pection of the passers-by. Anything more ostentatiously and
revoltingly public could hardly have been devised, and it is
painful to reflect that the whole arrangement is the product of
Western civilization, such scenes being utterly unknown in China
except in the treaty ports, where public prostitution has also
been introduced by Europeans.

Taking Singapore as a sample of the working of this system of
regulated vice in the Straits Settlements, we will now proceed
to inquire into the means by which this army of prostitutes is
recruited. Out of the total of 1,800 prostitutes in Singapore the
Chinese women number on the average 1,600, and last year (1892) no
less than 621 women entered brothels from China and Hong Kong, in
spite of which the number of inmates fell from 1,657 in January
to 1,601 in December, so that it may fairly be inferred that more
than 650 women are required annually to fill up the vacancies
which occur. In order to explain the manner in which this large
number of girls and young women are obtained each year, it must be
stated that all the affairs connected with the inmates of houses
of ill-fame in the Straits Settlements are in the hands of
the brothel-keepers. These persons in Penang have formed a
"Brothel-keepers' Guild," which appears in the Report of the
Chinese Protectorate as one of the registered societies of that
town and boasts of 297 members. The brothel-keepers of Singapore
are probably banded together in the same way, and in proportion to
the number of brothels should be more than twice as numerous as
those in Penang. These brothel-keepers have their confederates in
China, who search for girls and young women in the same way that
the coolie-brokers search for the men, and these unfortunate young
persons are brought to Singapore in batches under escort in the
same way as the men, but are taken from the ships in closed
carriages instead of being driven through the town like sheep, as
the men are. All these young women and girls, who are brought
to Singapore for immoral purposes, with the full knowledge and
consent of the Government, are taken direct from the ships to the
office of the Protector of Chinese, to be questioned as to their
willingness to lead a life of shame; but the value of this
interrogation may be inferred from the fact that the subor