🚀 go-pugleaf

brokers and
    several of their assistants, with much yelling and good deal of
    rough handling, and an occasional halt while a straggler or a
    would be runaway is brought back to the party. That the coolies
    are frequently successful in their attempts to escape is shown
    in the Report of the Chinese Protectorate, 160 being returned as
    'absconded either when landing or at depot' in Singapore, and 101
    at Penang, or about 1-3/4 per cent of the "unpaid passengers". On
    arrival at the depot, the coolies are probably surprised to find
    themselves securely confined in houses which look uncomfortably
    like prisons, and the passer-by may see the dirty and unkempt
    _sin-khehs_ or "new men," as these emigrants are called, peering
    out between the thick wooden bars of the windows. The coolies
    are thus forcibly detained at the depots until the brokers are
    successful in finding employers who are prepared to pay the price
    per head which they demand, a sum of about �10. In the meanwhile
    however, it appears from the Report that nearly 4-1/2 per cent of
    the inmates of the depots are discovered and redeemed by their
    friends, the numbers being 414 at Singapore, and 278 at Penang,
    and a further 1-3/4 per cent, or 236 at Singapore, and 55 at
    Penang, are shown under the headings "released and returned to
    China," having presumably been discovered to have been kidnaped.
    Of the total number of "unpaid passengers" arriving at Singapore
    and Penang, about 91 per cent eventually sign contracts and are
    made over to their employers or their agents, the majority of
    these being shipped off, under escort as b