CO129-539-4 Mui Tsai system 28-6-1932 - 28-11-1932 — Page 82

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In all these cases careful arrangements for

the girls' well-being were made by the Secretary for

Chinese Affairs with the usual invaluable assistance

of the Po Leung Kuk Committee.

4.

107

Care is invariably taken by the visiting

inspectors to impress upon employers their obligation

to pay wages, and in the great majority of cases no

reminder is needed.

In the course of their visits, the

Inspectors have come across about twenty cases in

which the employer gives no actual wages to the girl,

but spends considerably more than the prescribed

amount of wages in sending the girl to a private school.

The fees at such schools, which are all under the

control and inspection of the Director of Education,

range from $2.00 a month upwards, to which has to be

added the cost of books and in some cases bus fares,

and a certain amount of pocket money as requisite. In point of fact, the girls in all these cases have

the position of daughters in decent households of no

great wealth but of a good middle class type.

Enquiries have elicited the fact that some of the

employers, at any rate, would not be prepared to send the girls to school if they had to pay wages in addition. The arrangement is evidence of good treatment and as it appears to be in the girls' own interests I have not interfered with it. I trust that this small deviation from the strict letter of

the regulations will not be regarded as unreasonable. 5. I have stated in paragraph 1 that there are at present 3,482 Mui Tsai on the Registers.

It has,

however,