PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 882
6
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH——NOT TO
30
The evil effects of the increase of "sly" brothels in this Island is everywhere pain- fully apparent, especially so to parents, guardians, and employers of female labour. These sly" brothels are scattered all over the Colony, more especially in the Central District, and right in the midst of family residences of the Chinese. The respectable Chinese, as was predicted by us, did not like to avail, and have not in a single instance availed, themselves of the provision of law that enables the householders in the neigh- bourhood to lay a complaint before a Magistrate; and have any disorderly house in the vicinity closed, and some of them have actually preferred removing their families to Canton or elsewhere to instituting a prosecution under this provision of law.
We are confident that the Government will not permit such a state of things to continue for long, and in this belief we venture to offer a few suggestions for con- sideration.
We are aware that under the Ordinance for the Protection of Women and Girls, the Registrar-General is invested with special powers for checking the traffic in women and girls, and without such powers it is certain that the evils now complained of would be much worse than they actually are, but the large increase in the number of brothels renders the exercise of the powers under the Women and Girls' Protection Ordinance all the more difficult, especially as there is no authority under that Ordinance to deal with the houses in which girls are found. We therefore recommend that the Registrar- General, in addition to the powers he already possesses, should be authorised to close any house or part of a house which he is satisfied is being used for immoral purposes. As we have stated above, experience has shown that the Chinese will not appear in the Police Court to lay a complaint against disorderly houses, but we do not think they would hesitate to complain if the Registrar-General had the power to institute an inquiry, either on information received through the police or members of the community, and to close such houses as are being used for improper purposes, and are situated in undesirable localities. In addition to increasing the powers of the Registrar General in the direction indicated, we submit that all brothels or houses of ill-fame, whether "open" or "sly," should be located in and confined to a particular district, say Taipingshan, and not be allowed to be placed close to and in the midst of the family residences of respectable Chinese.
We sincerely hope that stringent measures be passed to deal with this crying evil before it is too late, and on behalf of the Chinese community of Hong Kong, we would urge the Government to give the subject its earnest and early consideration.
1st June, 1897.
19326.
SIR,
HONG KONG.
No. 17.
CHINA ASSOCIATION to COLONIAL OFFICE.
(Received September 3, 1897.)
HO KAI,
WEI YUK.
China Association, 159, Cannon Street, August 30, 1897. In pursuance of my letter of the 31st May, I have the honour, now, to submit for your consideration letters from the Hongkong branch of this Association, represent- ing the urgent necessity of reviving regulations for the control of contagious disease.
The Reports and Statistics which the Hongkong Committee adduce in support of their case exhibit in striking contrast the persistent improvement in the sanitary con- ditions which followed the enactment of such Regulations in 1858, and the immediate revulsion and deterioration which ensued upon their recission. Previous to 1858
• No. 14.
31
Hongkong was proverbial for an aggravated form of venereal disease. The enactment of what are known as the Contagious Diseases Ordinances in that year produced a steady decrease in the number of cases and virulence of the disease till the position was reversed, and the Colony became noted throughout the Services as one of the healthiest, in this respect, in the Empire.
The repeal of similar legislation in India was followed by repeal, in 1887, in oppo- sition to strongly expressed official and public opinion, in the Straits Settlements and Hongkong with the result that the ratio of admissions, which had sunk to 156 per 1,000 in 1886, rose to 359 in 1896, and actually half the garrison (499.29 per 1,000) were admitted to hospital in the first four months of the current year. It is, perhaps, even more significant of the deplorable consequences which the repeal of the Acts has entailed, that the cases of secondary syphilis, which had sunk to 38 per 1,000 in 1886, reached 106 per 1,000 in 1896, and figure at 101 per 1,000 in the first quarter of '97. The ration of admissions to hospital, the ratio of constantly sick, and the virulence of type have, in fact, gone on augmenting till the conditions are now scarcely less evil than in the days when the Colony was a by-word.
Stress has been laid on the health of the garrison because the effects are more directly evident, and statistics more precise, in the case of men who are continuously ashore; but the testimony of Naval Reports is no less convincing. The evidence of Dr. Pottinger who remembers the prevalence and virulence of the disease in 1851, but finds syphilis had all but disappeared from the Colony in 1870-and the Report on the Health of the Navy for 1891-which emphasises the renewed prevalence and bad type and the "amount of injury done more especially by syphilis since the Contagious Diseases Acts were abolished
and which, if something be not done to mini- mise the evil, will seriously impair the efficiency of the service, and do incalculable injury to innocent wives and children "-may be quoted as summing up the case.
* ** **
It is hardly necessary to remark that the mercantile marine and the civil population suffer also from the state of things disclosed. Such cases cannot be tabulated, nor their history followed, with the same precision as in the case of the Services; but their occurrence and the severity of the consequences are familiar to medical men connected with the East.
The Chinese, both in Hongkong and the Straits, unquestionably regarded the Acts with favour, and deplore the extension of sly brothels and the lessened control over kid- napping of women and girls that has resulted from their withdrawal. The inmates of the Registered Houses used, it is understood, to submit willingly to examinations which they found to be protective in every sense. For a time, indeed, they continued to attend voluntarily, after compulsion had ceased; but the support of the law was necessary to sustain them against influences adverse to the continuance of their visits, and the con- tinuance and extension of disease, through the want of timely and efficient medical assistance, has gone on with appalling results.
This Association would be travelling outside its province in alluding more pre- cisely to the Straits Settlements; but the cases of the two Colonies are so similar, and communication between the two is so intimate and frequent, that the representations of Hongkong cannot but be strengthened by showing that similar harm has been caused in both.
Table shorring the Statistics of Venereal Disease among the troops in Hongkong and the Straits Settlements combined in 1884, during the prevalence of the C. D. Ordinances."
Admissions
1884.
Ratio of Admissions per 1,000 of strength. Constantly sick per 1,000 of strength
Primary Secondary Syphilis Syphilis
Gonorrhea.
Sequels of Gonorrhoea.
Total.
62
46
154
26
288
312.
:
23.2
77-3
13.1
143
2-02
1-68
5-15
1:04
10-79
* See Army Medical Department Report for 1884, p. 188.