lpless, and afflicted, whether
they be harlots or any other kind of sinners, who; unless the
Government assist them by forced examinations, will suffer and often
die in misery from the want of medical assistance." Perhaps the most
charitable view to take of this creature is that suggested by himself.
He was a Christian, he claims, "as far as my nature will allow." Had
his nature only allowed him to see further, he would have perceived
a distance as wide as heaven is from hell between the conduct of the
Divine Master who "went about healing all that were oppressed," and
the man who prostitutes the healing art to the service of libertines,
in making it healthier, if possible, for them to defy the commandments
of that same Divine Master. Such doctors are the offscouring of the
medical profession.

A Chinaman one day entered Mr. Pickering's office at the Protectorate
in Singapore, accused him of selling his brother into slavery, and
tried to brain him with an axe. The blow was not fatal, but the
"Protector," if living, is still in a mad house.

The attitude of the average official mind in this part of the world,
among the British, as betrayed by innumerable expressions in their own
documents, is perhaps most precisely put by Mr. Swettenham. British
Resident at Perak. Speaking of measures adopted to make vice more
healthy, he says: "As to the Chinese, the only question in the minds
of members (of the Council) was whether such an Order would not drive
the women from the state," and then he declares the measures were
introduced cautiously and gradually ... "The steps already taken have
been with the object of protecting Chinese women from ill treatment
and oppression in a state of life ... where the labour required is
compulsory prostitution for the benefit of unscrupulous masters ...
and secondly, in the interest of public order and decency ..." "always
remembering that where the males so enormously outnumber the females,
the prostitute is a necessary evil," "I have avoided any reference to
the moral question," continues Mr. Swettenham, "Morality is dependent
on the influence of climate, religious belief, education, and the
feeling of society. All these conditions differ in different parts of
the world."

CHAPTER 14.

PROTECTIVE ORDINANCES.

After eighteen years' hard struggle, the British Abolitionists
succeeded in getting Parliament to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts
in force in certain military stations