OTHER DERELICT OFFICIALS.
The Registrar General was not the only official at Hong Kong who did
not believe in the extermination of slavery, as we shall proceed
to show, although the Governor had strong sympathy from the Chief
Justice.
On May 30th, 1879, Sir John Smale, Chief Justice of the Colony of Hong
Kong, wrote a letter for the information of the Governor, Sir John
Pope Hennessy, to the effect that he had sentenced, on the previous
day, two poor women to imprisonment with hard labor, for detaining
a boy 13 years old. The women sold the little boy to a druggist for
$17.50. The relatives traced their lost boy, came from Canton and
claimed him, but the druggist refused to give him up, producing a
bill of sale, and the boy was not given up until they appeared in the
police court. The Chief Justice adds:
"I am satisfied from the evidence that the great criminal is this
druggist, and that it is an opprobrium to the administration of
justice to punish these poor women as I have done, and allow the
druggist to escape. I therefore ask His Excellency to direct that
proceedings be forthwith taken against the man, and that the case
be conducted at the magistracy by the Crown Solicitor, so that he
may be committed for trial before the Supreme Court."
He then speaks of a case of a woman whom he sentenced on May 6th,
1879, to two years' imprisonment with hard labor for stealing a female
child. He adds:
"The woman was merely a middle woman, and received a small sum,
but it came out in the evidence that Leung A-Luk had bought the
child for $53, and was actually confining her in a room where
the child was discovered. She was the great criminal. It is an
opprobrium to justice to punish this poor woman, and to allow
Leung A-Luk to go unpunished. I am aware that, according to
precedents here and at home, it is within the province of the
presiding judge to direct prosecutions such as these to be
instituted, but I think it more convenient to ask His Excellency,
as the head of the Executive (whose province it especially is to
originate criminal proceedings) to direct prosecution. To let
these chief offenders go unprosecuted, and to punish such
miserable creatures, exposes the court to the contempt of the
community, and tends to destroy all respect for the administration
of justice in the Chinese community."
Accordingly the Governor forwarded this request on the part of the
Chief Justice to the Attorney General, saying: "It is clear from the
evidence and from documents published by the Contagious Diseases
Commission that practices of this kind have prevailed unchecked, or
almost unchecked, for many years past in this Colony." The Governor
then referred to a case in point that he had submitted to the former
Attorney General, but he "did not seem disposed to enforce the rights
of the father, on the ground that he had sold the child." The Governor
concludes: "I did not agree with his view of the law."
The last case was referred back to the Acting Police Magistrate to
know why the woman, Leung A-Luk, was allowed to go unprosecuted. The
Police Magistrate replied: "It appeared to me that 4th defendant
(Leung A-Luk) being a well-to-do woman, and having no children of her
own, had purchased the girl with a view to adopting her." He adds:
"When Acting Superintendent of Police last year, I wished to prosecute
a man for detaining a child ... but as it was shown that the boy had
been sold by his father some months previously, the Attorney General
considered the purchaser was _in loco parentis_, [in the place of a
parent] and could not be purchased."
On the two cases to which the attention of the Governor had been
brought, the Attorney General reported:
"With the greatest respect for the Chief Justice, I doubt the
policy of prosecuting the woman he refers to, having regard to the
fact that the magistrate had discharged her for want of testimony,
and looking to his further report. The magistrate should always be
supported if possible; and if he discharged the woman, and put her
at the bar as a witness, and she was used again at the Supreme
Court, it might look like a breach of good faith to treat her now
as a criminal.... As to the druggist's case, I think that the only
thing that can be said is that it would look to be a breach of
faith to proceed against him now."
When the case was referred to the Crown Solicitor, he said:
"As to the druggist the parties had now left the Colony, and there
were no witnesses against him. The purchase by Chinese of young
orphans, and indeed of others whose parents are too poor to keep
them, is a social custom amongst the natives, and is of constant
occurrence in Hong Kong. These 'pocket-children,' as they are
usually termed, are often treated with great affection, and are
far better off than they were previous to their being so bought."
It was the 30th of May when the Chief Justice called the Governor's
attention to these cases. It was July before the Attorney General and
the Crown Solicitor seem to have paid any attention to the cases. It
was no wonder, then, that some of the witnesses could not be found.
Meanwhile the Governor had left the Colony for a trip to Japan, and
W.H. Marsh was acting in his place. On July 16th, he returned answer
to the Chief Justice that he had now received a report on the cases
from the Attorney General, the committing magistrate and the Crown
Solicitor, and
"I regret to inform you that ... I do not see my way to directing
the prosecutions of the two persons indicated by you; first ...
because I do not agree with you in looking upon them as the
principal criminals; and, secondly, because I think that after
the evidence of these persons has been taken both before the
committing magistrate and the Supreme Court without any warning
having been given them that their evidence might be used against
them, it would appear like a breach of faith to treat them now as
criminals." "Should the prosecution of these persons result in
their acquittal, which seems to me not improbable, I fear that the
good effect produced by the severe reprimand, which I understand
that your Honor administered publicly to all the parties concerned
in these two cases, might be to a great extent neutralized." (!)
On September 29th, 1879, the Chief Justice sentenced more criminals
for trafficking in children. A Japanese girl, Sui Ahing, eleven years
old, was brought to the Colony by a Chinaman who had bought the child
in Japan of its parents. Needing money to go on to his native place,
this Chinaman borrowed $50 of a native resident at Hong Kong, and
left the child as security for the debt. The wife of the man in whose
custody the child was left beat the child severely and she ran out of
the house. She was found wandering on the street late at night,
and the finder took her and sold her to another Chinese party, who
threatened to send her to Singapore as a prostitute. It was plain the
last purchaser intended either to send her to Singapore or keep her at
Hong Kong for vile purposes. This case illustrates well the frequency
with which children are sold and re-sold in that country. The parties
to the last transaction, the finder of the child and the purchaser of
the child from the finder, were both found guilty, one of selling,
the other of buying a child for the purposes of prostitution. His
Lordship, the Chief Justice, said:
"I will call upon the prisoners at another time. This is a case
of far larger proportions than the guilt or innocence of the two
prisoners at the bar. I take shame to myself that the appalling
extent of kidnaping, buying and selling slaves for what I may
call ordinary servile purposes, and the buying and selling young
females for worse than ordinary slavery, has not presented itself
before to me in the light it ought. It seems to me that it has
been recognized and accepted as an ordinary out-turn of Chinese
habits, and thus that until special attention has been excited it
has escaped public notice. But recently the abomination has forced
itself on my notice. In some cases convictions have been had; in
two notable instances, although I called for prosecution, the
criminals escaped. They were Chinese in respectable positions,
and I was given to understand that buying children by respectable
Chinamen as servants was according to Chinese customs, and that to
attempt to put it down would be to arouse the prejudices of the
Chinese. The practice is on the increase. It is in this port,
and in this Colony especially, that the so-called Chinese custom
prevails. Under the English flag, slavery, it has been said, does
not, cannot ever be. Under that flag it does exist in this Colony,
and is, I believe, at this moment more openly practiced than at
any former period of its history. Cyprus has been under our rule
for about a year, and already, both in the House of Commons and in
the House of Lords, questions have been asked, and the Members
of the present Ministry have assured the country that slavery in
every form shall be speedily put down there. Humanity is of no
party, and personal liberty is held to be the right of every human
being under English law, by, I believe, every man of note in
England. My recent pleasant personal experience in England assures
me of that. But here in Hong Kong, I believe that domestic slavery
exists in fact to a great extent. Whatever the law of China may
be, the law of England must prevail here. If Chinamen are willing
to submit to the law, they may remain, but on condition of obeying
the law, whether it accords with their notions of right or wrong
or not; and, if remaining they act contrary to the law, they must
take the consequences.... I shall deal with these people when I
shall have more fully considered the case."
During the proceedings of the trial of these two prisoners, the
Attorney General had declared his intention not to call the former
owners of the child, Wai Alan, the woman who beat the child, or Pao
Chee Wan, her husband. The Chief Justice now said:
"I now direct you, Mr. Attorney General, to prosecute these two
people, Pao Chee Wan and Wai Alan." Attorney General:--"My Lord,
I intimated before that this matter was under consideration; I do
not think I am at liberty to say under whose consideration."
His Lordship:--"I direct the prosecution, and will take the
responsibility. It is the course in England and I will pursue it
here." The Attorney General:--"You have publicly directed it;
and I will report it to the proper quarter." His Lordship:--"The
Attorney General at home is constantly ordered by the Court to
prosecute. On my responsibility alone I do this." The Attorney
General:--"May I ask your Lordship to say on what charge?" His
Lordship:--"Under Sections 50 and 51 of No. 4 of 1865, and also
for assault." The Attorney General continued to raise objections,
when the Chief Justice said: "I have said as much as I choose to
say, and I will not be put to question by the Attorney General. If
you have any difficulty, come to the Court in Chambers."
Governor Hennessy, in reporting the incident to the Secretary of State
at London, adds: "I sent a note to the Attorney General, saying I
thought that the prosecution suggested by the Chief Justice should
take place; but it was found that the accused parties were not in the
Colony." After this manner many cases brought to the attention of the
officers of the law by parents or guardians of children of kidnaping
and trading in girls and children failed to secure the attention they
deserved. It seems to us not at all amazing, when one reads this past
history, that by the time Chinese girls have seen and learned all that
they must in the Colony of Hong Kong, when brought to this country
they are utterly incredulous as to the good faith of police and other
officials. They must enter a complaint at the risk of their lives, and
if the officer of the law will not prosecute the case in spite of all
its difficulties (which are largely imaginary on the part of lukewarm
officials), then the girl must be returned to the master she has
informed against, to be in his power for him to vent his wrath upon
her. A case in point occurred in Oakland only a few months ago, and we
had a chance to interview the girl. The Captain of Police went through
the brothels of Oakland's Chinatown, accompanied by some missionary
ladies, in order to discover if possible any girls who would
acknowledge that they wished to come away. Every girl was questioned,
in the absence of the keepers, and not one, or perhaps only one, said
she wished to come away. There were some one hundred and fifty Chinese
slave girls in Oakland at this time, and one might say they all had a
chance to escape, and of their own will chose to remain. But was that
the truth? Not at all; the result did not prove at all that one, and
only one wished to come away. It proved merely that only one was
inspired with sufficient confidence and courage, after her long,
hard experience with foreigners, to _say what she wished._ It is the
universal testimony of all the girls who have been rescued, so we have
been told, by those who have been engaged in this rescue work for many
years--that every slave in Chinatown plans and dreams of nothing else
but of the day when, having served long enough to buy her freedom,
she will be granted it by her master or mistress, and then she can be
honorably married. But unless her freedom is purchased for her by some
lover, the cases are rare, indeed, that a girl is allowed to earn her
own freedom, though they are kept submissive by constant promises that
the goal is just ahead of them. A few days after the Oakland papers
had triumphantly asserted that it had been demonstrated that there was
not a single slave girl in Chinatown--a statement that everyone
who had any intelligence on the subject, including the newspapers
themselves, knew to be false--a lady in mission work received a
cautious hint in a round-about way that one of the girls she had seen
when the rounds were made desired to be set at liberty. "How did you
learn this?" we eagerly and quite naturally asked the missionary.
She replied that on no account could she tell a human being how the
intelligence was conveyed to her, as it might cost others very dearly,
even to the sacrifice of life, if the knowledge leaked out. "But," she
said, "I will show you the girl and you may talk with her yourselves."
We gathered from the girl that she was a respectable widow, the mother
of two children, living with her parents not far from Hong Kong on the
mainland. As they were very poor, she went to Hong Kong to work at
sewing to help support the family. An acquaintance there told her
that she could earn as much as thirty dollars a month at sewing in
California, and he could secure her passage for her at economical
cost. She returned to her home and consulted her parents, and they
thought the chance a good one, so bidding her little ones good bye,
she returned to Hong Kong and paid for the ticket, being instructed
that a certain woman would meet her at the wharf at San Francisco whom
she must claim as her "mother," since the immigration laws were so
strict that she must pass herself off as the daughter of this woman
(for this daughter, who was now in China, having lived in the United
States was entitled to return to her mother). Reader, have you ever
traveled on another's ticket? If so, or if you have known a professing
Christian to have done so, do not be too harsh in your judgment of
this heathen, and declare she deserved the terrible fate that overtook
her. The "mother" met the sewing-woman, brought her to Oakland, and
imprisoned her in a horrible den to earn money for her. With utmost
caution our missionary friend rescued her. The Captain of Police and
other officers were at hand to help the missionary, and when the girl
was taken, she struggled frantically and called for help as though
being kidnaped. Had the policemen been there alone they would have let
the captors have their slave, believing they had made a mistake. But
they had not; the missionary knew that; the girl was only thinking
ahead of the possibility of the plot failing and of falling back into
the hands of her captors. She must never betray to them, until safely
out of their clutches, that she _wished_ to come away. She must make
it appear that she was dragged away against her will. And this is free
America! Do you wonder that these girls do not tell everybody who asks
them that they are unwilling captives? Doubtless they would if our
officers of the law showed their good faith by laying hold of these
slave dealers. Nothing was done or attempted to punish the horrible
creatures who captured this girl. They are going on unmolested
with their nefarious business, though many of them could be easily
punished. This part of the work--punishing slave-dealers--has never
been taken up seriously here on the Pacific Coast. And until these
terrible criminals are immured in prison, most certainly these Chinese
slave girls will not declare their desire for freedom, for if it were
granted them they would not be safe--at least they have no reason to
believe they would be, though there are missions where they would be
protected. But what reason have they for believing this is the case,
after the years of training they have had in the perfidy of all those
with whom they come in contact! Many girls have been rescued on this
Pacific Coast, by brave missionary workers. But it is to the lasting
shame of our country that such wicked creatures are allowed to exist
here to import these slaves. Imprison the importers, and the slaves
are rescued. That is the short road to freedom. But that was not the
path pursued by officials in general at Hong Kong, nor is that course
being pursued in the United States. This sewing woman has been
returned to her home. Many another woman has at equal peril to herself
made her complaint and it has fallen upon the deaf ears of officials,
and the poor slave has had to settle with her masters for her
fool-hardiness.
Now we will return to Hong Kong, and to past history. We will cite
just one more case to show something of the reluctance of officials
there to prosecute the traffickers in human flesh. A Chinaman, Tsang
San-Fat, petitioned the Colonial Secretary at Hong Kong in regard to
the custody of his little daughter, whom, "under stress of poverty,"
he had given away to a man named Leung A-Tsit, the October previous,
the understanding being that the latter should find her a husband when
she grew up, and should not send her away to other ports. In May the
parents learned from A-Sin, employed by Leung A-Tsit, that the latter
was going to take away the little girl to another place. After taxing
the man with this, and receiving only excuses in reply, the father
petitioned that Leung A-Tsit should be prevented from carrying out
his design. Leung A-Tsit filed a counter-petition, stating that Tsang
San-Fat, being unable to support a family, handed over to him his
little daughter, aged six years; that the little girl was to become
his daughter and to be brought up by him, he paying $23 to the
parents. He accused the father of trying to extort money from him, and
appealed for "protection" from "impending calamities." Later, further
facts came out, showing that the father of the child had borrowed $5
three years before from Leung A-Tsit, which, with interest at ten
cents per month for every dollar, now amounted to $23. The September
before, his creditor came and demanded payment, and when the father
told him he had no money, and found it very difficult to provide
for his family, Leung A-Tsit said: "Very well, you can give me your
daughter instead, and when she is grown up I will find her a husband."
It was finally agreed that he should have the little girl for $25,
viz., the $23 already owing, and $2 to the mother as "tea-money." The
$2 were paid and he took the child away. The mother said: "I was very
sorry about it and cried." (But mothers have little to say as to the
disposal of the children they bear in the Orient). The Governor, Sir
John Pope Hennessy, took a deep interest in this case, when he heard
of it, regarding it as "an illegal transaction," and urged upon the
Attorney General, Mr. G. Phillipo, to prosecute, on his behalf, the
purchaser of the girl, and that both the father of the child and
Leung A-Tsit be notified that the father was entitled to the child by
British law, and referring the father to the police magistrate.
The police magistrate requested of the Colonial Secretary that
the Attorney General's opinion be obtained, as to what course the
magistrate should pursue. The final outcome of the case is told by
Governor Hennessy in a despatch to the Secretary of State for the
Colonies.
"I made a minute on the petitions, directing them to be sent to
the Attorney General, as 'the parties appear to acknowledge being
concerned in an illegal transaction.' In a few days the papers
were returned to me with the following opinion of the Attorney
General: 'The transaction referred to would not be recognized in
our laws as giving any rights, except perhaps as to guardianship,
but I am unable to say there is anything illegal in the matter
beyond that. I do not think it a criminal offence if it goes no
further than the adoption of a child and the payment of money to
its parents for the privilege.'"
Later, when His Excellency was calling the attention of Acting
Attorney General Russell to a somewhat similar case, he states, in
reference to this above-described case:
"Mr. Phillipo, before whom the papers were laid, did not seem
disposed to enforce the rights of the father, on the ground that
he had sold the child. I did not agree with Mr. Phillipo's view of
the law."