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PUBLIC RECORD

OFFICE

Reference :-

TELEC.O. 882

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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the community. The Chinese women's voices do not reach beyond the walls of the houses where they are held in bondage by those who regard them as part of the furniture. The nature of their calling shuts them off from the sympathies of the more respectable members of the Chinese community, who are too busy with their own affairs to concern themselves with a matter of this kind. Besides, the Chinese are always exclusive, and, though they know the evils of the brothel system, they know also that they can only be redressed by Government interference and control. The Muhammadan population, despising the Chinese, and holding themselves aloof from all contact with them, except in business matters, is ignorant of the condition of these women, and the ruling class as the Sultan of Perak remarked to me the other day-resents the action they have been obliged to take under our advice, and washes its hands of the result. The handful of Europeans is not large enough to form anything like a real public opinion, and this subject is not within their knowledge. The Government officers who know and would speak plainly have been told to be silent, and the responsibility for again raising the question rests only with me. If Your Honour will bear in mind that the matters dealt with in Mr. Hare's report concern two thousand Chinese women and girls, who live under our supposed protection, I do not think I need make, any excuse for advocating the re-introduction of measures that will enable us to discharge some of the duties that

very strongly feel we have too long neglected.

I have, &c.,

His Honour

The Acting High Commissioner,

Federated Malay States.

1

F. A. SWETTENHAM,

Resident-General, F.M.S.

EXTRACT from the ANNUAL REPORT of the Acting Protector of Chinese, Perak, For the year 1894.

PROTECTION Of Women and GIRLS.

5. In Perak, as throughout the British Colonies in the East, the registration of brothels and prostitutes has, at the instance of the Secretary of State, been abolished. My own opinion-one which I share with every one who has any knowledge of the darker sides of Chinese life—is that this step is a lamentable mistake.

6. The case for the old Regulations stands thus:-

(a) Chinese prostitutes are in constant and urgent need of protection against the mothers, "pocket-mothers," and brothel keepers who live upon their earnings.

This is not. the place in which to enter into the somewhat unsavoury details necessary to prove this proposition, but a perusal of Mr. Pickering's Annual Reports of the Straits Protectorate or of a book like Schegel's "De Prostitutie en China," will, I think, suffice to impress the truth of it upon all to whom it is not a mere axiom of official experience.

(b) This protection can only be afforded by some system which ensures that every woman shall be brought into personal contact with the officers appointed to protect her. The idea that a prostitute fresh from China will herself take the necessary steps to secure her own welfare is, with all respect, absurd. She is Chinese, which implies that she is to the last degree distrustful, through ignorance of officials; she is a Chinese woman, which means the same thing in an enhanced degree; and she is in a brothel, i.e., in a place from which, throughout her native country, the only means of escape are purchase by a wealthy lover, forcible abduction, disease, or death,

(c) Neither among natives nor among Europeans were the Regulations in any way regarded as either a Stafe recognition, or a State regulation, of vice.

These regulations were solely designed for and solely directed at the protection of the liberty and well being of the women, and the fact that this was the case was recog- nised by all.

7. Under instructions from the Resident, I drafted an Order repealing the old Regulations, and enacting all that can now be allowed. This order, which is practically the Straits 14 of 1888, is now in force as Order in Council No. 1 of 1895. The differ- ence between the new law and the old is that whereas the latter took the protection of British law to the women, the former merely offers it to them if they can succeed in

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claiming it. It is a strange anomaly that the constant inspection which has been found the only true means of protection for coolies on estates should be now denied to helpless women in brothels.

8. I append returns of work done under the old Law, from which it will be seen that at the end of 1894, 1,038 Chinese prostitutes were registered in 92 brothels. The number of women who left brothels, on bond for their protection, to follow men was 43.

MINUTE by Dr. Haviland.

In connection with the question of the spread of syphilis, I am very strongly of opinion that every thing that is possible should be done to prevent it, and especially so in tropical climates, where the disease seems to take on a more virulent type than in temperate climates, and where intercourse between the sexes is far more promiscuous, and the tone of morality far lower.

2. But the dangers of contracting syphilis are not confined to those who run the risk through sexual intercourse, for it has been proved by the best authorities on the disease that there are many other ways of contracting syphilis, besides that just mentioned.

3. I would quote from Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson's work on syphilis, a book well known to all medical men: "We meet, however, in practice with numerous cases in which the contagion takes place upon parts distant from the genitals: on the fingers, as so often seen in the case of medical men and midwives; on the lips from kissing, or from the use of dirty pipes or drinking vessels; in the sores produced by vaccination; and, in fact, upon any part of the surface which has been by accident inoculated." Syphilitic infants have been known to inoculate their nurses, and, on the other hand, nurses have given the disease to children,

4. In the hospital at Taiping, where we have room for it, a special ward is set aside for those affected with syphilis. This is done as much to prevent contagion as for convenience in treatment. But there are very few Chinese, or Tamils either, who come to hospital for treatment, who deny having had venereal disease in one form or another.

HENRY A. HAVILAND,

Acting District Surgeon, Larut.

Taiping, August 1, 1895.

MEMORANDUM by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs.

Brothel Slavery amongst the Chinese, and the impossibility of abolishing or limiting Prostitution in the Chinese Community in the Federated Malay States owing to the permanent disproportion of the sexes.

1. Brothel slavery is a recognised institution in China. Prostitution there is created by the poverty of the people, and most of the women themselves become pros- titutes, in order to live or to find a livelihood for others. Public prostitution is forbidden by the Chinese Penal Code, but is universally recognised by Chinese custom. Under the common law, a prostitute is the property of her master or mistress unconditionally and beyond redemption. Her only release from her enforced detention is purchase by a wealthy lover, forcible abduction by robbers, disease or death.

2. These helpless women are owned by brothel keepers, male and female pro- curesses, and pocket mothers of the vilest character that come from the lowest ranks of Chinese society. They treat the prostitutes like chattels as long as they are in their hands, and pass them, on note of hand, in return for or as security for loans, from one brothel keeper to another, just like a trader bartering his goods.

3. The miserable girls never receive a cent of their professional earnings, unless they are successful in hiding any little present they get from admirers; clothes and food are given them by their owners. Prostitutes are nearly always forced to prostitute at all times and in all seasons, sick or strong. If they break down, they are turned adrift^\\ in the streets. The Chinese statute laws protects the women in theory, but in practice her owner invariably has her official protector in her pay; one of the chief sources of income of the underlings in all mandarin_magistrate offices in China is the squeezes levied on the owners of these prostitutes. In return for this, the owners of these women are allowed to deal with their property as they please.

1817

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