Heathen Slaves and Christian RulersAndrew, Elizabeth Wheeler
History
Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers
Andrew, Elizabeth Wheeler
Prostitution -- China -- Hong Kong
found bringing girls over and over again whether she could not be
prosecuted: he answered that she might be. We then asked if the
Protectorate had ever prosecuted: he replied, "Oh yes, a few times."
But he grew uneasy under these questions; said no one could know or
appreciate the present situation who did not know the conditions
of the things in the past, but now he thought they had the best
arrangement possible for protecting the women and girls, and
exclaimed, "But if this ordinance were abolished I do not know what
would become of them." He confessed at the close of our talk that he
would like to speak freely to us about certain things connected with
the work which could not be mentioned publicly, and said there were
"perplexities--great perplexities." Yet at the beginning of the
conversation, when speaking of the criticism passed upon the
Protectorate's work, he had said, "Why do they not come here for
information instead of going about criticising? our books are all
open to public inspection." But we had noticed that throughout the
interview he kept the books in his own hands, and only allowed us to
see what he himself turned up for our inspection.
Now as to some of this official's statements--we deal with them, not
with the object of criticising his _personal_ opinions and views and
statements, but as an _official_ representation to us of a Government
institution.
To begin with, he had told us two absolute falsehoods, at least. One
was that there was no Lock Hospital at Singapore, whereas we had
visited this Government institution and by careful inspection found it
was used for _the one purpose only_, having no equipment for any other
uses, and there were fifteen prostitutes there. When confronted with
this knowledge, which, remembering our hostess' caution as to his
temper, we expressed as gently as possible, he then declared it was
a general hospital, which it was not. He declared there were no
compulsory examinations, and that the Government had nothing to do
with examinations in any form. We thought it wisest not to give him
the information that we held at that time, and hold to the present
day,--dozens of papers of committment to the Lock Hospital for
compulsory examinations both in his own handwriting and in that of
the Protector. And some of these cases, as the records we have copied
show, were those of perfectly innocent girls, acknowledged to be
virgins, until assaulted by these abominable medical officials and
robbed of the fresh bloom of maidenly chastity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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