cases of concubines."

"All that I contended for in what I then said beyond punishing
kidnapers was to bring within the cognizance of the law those
who bought from such kidnapers,--the receivers of such stolen
'chattels,'--leaving such buyers to set up and prove a
justification if they could."

"On the 31st of March, 1880, prisoners in four cases of
kidnaping,--one most harrowing,--were sentenced. I there lamented,
and I am sure every right-minded man will concur with me, that
it was the fact that the very poor were punished and the rich
escaped. In that case it clearly appeared that one Leong Ming
Aseng, apparently a respectable tradesman, at all events a man of
means, had given $60 for a young girl aged 13 years, to one of the
kidnapers, and he took her away beyond the reach of her distracted
mother under circumstances from which he must have known that the
child had been kidnaped. But although the facts were known at the
Police Court, and this man remained exceeding ten days afterward
in the Colony, no charge was ever made against him. After passing
sentences at this time, I made some observations on the '_patria
potestas_' [power of the father] theory. Dr. Eitel having painted
this condition in China in what I thought too favorable colors,
I quoted from Doolittle's 'Social Life in China,' unquestioned
testimony as to what _patria potestas_ was in China before the
controversy now raised, and from Mr. Parker, Her Britannic
Majesty's Consul at Canton, as to its present state in China.
After these quotations, I simply asked, Can greater tyranny, more
unchecked caprice, be described or even conceived as inexcusable
over wife, concubine, child, or purchased or inherited
slave?'--the quotations I made being up to this time undisputed
... what I said was necessary to introduce the expression of my
conviction ... that none of the elements of the system of _patria
potestas_ exist in Hong Kong, including of course adoption. It is
to this conviction that I point as the moral ground for enforcing
English law against kidnaping and buying and selling human beings.
The gravamen of all my complaints is, that the pauper kidnapers
and sellers are punished, while the rich buyers go free. No case
can come on for trial in this Court except upon an information by
the Attorney-General. I have