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Q.--I know that, but some of your friends and relations have concubines in this Colony?
A. Yes.
Q. They are in an English colony?
A.-Yes, but if the Society was associated with the Government would they permit it?
Q.-They are permitting it every day, aren't they?
A. If they will permit these girls to be taken away as concubines that is all right. Q.-That is if they are comfortable and well provided for?
A. Yes, but the Government might not allow such a thing to go on.
Q-I know that, but I only ask whether that was not the point of dispute between the Committee and the former Registrar General.
The CHAIRMAN.-And the rule laid down by the former Registrar General has been carried out?
A. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN.-In Chinese marriage customs the bridal sedan is an indispensable accompaniment of a marriage. No legal marriage is complete without it. The Committee of the Pó Léung Kuk of that day went to Dr. STEWART and said-"These girls have led improper lives, why should we treat them in the same way as respectable girls?" Dr. STEWART said, in reply, that he would not allow them to be treated in any way different from respectable women. They come, he said, under the protection of the Society and he intended to show his respect for them as much as he would for his own daughter had he one. That was the difficulty. But afterwards the matter was arranged and now whenever a marriage is celebrated it is insisted that the document for hiring the bridal chair should be produced and then filed in the Office with the other documents. With regard to the other point, as to taking girls as second wives, the Registrar General from the very start set his face against it. Ever since I have known the office, and up to the present day, we have never sanctioned the taking of a girl as a concubine, because it was felt that you have no security in such a case, that the girl will not be got rid of. A respectable Chinaman treats his concubine well; but it might be possible for a man, so disposed, to get rid of his concubine more easily than his wife, for among the Chinese the union with a concubine is not considered so binding as the union with a legal wife. For that reason the Registrar General set his face against the system of concubinage, and also because concubinage is not recognised by our law.
Hon. C. P. CHATER.-The Pó Léung Kuk have never given these women away as concubines ?
The CHAIRMAN.—No, never.
Honourable Ho KAI. The mother sometimes gets the girl out and ultimately she is given away as second wife, but it is not done with the Registrar General's knowledge and consent.
The CHAIRMAN.--If a girl is given out under security the surety must arrange to have her properly married, and, so far as I am aware, they are always married as first wives. There may be cases outside in which the girls are given as concubines.
Honourable Ho KAI-Yes, there are cases in Hongkong in which girls are taken, though not from the Registrar General's Office, as concubines.
The CHAIRMAN.-Then they must be out of our control because one of the provi sions of handing them over is that they should be married as a first wife and brought up properly. The case you refer to, I think, is where the girl was detained in Hongkong and sent to the Pó Leung Kuk and it was then found out that she had already been
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