Part 10 (1/2)

”We went in company with a missionary and a native, both of whom could talk both English and Chinese, and visited some 'flower-boats' on the river. Many of these boats are quite pretentious, with their rich wood-carving, fine furniture, and gaudy display of tinsel. There were whole streets of them,--floating houses moored together; we walked along the length of the street on one side, stepping from the bow of one boat to the next, the bows of the boats const.i.tuting front verandahs. We called at almost every place, but a description of one will do for all. First, as we entered, was a couch for opium smoking; just beyond this a reception room, very gaudy, with dozens of hanging lamps, and at one end a shrine for the G.o.ds, and offerings before it. In a room back of the reception room, and also upstairs, there were girls in large numbers. A hard-featured old woman came forward from the back room, who, our interpreter said, was as good a specimen as we could possibly have seen of an old brothel-keeper of Canton, one who had been in the business for many years of buying or otherwise obtaining babies and girls, and training them for prost.i.tution. The girls came crowding to the door of the back room, and looked in upon us with eager curiosity. Our interpreter called our attention to the manner of dressing the hair,--like married women,--as indicating their bad life. The interpreter said they were inducted usually at about thirteen years of age. They were all dressed very showily, and heavily powdered and painted, excepting some mere babies who were plainly dressed. Troops of little girls, from four to five years of age, swarmed out of the neighboring 'flower-boats' and gathered around us, screaming and scrambling, falling, laughing, and following us the full length of the street, which was made up of about twenty such boats on either side. And none of these innocent little things at all realized the fate in store for them. In one place we saw two very old women in the front room. In another, a woman knelt before the idolatrous shrine engaged in her devotions. At one point there was a very large boat brilliantly fitted up for music, dancing, smoking opium, and feasting. At the far end of the street was a 'kitchen-boat,' from which supplies of food, ready cooked, could be bought. All the way along we saw little girls with the unmistakable signs of their destiny upon them. Our interpreter said the girls were usually made to stay upstairs during the day time, but at night the whole place was illuminated and alive; then they were brought down and to the front. Occasionally we would see one of these huge house boats full of painted girls, floating down the middle of the stream, for they move about from place to place at will.

”At Canton, February 18th, 1894, we met and conversed with a missionary lady who had just come from a station in the interior.

She had travelled from her station on a Chinese boat, which had been chartered by her adopted son for his use going up, and for hers coming down the river. When she was about to embark, she required that the men should search the boat, and down below, in the very bottom, were a lot of little girls--_child slaves_--being smuggled to Canton for the trade of a vile life. She made the men take the children off the boat, but with great difficulty. They resisted, but she stood courageously, and saw her commands executed. After she had accomplished this, and started down the river, all alone, so far as any English-speaking person was concerned, the men, who were still deeply enraged at being defeated in their plans, greatly annoyed her by intruding on her constantly, and finally they threatened to kill her; but she presented as brave a front as possible, and at last took hold of one man who was especially insolent, by the shoulder, in an authoritative manner, bidding him to go out of her presence. He went away cowed, and they all said, as was reported to her by one of her attendants, 'She is not afraid'; they then became very superst.i.tious at the idea of a woman taking hold of them, and troubled her no more.

”The five or six Christian friends where we were staying in Canton all agreed that it was the most common occurrence for little girls to be bought and sold for immoral purposes. One of the group has often heard the wretched blind girls singing just under her window, on the river bank, and under conduct of the old brothel-keeper, their owner, thus attracting custom. The proportion of blind people in Oriental countries is much greater, owing to the prevalence of eye diseases and the poverty and ignorance of the people in coping with these, than in the West; and as blind girls do not bring much money when disposed of as wives, so they are sold in large numbers into a life of shame.

Poor little slaves! Because they are deprived of the natural light of day, so they are destined never to see a ray of moral light enter their miserable existence! We saw three or four little blind girls who had been rescued, by these Christian workers, from their terrible fate; but these are only a few rare exceptions out of the thousands that are borne on into the tide of shame and anguish continually.”

Of the many girls we interviewed at Hong Kong the story of the following seems typical of her cla.s.s, so we extract it from our journal:

”At the first place we called there were six inmates--four of whom were present at the interview. The keeper went out of the room as we entered, and did not return. The girls were very friendly, and one of them talked a little English. This one told us that she came from Canton, and, in broken English, said that she had 'no father, no mother, no brother; a poor man took her when a _very_ little child and raised her to sell. By and by a woman came and offered to buy poor man's little girl, and as he had but little food, he asks, 'How much?' then she buys the little girl and brings her to Hong Kong. Then woman take her to Englishman and say, 'She first-cla.s.s girl,' and he say, 'I make her my wife,' but he not good; he no husband; he go away to his house--England.'

Thus she described in a few simple words the tragedy of her life with tears in her eyes; her training for vice; her sale; her hopes of marriage; her desertion; the outcome, her consignment to a Government-licensed brothel. She was but one of the tens of thousands at Hong Kong. We asked, 'How would a girl have to do in order to live in this house?' They said, 'She must be registered at the Lock. Hospital, and would have to go to the Court and Mr.

Lockhart (the Registrar-General) would ask her questions; whether she had a father and mother; how old she was; _where the money went to that was paid for her_; and whether she wanted to be a prost.i.tute or not.' We asked, 'If a girl should say that she _did not_ want to be a prost.i.tute what would be done?' They answered, 'No girl would _dare_ to say this _when she had been bought_.' We asked the girl who talked English over again about this, and she said the same.

”All the places of infamy reserved for the use of Europeans which we visited in Hong Kong, were within three minutes' walk of Victoria Hotel, in the very busiest part of the city. Close by our hotel were such world-famed shops as 'Watson and Co.,' 'Kelly and Walsh,' etc.; a short distance down the street were the Postoffice and the Supreme Court buildings. The respectable English residents of Hong Kong cannot go about the streets of the city without seeing these places; there are draper-shops and other places visited daily and hourly by respectable foreigners and natives, occupying the ground floor of these brothels. The fine new building of the Girls' High School, under the management of the Government, is within five minutes' walk; yet all these brothels are glaringly numbered, as registered by the city, in huge figures eight or ten inches high, of red on a white background, painted on the doors of the stairways leading to the second story of the buildings occupied by these shops. The school children cannot pa.s.s by without noting these officially numbered houses, and seeing the girls sitting at all hours of the day and into the night conspicuously in the balconies over the shops of drapers, grocers, tailors, silk-merchants, shoe-dealers, &c., &c., and often hearing them calling to each other from house to house, and to the men in the public streets below. Mrs. Andrew, when in the street, March 2nd, saw a group of these slave-women calling down to three policemen, who were looking up and laughing at them. These are daily sights.”

The unblus.h.i.+ng parade of forms of vice, which have been manufactured in the Orient especially to meet the demands of renegade members of Christian civilization, can be seen in a peculiarly painful and brazen form in the city of Hong Kong.

While we were at Hong Kong, there occured a great celebration in honor of the repair and rededication of an important Buddhist temple.

There was a grand procession, and many thousands of Chinese from the mainland came over to witness the celebration. The parade formed in the early morning and went at once to the residence of the Governor to do him honor, after which it marched through the princ.i.p.al streets of the city. It was a curious, interesting, and withal a painful sight, in some regards not unlike industrial parades in our own country. At night we saw something totally unique and difficult to describe to those who have not witnessed the same in China. Men bore aloft great dragons and fishes innumerable, of all sizes and shapes, (but very true to life), given a natural color and lighted up within, like Chinese lanterns. These were held aloft on the ends of long poles, and as the men who carried them were invisible, because of the darkness, and trod noiselessly because of bare, or merely sandaled feet, the impression was of an immense train of these creatures floating or swimming silently through the air.

The procession was made up of men of all sorts and kinds. Great fat men with enormous fans panted along, and little boys ran by their side with stools upon which they gravely seated themselves whenever the line of march was halted for a moment. Little boys progressed painfully along with the rest, walking on their hands, with their feet thrown up into the air, or spinning along on all fours like wheels, or going through various other antics. And, contrary to anything that could have happened away from the open ports of China, there were many women in the parade, and girls too. They were on horseback, in sedan chairs, borne on wheeled platforms, like our ”G.o.ddess of Liberty”

representations on the Fourth of July; walking, and sometimes riding on bullocks. We counted 150 women in all. These were dressed and painted up in such a style that a single glance showed they belonged to the disreputable cla.s.s, and their old ”pocket-mothers,” were to be seen walking along close to them and keeping a sharp lookout over their gaudily dressed slaves. Yet more painful was the sight of the little girls, bound to heavy wires and placed in all manner of contortions. Here was a girl about sixteen, standing cross-legged on a moving platform, holding a spear in each hand, the spears crossed in front of her breast, and a little girl dangling from each spear-point.

So it appeared, but in fact all were well wired into the distressing shape they occupied, and it was said that none of them could have endured the position for a moment but for plentiful doses of opium.

Next pa.s.sed a girl standing on the moving platform, holding a spear at arm's length, and a three-year-old girl standing on its point. Then a little boy holding a long rod from which was suspended a tiny child. A girl pa.s.sed sitting on a stool and holding a sword by its point with a child of four suspended from its handle, and next a girl holding a sword by its handle, and the child suspended from its point. One girl sat playing a flute held up high in the air, and a girl of six appeared to be suspended from it. One poor little thing was borne high up in the air, astride a turning-pole, with legs well crossed beneath the pole. And then there came along a little girl swaying about on the end of a long pole carried by men in the procession. We were on the second floor of a great verandah of the hotel, and the child swung so close to us, that we started forward toward her with a cry of pity.

Great tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she seemed to look straight into our eyes, and attempted a sickly smile at our expressions of pity.

Later, after the procession of fishes, we sat in company with two Chinese ministers of the Gospel who came to call upon us, and discussed in sadness the scenes of the day. They said, if we had understood the native language and joined in the procession, as they did at times, we would have heard the old ”pocket-mothers” and other owners of these girls driving bargains for their sale, temporarily or permanently, with the men of the crowds. These native Christians marvelled that Englishmen and American men who called themselves ”Christians” could have joined in these festivities in honor of a heathen temple, and that the Governor should have made a speech of congratulation, with no rebuke of these scenes of inhuman torture of women and child slaves, when the procession paused at his door. These parades continued two or three days, always accompanied by the great paper dragons, whether in the daytime or at night, by the noise of deafening tom-toms, and the sickening sight of tortured slave-girls.

CHAPTER 15.

”PROTECTION” AT SINGAPORE.

”Ladies, I wish to introduce to you Mr. ---- He is eager to meet you, and I am sure you will be glad to meet him. You are working along much the same lines. Mr. ---- I a.s.sure you, is, in fact, interested in every good thing that is done in this City, and in every good thing that comes this way. We all count on his sympathies. I am glad to have the privilege of bringing you together.” With this our friend of many years, the good Doctor, withdrew to speak to another group, and we entered into a short conversation with the white-headed old man to whom we had been introduced. He was profuse in his expressions of sympathy for our purity work, but somehow, we could hardly have defined why, we were not interested in him, and soon turned away.

The occasion that gave the opportunity for his introduction, was a missionary conference at Singapore. The man in question had explained to us that he was not of the same denomination as the church that had called together the reception of that evening, but that he seldom failed to attend all such gatherings, no matter of what denomination, because of his interest in every part of the ”Father's Kingdom”.

Although we were very weary, and the air was intensely close, Singapore being only about seventy-five miles from the Equator, we spent most of that night and of several others in company with a Christian friend and interpreter, in the worst parts of the city; and this, with visits to various regions during the day, gave us a pretty clear understanding of the situation as to the matter of enforcement or non-enforcement of the Protective Ordinance.

”On the night of February 1st, 1894, we went to Tringanu street, and ascended to the third story of a large building. The front windows of this upper floor were gaily lighted up by many colored lamps, and could be seen far down the street. There was a small opium den at the foot of the stairway, on the ground floor. On reaching the head of the stairs, and turning, we entered a large front room. There were bedrooms at the back of the house, to be let to patrons of the establishment. At the opposite end of the front room from the windows was the ever-present idolatrous shrine. On either side of the room were elegantly-carved ebony chairs, with marble or agate panels. Rich Chinese pictures decorated the walls. Toward the back of the room hung the sign, '283 Licensed Eating House.' There was a large table in the centre of the room. Toward the front, on either side, in alcoves, part.i.tioned off in part from the remainder of the room, were opium couches, with pipes and lamps ready for use. We give this description in full, as it applies, almost without variation, to all the others which we visited in the immediate neighborhood.

Food was furnished on order, intoxicating drinks, and opium. At the second place, on the opposite corner of the same block, the men told us that the place was used for the same purposes. We asked where the women were, and they answered that it was too late to see them, but if we would come earlier we would find them. When asked where the women came from, they pointed down to the street below, to the open brothels, and said there were a great number of degraded women who lived close by; said the brothel-keepers sent them. They said that white men as well as Chinese came to their place. After this we walked the length of the several streets and side-streets, in the near vicinity, and proved the truth of what the men had told us as to the swarming numbers of degraded girls and women.

”The next night we went to the same neighborhood, and revisited the two places already mentioned, and others also. As we reached the top of the stairway and pa.s.sed into the front room of the place where they had invited us to return, there was quite a flutter of excitement, and we instantly saw that there was a number of girls present, all very young, and several mere children. On our left a fat, middle-aged Chinese man sat, with two or three little girls, one in his lap and one on either side of him, in his arms; two more were throwing something that resembled dice on a table within the front alcove, and the rest were sitting on the opium couches. There were ten girls in all; the two youngest could not possibly have been more than eight years old; only one, out of the ten, claimed to be over sixteen; we all doubted her claim, because of her extreme immaturity of appearance. The two youngest children were immediately sent away by order of the fat man, who was evidently in authority. The men explained that these girls belonged to different women who were not their own mothers; that they came to sing and dance, and pour wine for the patrons who came to the place. They also explained that all these girls were brought from the brothels, and were either already living a bad life or were being trained up for prost.i.tution. They were powdered heavily, had flowers and ornaments in their hair, the upper part of the forehead made bare, and the hair dressed elaborately, like married women (even the very youngest children); of course they were not married, for they were declared to be the property of the brothel-keepers, and this manner of dress must, therefore, have been an advertis.e.m.e.nt of their shame.

”A curious musical instrument was brought--somewhat like a dulcimer--on which two of the girls played in succession, singing in a high, monotonous way.

”From here we went to the first place visited the night previous, on the opposite corner of the same block. There was quite an excitement here when we came in. Two men and two girls were playing on native instruments--one of the men on a sort of fiddle, and the other on a rude guitar; the girls, one striking, in sharp staccato fas.h.i.+on, a wooden perforated bowl inverted on a standard or post, and the other a kind of cymbal; they were singing in the same shrill, monotonous way we had heard before. We counted eight girls here. There was a piece of unpainted tin or zinc, about eight by twelve inches, set upon the table toward one end, with a list of fifty names on it, and a Chinese man, who talked fair English, explained it thus: 'These are the names of singing and dancing girls who come here; a man looks over the list and calls for a girl to sing or dance; then he chooses his girl.'