I concluded my arguments by an epitome of most of the propositions I desired to affirm which are comprised in eight propositions. To these I refer as the substance of most of my very long observations.
What I said appears in the China Mail, and Daily Press, but I think the latter on the whole is more exact.
The matters discussed are important. I have expressed my views on them with the earnestness they excited in my mind.
I should be going beyond my proper province to say more than that I am at the service of His Excellency the Governor as to the serious questions which may arise.
The Honourable W. H. MARSH,
Colonial Secretary,
&c.,
&c.
I have, &c.,
(Signed,)
JOHN SMALE, Chief Justice.
MINUTE BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR.
To the Acting Attorney-General, for his observations.
No. 1217.
J. POPE HENNESSY. 9th October, 1879.
MINUTE BY THE ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL.
Read.
J. R.
THE COLONIAL SECRETARY TO CHIEF JUSTICE.
COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
HONGKONG, 9th October, 1879.
SIR,--I am directed by His Excellency the Governor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Honour's letter of the 8th instant, calling His Excellency's attention to the observations Your Honour made in sentencing certain prisoners convicted of kidnapping and detaining children for sale at the recent Sessions, and I am to convey to Your Honour His Excellency's best thanks for placing your great experience and knowledge at the Governor's service in this matter.
I have, &c.,
(Signed,)
W. H. MARSH,
Colonial Secretary.
The Honourable Sir JOHN SMALE,
Chief Justice, &c.,
&c.
I cannot understand why such classes should as classes increase in this Colony at all, unless it be that (in addition to the Chinese demand for domestic servants and brothels) there be an increased foreign element increasing the demand.
I fear that a high premium is obtained by persons who kidnap girls in the high prices which they realize on sale to foreigners as kept women.
No one can walk through some of the bye-streets in this Colony without seeing well-dressed native girls in great numbers whose occupations are self-proclaimed, or pass those streets, or go into the schools in this Colony, without counting beautiful children by the hundred whose Eurasian origin is self-declared. If the Government would enquire into the present condition of these classes, and, still more, into what has become of these women and their children of the past, I believe that it will be found that in the great majority of cases the women have sunk into misery, and that of the children the girls that have survived have been sold to the profession of their mothers, and that if boys they have been lost sight of or have sunk into the condition of the mean whites of the late slave-holding States of America.
The more I penetrate below the polished surface of our civilization, the more convinced am I that the broad undercurrent of life here is more like that in the Southern States of America when slavery was dominant, than it resembles the all-pervading civilization of England.
Nothing less powerful than a commission with legislative powers to investigate and to examine on oath will ever lay bare the evil which, from suggestions I have received, I believe to underlie our seemly fair surface.
My suggestion that the mild intervention of the Law should be invoked was ignored. It was also met by the assertion that custom has so sanctioned the evils in this Colony as that they are above the reach of Law, and that by custom the slavery was mild.
I have been driven to denounce the whole evil from the Bench in a way I do not now regret. Having been driven to speak out, I now suggest to His Excellency the Governor an important addition, not convenient to be particularly alluded to from the Bench, to the matters which I have already declared require, as I think, investigation.
I must leave it to the Government to decide whether there shall or shall not be investigation, and whether the status in quo of public morals in this Colony in these particulars shall be allowed to continue as one of the many evils which neither law nor legislation can cope with.
That is a question which fortunately is not within the province of the Judge, it is for the Statesman only to decide.
In the meantime, and apart from that large important question, I would suggest that it would be desirable that the police should be instructed to bring every person known to hold a purchased (so-called) servant before the Magistrate to be dealt with mildly; and, moreover, that all placards in Chinese should be interpreted to the head department in the police. Such placards advertising rewards for runaway purchased slaves as were produced in Court would then cease, and other announcements would then be suppressed if they should prove to be, as I incline to think, obnoxious.
I am not so blind to consequences as not to see that an attempt to interfere with the present system will entail public outlay to provide temporarily for the victims of that system till better positions can be secured for them; but if prisons up to the wants of a community are provided of necessity, it would be of equal duty to provide for putting down a system that by debasing all moral tone tends to crime.
THE SUPREME COURT, HONGKONG, 20th October, 1879.
SIR, I return herewith C. S. O. No. 2666, being Letter from the Captain Superintendent of Police to the Colonial Secretary recommending rewards of $10 to Inspector SWANSTON and Police Constable CAMPBELL, respectively, on the arrest and conviction of certain kidnappers which His Excellency the Governor has been pleased to refer to me.
Although I do not know whether these two Police Officers come within the precise conditions of the proclamation, I think it desirable to sustain recommendations by the Head of the Police. The conduct of the Police officers was good, and the reward is small, I therefore concur in the recommendation.
I should be obliged by a copy of the Proclamation for reference.
I avail myself of the opportunity on recurring to this subject of informing His Excellency the Governor directly that I daily feel more reason to believe that the practice of kidnapping for purposes other than the coolie traffic has of late been alarmingly on the increase in this Colony. His Excellency will have noted the cases already tried in the Police and Supreme Courts. I may now add that the present sessions for October furnish two cases of the kind for trial before me and incline me to think that "Brokers of mankind," as a girl eleven years of age designates them, form among the various classes of brokers in this Colony a well-known special class, though, like Gaming House Keepers, the Law ignores them. I believe that mothers have even kept their daughters from going to school for fear of their being kidnapped.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
JOHN SMALE,
Chief Justice.
MINUTE BY DR. EITEL.
Having been directed to report on those points to which His Lordship the Chief Justice refers as inconvenient to mention on the Bench, I have the honour to forward herewith replies to the following questions which, I think, are raised by the Chief Justice's remarks:--
1. Do the high prices realized by sales of Chinese girls to foreigners, whose kept women they become, contribute to raise that demand which is supplied by kidnapping?
The demand which is supplied by kidnapping, or by the kindred trick of inducing women through false representations to leave their homes, originates in the first instance in the high prices paid for prostitutes or concubines in places where Chinese women are rare, i.e., in Singapore and the Straits Settlements...
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