ons in their
favor in the Chinese Criminal Code do not exist in Hong Kong,
and that the penalties would apply, if in China, to all such
transactions as I have denounced in Hong Kong, of that I have no
doubt. Dr. Eitel's vindication is of a system as recognized in an
express exception to the Penal Code in China proper, which may,
for aught I know, work well in China. What I have said is that the
practices in Hong Kong do not come within the cases which are only
the exception to the penal enactments in the Chinese Code against
all such bondage in China. I have never said ... that all buying
and selling of children for adoption or domestic service is
contrary to Chinese law. What I have said is that all such buying
and selling of children as has come within my cognizance in Hong
Kong is contrary to Chinese law; but I do think that buying and
selling even for adoption and domestic servitude under the best
circumstances, constitutes slavery; legal according to Chinese
law, but illegal according to British law. Reference is made to
Chinese gentlemen; I believe that not one of them has his 'house'
in Hong Kong; the wife (small-footed) is kept at the family home
in China. Each of them has his harem only in Hong Kong. There may
be an exception to this rule, but I have never heard of any such
exception. (I know of only one, of a Chinese gentleman, who, for
certain reasons, was afraid to return to China.) ... I have not
known a single case of adoption by a Chinaman in Hong Kong. They
may exist in China proper, and possibly in Hong Kong ... They are
not in China proper a sacred religious obligation, except in
rare cases indeed, in which the conditions of clanship and other
stringent conditions are precisely complied with; and they have
as much to do with the necessities of the poor, and no more, than
would be the case in England or Ireland in the time of a famine.
These Chinese gentlemen say that the children are well cared for.
If girls eligible for marriage or concubinage, they are sold for
that, and form a profitable investment to a Chinese gentleman.
If not so eligible, they are sold for any, even the worst
purpose,--brothels, according to my experience in the Criminal
Courts of Hong Kong. If the former, it may be that they do well;
but if the latter, no slavery is worse. This as to fema