🚀 go-pugleaf

know neither father nor mother, except what they call a
    pocket-mother,--that is, the woman who bought them from others ...
    They are owned in Macao and Canton. They are bought as infants.
    They come to Hong Kong at 13 or 14, and are deflowered at a
    special price which goes to the owners. The owner gets the whole
    of their earnings, and even gets presents given to the girls, who
    are allowed three or four dollars a month pocket-money. When some
    of the girls are sent away on account of age, new ones are got
    from Canton. If these girls are not slaves in every sense of the
    word, there is no such thing as slavery in existence. If this
    buying and selling for the purpose of training female children up
    for this life is not slave-dealing, then never was such a thing
    as slave-dealing in this world. There are 18,000 to 20,000
    prostitutes in Hong Kong to 4,000 or 5,000 respectable Chinese
    women.... Once in five years the stock has to be renewed. It is
    for this purpose, and not for the legitimate or quasi-legitimate
    purposes of Chinese adoption and Chinese family life, that
    children and women are kidnaped and bought and sold ... Until
    this slave-holding and slave-dealing are entirely suppressed, the
    grosser abuses arising out of it and incidental to it (kidnaping
    of women and children) can never be put an end to."

It was on May 20th, 1880, that the Secretary of State asked for the
first statement of Sir John Smale's views as to kidnaping and domestic
slavery. His reply is dated August 26th, and in it he refers to
reasons for his delay in replying, of which the Governor is "well
aware." His supplementary letter enclosing the Memorandum of slavery
by Mr. Francis, was dated Nov. 24th, 1880. On April 2nd, 1881, he
wrote a third time to the Colonial Secretary, from which we gather
that even up to that time his explanations had not been forwarded to
Lord Kimberley, Secretary of State. Said he:

    "I had hope