this buying and selling of human flesh went on at the very doors
of Government offices."

[Footnote A: We italicise this to call attention to the active part
officials took in encouraging slavery.]

We can then readily imagine Tai-Yau as sentenced to pay her fine of
one hundred dollars, and nothing to pay with. The money exchanger's
office next the court room was crowded with slave-dealers, waiting to
offer to pay the fines of such unhappy creatures, and she probably
turned to them. If she were sent to jail what would become of her
little boy? And if she sold herself to the licensed brothel-keepers,
as the inspectors of brothels were urging her to do, the fate of her
boy would be even worse. She could see a hope that if she sold the boy
for "adoption," a form of slavery the Hong Kong Government permitted,
of which we will tell more,--then if she had her freedom she could at
least hope to redeem him some time. So the little fellow was sold
for about forty dollars, and she went away sixty dollars in
debt,--probably to the brothel-keepers, who would never let her out
of their sight until, through the debt and the interest thereon, they
would in time be enabled to seize her as their slave. But she went out
hoping for some honest way of earning the money, or else she would
have bargained with them at once to work off the debt by prostitution.
But what could a Chinese woman do in the face of such a debt? A
painter's wages at Hong Kong at this time were five dollars a month. A
woman's wages at any respectable occupation would not have been more
than half that amount. Ten cents a day would be a fair computation.
And all the time she would be trying to earn the money the debt would
be increasing by the interest on it; and her little boy would increase
more rapidly in value than in years.