Part 12 (1/2)
The woman who bought me had no trouble getting ash.o.r.e because she had lived in California before. She told me what I was to say when I was questioned. She told me I must swear I was her own daughter.
The Judge asked, 'Is this your own mother?' and I said, 'Yes.'
This was a lie, but I did not know it was wrong to do as I was told, and I was afraid of my mistress. The Judge said, 'Did this woman give you birth?' and I said, 'Yes.' The Judge said, 'Did anybody tell you to say all this?” and I said, 'No,' because my mistress had instructed me how to answer this question, if it was asked me. She taught me on s.h.i.+p-board what to say if I was taken to court. My mistress was an opium smoker, and she and her husband had awful quarrels, which made her bad-tempered, and then she would beat me for no reason. I used to get so tired working hard, and then she would beat me. She beat me with thick sticks of fire-wood. She would lay me on the bench, lift my clothes, and beat me on the back. Another day she would beat me thus with the fire tongs. One day she took a hot flat-iron, removed my clothes, and held it on my naked back until I howled with pain. (There was a large scab on her back from this burn when she came to the Mission.) The scars on my body are proof of my bad treatment. My forehead is all scars caused by her throwing heavy pieces of wood at my head. One cut a large gash, and the blood ran out. She stopped the bleeding and hid me away. She beat my legs one day until they were all swollen up. I thought I better get away before she killed me. When she was having her hair washed and dressed I ran away. I had heard of the Mission, and inquired the way and came to it. A white man brought me here. I am very happy now.”
While being brought to the Mission by this gentleman, she laid hold of his coat, and would not let go until she was safely inside. It is significant that in this case and the following, methods of punishment allowed even unto death by Chinese law, are administered by the mistresses of slaves in America.
No. 2. ”One day I was playing in the street near my home in Canton, and a man kidnaped me. He said: 'Come with me; your mother told me to take you to buy something for her, and you are to take it back.' I have never seen my father and mother since. In 3 or 4 days I was taken to the Hong Kong steamer. I dared not cry on the street, but on board the steamer I cried very much. The kidnaper said: 'Don't you cry, or you will have the policeman after you, and they'll take you off to the foreign devils' prison.' At Hong Kong he sold me to a woman, and after staying at her house a few days she brought me to California. I had a yellow paper given me, but I don't know what it was. The woman told me I must say I was born in California. I came here last winter. I am 11 years old.
I don't remember the name of the steamer. The woman sold me to another woman. I had to work as cook, and nurse her little bound-footed child, who was strapped to my back to carry. The child I carried was 9 years old; and I was 11. My mistress was very cruel. Often she took off all my clothes, laid me on a bench and beat me with a rattan until I was black all over. Then she said: 'I will get rid of you and sell you.' The keeper of a brothel came to buy me, and look me over to see how much I was worth. A Chinaman living next door, knowing how I was treated and that I was going to be put in a brothel, when I saw him in the pa.s.sageway, asked me if I wished to come to the Mission, and I said 'Yes.' My mistress had gone out into the next room, leaving her daughter and another slave girl in the room. I said I would go at once, and he brought me. I am very glad to live here and lead a good life.”
No. 3. The rescuer was requested to meet a girl at the corner of Stockton and Jackson streets. She did so. K---- Y---- was comely and refined looking. She had been sold into a brothel at a tender age. When about 22 she met a young Chinese man who wished to marry her, and he paid down $600 for her, promising $1,400 more in time.
Another man objected to the sale, because the girl had mortgaged herself to him for $600. Through the Mission the girl was released from her bondage, and remained at the Mission one year and then married the first man, and they left San Francisco and resided for a time in an inland town. Here an effort was made to kill her in her own garden one evening. Her husband brought her back to San Francisco, and later she went back to China.
No. 4. Came from a brothel on Spofford alley. She was occasionally allowed to attend the (Chinese) theatre. One evening when at the theatre she had word conveyed to the Mission to come get her immediately. The rescuer did so, and the girl promptly arose, when the rescuer entered the room, from the front tier of seats, and seizing the hand of the missionary in the presence of them all climbed over the backs of two seats, regardless of their occupants, and escaped. Later she was married and returned to China.
No. 5. In a dark, dismal room where the sun never shone lay a poor Chinese woman helpless with rheumatism. She had a baby girl 10 months old and was too sick to care for it. The invalid felt forced to put the child in the hands of a friend she trusted, who promised to care for it, and advanced money for the sick woman.
When the mother got better she worked two years and saved until she had enough money to buy the child back, but the cruel woman who had got possession of it refused to give it up unless paid three times as much as was originally borrowed. The mother could not do this, and finally, hearing of the Mission, reported the case there. The baby was traced to a horrible den in Church alley, where it was in the possession of a notorious brothel-keeper. The mother secretly visited the Matron at the Mission, who had secured the child, urging her to keep possession of the baby, saying she would not dare testify against the woman on the witness stand, as it would cost her her life. The case was a long time in court, but after six months the Judge committed the child to the Home, and the mother was made very happy.
No. 6. She ran into the Mission leading her little son. She was chased to the very door of the Mission, but kept her pursuers at bay, by means of a policeman's whistle which she held in her mouth, walking backward and threatening to blow it if they dared touch her child. She was a widow with this only child, and her relatives were bound to sell her into an immoral life and take the boy away. After being in the Mission a few months she became a Christian. Her little boy was placed in an orphanage. Later the widow married respectably.
No. 7. This girl was aged 14 when rescued, and had been placed in a vile life four weeks before. Two days later she was taken to court on a writ of habeas corpus. Her case was put off three times, and finally came to trial. The Judge remanded the girl to the custody of the M.E. Mission Home. He said, on dismissing the case, that never in all his experience had he listened to such perjury, and that the alleged mother should be punished to the fullest extent of the law for her lying. The girl seemed very happy and contented in the Home, but nine days after she was committed to it she was again taken out on a writ of habeas corpus and appeared before another Judge, who returned her to the brothel-keeper. (This was before the new guardians.h.i.+p law came into operation).
No. 8 proves that the buying and selling of children takes place in America up to the present day. It is but one instance of this sort out of scores of others given by the missionary:
”She was sold when she was but four weeks and five days old. Her parents being very poor and having several other children, she was disposed of to a man who was a friend of the father. The wife, however, was an inmate of an immoral house. Part of the time the child was kept there and part of the time in a family house where we often saw her in our rounds of visiting prior to the earthquake and fire. We did not know but that she belonged to the family in whose care we saw her.
”After the fire the man returned to China, leaving the woman and child. The woman took to abusing the child, and word was brought to us of the condition of things. We appeared on the scene one morning about 10 o'clock with an officer. Leaving him outside, we entered, and found the woman and child eating breakfast. Three other women and two men soon came in. After talking for a while I saw the woman was anxious to get the child away from the table, so I informed her we had come to take her, and proceeded to do so, catching the child up and darting into the street, leaving my interpreter and the officer to follow. We ran several blocks, followed by the irate woman. Finally hailing a man with a horse and wagon, we sprang in and were driven away to where we could take the street cars for home. The child did some screaming and crying, at first. But once we were seated in the street car, her tears were dried and her little tongue rattled along at a rapid rate; she was delighted to get away.
”The case was in court for some weeks, but the woman was afraid to appear, and had no one to a.s.sist her but the lawyer, and as he could not prove any good reason why the child should remain with an immoral woman, we were given the guardians.h.i.+p.”
No. 9. A young girl came to San Francisco from China as a merchant's wife, and missionaries used to visit her at her home in Chinatown. Once when they went they were told that the wife had gone to San Jose, but she could not be traced at the latter place, and the missionary was suspicious. A year pa.s.sed, and one night the door bell at the Mission rang, and when it was opened a Chinese girl fell in a faint from exhaustion, across the threshold. A colored girl stood by her holding her by the cue.
The colored girl said she saw her running, and divined where she wished to go, and seizing her by the hair to prevent her being dragged back, rushed her to the Mission. It was the merchant's young wife. She had been confined in a brothel not two blocks from the Mission, and often saw the missionary pa.s.s by, but had no means of attracting her attention. The merchant told her one day that he wished to take her to a cousin to learn a different way of dressing her hair, and he would leave her there a day or two while he was away from town on business. The young wife went without fear, but never to return to virtue until she escaped to the Mission. She was tied to a window by day to attract custom, and at night tied to a bed, for she was no willing slave. When rescued she was horribly diseased. Three days before her rescue, the Chief of Police and an interpreter had gone through the house questioning every inmate as to whether they wished to lead a life of shame or not. She was asked the question in the presence of the brothel-keeper, the head mistress, and all the girls. She had been told beforehand, ”If you dare say you want to escape, we will kill you.” The Chief of Police had it announced in the papers that he had made this investigation, and that no slaves existed in Chinatown. Immediately after his visit, she was removed to a family house, lest her rescue might be effected, and one man and two women set to watch her day and night. She feigned willingness to lead a bad life, and the two women, lulled into a sense of security, turned aside to gossip, while the man dropped off asleep. She suddenly rushed out of the house, and but for the quick wit and good offices of the colored girl might have missed the way to a safe harbor.
The following are cases of rescue reported from the Mission Home of the Occidental Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church:
No. 1. Qui Que. This little girl was taken from a gambling den at Isleton, a small town on the Sacramento river. The woman who brought her from China died, and she was thus left to the care of this gang of gamblers. When Miss Cameron and her escort arrived at the house, the little girl of six or seven years sat on a table rolling cigarettes for the men who sat around it gambling. They were taken by surprise, and before they quite understood the situation the rescuers were gone with the little girl. When they discovered this, they fired several shots after the party, but no harm was done. The officer, with one hand on his revolver, drove rapidly for the boat landing, and Qui Que, safe in Miss Cameron's arms, will probably never know the danger risked in securing her freedom.
No. 2. Ngun Fah. This child was a domestic slave in the family of a well-to-do merchant in Chinatown, but so cruelly was the child overworked and abused that the matter was finally reported to the Mission, and little Ngun Fah rescued. When found at the home of her master, she was in a most pitiable condition. Weary from hard work and worn out with crying, after the cruel punishment which had just been administered, the lonely little girl crawled on to the hard wooden shelf which served as a bed, and with no covering but the dirty, forlorn garment worn through the day, had dropped off to sleep. Thus she was easily captured and carried to the Mission, where upon examination it was found that her head had been severely cut from blows administered with a meat knife, the hair was matted with blood and the child's whole body was covered with filth, and showed signs of former punishments. After the first fears of ”being poisoned” were allayed, Ngun Fah expressed herself as being very happy to be rescued from the suffering and weariness of her life in Chinatown. Her master sent many emissaries to the Home with offers of bribes, and many promises of better treatment in the future, but all these overtures were rejected, and when at length the matter of guardians.h.i.+p came up, there was no one present to claim the child but her new friends at the Mission Home.
No. 3. Suey Ying. Our dear baby was surely sent to dispel any clouds of sadness which may be hovering round, for she takes all of life as a huge joke. And where did Suey Ying come from? From a part of Chinatown, dear friend, that you would not dare to enter, and the strangest thing about her coming is that she was carried to the Home by a fugitive slave woman, who was escaping to China.
Long ago this woman had spent a day or two in the Mission and was impressed by the happy life of the children here and by the kind treatment she herself received. Later on she purchased for $120 a little baby girl. She grew to love the tiny waif, and when at length troubles of many kinds drove her to sudden flight across the ocean, instead of selling the baby she brought it to this Home of happy memory and asked that we keep it always.
No. 4. How Wan. A frail young girl with bound feet was brought to this country to be the wife of a man who had died while she was en route. Refused a landing, she was detained in the Mission by immigration officials, while the young man's parents made frantic efforts to secure her admission to the country. She remained here, a prisoner, for two years. Thousands of dollars were expended without avail, and How Wan was deported. Nothing daunted, they accompanied her as far as j.a.pan, and returned with her, secured a license and landed her as a merchant's wife. She lived with the family in a dark bas.e.m.e.nt on Sacramento street, where the mother-in-law abused her with such cruelty that, shrinking girl as she is, she found courage to send word to us if we did not come to her rescue she must relieve herself by suicide--the Chinese woman's only hope. We began at once to plan to get her taken to the steamer to hid good-bye to some friends, and rescued her at the Pacific Mail dock. She is now a grateful member of our household family, and is unbinding her feet.
No. 5. During the St. Louis Exposition a Chinese company brought from China a large number of women for exhibition in the Fair.
Four of these, upon learning that they were not to be returned at the close of the exposition, as agreed, but were destined to be sold into houses of prost.i.tution in San Francisco, refused to land, and were brought to the Mission by the Commissioners of Immigration.
These Chinese were arrested, the case tried in Federal Court, these girls being the princ.i.p.al witnesses; yet twelve supposedly good men dismissed the criminals, and the case was lost.
Surrounded by the genial environment of our Mission, the minds of these four girls unfolded in a remarkable manner; fascinated with their studies, they constantly begged us to intercede with the authorities that they might remain in the Mission and obtain an education; but, although every effort was made, they were deported after a seven months' stay.
They had learned to love our Home life, had united with our Christian Endeavor Society and had become interested in all our work, and we would be quite unreconciled to their departure did we not know that our missionaries in Shanghai stand ready to receive and care for them when they arrive.