thousand souls! I first became fully alive to the existence of
so-called domestic slavery in this Colony at the Criminal Sessions
in May last, on the trial of two cases.... But it is said that
what is called domestic slavery, as it exists in Hong Kong, is
mild, and it is said to be the opinion of a gentleman of great
experience in Chinese, that, as it exists here, it is not contrary
to the Christian religion, and that it is as general a fashion
for Chinese ladies in Hong Kong to purchase one or more girls to
attend on them as it is for English ladies to hire ladies'
maids, and that the custom is so general that it would be highly
impolitic, if not impossible, to put down the system. It may be
that slavery as it exists in the houses of the better classes
in Hong Kong is mild, and that custom among the better classes
renders servitude to them a boon as long as it lasts. It is, I
believe, an admitted duty that when the young girl grows up and
becomes marriageable she is married; but then it is the custom
that the husband buys her, and her master receives the price
always paid for a wife, whilst he has received the girl's services
for simple maintenance; so that, according to the marriageable
excess in the price of the bride over the price he paid for the
girl, he is a gainer, and the purchase of the child produces a
good return. But the picture has another aspect. What, if the
master is brutal, or the mistress jealous, becomes of the poor
girl? Certain recent cases show that she is sold to become a
prostitute here or at Singapore or in California, a fate often
worse than death to the girl, at a highly remunerative price to
the brute, the master. It seems to me that all slavery, domestic,
agrarian, or for immoral purposes, comes within one and the same
category."