🚀 go-pugleaf

"

As though these benevolent persons only bought slaves for this one
laudable purpose, to preserve their lives! "As regards the buyers,
they look upon themselves as affording relief to distressed people,
and consider the matter as an act akin to charity," etc.

A flood of light is let in upon the matter of the reluctance of
British officials to move in the putting down of domestic slavery and
the buying and selling of boys among the natives, in the following
well-deserved thrust at the weak point in the armor of the British
officials:

    "The office of the Registrar-General was charged with the
    superintendence of prostitutes and the licensing of brothels
    and similar affairs. But _from 80 to 90 per cent of all these
    prostitutes in Hong Kong were brought into these brothels by
    purchase, as is well known to everybody_. If buying and selling is
    a matter of a criminal character, the proper thing would be, first
    of all, to abolish this evil (brothel slavery). But how comes
    it that since the first establishment of the Colony down to the
    present day the same old practice prevails in these licensed
    brothels, and has never been forbidden or abolished?"

This was a center shot, and calculated to weaken the hands of at
least the guilty officials. What could they say? Were the officials
prepared, since the report of the Commission a few months before had
made public the scandals connected with the licensing and inspection
of brothels, to set about reforming the abuses by radical measures?
Certainly the Chief Justice was. He did everything in his power to
abolish slavery _as slavery_, not simply t