Office, wherein the late Governor points out that "the existing laws against slavery" if properly enforced by the police would be sufficient to ensure the real freedom of the Chinese Women referred to.
On the evidence of the despatches of Sir J. Pope Hennessey to Lord Kimberley, taken before the Hong Kong Commission of Inquiry into the working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinances, and in the letters and papers by European Officials printed in the appendix to this report, your Lordship will find a mass of evidence in support of the late Governor's assertions that the Ordinances have "intensified brothel slavery"; and that the Ordinance of 1867, by giving larger powers to the Registrar General, and thereby indirectly to Inspectors with whom the practical working of the Ordinance lies, made the condition of "the unfortunate women sold to licensed brothels" worse than it was before.
The Commissioners say "It seems to us that everything which strikes foreigners as objectionable in the Chinese brothel system flourishes practically unchecked within the regulated institutions". Mr. Pang Ui-Shang, native medical man, one of the witnesses before the Commission, said: "The fact of licensing these brothels gives the keepers a sort of official authority. The keepers are haughty sort of people, and they boast of the protection of the Inspectors. Girls newly arrived would be afraid of the mistress on account of the threat which the mistress would use of bringing in the Inspector. Foreign brothels are, in my opinion, recruited by compulsion..... I never heard of a girl voluntarily entering a foreign brothel. I am afraid there are instances where brothel keepers have used the authority of their position to compel women to remain in the brothels." This is confirmed by the licensed brothel keepers themselves. One of them, Yip-Men-Chuur, said: "The women are more manageable under the present licensing system." Another, Lou-Ilwai-Tsoi, said: "I find the Inspector a good friend. He treats us very well." And another, Li-A-Chuk, described how the "always friendly" Inspector helped her to obtain "new girls." The evidence bearing upon this point of Mr. May, first police magistrate, and Mr. Beddell-Le-Yuen, Interpreter at the Police Court, is to the same effect. And the Commissioners sum up their conclusions on this part of the subject: "It seems that although the Brothel Ordinances did not call into being this 'horrible', 'cruel', and 'haughty' race of women, they have armed them with obvious power which they would not otherwise have possessed, and there is consequently reason to apprehend that Government supervision...
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