Fondlosure
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annexed cutting. These kidnappers are almost invariably armed
brigands, and I submit that to refrain from inflicting a
deterrent penalty of flogging for offences such as these
(which are punished in China by decapitation) is a form of
spurious sentimentality which it is difficult for a rational
people like the Chinese to appreciate. The class of cases
referred to in (b) and (c) are practically or generally
identical and the length of this Despatch forbids my dealing
with them separately in detail. As a case in illustration I
have before me a paper dated last March reporting the case
of three children "one aged 8, one who looked like 11 but
declared she was 17 and one who said she was 14, probably
-
12 by English reckoning". The last (Tai Choi) stated that she
had been sold four times, and was at present possessed by a
woman in Hongkong who beat her and forced her to become a
prostitute by taking her on board vessels in harbour for
that purpose. The other two were found in the house of this
woman, one of them having been bought last year. I may ob-
-serve that in Northern Nigeria a country where slavery
had been indigenous for centuries and was sanctioned by the
law of Islam and a part of the social system I was able
within