6.
slaves, the euphemism 'adopted daughter' usurping the place of 'slave girl'". He also says that a few social reformers started a "Society for the Liberation of Slave Girls" in Amoy, but that the support given to the society was of a perfunct- ory and apathetic nature, public opinion being as yet unconvinced of the necessity of interfering with an age-long
custom. "This indifference", he writes, "arises in all "probability from a belief shared by all classes that the
"generality of slave girls are well treated by their
"mistresses".
7.
In addition to making enquiry from official
sources, I have also caused investigations to be made through
closure No. 3. private Chinese channels, and I attach a translation of a
letter received by Mr. Lo Kam-chak, a much trusted clerk in
the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, fran a Chinese friend
of his in Canton. It is to the effect that in the city of
Canton the police have warned the people from time to time,
in compliance with the regulations, to report in case they have any mui-tsai, and to submit for examination the deeds
they have in respect of them; but that in each police station
of the city not more than ten cases have been reported, and
that the regulations are only a matter of form; that purchases of mui-tsai still continue, despite the prohibition;
that some masters do send their mui-tsai to school but only
in the hope that they may be sold to rich families as
concubines for an enhanced price, but that he knows of no case of a mui-tsai being sent to school as a result of any dispute reported to a police station; that the insufficiency of schools in Kwangtung is notorious, and that the Canton
Goverment cannot afford to establish schools for the
accommodation of mui-tsai. He then writes,
"The abolition of mui-tsai is a good idea in the
interests