THE HONG KONG WEEKLY PRESS & CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT
[February 14, 1930
'SUM PO TSAI" AND One of them who had been negotiat-
"MOTHER-IN-LAW.”
ing with the girl's father, said that a red paper produced in Court was the girl's horoscope, which she got a fortune-teller to write down on
NEW PHASE IN A MUI TSAI information supplied by her father.
PROSECUTION.
WIFE."
Mr. Bennett said that he did not intend to put the woman in the witness-box and submitted that
GIRL BOUGHT AS "FUTURE there was no case made out against
her on
This the second charge. being so, he would plead guilty to common assault. Actually the girl injured herself by knocking against a bed post in her efforts to
run away.
An arrangement for procuring aa sum po tsai, which was described as the purchase of a small girl, by a family, as the betrothed of one of the sons, was described at the Cen- tral Magistracy this week before Mr. E. W. Hamilton. A Chinese woman living in First Street was charged with assaulting a mui tsai and possession of the girl without registration.
The woman's husband also appear- ed, but was discharged during the proceedings. A third defend- ant, a youth employed as a foki by the woman, was charged with assisting in the assault.
Mr. H. R. Butters, of the S.C.A., prosecuted, and Mr. T. G. Bennett defended the woman.
The girl's father stated that he was pressed by poverty to sell the girl for $110 to the first defendant on December 19, 1929. The daughter was to be a SUN po tsai and eventually to marry the defendant's small son. On February 2 he saw his daughter bleeding from wounds and weeping bitterly. He followed the girl to the police station where the mother-in-law-elect, the first de- fendant had preceded them.
Lai Kan Hing, a fifteen-year-old girl, said that she was sold as a sum po tsai to the first defendant, but had always been treated as a mui tsai. The woman had often expressed her intention of re-selling her. On February 2 the girl sug- gested to her "mother-in-law-elect " that she should be returned to her father, and left the house to go to see him. She was brought back and assaulted by the woman with a clog, the third defendant assisting the woman in administering the beat- ing.
Two witnesses who were stated to
CC
be go-betweens " were called by the defence and gave evidence that the girl was to be a sum po tsai,
In dismissing the second charge and amending the other to one of common assault, his Worship re- marked that the case was a difficult
one.
was an
Apparently there elaborate camouflage to conceal that the girl was a mui tsai. If the girl was a sum po tsai she must have the rights of a wife.
The first defendant was fined $25, The or one month's hard labour. third defendant, who explained that he was given orders by the woman, to bring the girl back forcibly, was fined $5.
5
56
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.