ediately a
certain sum of money, take one of their female children, say five
years old ... to a wealthy family, where the child becomes a member of
the family, and has, perhaps, to look after a baby.... But the child
may be sold out and out. In that case invariably a deed is drawn up."
And this is the state of things concerning which Dr. Eitel says: "Few
foreigners have comprehended the extent of social equality ... the
amount of influence which woman, bought and sold as she is, really
has in China ... the depth of domestic affection, of filial piety, of
parental care," etc.

He adds:

"Considering the deep hold which this system has on the Chinese
people, it is not to be wondered at that Chinese can scarcely
comprehend how an English judge could come to designate this
species of domestic servitude as 'slavery.' On the contrary,
intelligent Chinese look upon this system as the necessary and
indispensable complement of polygamy, as an excellent counter
remedy for the deplorably wide-spread system of infanticide, and
as the natural consequence of the chronic occurrence of famines,
inundations, and rebellions in an over-populated country. But the
abuses to which this system of buying and selling female children
is liable, in the hands of unscrupulous parents and buyers, and
the support it lends to public prostitution, are too patent facts
to require pointing out."

"The moment we examine closely into Chinese slavery and
servitude," declares Dr. Eitel, "from the standpoint of history
and sociology, we find that slavery and servitude have, with
the exception of the system of eunuchs, lost all barbaric and
revolting features." (!) "As this organism has had its certain
natural evolution, it will as certainly undergo in due time a
natural dissolution, which in fact has at more than one point
already set in. But no legislative or executive measures taken in
Hong Kong will hasten this process, which follows its own course
and its own laws laid down by a wise Providence which happily
overrules for the good all that is evil in the world."

There was, indeed, a certain justice in defending the Chinese as
against the foreigner, on Dr. Eitel's part. But two wrongs do not make
a right. From this time onward, the word of sophistry is put in
the mouth of the advocate of domestic slavery, just as the word of
sophistry had been put in the