🚀 go-pugleaf

in both Singapore and
Hong Kong, for every detail in the management of brothels, even to the
granting of a permit to keep a brothel, and the description of the
"duties" of brothel-keepers. Surely this part of the Protector's
work cannot be called "Rescue work," as we are accustomed to use the
phrase.

According to the Annual Report of the Protectorate for 1893, 1,183
women and girls entered brothels with the sanction of the Protector;
and quite apart from any discussion of whether this sanction should
have been given or not, it is quite apparent that this also was not
"Rescue work."

During the same year 1,034 women and girls left the brothels of
Singapore, and it is apparent that we must look among these mainly for
rescued cases. Of this 1,034 the following account is given:

  Absconded                  63
  Died                       21
  Gone to "Private Houses"  346
  Married                    69
  To be accounted for       451

We have an explanation in the Protector's own words of what is meant
by a girl who has "absconded." "It is common now, when an owner
notices one of her girls contracting a continued intimacy with a male
visitor (and therefore to be suspected of an intention to apply to our
office for release), for the owner to sell the girl away to another
country. When this has been accomplished, the brothel keeper reports
the prostitute has absconded, and, if we cannot prove the contrary, we
are obliged to accept the story and strike the name off our books."
What would we think in America of a "Rescue work, and that only," with
all the advantages of Government backing; under constant surveillance;
every girl registered; that permitted 63 girls in a year to be
defeated in their desire to marry by