ensed keeper. In case of sale, the so-called 'mother'
receives the price paid for her 'daughter,' and the 'daughter'
signs a promissory note for the amount, with heavy interest; the
former owner returns to China, and the victim is bound to serve
the Straits mistress; at the same time, the girl is comparatively
(!) fortunate in that, coming here under the protection we can
give through the Contagious Diseases Ordinances, she has some
chance of becoming a free woman."

Now listen, reader, to the wonderful chances of becoming a free woman
under the British flag, this "Protector" holds out to the slave girls
who are placed in his officially managed brothels:

"The girls with their promissory notes are passed from hand to
hand in sale, or as pledges for loans; and in one brothel I found
two girls, who had, on arrival in Singapore from China some six
years previous, signed a note for $300 each, of which every cent
had been received and taken back to China by the person who had
disposed of them. During the six years they had been the property
of two or three successive owners, and when I found them in Penang
they were still being detained with the original promissory note
hanging over them, though the sum had been paid over and over
again. On my insisting on accounts being produced by the
brothel-keeper, I discovered that for three years the girls had
been earning from 20 to 30 dollars each per month, all of which
went to the master, who was surprised when the girls were released
and himself threatened with the law." (!)

From this we discover that Mr. Pickering intends that we shall think
that the reason why he has a salary from the British Government,
is, among other things, to see that slave girls only need to redeem
themselves by hard earned money through unspeakable humiliation from
one, or two, or more owners, and then there is an end to the patience
of the "Protector" with the slave-trader, who will be surprised to
find himself "threatened"--not punished--with the law! But Cecil C.
Smith, formerly Protector of Chinese (Registrar General) at Hong Kong,
was knighted and made Governor at Singapore, and about a year later
than this, says, in reference to this very representation: "The
Protector of Chinese has no efficient means of dealing with the
accounts of the inmates of brothels, nor has he ever dealt with them.
The Government should