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17. The questions arising out of the condition of adopted children, or of child- ren employed in the domestic service, are more perplexing. It may be that these children also are adequately protected by the law as it stands. If a mistress beats her servant girl, or a man ill-treats his adopted son, the law is doubtless strong enough to punish his offence; and any charge of kidnapping would equally be dealt with by the Courts. The so-called sales are nullities; they do not either give the supposed purchaser any rights over the liberty of the child, or deprive the parent of his right to the custody, if he chooses to reclaim the child by the proper legal process; or deprive the children of the right to appeal to the law for protection against ill-treatment, in whatever form such ill-treatment may be found; and it is, I apprehend, open to anyone who can establish a prima facie case to show that a child is improperly detained, to sue out a Writ of Habeas Corpus requiring the child to be brought before a proper Court.
18. Still I cannot avoid the conviction that the position of the children now under consideration is one of peril which may require safeguards. It would be possible to provide that entering into any agreement, written or oral, by which the right of possession of a child purported to pass for a valuable consideration, should be a misdemeanour; but this would probably brand and punish as offences many transactions, advantageous to the child, both immediately and in after-life, and it would not reach such transactions when effected, as appears frequently to be the case, in the Empire of China, the child being subsequently brought into the Colony. Another course would be to make all such transactions misdemeanours unless they confirmed to certain specified conditions prescribed so as to secure, as far as pos- sible, that they should be for the welfare of the child. A third course would be to require all children taken into adoption to be registered, and thereafter subject to visitation, such as is voluntarily undertaken in the case of what has been called the gutter-children" of this city, who have been conveyed by charitable agencies to the dominion of Canada and there apprenticed.
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19. But "I am checked in the consideration of these and other propositions by my uncertainty as to the facts of the system of child adoption and domestic service as it prevails in Hongkong, which are represented with the greatest diversity by those who approve and disapprove of the system." I desire, therefore, that you will institute a full and trustworthy inquiry into the facts, forwarding to me as soon as it can be completed a report thereon; and I request that in connexion with such report the question may be considered whether any, and if so what, measures should be taken to remove any of the evils that may be brought to light by the in- quiry.
20. I have to add that the draft of this Despatch was submitted to the law officers of the Crown, who have informed me that the statement of the law on the subject as contained in it is correct.
Sir J. POPE HENNESSY.
I have, &c., (Signed) KIMBERLEY.
Appendix No. 12.
Extracts from Correspondence respecting Child Adoption and Domestic Service among Chinese (Including Mr. Russell's Report).
Presented to the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, on the 7th January, 1887.
1814
(C.S.O. 1883)
(2)
Report on Child Adoption and Domestic Service Among Hongkong Chinese.
HONGKONG, 18th July, 1886.
In the correspondence respecting the alleged "Existence of Chinese Slavery in Hongkong," presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command of Her Majesty,