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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TLC.O. 882

f

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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

Memo- randum

late 30th

March, 1897,

signed by

W. 8. B.

Maclaren,

17, Tothill

Street,

West-

minster,

In the locality of the public brothels no changes have occurred for many years, and in their number no increase is perceptible.

As regards private brothels, there is proof that they existed prior to 1894, but no statistics are available to indicate their number or locality.

The present location of the private brothels offers no especial ground for objection, with the exception of the few marked near Tanglin barracks. Any action by the police to close these would probably be met by a denial of their existence, and after re- moval their places would very likely be supplied by others.

11. With regard to the suggested engagement of women doctors, I observe that Sir W. Kynsey's report is merely anticipative of good results which may or may not be realised.

No lady doctor unable to speak the dialects used by the Chinese prostitutes and unable to visit them in their brothels could hope to exercise any influence over them, and the influence of a lady doctor who had surmounted these difficulties would always be subordinated to the will of the brothel-keeper, who could deny her admission and would do so, as it is his supposed interest to force his slaves to work when suffering from infectious disease.

Supposing one lady doctor could influence as many as fifty brothel slaves, we should require some thirty-five of them for public brothels alone.

12. The Executive Council has decided that the report of the Committee should be laid before you, with the statement that the Council agreed with the conclusions of the Committee, but was willing to adopt any means which offered a fair prospect of checking venereal disease.

13. For checking this disease an elaborate system was tried locally and repealed in deference to public sentiment in the United Kingdom. It is, I believe, an axiom in matters politic that he who objects to a remedy for an admitted evil, must be pre- pared with an alternative scheme: and it is to be regretted that the abolitionists were not compelled to devise an efficacious one for this Colony before destroying the only barrier which warded off discase from the population.

14. You have desired me to advise what course short of the old system of regis- tration is likely to prove the most effective check on brothel slavery. I could devise a scheme, but I despair of inventing one which would not be objected to by a large body of public opinion in the United Kingdom, because, to write frankly, that public opinion appears unable to grasp or contemplate such a state of law or morals as obtains in this Colony.

The printed memorandum of the British Committee, quoted by the Reverend W. Shellabear to the Singapore Committee, lays down seven points-the first, second, third, and sixth are based on the “unity of the moral law for both sexes." Now, Singapore

is a country which we have obtained from a Muhammadan people, in which Chinese now form a very large majority of the population.

By law and religion a Malay and a Chinese may have a plurality of wives, and the female sex is accounted decidedly inferior to the male.

Those responsible for the good order, health, and good government of this Colony, are entitled to ask the exponents of the large body of public opinion in Great Britain which placed a voto on previous legislation whether the above facts do not destroy the issued by Lypotheses on which their veto was founded; and if the reply be in the negative we are British entitled to put the further question, "Then do you require us to embark on a crusade Committe

against the domestic and religious law of Muhammad, which permits a man to possess of the Federation four wives and a number of concubines, and that of the Chinese, which sanctions almost for the equal license to the male sex?"

Abolition

of the State

Regulation

of Vice.

J. A. SWETTENHAM.

I have, &c.,

Enclosure in No. 24.

REPORT of the COMMITTEE appointed by the Governor of the Straits Settlements to

Copy of questions, marked A. Evidence of Mr. Wi-janer, Dr. Rogers, Dr. Mugliston,

marke! B. C, D. Evidence of Rev. W. G. Shellabear, marked E.

Drs. Ellis and Galloway, marked F, G. Memos by Mr. Evans. Col. Pennefather, and

*

Dr. Simon, marked H, I, J.

Letters of Mr. McBreen, inarked K.

ENQUIRE and REPORT on certain suggestions mado by the Secretary of State for the Colonies as to measures to be adopted with regard to CONTA- GIOUS DISEASES and BROTHELS, with a view to checking the spread of VENEREAL DISEASE.

We held seven meetings and took evidence from Drs. Mugliston, Rogers, Ellis, and Galloway, from Mr. Wispauer, and from the Rev. W. G. Shellabear, a copy of which we

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attach to this report, with a copy of a number of printed questions which were supplied to most of the medical witnesses before they were called, memoranda on various points connected with the questions by Mr. Evans (l'rotector of Chinese), Lieutenant-Colon. I Pennefather (Inspector General of Police), and Dr. Simon, and a letter from Mrs. McBreen, a woman who keeps a private hospital for prostitutes. Mrs. McBreen is partly Chinese by birth, and has an intimate knowledge of the Chinese brothel system.

2. From the evidence put before us and from our own knowledge, we are satisfied that the Contagious Diseases Ordinance was, to a very large extent, effectual in checking the spread of venereal disease in the Colony, and, so far as we have been able to learn, the working of the Ordinance gave rise to no administrative abuses. (1)

The bulk of the prostitutes here are Chinese; they are in no sense free agents, being practically the slaves of the brothel-keepers, and public opinion in England is absolutely uninformed as to the conditions under which they live, and the ties, pecu- niary, social, and moral by which they are bound to their keepers and the threats by (1) Evi- which this slavery is maintained.

males to

dence of

G. Shella- bear.

(2) The local conditions of this Settlement which favour prostitution and render it Rev. W specially remunerative are the disproportion of the sexes (about females in Singapore), and the constant influx of seamen, passengers, and traders from all parts of the world. The vast majority of our population, resident and migratory, are Asiatics, in whose eyes chastity, for its own sake, is no virtue; they are not ashamed to frequent brothels or to own brothel-houses, and they look on the inspection and con- trol of those places in the same light as the regulation of public houses and opium shops. Anything tending to the natural equalisation of the sexes should be fostered and en- couraged as likely to diminish prostitution, but these changes work very slowly.

3. Taking into consideration the circumstances and conditions of this Colony, we are of opinion that any modification of the regulations adopted in India would be absolutely inoperative here. We gather from the despatch laid before us that the sug-

stion of the Secretary of State is essentially this:

ge

That on information received that any person is diseased, that person shall be in- vited to attend at the local hospital; that in the event of such person attending and being found diseased, such person shall be invited to remain in hospital for treatment; that in the event of such person declining to remain in hospital, or omitting to attend for examination, such person shall be ordered to be banished from the Settlement.

We take it that these regulations, outside military authority, apply chiefly to women, and consider them impracticable for the following reasons:-

(1) That in this Colony there are no cantonments, nor anything like the canton- ment system in force in India.

Mr. Evans.

(2) That it is impossible to obtain any reliable information as to discased women. (2) Memo- (3) That even supposing such reliable information could be obtained, it would be randlum by impossible to take steps to secure the removal of any woman, especially a Chinese woman, Letter of from the Settlement or Colony, unless the officers charged with the working of the Mrs. regulations were in a position to go, warrant in hand, to the brothel, as the woman McBreen. would otherwise be invariably concealed or removed by the keeper before a warrant could be obtained.

(4) The only way in which a knowledge of a woman being diseased could be arrived at would be either by information from some person to whom she had communicated disease, or by information from her medical attendant; the first way would seldom be available, and is obviously open to the practice of grossest abuse, and, with regard to the second, a medical practitioner could hardly be expected to give the information, because, should he do so, he would no more be called in.

(5) So far as banishment for venereal disease is concerned, such a provision, we consider, would be open to objection, not only on the score of humanity, but also on the ground that, even if it could be enforced, it would be simply transferring the disease to some other place, and in many cases, e.g., where British subjects might be concerned, it could not be enforced.

4. With regard to the question whether it would be desirable to engage women doctors to assist in the treatment of prostitutes, from the evidence before us and from the statement as to the constitution of Chinese brothels attached (3), it is clear that by far the largest proportion of women have absolutely no voice in any matter in con-

nection with their own lives,and that any attempt to work upon them individually would (3) Memo- be utterly futile, either by doctors or otherwise, until they are withdrawn from the randum by influence of the brothel-keepers; and from past experience of the working of the Lock Mr. Evans. Hospital (4) it was found that Chinese women have no objection, beyond that occasion-

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