It was our purpose when we undertook the task of writing a sketch
which would enable Americans to understand the social conditions that
are being introduced into our midst from the Orient, merely to make
a concise, brief statement of social conditions in Hong Kong out of
which these have grown, drawing our information from State Documents
of the British Government that we have had for some time in our
possession, and of which we have made a close study, as well as from
our own observations of the conditions themselves as they exist at
Hong Kong and Singapore. But almost at once we abandoned that attempt
as unwise because likely to prove injurious rather than helpful to the
object we have in view. The facts that we have to relate form one of
the blackest chapters in the history of human slavery, and slavery
brought up to the present time. Our statements if standing merely on
our own word would be met at once with incredulity and challenged, and
before we could defend them by producing the proof, a prejudice would
be created that might prove disastrous to our hopes of arousing our
country to the point of exterminating this horrible Oriental brothel
slavery by means of which even American men are enriching themselves
on the Pacific Coast.

Therefore we have felt obliged to produce our proof at once and at
first, and after that, if needed, we can write a more simple, concise
account, in less official and less cumbersome form, more suitable for
the general public to read,--not that the case could be stated in
purer or cleaner language than that used in the quotations from
official statements and letters, but the language might be more suited
to public taste. But worth cannot be sacrificed to taste, and, as we
have said, we feel compelled to publish the matter in its present form
first of all.