It has been shewn that the supervision of brothels, the instructing the registered women as to their rights, and the system of photographing registered prostitutes and women and children who intend to emigrate, have done much good and that there has been an enormous reduction in the kidnapping cases and selling women for prostitution since the introduction of those measures, convictions being 29 persons in 1882 as against 68 in a former year, and only 4 up to the present date.
7. It has been shewn that there are fatal objections to the registration of children purchased for adoption or domestic service, and it is suggested that the Registrar General and a Chinese Committee should investigate cases of a suspicious nature with power to call upon "pocket-mothers" to give security for their bona fides towards "pocket-daughters"; also that the Registrar General should be able to apply to a Judge in Chambers for a writ of Habeas Corpus with the view of taking away from improper custodians a purchased child. It is also suggested that stone tablets stating the law of freedom on English soil should be erected in places of public resort.
It will be perceived that any infringements, by contract or sale, of the personal liberty secured by English jurisprudence and custom, however in harmony with Chinese jurisprudence and custom such infringements may be, are null and void in the eye of the law in the English Colony of Hongkong, while attempts to enforce such contracts or sales would be liable to severe and deterrent punishment by the English Courts. The persistent efforts of the Colonial Government and Legislature during a series of years to protect the personal liberty of every sex and class of the Chinese denizens of this island, cannot be regarded as otherwise than praiseworthy, and, to a large extent, successful. From my personal knowledge I can bear witness that the Executive Government, and the Judicial