e show elsewhere
on the statements of the officials who operated the Ordinance (made
confidentially, but not intended for publication), that object was not
realized, and in the very nature of things, never will be, by such
measures. When the State guarantees the service of "clean women" to
men of vicious habits, it actively encourages those vicious habits;
and since these diseases are the direct outcome of such vice, the
more the vice itself is encouraged the more the diseases resulting
therefrom will increase in frequency.

The treachery and perfidy of the profession that this Ordinance was
in large measure one intended to "protect" poor slaves, is clearly
exposed in this letter of Dr. Bridges. "There will be less difficulty"
in operating the measure because the women are not "free agents!" The
very success of the measure, their own language betrays, depended
upon their servitude. Then were they likely to strike a blow at that
slavery? Their measure would, then, of course, lead to an increase and
not to a mitigation of the hardships of servitude. They had "fewer
rights to be interfered with" in Hong Kong "than could he found
elsewhere." Away with a measure of "protection" which finds its chief
source of gratulation in the curtailed rights of the "protected!"

The much-vaunted "protection" of the slaves, through medical
surveillance, became limited at once to a certain class who associated
with foreigners, whose interests were supposed to be "protected" by
that surveillance. Nevertheless from that time almost to the present
hour whenever it has been proposed to discontinue the compulsory
medical examination, officials have raised a cry of pity for the poor
slave-girls who would be left without "protection."

Since each registered house was to pay a fee to the Colonial
Government, which was turned into the fund to meet general expenses
(although the express reading of the Ordinance was against this
practice), this gave additional reason for registering all immoral
houses, beyond their being listed for the compulsory examinations,
hence all houses of prostitution were registered whether for
foreigners or for Chinese.

The Commission's report says: "This Ordinance seems to have been
worked with energy by all concerned. Dr. Murray, who assumed charge of
the Lock Hospital on the 1st of May, 1857,... discharged his duty with
undoubted zeal. The Magistrates certainly threw no obstruction in the
way of the working of the O