rothels,
so that full and frequent opportunity may be given to all persons
whose freedom may be open to suspicion to know their legal
position, and to assert their liberty if they like ...
Particularly it might be thought right to create a system of
registration applicable to domestic servants and strangers in
family houses. It would be a good thing if Sir John Smale would
place at the disposal of the Government (as I believe he has never
yet done) any facts connected with the brothel system or the
domestic servitude of which he possesses any real knowledge."

This letter gives us some conception of the almost insuperable
difficulties Sir John Smale had to encounter in his endeavor to put
down slavery, for not a case could come up in the Superior Court for
conviction on the Judge's information, of course, for that would
be assuming both prosecuting and judicial powers, and the men who
occupied in turn that office, during Sir John Smale's incumbency,
refused to act in unison with him, and this Attorney General's
language betrays hot prejudice, lack of candor as regarded the facts,
and insolence toward Sir John Smale.

The Attorney General has a fling at the Chief Justice as
"impracticable," yet the only practical suggestion that the former
makes in his letter as to how to meet the conditions he seems to have
taken from Sir John Smale's own words upon which he was asked to
express an opinion. The Chief Justice had said:

"I think the evils complained of might be lessened,--(1) By a
better registration of the inmates of brothels, and by frequently
bringing them before persons to whom they might freely speak as to
their position and wishes, and by such authoritative interference
with the brothel-keepers as should keep them well in fear of
exercising acts of tyranny. (2) By a stringently enforced register
of all inmates of Chinese dwelling-houses, &c., (at least of all
servants) with full inquiry into the conditions of servitude, and
an authoritative restoration of unwilling servants to freedom from
servitude. This would apply to 10,000 (according to Dr. Eitel
20,000) bond servants in Hong Kong."

The injustice of the attack of the Attorney General upon Sir John
Smale was not ignored by Governor Hennessy, when he forwarded Mr.
O'Malley's letter to London. He said:

"The apparent difference between Mr. O'Malley's views on brothel
sl