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haled to court to answer a charge of cruelty to a child is
one which all dread.
4. No prosecutions have been brought under Sections
4 and 5 of the Ordinance, and no information is available as
to the number of muitsai who may have been taken into employment in the Colony since the Ordinance was passed, though Chinese opinion in general considers that the number of muitsai employed has tended to decrease especially in upper class households. It would in practice be all but impossible to prove in any particular case that the payment of money which alone differentiates a muitsai from any other
domestic servant had in fact been made.
5. On the general question it might be possible to meet criticism by maintaining as is done in China to-day
that as such payments confer no right to the services of
the muitsai; the distinction between muitsai and domestic
servants or between muitsai and adopted daughters has in
fact ceased to exist and that there are now no muitsai in
South China. It would in short be a simple matter to abolish muitsai by abolishing the name, and by substituting
the title 'adopted daughter' to direct public attention to
another and less invidious aspect of the systan. It would,
however, serve no useful purpose to deny that there are still
muitsai in Hong Kong as well as in China. This has been
made inevitable by the history of the past five years which
have witnessed a state of disorder and distress in Kuang tung
and elsewhere unsurpassed since the Taiping Rebellion.
Those who have had experience of famine relief work will
realise that it is seldom the desire for money which induces
parents in China to part with their children and that the
alternative