Sessional_Paper_1886-1887 — Page 198

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usages maintained, (so far as is consistent with perfect freedom of the subject) as was promised them when Hongkong was erected into a Colony and they were invited to settle here.

TO RECAPITULATE.

10. It is shewn that child adoption in China and among the Chinese in Hong- kong is always accompanied by the payment of money and a "deed of gift" or bill of sale when the adopted are strangers-in-blood; and that even money passes in the case of relatives if the parents of the adopted child are poor or not nearly related to the adopting parents.

2o. It is shewn that male children are not bought and sold as servants in Hongkong nor in the Canton province, but that female children are disposed of for

money by their parents according to Chinese usage and custom, and that the Chinese authorities recognise such sales as binding if executed with due formalities, whilst Hongkong treats all such transactions as null and void, giving no rights and conferring no title.

3°. It is shewn that the abuses arising from the Chinese system of money passing in the case of adoption and domestic service are :—

1o. Kidnapping to some extent.

2o. Brothel bondage; and that female children who are voluntarily parted with by their parents for daughters and servants may be sold as prostitutes by disreputable persons.

4 It is shewn that claims set up by Chinese to ownership on the ground of purchase have been promptly set aside in Hongkong and the claimants punished for any assault or offence committed against the person claimed-and that no oppor- tunity has been lost of proclaiming the freedom of the subject.

5o It has been shewn that the laws have been amended from time to time to the utmost limit to protect women and girls and children against forced or fraudu- lent emigration or sales for purposes of prostitution, (see Ordinance 2 of 1875, annexed).

6o. It has been shewn that the supervision of brothels, the instructing the registered women as to their rights, and the system of photographing registered prostitutes and women and children who intend to emigrate, have done much good and that there has been an enormous reduction in the kidnapping cases and sel- ling women for prostitution since the introduction of those measures, convictions being 29 persons in 1882 as against 68 in a former year, and only 4 up to the present date.

7. It has been shewn that there are fatal objections to the registration of children purchased for adoption or domestic service, and it is suggested that the Registrar General and a Chinese Committee should investigate cases of a suspicious nature with power to call upon "pocket-mothers" to give security for their bond fides towards "pocket-daughters "; also that the Registrar General should be able to apply to a Judge in Chambers for a writ of Habeas Corpus with the view of taking away from improper custodians a purchased child. It is also suggested that stone tablets stating the law of freedom on English soil should be erected in places of public resort.

:

J. RUSSELL.