THE CHINESE QUARTER IN MELBOURNE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1904, 18 May 1888, Page 16

THE CHINESE QUARTER IN MELBOURNE.

HOERIBLE SCENES. Mr Henry Varley, the well-known evangelist, lately wrote in the following terms to the Melbourne' Telegraph:— Sir, — Through the courtesy of the Chief Commissioner of Police, I spent an eveuing last week with an experienced detective in visiting certain portions of your city, and my desire is to bring to public notice some of the painful scenes it was my lot pp witness, in company with Colonel Barker, in wfyat are called the Chinese quarters. It is impossible to exaggerate the fearful wrong which is being done to large numbers of young people who visit these opium dens, especially girls from 16 to 20. We visited at least 50 small, dark, and often filthy "shanties," where the opium couch, lamps, and pipes bore only too faithful witness to the extent of this degrading practice. Seven or eight young English or colonial girls we actually saw in these dens; and the Chinamen are adepts in hiding in back rooms, yards, and closets those who visit these pest houses, for again and agtin we heard the rapid shuffling of retreating feet the momsnt the well-known detective demanded admittance. In one case I quickly followed a young colonial girl of about 17, who, pressed to give her name, acknowledged that she was of respectable parentage in Carl ton. Leaving the house where we saw six Chinamen, she had sought to hide in the back cellar adjoining, and, though so young, 6he showed by her flippant answers how hardened in vice she had become. Stupefied and drugged with opium, scores of young girls are in such places initiated into a life of shame and degradation. Here is a vastcamping ground for every form of degrading and devilish immorality, and, I ask, is the law powerless to deal with this great cesspool of vice and crime ? Many of these places are unfitted for human habitation, and yet hundreds of Chinamen live and sleep in them. The stench arising from the filth which abounds is enough to breed a pestilence, and the wonder is that some fatal fever has not again and again swept through them. Upon inquiry I was informed that these human kennels are owned by wealthy men, who receive exorbitant rents for them. Now, surely there either is or should be power to deal both with the owners of the ground and of the " shanties," No man has the right to permit such abominations to exist.. From the standpoint of health and sanitation, to say nothing of the social and moral interests involved, these pest-houses should at once be closed and demolished. Men and women who receive exorbitant rents from properties devoted to shame and corruption should be heavily fined. Society everywhere needs to be. protected from base and lawless greed. In regard to the Chinamen who get these young girh into their houses, resolute action is imperatively needed. The law in the old country protects a woman's property until she is 21, and her person until she is 18. I presume it is the same here, then why is law trodden underfoot ? It is an outrage upon the sacred name of liberty to allow for a moment that the Chinese have a right to receive these girls into their opium dens, where, without question, , they are debauched and ruined. Colonel Barker tells me that in their Brunswick Home they have received during the past five years hot less than 1015 women and girls, nearly all of them having fallen. Here you. get some idea of the awful moral and physical slaughter going on in this city. Just think of it — 1015 different cases in one small home only. To deal with this iniquity with a firm hand a measure should at once be passed making opium smoking by girls under 21 & crime, and prohibiting the existence of these dens. The punishment in the latter case I would make exemplary. For a first offence a heavy fine, if not imprisonment; and for a second offence, either by Chinamen or Englishmen, from 20 to 50 lashes with the cat, for there are any number of human brutes so degraded by sin and villainy that ordinary penalties are of little use. Periodical floggings effectually put an end to garotting in England a few years ago, and the hideous vice to which I am referring would as • effectually be stamped out if when a young girl was found in such places ' the proprietor should set a sound flogging for his pains. One Chinese villain laughed at me when I told him he deserved to be whipped ; but as I looked upon the dazed and stupefied girl who lay on the couch, I' felt strongly disposed to knock the scoundrel down. Don't let Victoria boast about liberty so long as such things are tolerated. Has the Government no power ? Are the ministers and churches lacking in the burning indignation which should sweep out this moral plague? No time should be lost. Already th« terrible evils referred to have been allowed to take root, and the sirocco bias b of foul precedent is quoted in support of this criminal 1 traffic. Surely- 1 may ask why the awful blight of opium poisoning and Chinese licentiousness is allowed l

in the growing and prosperous metropolis of the ; ! South? Men and women of Melbourne, I implore yon to rise in your might and deliver your city from this tolerated iniquity. I do not now speak of the degrading immorality we saw on every hand, but will reserve it for a subsequent letter. I will only add that after three and a-half terrible hours spent in scenes which are a disgrace to any civilised community, I returned at 3 a.m., bowed down and oppressed with the' depths of wickedness to which men anjd women condescend ; would that, it had been only a terrible dream! Alas! it was not so. It was 'simply a brief season spent in some of the social hells which are burning with their lurid fires every night in this large and pleasant city. Melbourne by night gives the lie to the common notion of an improving social evolution. It is rather a degeneration of a most loathsome character, marking large areas of the most central portions of the city.