inspectors and sergeants," he says, "would so strongly object to
taking the office that I should be unable to get anyone on whom I
could rely.... The Inspector of Police looks down on the Inspector of
Brothels." Dr. Ayres tells us: "You cannot get men fitted for the work
at present salaries, and you have to put tremendous powers into the
hands of men like those we have."

Yet into the hands of men lower in character than the lowest of the
police force was committed, in large part, the operation of Ordinance
12, 1857, recommended by Mr. Labouchere as a sort of benevolent scheme
for the defense of poor Chinese slaves under the British flag, who had
"an urgent claim on the protection of Government."




CHAPTER 3.

HOW THE PROTECTOR PROTECTED.


Dr. Bridges, the Acting Attorney General at Hong Kong, who had framed
the Contagious Diseases Ordinance of 1857, had given an assurance
concerning it expressed in the following words: "There will be less
difficulty in dealing with prostitution in this Colony than with the
same in any other part of the world, as I believe the prostitutes here
to be almost, without exception, Chinese who would be thankful to
be placed under medical control of any kind; that few if any of the
prostitutes are free agents, having been brought up for the purposes
of prostitution by the keepers of brothels, and that whether as