🚀 go-pugleaf

from hand to
    hand in sale, or as pledges for loans; and in one brothel I found
    two girls, who had, on arrival in Singapore from China some six
    years previous, signed a note for $300 each, of which every cent
    had been received and taken back to China by the person who had
    disposed of them. During the six years they had been the property
    of two or three successive owners, and when I found them in Penang
    they were still being detained with the original promissory note
    hanging over them, though the sum had been paid over and over
    again. On my insisting on accounts being produced by the
    brothel-keeper, I discovered that for three years the girls had
    been earning from 20 to 30 dollars each per month, all of which
    went to the master, who was surprised when the girls were released
    and himself threatened with the law." (!)

From this we discover that Mr. Pickering intends that we shall think
that the reason why he has a salary from the British Government,
is, among other things, to see that slave girls only need to redeem
themselves by hard earned money through unspeakable humiliation from
one, or two, or more owners, and then there is an end to the patience
of the "Protector" with the slave-trader, who will be surprised to
find himself "threatened"--not punished--with the law! But Cecil C.
Smith, formerly Protector of Chinese (Registrar General) at Hong Kong,
was knighted and made Governor at Singapore, and about a year later
than this, says, in reference to this very representation: "The
Protector of Chinese has no efficient means of dealing with the
accounts of the inmates of brothels, nor has he ever dealt with them.
The Government should hold itself entirely aloof from interfering with
such matters." We see, then, of how much account the representations
of Mr. Pickering were as to the usefulness of the "Protector" to the
women at this point, but incidentally he has revealed a shocking s