CO882-6 — Page 49

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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Reference :-

C.O. 882

6 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO |

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The women and girls now pass, after the examination, into the brothels in the Colony and Federated Malay States, and become helpless slaves. In some cases they never see the Protector again. I need not say that they are not allowed to leave the brothel except under the supervision and escort of brothel bullies, much less allowed. to come to the Protectorate and complain of being kidnapped or of ill-treatment.

In eight cases out of ten these miserable victims find out for the first time, after they are once in these houses of ill-fame and bondage, that they have been brought here under false pretences. Up till this time the kidnapper has been bound to treat her well in order to get her to leave China. It is when she is imprisoned in the brothel that real cruelty (beating with a rattan, confinement, squeezing the fingers in boards, and other refined tortures) is first used against her to force her to receive visitors and earn money for her master or mistress.

18. It is clear, therefore, that this is the time when these women and girls most require protection. At present they cannot get it, the law tells them to come to the Protector. This they obviously cannot do. Registration sent the Protector (who knew the circumstances of their lives and the dangers they are exposed to) to them, and enabled him to save them from their slave holders. Till the protective registration system is re-introduced this brothel slavery must continue.

An enlightened Government that knowingly sanctions the continuance of all the abuses, evils, and horrors of Chinese brothel slavery lays itself open to the gravest charges of inhumanity and neglect towards these unfortunate women.

19. With reference to the question of enforced medical examination of Chinese prostitutes, I do not, personally, wish to see the provisions of the Contagious Diseases Act introduced in these States. It would undoubtedly reduce the number of public

women.

Chinese women loathe the system, and, whenever they can, avoid emigrating to countries where the C.D.O. is enforced.

20. In the place of Government enforced medical examination, I would prefer to see power given to the Protector, State Surgeon, or any other officer specially authorised for the purpose, to order any woman or girl to go to a public or private hospital, if in their opinion she is ill and unfit to prostitute. In addition to this simple system, I would advocate the establishment of brothel medical club by a private European prac- titioner. Such a private doctor could contract with every brothel keeper to treat the inmates of each brothel at so much per head per mensem, and would keep a small dispensary and private hospital to carry out the system. Such a private practitioner would visit the brothels like private houses, and treat the prostitutes. The Protector and State Surgeons, too, would direct his attention to any cases of illness they saw on their inspections, and would, if they thought right, send sick women and girls to him to be looked after in his private hospital. should add here that no Chinese woman will continue prostituting herself after she is diseased unless she is forced to do so by her owner. The law could be amended so as to make it a very serious offence for any person to allow or force a Chinese woman to prostitute when diseased. One of the advantages of this suggestion is that the medical examination of public women will not be in the Government hands, but in the hands of a private man, to whose pecuniary interest it would be to look after this business well. Here, for instance, in the Peninsula, one such doctor could look after Kuala Lumpor and Seremban, one after Ipoh, Papan, Menglem- bu, and the out district brothels, one after Taiping and Krian. I should say that private practitioners could take up this business, because the brothel medical fees would be a fairly certain source of income, and there should be a fairly good private practice besides amongst the Chinese upper classes and non-official Europeans and Eurasians,

21. I must repeat once more, however, that the medical examination of women by " Government to prevent contagious diseases has nothing whatever to do with the Pro- tective Registration system, by means of which Protectors of Chinese here and in the Colony formerly lessened the evils and sufferings of brothel slavery, and beyond all dispute effectually safeguarded the liberty and freedom of Chinese prostitutes.

Nothing short of the reintroduction of that protective system can save Chinese women and girls from the inhumanity and cruelty they suffer from the slave trade that Government has allowed the Chinese to establish here.

22. Unless, therefore, Government is prepared to suppress Chinese brothel bondage altogether, and stand prepared to face, in its place, the evils and crimes that must follow from the universal commission of unnatural offences throughout these

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States, I cannot see how it can logically refuse to give these unfortunate Chinese women and girls the only means of protection (through registering them) that experience has shown to be of any use.

If a

23. I have not referred to the question of venereal disease amongst the Chinese, because I note the medical authorities are dealing with this point. In connection with it, however, I may be pardoned if I refer to one point, and I do so only because I see no State Surgeon has referred to it. I allude to the frightful dangers that innocent Euro- peans and Chinese, with their families and children, are daily incurring of contracting syphilitic and gonorrhoeal diseases at the hands of their Chinese Hailam servants. medical inspection were ordered to-morrow morning of all the Hailam servants (valets, cooks, coolies, rickshaw pullers, water carriers, &c.) now in service in European and Chinese private houses in Kuala Lumpur, I am confident that at the very least twenty per cent. of them would be found to be actually suffering from gonorrhoeal or syphilitic affections in one form or another, and that practically sixty per cent. would be found to have suffered at one time or another from such diseases. If one remembers that these contagious diseases can be conveyed to innocent persons, men, women, and children, through the medium of eating and drinking vessels, clothes, blankets, bath room towels, and so forth (whenever any excoriated part of the surface of the body has been inocu- lated by accident), it is not necessary to point out what dangers from contracting these contagious diseases, Europeans and Chinese living here run, owing to the state of affairs existing amongst their domestic servants.

G. T. HARE,

SIR,

June 12, 1898.

MEMORANDUM by Dr. Welch.

Secretary, Chinese Affairs.

I HAVE to acknowledge receipt of your memo. of the 30th ultimo, on the subject of contagious diseases.

What I can say on the subject must necessarily be to a great extent limited to those who become inmates of the Pauper Hospital. As for any former experience, I can only rely upon memory and general impressions.

1. Syphilis.-The phagadenic form of the disease, which is most prevalent at the headquarters of the disease (mostly seaports) is decidedly uncommon. Most of the cases that I have met with have been Tamil coolies who had contracted the disease in Penang on their way through. It is very rare in the Pauper Hospital, though all other forms of gangrene are common enough. While inspecting mining bangsals in connec- tion with the subject of Beri-beri some 7 or 8 years ago, I passed under review some thousands of coolies. When my errand was understood, all coolies who were at all seriously ill readily came forward and gave me full information about their diseases. This form of syphilis was never met with, although coolies affected with other forms and coolies dying from other diseases were most common.

The type of the disease in which the primary symptoms are slight, but where the later symptoms are severe, are very common. The early symptoms are sometimes so slight as almost to escape notice in both the male and female subject. A patient (especially female) therefore readily transmits the disease without being conscious of suffering from it.

For statistics, of course, the most reliable would be obtained at the Gaol, but the, following are interesting so far as they go :--Out of 550 patients questioned on the 5th instant, 92 patients owned to having suffered from symptoms which were presumably those of syphilis, 74 owned to having had severe venereal symptoms which may or may not have been syphilis. These figures cannot be looked upon as exact, but any error on the one side is possibly balanced by an equal one on the other.

In the Leper Ward the prevalence was still more marked. Out of 138 patients, no fewer than 71 owned to and showed signs of, at any rate, severe venereal disease.

In the admission ward on the 12th instant, out of 21 new admissions, 9 showed old syphilis. On the 13th, 13 patients showed syphilis in 5 cases.

As regards the women in the brothels, who are the chief disseminators of the disease, I know little. While inspecting the brothels in Pataling Street, in accordance with the "Protection of Women and Children Regulation," some three years ago, I came across numerous cases, nearly all in a most advanced form. Several of these women assured me after removal to hospital, that they were compelled to pursue their calling in