153
5363-47
"C
66
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 married later than 23, but might be allowed to remain single if they chose; that no adopted daughters" should be forced to become concubines; that adequate clothing, board and lodging should be provided for "adopted daughters "according to the circumstances (of their adopted parents"): that if any person should be discovered by the police to have beaten or maltreated an adopted daughter." the girl should be sent to a poor girls' home or an industrial school to be brought up, and that the person who ill- treated the girl should be fined as a warning; that when anybody, who had been fined for maltreating his "adopted daughter," was then found to have maltreated her again, a greater fine or other punishment would be imposed.
An informant
of
4. It is of course very important to know how far these fair- seeming regulations have been carried into practive, and I have made such enquiries as were possible on the subject. Mr. A. A. L. Tuson, the acting Consul-General at Canton, wrote to me on the 29th April that he had no reliable information as to the extent to which the regulations had been enforced. Mr. A. G. Major, His Majesty's Consul at Swatow, wrote to me on the same date as follows:-
•
Whilst regulations prohibiting the mui-tsai system were promulgated locally over two years ago and are still nominally enforced, actually the practice still flourishes, though under a different name, adopted daughter." At the time of the intro- duction of the prohibition all indentures were called in, and those that were surrendered were cancelled and destroyed, though no steps were taken, for obvious reasons, in the direction of liberating the vast numbers of girls concerned. I understand, however, that the application of the regulations has brought about some improvement in the treatment of mui-tsai orders for the release of whom to a philanthropic institution are made from time to time when charges of ill-treatment are brought and substantiated in the Chinese Court."
5. I also made enquiry from His Majesty's Consuls at Foochow and Amoy in the neighbouring province of Fukien. Mr. G. S. Moss, His Majesty's Consul at Foochow, wrote to me on the 2nd May that the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs at Foochow told him that there was no special legislation in Fukien province, dealing with the mui- tsai question. He added that the system was much less prevalent in Fukien than in Kwangtung and did not attract marked public attention. The Reverend W. P. W. Williams, of Trinity College, Foochow, wrote to Mr. Moss as follows :—
All I know is that the practice is contrary to law and, when found out. is severely punished. It is reported by the Chinese that the practice is still prevalent under various names. Questioned, the people generally claim the child as a daughter. As far as I can find out, the law on the question is a matter of paper."
The Chinese writer at the Foochow Consulate told Mr. Moss that some years ago societies for the suppression of the mui-tsai system were formed in Amoy and Foochow, the Amoy society being far the more active. He had heard nothing whatever of the Foochow society for at least three years and thought that it was no longer in active existence.
A
6. Mr. W. Russell-Brown, His Majesty's Consul at Amoy, has sent me an interesting letter on this subject, of which I enclose a copy. He says that in theory the slave girl system has no existence in China, but in actual fact it is in force from one end of the country to the other. Girls are everywhere bought and sold for maid servants or slaves; the euphemism "adopted daugther " 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 perfunctory 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.”
>"
""
typi
C