Slaves of the Age.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 838, 23 March 1888, Page 9

Slaves of the Age.

THE POSITION OF CHINESE WOMEN IN SAN FRANCISCO. THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF SLAVERY TO WHICH THEY ARE EXPOSED. A LIFE IV W ICH THERE IS ONLY BRUTALITY, VICE, AND CRIME. FOR WHAT PURPOSE THE HABEAS CORPUS WILLIS SET IN MOTION THE TRAFFIC IN CHINESE GIRLS - HOW THEY ESCAPE TO THE MISSIONS. We take the following graphic account of the Chinese in San Francisco from the Bulletin of that city. It should act as a warning to all Australia and New Zealand to avoid by every possible means engrafting such au objectionable social system on our own:

All phases of Chinese female life are to be found in the dimunitive but complete Chinese community in the midst of San Francisco— the wife, the concubine, the domestic slave and the brothel slave. The rich man has his delicate doll, his Kit Fat Tsai or ‘ Golden Lily,, who presides over his household as best she may, with her feet which are not foot aud her shattered health. She is her husband’s one wife, but the lenient customs of her country permit him to take in!» his house as many concubines as his purse will allow. The poor man has his slave who, for decency’s sake, is dubbed hia wife. He has bought her with the savings of a year. Henceforth she will share with him the monotonous misery of a pauper’s life, ready at any time to take her place beside another man if her husband’s resources should b come too limited to yield her support.

But more truly Oriental than the lot of these women is that of the larger class imported into this city to lead lives of shame for the profit sf their masters. They are slaves iu the most complete sense of the word, bound soul and body to one who has not even the claim of a nominal husband. Last conies the little domestic girl bought in China by her master of mistress. Occasionally she is given no reason to deem her life harder than that of her sisters ; but more often the studied brutality of the heathen master aud the vicious rage of the mistress, who is herself a olave and who visits upon her little servant all the insult, abuse and neglect which she herself has suffered from infancy, would make the young maid envy the freedom of her American sisters, if her education had not been so sadly neglected that she has never heard of them. CHINESE WIVES. There are in San Francisco Chinese wives of the first class, bound-foot womeu, who never appear in public except carefully veiled iu a closed carriage. It would be a desecration to permit their faces- to be seen by any save their husbands. Their seclusion is as sacred as that of the inmates of the Turkish harem. The life of such a creature is a bare existence, without purpose, almost without memory, incapable of mental effort and incapable of motion--* life of absolute ignorance and of absolute silence beyond the chatter ot her female slaves. The hopeless misery of old ag6 is seldom visited upon these pitiable women, for nature revolts at such ruthless disregard of her laws, and most of them are taken while comparatively young. For the same reason it rarely happens that a babe comes to them to brighten their dark days. The sons who grow up to perpetuate her husband’s name and to do honor to the ancestors of the household are the children of the slaves. Mr Masters, of the Methodist Chinese Mission in this city, for nine years a resident missiouer in China, states that ha has never known of a bound-foot woman who was physically sound. Christian wives have in many cases in this city been permitted to visit these unfortunate creatures, and some slight glimpse of the gre«t outside world hu thus been given them. Cases of conversion, or even of enlightenment, however, are ex* tremely rare, as the mind of an infant, hardened in the mould of mature woman* hood, can not be brought to the appreciation of the simplest moral principle. Their only law is obedience to their husband’s will, and their only religion is a faint nnmean* ing superstition. THE LITTLE SLAVE GIRLS. The clua-j of Chinese females which, with opportunity, is more easily converted to Christianity in this city, are the young girls, kidnapped or bought in China and sold in this country into domestic slavery. In San Francisco there are bouses of refuge for these waifs in case of ill.treatment. They run to the missions, where they are protected, cared for, brought iuto the Christian faith, and Upon arriving at maturity are married, if opportunity offers, to respectable Christian Chinamen. In this way the missions have taken charge of girls as young as eight years. The tales that many of these runaways tell give an insight into Chinese life that is at once interesting and revolting, A weeping mother in order to save her younger offspring sells her eldest into slavery. A pro* mised home of kindness and plenty turns out to be none at all. Away from her mother and her people she is beateu until she is siok and heart-weary. Finally she hears of the mission and, seizing a good opportunity, she

makes her escape. Many a Chinese mother will cast her little girls into the Ya.ng-t3e-Kiang rather than rear them to lives of misery, and, in all probabl ty, of vice. It is told that an American family living in HongkoDg had in their household a Chinese nurae, a gentle and devoted oreature, who almost idolized the white people who were placed in her care And yet it was known that this woman, who loved children as dearly as any of the mothers of Christian lands, had deliberately drowned five girls in order to save them from the unhappiness which is the lot of the Chinese woman.

ANOTHER CLASS OF SLAVES. The third and by far the most numerous class of Chinatown women, those who lead lives of shame, the missions find it very difficult to deal with. They have not only to contend with the greed of gain on the part of the slave-owners, but also with the vice which may be deep-seated in the women themselves. The masters see to it that in dress, in jewellery, personal attention, and theatricals, there shall he nothing left for the female heart to desire. No woman with ■mall feet can ever be bongbb and sold for Immoral purposes. Such an act would be conaldered a stain upon the clan of the woman as well as upon the clan of the offender himself. He would be regarded as an enemy to the public, and there would be no rest in the community until his head was severed from his shoulders. second class, spoken of above—the domestic child slaves »re usually exempt from lives of this character., The agreements drawn up when they ■re sold into slavery must be adhered to or the vengeance of the little one s clan is ■roused and this reaches even to far America. These agreements provide that the girl shall not be used for other than specified purposes, but the desire for money is so strong among the Chinese and the love for female children so weak that it is not seldom the oase that no restriction whatever is placed upon the purchaser. Children of this class are handed over by their'parents to lives of degradation »n<l sorrow. The term for which these girls are sold is in most cases four and. a half to five years ; bnt the end of that period rarely terminates their bondage. Before the time ha 3 expired the sly Oriental,, who has been getting rich, has sold out his establishment and the new proprietor knows nothing about any agreement that his predecessor may have entered into. Meanwhile the unfortunate slaves have become accustomed to lives of vice and do not venture to run away, and even if thev did. their life of freedom would be brief. The kidnapping highbinder would loon' have them in the toils again. Those who come to the mission have been aided to escape by Chinamen who desire to marry them. The missionaries encourage this and afterward protect the couple from highbinders with all the power that they can command.

PREMATURE OLD AGE.

Such a life combined with the early maturity so noticeable in Oriental countries brings on old age when in years they are yet young. In fact, it rarely happens that at the expiration of their four or five years term of bondage that vitality enough remains to them to constitute them very valuable articles in the slave market; bnt it Is only when health and comeliness are gone that the owner will relax his hold. By that time the woman is lost to ways of morality ; she is turned into the streets, where, in her wrecked health and hardened criminality, ■he becomes the prey of the highbinder. These women are far beyond the. reach of the softening influences of Christianity. Ignorance, superstition, and crime have so warped their minds that they have become mere creatures of sense, and a sense depraved and blunted. Hundreds of these poor miserable creatures may be seen in the alleys of Chinatown. Punk sticks and tallow dips encircle every doorway with their, sacred fames, and a glance within, will find the inmate prostrated before a little greasy god, blinking through a mass of soot and dirt. , This is no overdrawn picture of the degraded and empty life that awaits the Chinese girls,- and which is exemplified in our Chinatown. Mr Masters, whose long residence m China and intimate knowledge of the Chinese In this city gives authority to his words, Btates emphatically that the only decent homes in Chinatown are those few whose master and mistress have been brought, together through the missions. Some slight comprehension of the Christian idea of respect .for woman must be instilled into the Oriental mind-before they can realize the true meaning of a home.

THE WORK OF THE MISSIONS. In elevating heathen women our local missionarles have accomplished their greatest good; and, aB might be supposed, their fiercest opposition has come from the Chinese themselves. If a woman under the whip of a slave-owner desires to be married Bhe must run to the mission. There the woman is immediately married to her chosen lord, as it is not considered wise to allow this class to remain long with the poor young girls growing up at the mission. The newly mar. vied couple then set up a home under the sheltering wing of the mission, as the women ■till sorely needs its protection. Her marriage certificate is no shield against the blackmailers and kidnappers, who, in their greed for blood-money, would tear the wife from her husband’s arms and place her again amid the old scenes of misery and ■hame. . "When oce of these refugees is safe within the missicD, her persecutors do not yield their property without a struggle. If any one is allowed to see her she is lost. A mingling of threats and promises from the glib" tongue of an experienced, procuress is often'all that is required to win the weakspirited reformar back to her old life. The powerful habeas corpus is brought into play and the mission s compelled to give up the woman.

A CHINESE TRICK. Formerly it was a very common practice for a Chinaman to appear at the old City Hall whenever one of the damsels had escaped, and swear out a warrant for her arrest on some fictitious charge. She would be removed from the mission to the City Prison, where an emissary of her former owner would see her. The result was usually that she‘consented- to go back to him. When this fraud was exposed the remedy was tipy, ' No one to see the run.

away and no bail was required to secure her release.

All women with the exception of those who are more or less hardened to vice, who seek the protection of the missions .must agree to submit themselves to their discipline and instruction for at least one year; and they are given to understand that this agreement once made, the mission has the power ! to hold them to it, although, of course, no suoh power exists. The coss of maintenance does not average more than S6O per year, which sum is occasionally paid by the young Chineae gallant who intends to marry the girl. The submission of the inmates to the rules of the mission is almost universally voluntary, for she realizes that outside of its walls there is no place in the world for her. The heathenism and false pride of the country of her birth has doomed her to a life which has for her only the alternative of crime and vice or of degraded submission to a tyrant with the name of a husband. It is no cause for wonder that she should slay her own daughgers in her hitter knowledge that the same unvarying misery is all that she has to ofler them.