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6. No adopted daughter shall be ill-treated. They shall be sent to school during the age of 12 to 16, and shall not be married later than 23, but may be allowed to remain single if they choose.
7. No adopted daughters shall be forced to become concubines.
8. Adequate clothing, board and lodging shall be provided for adopted daughters according to the circumstances (of their adopted parents).
9. Each District Magistrate and Mayor should, after considering the local conditions, take steps to establish Poor Girls' Homes or Female Industrial Schools.
10. After the publication of these regulations, if any person is proved by the Kai- fong or neighbours or discovered by the police to have beaten or maltreated his adopted daughter, the Magistrate, Mayor, or Officer in charge of any police station concerned, shall send the girl to a Poor Girls' Home or to a Female Industrial School to be brought up. The person who ill-treated the girl shall be fined as a warning. When anybody who has been fined for maltreating his adopted daughter is found to have maltreated her again, a greater fine or other punishment will be imposed.
11. Anybody who commits any breach of Regulations 3, 4 and 7 shall be punished according to the law, and anybody who violates Regulations 2, 5, 6 and 8 shall be fined according to the offence.
12. These regulations shall be enforced from the date of publication.
(Dated) 1st March of the 16th year of the Republic (1927).
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unconvinced of the necessity of interfering with an age-long custom. This indiffer- ence arises in all probability from the belief shared by all classes that the generality of slave girls are well treated by their mistresses.
3. An agreement for the sale or purchase of a slave girl in any form other than that of "
adoption by purchase" (Yang nu*) is void in law, and the principals are punishable under Section 257 of the Chinese Criminal Code. On the other hand, the purchase of a girl for the purpose of becoming the concubine of a particular man, as distinct from procuration for the purpose of general prostitution, would not appear to be prohibited in Chinese law, and is effected in conformity with local custom, which varies in some particulars in every province and, indeed, in every district. No agreement or bill of sale is, as a rule, drawn up, nor, if drawn up, would it be recognised as valid in law, but the assistance of the Chinese Courts can be successfully invoked for the protection of a girl whose person has been sold by her relatives against her will, and, more doubtfully, to regulate the relations of the parties or arrange for their subsequent separation.
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4. I have the honour to attach copy of the Chinese and English text of Articles 257 (1) and 313 (1) of the Chinese Criminal Code, to which I have made reference in this despatch.
I have, etc.,
W. RUSSELL BROWN,
Consul.
SIE,
Enclosure 2 in No. 20.
British Consulate,
Amoy. 1st May, 1929.
I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter, T/S:AMP, No. 1961/1910, of the 24th April, enclosing a copy of extracts from an article entitled The Mui- tsai Question," published in the issue of the 20th April of a Canton newspaper entitled The China Truth, and enquiring whether regulations prohibiting the mui-tsai system had been promulgated by the Chinese authorities in this district; and if so, what practical effect, if any, such regulations have had on the employment and treatment of mui-tsai.
2. The judge of the Chinese District Court of Amoy, whose advice I have sought in this matter, informs me that no new regulations have been promulgated by the Fukien authorities prohibiting pei nu (*), the equivalent in this and other provinces of China of mui-taai (*), a term which appears to be confined to the province of Kuangtung.
3. In theory, the pei nu (maid-servant or slave girl) system has no existence in China, where slavery, expressly forbidden in the latter years of the Manchu dynasty, is now a punishable offence under Article 313 of the Criminal Code of the Chinese Republic; but, in actual fact, it is in force from one end of the country to the other. Girls are everywhere openly bought and sold for maid-servants or slaves, the euphemism Yang nu (*) " adopted girl" usurping the place of pei nu (*) so offensive to the ear of the law, and their use as domestic slaves in the families of well-to-do Chinese is too common to call for comment, except on the rare occasions when inhuman treatment occasioning the death or injury of some unfortunate girl is brought to light. One such case of revolting cruelty, to which prominence was recently given in the local Chinese Press, has induced a few social reformers to start 'Society for the Liberation of Slave Girls" in Amoy, but the support given to the Society is of a perfunctory and apathetic nature, public opinion being as yet
&
* Chinese characters appear here.
Extracts from the Criminal Code of the Republic of China. (Promulgated on 10th March, 1928, by the Nationalist Government.)
CHAPTER XVL
Offences against the Institutions of Marriages and the Family. Article 257 (1):
Whoever with or without his or her consent-takes away any person, who has not completed the twentieth year of his or her age, from the person having parental authority or from his or her guardian or curator, shall be punished with imprisonment for not less than six months and not more than five years.*
Article 313 (1) :-
CHAPTER XXV.
Offences against Personal Liberty.
Whoever brings another into a state of slavery shall be punished with imprison- ment for not less than one year and not more than seven years.*
Enclosure 3 in No. 20. Translation.
Answer to your questions :-
(1) Question-Have the magistrates of various Districts taken any definite steps to make enquiries about mui-tsai and get them registered?
Answer The Regulations for the Emancipation of Mui-tsai were amended in the 16th year of the Republic (1927), but few Districts have enforced them, since the Districts are generally vast in area, and poorly policed, and door-to- door enquiries are impossible. In the city of Canton, the Police have warned the people from door to door 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 in each Police Section of the city, not more than 10 cases have been reported, and the regulations are only a matter of form.
* Chinese Characters appear here.
if not printed
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