hough in reality
their mistresses and their absolute owners."

The document scarcely needs comment. It illustrates the fact that one
may have most ideal laws, but laws never operate automatically, and in
the absence of any desire to "let the oppressed go free," but rather
an eager desire to hold them in subjection to the base propensities of
profligate men, as all the State documents representing the situation
tend to show, there is small proof that the "Women and Girls'
Protective Ordinance of 1889" has had any appreciable effect in
altering the slave conditions at Hong Kong. The same old notorious
inspector, John Lee, who, Governor Hennessy thought, ought to have
been prosecuted for manslaughter, after he hounded those native women
to their death, was Chief Inspector of Brothels at Hong Kong in 1894,
when we made investigations in that Colony, and personally interviewed
many of these slave girls, and heard their stories.

The most recent official documents relating to the matter have been
commented upon in _The Shield_ (organ of the British Committee of the
International Purity Federation), in its issue dated London, June,
1906, as follows:

"One of the most important parliamentary papers of recent years on
our question has just been issued in response to questions put in
the House of Commons by Mr. Henry J. Wilson, M.P., on March 8th
last. The title is, 'Further Correspondence relating to Measures
Adopted for Checking the Spread of Venereal Disease' (Cd. 2903),
and relates to enactments in the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong,
and Gibraltar, during the period in which the Rt. Hon. Joseph
Chamberlain was at the head of the Colonial office.

"The correspondence in question further reveals the existence and
extent of a 'Yellow Slave Trade' in the East of large dimensions.
The girls in question are stated to be 'bought when young,' and
'believe themselves bound body and soul to the brothel-keepers.'
Nine hundred and sixty-eight Chinese women, presumably of this
kind, are reported at Penang, and 62 Japanese women. There were
176 admissions of Japanese women, and 141 admissions of Chinese
women in 1899 to the public hospital at Singapore, besides numbers
of other cases to private hospitals maintained by the keepers of
the houses of ill-fame.

"Many passages in the correspondence give evidence of a continual
import traffic going on, whic