Heathen Slaves and Christian RulersAndrew, Elizabeth Wheeler
History
Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers
Andrew, Elizabeth Wheeler
Prostitution -- China -- Hong Kong
3. Two young girls were found in a licensed house of shame, whose
names were not on the list, the keeper and a woman, Ho-a-ying,
who had brought the girls from Canton to Hong Kong, were summoned
before the Registrar General. Ho-a-ying represented the girls
as sisters, and that she visited them in Canton and found their
mother dead, and that she brought them to Hong Kong because of
their appeal to her to find them work, and that she put them into
defendant's brothel. She contradicted herself in her testimony
as to the name and house of the girls' mother, and the girls
themselves declared that they were not sisters, and had never seen
each other until they met on the steamer at Canton the day before.
One of the girls declared: "I was sold by Ho-a-ying to the
mistress of the brothel. I heard them talking about it, and so I
know it. Ho-a-Ying also told me that I had been sold. I do not
know for what sum." The brothel-keeper stated that Ho-a-Ying came
and asked if she wanted two girls, as she had two who had come
from Canton. "The girls were brought, and after being in the house
a short time the Inspector came. I purposed having their names
entered on the following morning." The brothel-keeper was fined
five dollars for keeping an incorrect list of inmates. Ho-a-Ying
was convicted of giving false testimony, and fined fifty dollars;
in default, three months' imprisonment. No information as to the
disposal of the girls, and no punishment for this bargaining in
human flesh.
4. Six Chinese persons from licensed brothel No. 71, Wellington
Street, were arraigned before the Registrar General, charged with
buying and selling girls for evil purposes, and also with selling
girls to go to California, and with disturbing the peace. The
Inspector described the house thus: "I found all the defendants
on the first floor. I found six girls in the house and three
children. The floor was very crowded ... four of the girls were
in a room by themselves at the back of the house. They were all
huddled up together, and seemed frightened. The defendants were
in the front part of the house. The girls at the back part of the
house could not have got out without passing through the room
where the defendants were. This house has been known to me for a
long time as one where young girls were kept to be shipped off to
California."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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