🚀 go-pugleaf

on that occasion to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies, pronounced it "an able and elaborate judgment on the
existence of slavery at Hong Kong."

Said Sir John Smale:

    "Various causes have occasioned delay in passing sentence, of
    which I will only refer to one: The gravity of the fact that these
    and other cases have recently brought so prominently to the notice
    of the Court that two specific classes of slavery exist in this
    Colony to a very great extent, viz., so-called domestic slavery,
    and slavery for the purposes of prostitution. The three cases now
    awaiting the sentence of the Court are specially provided for by
    Ordinances of 1865 and 1872, prohibiting kidnaping and illegally
    detaining men, women, and children; and no difficulty ever arose
    in my mind as to the crimes of which these prisoners are severally
    convicted, or as to the sentences due to such crimes; and there is
    no question as to crimes or punishment of cases where women are
    smuggled into brothels, some licensed and others unlicensed, or
    otherwise dedicated to immoral purposes. But the enormous extent
    to which slavery in this Colony has grown up has called into
    existence a greatly increasing traffic, especially in women and
    children. The number of Chinamen in this Colony has increased and
    is increasing rapidly, whilst their great increase in wealth has
    fostered licentious habits, notably in buying women for purposes
    sanctioned neither by the laws nor customs on the mainland. I hold
    in my hand a placard in Chinese, torn down from the wall of the
    Central School, Cough Street steps, in this city. The translation
    appears at length in the Hong Kong _Daily Press of_ August
    15th, 1879. The purport of that translation is shortly that the
    advertiser, one Cheong, has lost a purchased slave girl named Tai
    Ho, aged 13 years. After a full description of the girl a reward
    is offered in these terms:--