69
Enclosure No. 1.
3.
(f) If the master or mistress of a mui-tsai ill-treated
her, they were liable to be prosecuted by the parents of the
mui-tsei in a Court of Justice in China, for, although the
parents had sold their daughter, they were not deprived of
this right by law. Should the master or mistress fail to
produce the mui-tsai in court at the trial, a charge of man-
slaughter or murder might be instituted against them. A mere
allegation of this kind in a Chinese court would be sufficient
to bring terrible consequences upon the master or mistress in
question.
From the result of enquiries I have made I an
satisfied that these obligations were carried out in the great majority of cases and some of my advisers maintain that there were not as many as ten per cent. of failures.
3.
I have obtained both from the Anti Mui-tsai
Society in Hong Kong and also from His Majesty's Consulate- General at Canton the text of the Regulations for the Emancipation of Slaves and Hui-tsai, published by the Chinese authorities on the 1st March, 1927. The texts obtained fran these two sources have been collated and found to be
identical, and I enclose a translation of the twelve
regulations in question. You will observe that it was ordered that from the date of the publication of these regulations no girls should be bought, sold or pledged as qui-tsai, and that all agreements for such purposes should be null and void; that all existing mui-tsai should "no longer be called 'mui-tsai' but should be called 'adopted daughters'"; that all agreements or presentation deeds in respect of their purchase and sale should be sent to the nearest police station for cancellation and registration in a register specially provided for the purpose; that no "adopted daughters" should be ill-treated; that they should be sent to school during the age of 12 to 16, and should not
be