HOUNDED TO DEATH.
Sir John Pope Hennessy went to Hong Kong as Governor of the Colony in
the early Spring of 1877. In the following October a tragedy occurred,
which drew his attention to the administration of the Registrar
General, and he set himself to the task of trying to right some of the
wrongs of the Chinese women.
The case last mentioned in the previous chapter related to a woman
by the name of Tai-Yau, whom an informer humbled "against her will,"
which led to his being rewarded and her being fined $100, to pay which
she sold her little boy. This seems to have been the only way open for
her to escape a life of prostitution. To make this point clear, we
will here insert the explanation of conditions given by Dr. Eitel in
a communication for the information of Governor Hennessy at a little
later period than the incident we are about to relate. He speaks of
Chinese women who secretly practiced prostitution [but, as we have
shown, many respectable Chinese women suffered also], as
"preyed upon by informers paid with Government money, who would
first debauch such women and then turn against them, charging them
before the magistrate under the Ordinance 10, 1867, before the
Registrar General as keepers of unlicensed brothels in which case
a heavy fine would be inflicted, to pay which these women used to
sell their children, or sell themselves into bondage worse than
ordinary slavery, to the keepers of brothels licensed by the
Government. Whenever a so-called sly brothel was broken up these
keepers would crowd the shroff's office [money exchanger's office]
of the police court or the visiting room of the Government Lock
Hospital to drive their heartless bargains, _which were
invariably enforced with the weighty support of the inspectors of
brothels_,[A] appointed by Government under the Contagious
Diseases Ordinance. The more this Ordinance was enforced, the more
this buying and selling of human flesh went on at the very doors
of Government offices."
[Footnote A: We italicise this to call attention to the active part
officials took in encouraging slavery.]
We can then readily imagine Tai-Yau as sentenced to pay her fine of
one hundred dollars, and nothing to pay with. The money exchanger's
office next the court room was crowded with slave-dealers, waiting to
offer to pay the fines of such unhappy creatures, and she probably
turned to them. If she were sent to jail what would become of her
little boy? And if she sold herself to the licensed brothel-keepers,
as the inspectors of brothels were urging her to do, the fate of her
boy would be even worse. She could see a hope that if she sold the boy
for "adoption," a form of slavery the Hong Kong Government permitted,
of which we will tell more,--then if she had her freedom she could at
least hope to redeem him some time. So the little fellow was sold
for about forty dollars, and she went away sixty dollars in
debt,--probably to the brothel-keepers, who would never let her out
of their sight until, through the debt and the interest thereon, they
would in time be enabled to seize her as their slave. But she went out
hoping for some honest way of earning the money, or else she would
have bargained with them at once to work off the debt by prostitution.
But what could a Chinese woman do in the face of such a debt? A
painter's wages at Hong Kong at this time were five dollars a month. A
woman's wages at any respectable occupation would not have been more
than half that amount. Ten cents a day would be a fair computation.
And all the time she would be trying to earn the money the debt would
be increasing by the interest on it; and her little boy would increase
more rapidly in value than in years.
All this occurred in November, 1876. About the first of October, 1877,
nearly a year later, she engaged a single room for herself and a
servant[A] at 42 Peel street, of a woman named Lau-a Yee. Mrs. Lau,
the landlady, had the top floor of a little house. Another family
had the first floor, and the street door leading up to Mrs. Lau's
apartments ended in a trap door which was shut down at night. There
were also folding doors half way up the stairway, not reaching to the
ceiling, however, that could be locked at night to make the place
doubly secure from intruders. The little upper flat consisted of only
three rooms. Mrs. Lau occupied the front room, and her servant woman
slept on the floor in the passage-way, and took care of Mrs. Lau's
little child. This servant woman had a friend come over from Canton to
spend the night with her and seek for employment. The middle room
was occupied by Tai Yau, the woman who had sold her little boy into
slavery, and her servant. The back room was vacant. Tai Yau was about
twenty-six years old, and her servant nearly sixty.
[Footnote A: The evidence does not make it clear how so poor a woman
should have a servant. Might she not in reality have been acting the
part of "pocket-mother" to the girl?]
On the evening of October 16th, 1877, Inspector Lee gave ten one
dollar bills to his interpreter, telling him to go out and use it in
catching unlicensed women. The interpreter found two friends and gave
one three dollars and the other seven dollars to help him in his
errand. Think of it! The man to whom the three dollars were given was
a worthless fellow who in his own words, lived "on his friends." When
he worked he earned about 14 cents a day. The other man to whom was
given seven dollars for a night of pleasure, earned five dollars a
month when he worked at his trade--painting.
These men went to an opium shop where they found a pander. Apparently
they did not know where to find unlicensed women without his help. Two
other men joined them, and they all went to No. 9 Lyndhurst Terrace,
the interpreter lingering about in waiting somewhere outside. When
two of the men learned that they had been brought with the purpose
of using their testimony against the women they withdrew. There were
three women in the house. One was of loose morals, or at any rate she
trifled with temptation; the other two managed to withdraw. A supper
of fowls, stuffed pigs' feet, sausages, eggs, and plenty of native
wine was brought in, and they feasted, the men getting under the
influence of drink. A-Nam, the pander, went out and hunted up two
more girls for the feast. Perhaps these suspected a plot, for they
withdrew. Then A-Nam went again, and returned with Tai-Yau.
It was about nine o'clock when A-Nam came to 42 Peel street and called
Tai Yau out. Mrs. Lau saw her go out with him, but was not uneasy, for
she had seen him there before as a friend of Tai Yau. Is it not quite
likely it was from him she borrowed the money? He was the kind of man
whose profession would lead him to hang around the Registrar's court
in order to get on the track of unlicensed women and to get them in
his power. If such were the case, and she owed him money, she would be
terribly in his power.[A] She went away with him to the feast near
by at No. 9 Lyndhurst Terrace, and at twelve o'clock she returned in
company with A-Nam and a strange man. Mrs. Lau was up and worshipping
in her room. She came and said to Tai Yau: "Who is this?" seeing the
strange man sitting on a chair. "What is this strange man doing here?"
Tai Yau replied, "Oh, he is a shopman and is my husband."
[Footnote A: Chief Inspector Whitehead testified before the
Commission: "When an unlicensed brothel is broken up the women have to
resort in most cases to prostitution for a living." Though the wrong
done Tai Yau had been "against her will," yet it had brought her into
court upon the charge of being a "common prostitute," and thrown her
heavily into debt. It is not unlikely she now found it almost beyond
her power to resist becoming enslaved as a prostitute.]
The name of the man with A-Nam was A-Kan, and A-Kan had been a witness
against her when she had been condemned before and fined $100. Now he
was here in her room again at this time of night, with the man who had
brought them together.
Meanwhile Inspector Lee and the interpreter who had given this A-Kan
seven dollars to entrap an unlicensed woman, were hunting along the
street below to trace the house into which A-Kan had managed to get an
entrance. They began to call "A-Kan! A-Kan!" Someone, probably quite
innocently said, "I think the man you are looking for went into the
house opposite. I saw some one enter there." This was all the clue
they had, yet on that evidence alone, Inspector Lee began to pound
on the street door of the house, No. 42. A woman on the first floor
looked out, and the Inspector ordered her to open the street door. If
she recognized him as an officer she would not have dared refuse. The
inspector and the interpreter went up the stairs, but encountered
folding doors half way up, locked across the stairs. The Inspector
managed to get over them and unlock them from the inside, and on they
went, and paused to listen beneath the trap door. They did not hear
A-Kan's voice, and did not know whether he was there. They had only
the conjecture of the woman across the street to proceed upon,
nevertheless they had forced their way into this private abode
occupied by women, knowing nothing whatever about the place, whether
it was respectable or not. At this moment Mrs. Lau heard voices of men
on her stairs, and said in alarm to A-Kan, "The inspector is coming,
looking for you, isn't he?" A-Kan said "Yes." Then Tai Yau threw
herself at the feet of A-Kan and begged for mercy, saying: "I was
arrested before and fined a hundred dollars. I sold my son to pay the
fine, and you must not say anything now." He sanctimoniously shook his
head, as though weighing his responsibility, saying: "I don't know, I
don't know." She did not recognize him, but he was the very man who
had before informed against her and secured her conviction, when she
was humbled "against her will." He now opened the trap door to let the
inspector and his interpreter in. Tai Yau exclaimed to Mrs. Lau, "He
is coming to arrest women for keeping an unlicensed brothel, let us
flee!" Tai-Yau ran up a ladder through a scuttle out upon the flat
roof of the house, her old servant following and Mrs. Lau behind. The
inspector and interpreter followed, while the informer escaped from
the house. Mrs. Lau managed to reach the hatch of the next house, No.
44, and ran down that into the street, hotly chased by the inspector.
He said in his testimony: "I pursued the woman down the trap, and
followed her right into the street. I pursued and she ran up the
steps of Peel street and up to Staunton street, and a Lokong [Chinese
constable] caught her about ten yards from Aberdeen street." Then the
occupants of the ground floor of 44 Peel street called to Inspector
Lee and told him that some people had fallen from the roof into their
cook-house, and Inspector Lee said in his testimony: "I went into the
cook-house and saw the deceased [the old servant of Tai Yau] lying on
the granite on her face, with her head close to an earthenware chatty
[water-bottle] which I pointed out, and the bundle of clothing with a
Chinese rule lying on the top of her head, or on the back of the neck.
Close beside her was another woman lying on the other side of the
chatty with her feet against the wall and her head out toward the
cook-house door. I had a Chinese candle. I took up the bundle of
clothes off deceased's head, and turned her on her back, and there
were no signs of life apparent. The other woman was bleeding from the
face, and her face and neck were covered with blood. She was moving as
if in great pain. I sent for the ambulance at once, and by this time
the whole street was aroused." The two women, Tai Yau and the old
servant, had fallen through a smoke-hole in the roof.
Tai Yau had a fractured jaw and left thigh, besides internal injuries.
She lived but ten days. The verdict rendered in each of these cases
was nearly the same. That of Tai Yau's calamity reads in part:
"Mok Tai-Yau, on the morning of the 17th of October, in the year
aforesaid, being on the roof of a house, known as 44, Peel Street,
Victoria, and having fled there in consequence of the entry of an
Inspector of Brothels into the house known as 42, Peel Street,
where she lived, accidentally and by misfortune fell down an open
area, known as a smoke-hole, unto the granite pavement beneath,
and by means thereof did receive mortal bruises, fractures and
contusions, of which she died.... The jury aforesaid are further
of opinion that Inspector Lee, the aforesaid Inspector of
Brothels, exceeded his powers by entering the house, No. 42,
Peel Street, without a warrant, or any direct authority from the
Registrar General or the Superintendent of Police, and would
strongly recommend that the whole system of obtaining convictions
against keepers of unlicensed brothels be thoroughly revised,
as the present practice is, in our opinion, both illegal and
immoral."[A]
[Footnote A: Inspector Lee testified on this occasion that he
sometimes had chased women over the roofs of as many as twenty
contiguous houses.]
On Nov. 1st, 1877, Governor Hennessy wrote to the Colonial Office,
London:
"I have taken the responsibility of putting a stop to a practice
which has existed in this Colony since September, 1868, when Sir
Richard MacDonnell sanctioned the appropriation of Government
money for the pay of informers who might induce Chinese women to
prostitute themselves, and thus bring them under the penal clauses
of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance. For many years past this
branch of the Registrar General's office has led to grave abuses.
It has been a fruitful source of extortion, but what is far worse,
a department of the State, as one of the local papers now points
out, which is supposed to be constituted for the protection of the
Chinese, has been employing a dangerously loose system, whereby
the sanctity of native households may be seriously compromised.
I had no idea that the Secret Service Fund was used for this
loathsome purpose until my attention was drawn to an inquest on
the bodies of two Chinese women who were killed by falling from
a house in which one of the informers employed by the Registrar
General was pursuing his avocations.... I am taking steps to
institute a searching inquiry into the whole subject. The European
community are ashamed at the revelations that have been made at
the inquest, and amongst the Chinese the practice that has been
brought to light is, viewed with abhorrence."
This was the incident which led to the appointment of the Commission
of Inquiry into the working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance, the
report of which Commission we have already had occasion to quote from
more than once.
Later, Governor Hennessy wrote to the Colonial Office:
"Whilst the Attorney General is of opinion that, strictly
speaking, there is a _prima facie_ case of manslaughter made out
against Inspector Lee, and that possibly a conviction might be
obtained, he advises against a prosecution. I do not concur with
the Attorney General in the reasons he gives for not instituting a
prosecution in this case."
During the year previous, 1876, Ordinance No. 2 had been passed,
depriving the Registrar General of the much-abused judicial powers
he had exercised since 1867, and transferring them to the police
magistrates.
Speaking of the incident of Tai Yau having sold her boy to pay her
fine, Governor Hennessy wrote the Colonial Office, under date of
December 6th, 1877:
"I am now informed that the Commissioners have obtained from the
records of the Registrar General's department and from Mr. Smith's
evidence the clearest proof that this practice of selling human
beings in Hong Kong was well known to the department. One of the
records has been shown to me in which a witness swears, 'I bought
the girl Chan Tsoi Lin and placed her in a brothel in Hong Kong';
and on that particular piece of evidence no action was taken by
the department."
Lord Carnarvon was Secretary of State for the Colonies at this time,
and his replies to Sir John Pope Hennessy were small encouragement to
the course the Governor had taken. He criticises his "somewhat unusual
course" in the appointment of a Commission "composed of private
persons to inquire into the administration of an important department
of the Government." He says: "I am unable to concur in the suggestion
made in your despatch as to the advisability of prosecuting Inspector
Lee." He implies that in his opinion "Inspector Lee was acting
strictly within his powers on this unfortunate occasion." "It is
quite possible," Lord Carnarvon continues, "that there may be abuses
connected with the Contagious Diseases Ordinance which ought to
be removed; but I would point out that such abuses arise from the
imperfections in the system as established by law.... While ready
to give consideration to the subject of amending the system, if
necessary, I fail at present to observe wherein the officers ... have
exceeded the duty imposed upon them by law."
From such responses as these we readily learn that it was not alone in
Hong Kong that these outrageous abuses of every principle of justice
in dealing with Chinese women failed to arouse more than a lukewarm
interest in their behalf, and all the way through Sir John Pope
Hennessy, with one or two notable exceptions, so far as the records
go, was shown but scant sympathy in his efforts to correct these
abuses.
On April 2nd, 1878, Sir Harcourt Johnstone asked in the House of
Commons the Secretary of State for the Colonies, "whether his
attention has been directed to a recent outrage committed ... at Hong
Kong, which is now forming the subject of inquiry by a Commission
appointed by the Governor. And if he will cause special investigation
to be made as to the manner in which the revenue derived from
licensing houses of ill-fame is raised and expended for the service of
the Colony."
In answer to this question, the Commission reported that, "the monies
raised both by the licenses from houses of ill-fame, and from the
fines inflicted under the provisions of these Ordinances, have been
expended in the general services of the Colony; and that the actual
revenue derived from this source, since and including 1857 down to
the end of 1877, amounted to $187,508, to which must be added the
Admiralty allowance from 1870 to 1877, amounting to $28,860, and fines
estimated at $5,000, making a total of $221,368.00."
After July 1st, 1878, the fund derived from brothels was used for the
operation of the provisions of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance only.
Later, on July 28, 1882, Governor Hennessy received in London a large
deputation of gentlemen interested in the abolition of the Contagious
Diseases Ordinance of Hong Kong. To these he addressed the following
words descriptive of the condition of things at Hong Kong unearthed by
the Commission:
"I saw in the Colony abuses existing which have effect far beyond
the range of Hong Kong. Let me instance one or two only. We get
from Great Britain some European police. They are men selected
with care for good conduct, and they are sometimes married men;
their passages and their wives' passages have been paid to Hong
Kong, where married police quarters are provided. But what
transpired when that Commission was held? The Registrar General
had recorded in his book, morning after morning, the evidence of
informers _selected from that police force_, whom _he had employed
to commit adultery_ with unlicensed Chinese women; and borne of
these men were married police, whose wives were brought to Hong
Kong; so that in point of fact, he was _not only encouraging
adultery but paying for it with the money of the State_. Well, I
stopped that, of course.... At the head of the Registrar General's
Department in Hong Kong, we appoint an officer, as we believe, of
the highest character. One of the gentlemen so employed puts on a
false beard and moustache, he takes marked money in his waistcoat
pocket, and proceeds to the back lanes of the Colony, knocks at
various doors, and, at length, gains admission to a house. He
addresses the woman who opens the door and tells her he wants a
Chinese girl. There is an argument as to the price, and he agrees
to give four dollars. He is shown up to the room, and gives her
the money. What I am now telling you is the gentleman's own
evidence. He records how he flung up the window and put out his
head and whistled. The police whom he had in attendance in the
street, broke open the door and arrested the girl. She is brought
up the next day to be tried for the offence; but, before whom?
Before the Acting Registrar General--before the same gentleman
who had the beard and moustache the night before. He tries her
himself, and on the books of the Registrar General's office (I
have turned to them and read his own evidence recorded in his
own handwriting) there is his own conviction of the girl, of the
offence, and his sentence, that she be fined fifty dollars and
some months' imprisonment! I mention this for this reason--that
the officer who did this was appointed because he was supposed to
be a man of exceptionally high moral tone, and good conduct and
demeanour. But what would be the effect on any man having to
administer such an Ordinance? There was laid before my Legislative
Council a case of one of the European Inspectors of brothels, and
I was struck by this fact in his evidence. He says: 'I took the
marked money from the Registrar General's office, and followed a
woman, and consorted with her, and gave her the money; and the
moment I had done so, I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out
the badge of office, and pointed to the Crown, and arrested the
woman.' She was henceforth 'a Queen's woman'."