CO129-472 - Others - 1921 — Page 621

)

(0)

614

that this mui tsai was so diminutive that she did not reach the edge of the witness-box. The flogging to which she had been subjected was described by the Doctor in evidence as "severe", injuries having been inflicted not only on the body,

but on the face and head. In spite of this evidence neither fine nor imprisonment was imposed upon the mistress-owner, and the only disability she suffered was through the Magistrate ordering the child which she had presumably

purchased to be restored to her other.

$ Our attention is now drawn to a case in certain

respects worse than any previous one. This case is set

forth in the China Overland Trade Report of June 24th, 1921,

and concerns a little girl apparently kidnapped and re-sold

in Canton and Macao, and we beg leave to draw particular

attention to the following passages in the record of the case.

The, woman defendant said the girl was willing

19

to be sold as a slave."

The Magistrate: "What has that got to do with it? "It (the mui tsai) is not your girl to be sold;

19 this gentleman's girl." (The owner-prosecutor).

11

it is

"The women also said that the mui taai asked to be taken away as she feared her master intended to sell "her as a prostitute."

-

6 Our Committee is not so much concerned with the

details of this sordid case as with the facts apparently

accepted by all parties, namely, that the right reposed in

one party to sell the girl, and with the alleged

doubtless disputed-intention to sell this "plump and well-

grown child" for immoral purposes.

-

but

7 In the opinion of our Committee, these and similar facts which have been brought to the notice of His Majesty's

Government, whereby the sale and purchase of human beings is

established beyond all question, constitute, in all essentials,

slaveeowning and slave-trading. To call the system by

another name, and to substitute the term "price of adoption"