dinate
officer to whom this duty is generally assigned is not acquainted
with the language spoken by the women. As a further precaution
against the illegal detention of women and girls in brothels, a
Government notice is posted in each of these houses, to the effect
that the inmates are perfectly at liberty to leave whenever they
like, but this is of little use, as hardly any of them can read,
and it would be more to the purpose if the Government ordered the
removal of the bars from the doors and windows of the brothels.
The fact is that these precautions against illegal detention are
practically useless, and this is admitted even by the editor of
such a paper as the _Hong Kong Daily Press_, who some time ago
discussed the question _apropos_ of the suicide of a Hong Kong
prostitute who was desirous of being married. The man who wished
to marry her offered the pocket-mother a sum of $2,000, but she
demanded $2,300 and refused to part with the woman for less;
whereupon she hung herself. The following comments on this case
are from the _Hong Kong Daily Press_:

"It would appear on the face of it that the efforts of the
Government are absolutely impotent, the notices so much waste
paper, and the 'rights of liberty' mere empty phrases of no
meaning or significance to the Chinese mind ... A Chinawoman would
never dream of effecting her escape for the purpose of evading the
blood money. Of course such transactions are absolutely illegal,
there is no tittle of reason why the man should pay a cent for the
girl, but it is nevertheless an indubitable fact that the custom
is widely prevalent, and that Hong Kong is a market for the buying
and selling of women which the Government is powerless to touch.
Exeter Hall in possession of these facts would indeed have a theme
for pious lucubrations."

Commenting upon the same case the _Singapore Free Press_ says:

"A recent investigation into a case of suicide in Hong Kong brings
into strong prominence what is really a system of slavery of the
worst kind, and which is not unknown in Singapore."

Such testimony is valuable from papers which have consistently
supported the Contagious Diseases Ordinances and vilified the
opponents of the State regulation of vice. There can be little
doubt that a large proportion of the girls and young women who are