a hard world, to live uprightly and justly
by the work of her own hands,--is she in no danger of this law?
Lonely and friendless, and poor, is she in no danger of a false
accusation from malice or from error? especially since under this
law _homeless_ girls are particularly marked out as just subjects
for its operation; and if she is accused, what has she to rely on,
under God, except that of which this law deprives her, the appeal
to be tried 'by God and my country,' by which it is understood
that she claims the judicial means of defense to which the law of
the land entitles her?
"I will only add that this law has a fatally corrupting influence
over the male youth of every country where it is in force. It
warps the conscience, and confuses the sense of right and wrong.
When the State raises this immoral traffic into the position of a
lawful industry, superintended by Government officials, what are
the young and ignorant to think? They cannot believe that that
which the Government of the country allows, and makes rules for,
and superintends, is really wrong."
Such measures as these have acquired a foothold in the United States
more than once, but have been driven out again. They are proposed
every year almost, at some State Legislature, and often have been
proposed at several different legislatures during a single year. They
are in operation, to some extent at least, under the United States
flag at Hawaii, in the Philippines, and at Porto Rico. The enforcement
of the Acts must depend to a large extent upon the co-operation of the
male fornicator with the police and officers of the law, and places
good women and girls terribly in the power of malicious or designing
libertines.
It appears from official records, that in Hong Kong, during six months
in 1886-7, out of 139 women denounced by British soldiers and sailors
as having communicated contagion, 102 were on examination found free
from disease, and only 37 to be diseased; and during a similar
period in 1887-8, out of 103 women that were denounced, 101 were on
examination found free from disease and only two diseased. We can
judge from this of both the worthlessness of the measure for tracing
diseased women, and the mischievousness of the measure as an aid to
libertines in getting girls they are endeavoring to seduce so injured
in reputation that they can easily capture their prey.
As a sanitary measure, the Acts have invariably proved a failure, as
shown by honestly handled statistics. There have, to be sure, been
many doctors, some of high scientific qualifications, who have
produced statistics strongly tending to prove the sanitary benefits
of such measures on superficial survey. But these statistics have
afterwards been shown to be mistakenly handled or designedly
manipulated to make such a showing. This is not a medical book, and
any extended treatment of figures as to disease would be entirely out
of place in it, so we will content ourselves by saying that during
late years physicians of prominence from every part of the world have
assembled twice at Brussels for Conferences in regard to this matter.
These physicians are in large numbers Continental doctors, the very
ones who have had most to do in enforcing such measures. Each time
the number of opponents to the Contagious Diseases Acts has rapidly
increased, after listening to the testimony from all sides as to
their inutility; in fact, the whole force of opinion at each of these
Conferences, in 1899 and 1902, was against State Regulation, though
there was a division of opinion as to the substitute for it.
In 1903, the Minister of the Interior of France, the country where
these Acts originated, nominated an extra-Parliamentary Commission to
go thoroughly into these questions. This Commission held its numerous
sittings in 1905, and in the end by almost a two-thirds' majority
condemned the existing system of regulation in France, and furthermore
rejected the alternative proposal of notification with compulsory
treatment, by sixteen votes to one. In reporting on the Conferences
held in Brussels, the _Independence Belge_ said, in a leading article:
"Regulation is visibly decaying, and the fact is the more striking
because the country that instituted it (France) is at present the one
that meets it with the most ardent hostility."