CHINESE SLAVE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 7, 8 July 1922, Page 12

CHINESE SLAVE

An extraordinary history attaches to an -Australian woman who has just arrived at Erem.antle (W.A;), a frail'and battered wreck, from Singapore; Twenty-four' years ago she married a Chinese gardener at the Perth Registry Office. She lived with him for some years, and then went with him to China. For a while all went well, but the Chinaman then said she was getting too old. He married' a young Chinese wife, and made the first wife his household drudge. Later the, husband'died,-and the Austtalian^.woman lived with his mother, who was 88 years old. Four years passed well enough. Then the mother died, and the uncle took charge of the property, including the Australian woman. He sold her. for 60 dollare to a rioh Chinese, who wanted to learn English. Then came the ■ famine, and the woman, being bought as a slave, was given barely enough food to keep her alive, and she was sold again .for the second time. A leg injury due to a fall brought her under the notice of a missionary, who supplemented her meagre diet, and later took her into hospital and amputated her leg.

British officials learned of the circumstances, and quietly -it the woman to S_tg_poi-e. There a Western Australian citizen, hearing her story, arranged a passage for ■ Fremantle. i The local immigration department took charge of the woman, who will be accommodated in a religious home.