)
(0)
614
that this mui tsai was so diminutive that she did not reach the edge of the witness-box. The flogging to which she had been subjected was described by the Doctor in evidence as "severe", injuries having been inflicted not only on the body,
but on the face and head. In spite of this evidence neither fine nor imprisonment was imposed upon the mistress-owner, and the only disability she suffered was through the Magistrate ordering the child which she had presumably
purchased to be restored to her other.
$ Our attention is now drawn to a case in certain
respects worse than any previous one. This case is set
forth in the China Overland Trade Report of June 24th, 1921,
and concerns a little girl apparently kidnapped and re-sold
in Canton and Macao, and we beg leave to draw particular
attention to the following passages in the record of the case.
The, woman defendant said the girl was willing
19
to be sold as a slave."
The Magistrate: "What has that got to do with it? "It (the mui tsai) is not your girl to be sold;
19 this gentleman's girl." (The owner-prosecutor).
11
it is
"The women also said that the mui taai asked to be taken away as she feared her master intended to sell "her as a prostitute."
-
6 Our Committee is not so much concerned with the
details of this sordid case as with the facts apparently
accepted by all parties, namely, that the right reposed in
one party to sell the girl, and with the alleged
doubtless disputed-intention to sell this "plump and well-
grown child" for immoral purposes.
-
but
7 In the opinion of our Committee, these and similar facts which have been brought to the notice of His Majesty's
Government, whereby the sale and purchase of human beings is
established beyond all question, constitute, in all essentials,
slaveeowning and slave-trading. To call the system by
another name, and to substitute the term "price of adoption"