avery and the views of Sir John Smale is due to the fact that
Sir John Smale knew that the real brothel slavery exists in the
brothels where Chinese women are provided for European soldiers
and sailors, whereas Mr. O'Malley, in discarding the use of the
word slavery, does so on the assumption that all the Hong Kong
brothels form a part of the Chinese social system, and that the
girls naturally and willingly take to that mode of earning a
livelihood. This is a misconception of the actual facts, for
though the Hong Kong brothels, where Chinese women meet Chinese
only, may seem to provide for such women what Mr. O'Malley calls
'a natural and suitable manner of life' consistent with a part of
the Chinese social system, it is absolutely the reverse in those
Hong Kong brothels where Chinese women have to meet foreigners
only. Such brothels are unknown in the social system of China. The
Chinese girls who are registered by the Government for the use of
Europeans and Americans, detest the life they are compelled
to lead. They have a dread and abhorrence of foreigners, and
especially of the foreign soldiers and sailors. _Such girls are
the real slaves in Hong Kong._"

We underscore the last sentence as a most painful fact in the history
of the dealings of the British officials with the native women of
China, set forth on the authority of the Governor of Hong Kong, who,
with the help of Sir John Smale, the Chief Justice, waged such a
fearless warfare against slavery under the British flag, with such
unworthy misrepresentation and opposition on the part of the other
officials equally responsible with them in preserving the good name of
their country, and in defending rather than trampling upon its laws.
Governor Hennessy continues

"To drive Chinese girls into such brothels [i.e., those for the
use of foreigners] was the object of the system of informers which
Mr. C. C. Smith for so many years conducted in this Colony,
and which in his evidence before the Commission on the 3rd of
December, 1877, he defended on the ground of its necessity in
detecting unlicensed houses, but which your Lordship [Lord
Kimberley, Secretary of State for the Colonies] has now justly
stigmatized as a revolting abuse. On another point the Attorney
General also seems not to appreciate fully what he must have heard
Sir John Smale saying from the