The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-17

editorial Opinions ofthe Leading Journals
upon Current Topios-CompiIed Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
THE SLAVE TRADE REVIVED.

THE SLAVE TRADE REVIVED.
From the NJ Y. Times.
"Four hundred and twenty-five coolies
perish ed in the flames" is the laconic but
comprehensive sentence that concludes the
brief notice of the latest "coolie tragedy"
in the China seas. With each
recurring year comes intelligence of
similar horrors. Every season certain num-
her of vessels, freighted with unfortunates,
leaves the harbor of Macao for Cuba or Peru,
and. as il in obedience to some hidden law,
certain proportion of their living cargoes in
evitably meet horrible and agonizing death.
Sometimes an entire shipload is left to die of
slow starvation on the treacherous shoals of
the China sea, while the captain and his white
crew make their escape in the ships boats Some
times the coolies, goaded to frenzy, rise eagainst
their temporary masters, and, having massa-
cred every soul capable of guiding the vessel
over the trackless deep, perish miserably be-
meath the scorching rays of a tropical sun.
Again, as in the case just recorded the dis
affected fire the ship, and hundreds are burnt
or suffocated to death In one way or another
the coolie trade of Macao involves the annual
loss, by starvation, fire, or massacre, of many
hundreds of human lives.
II is high time that a traffic embodying all
the worst features of the African slave trade
was put stop to. The contemplate little
Portuguese colony, which maintains its
existence upon the profits derived from the
accursed system, has long been the disgrace
of civilization in the Far East of Asia. The
shipment of coolies, kidnapped or seduced
by the lying representations of the agents to
leave their homes for foreign soil, is carri ed
on under the protection and so-called super
vision of the Portuguese Government, but in
distinct and open defiance of the Chinese
authorities, who, pagan as they are, emphai-
cally protest against the inhumanities of this
modern slave trade. The pressure of public
opinion has compelled them not merely to
refuse all countenance to the system, but to
execute at short notice any coolie-dealers
caught in the exercise of their hated
occupation. Foreigners in China gene
rally, and more especially those resident
in the British colony of Hong-Kong, have
strongly sympathized with the native feeling
in this respect, and the leading journal at
that port but very recently succeeded in get
ting costs from the Macao Government, in an
action promoted by the then Governor, for its
comments upon the fagitious and corrupt
manner in which the "Superintendents of
Emigration" performed their duties. Dis
tinct in manners, race, and language as are
the Southern Chinese from the wretches who
perpetrated the massacre at Tien-Tsin, there
can be no doubt that the recently-announced
spread of ill-feeling in the neighborhood
of Canton and Swatow is materially
stealers in their immediate localities. It
has long been the opinion of disinterested
residents that the mere security of alien life
and property at these ports required the put
ting down, with strong hand, of the nest of
raseals sheltered under the flag of Portugal.
1t is difficult at this distance to enter into the
intensity of feeling that prompts the hatred
and contempt of Portuguese institutions
everywhere visible among other foreigners
in rio min Iad
ever, will sympathize in the Indignation felt
and expressed against flag which notmerely
shelters these vile traffickers in human flesh,
but derives an enormous income from the
fees they pay for the immunity thus afforded
them.
The abuses of which these coolies Justly
complain are perpetrated before and not after
their embarkation on board ship. Seized in
the dead of night and conveyed to the barra-
coons, or induced Gan easy task) to gamble
away their money, their clothes, and finally
their personal liberty for a term of years,
they remain for few days or weeks prior to
the vessels sailing under the eye, and infu-
ence of the crimp who threatens them not
merely with personal punishment, but with
that most powerful of all known persuasions
in China, the persecution of their families
and friends, The security system is
so inwrought a portion Of the China
mans social life that to make mans wife,
parents, and children vicariously responsible
for his good behavior, is the most natural
and common procedure he can conceive.
The universally of marriage, and the
strong claims of blood relationship ia China,
are material aids to the crimps object. The
coolie may indeed be asked by the superin-
tendent, pro ,f0TnlG, whether he is "wiIling
emigrant," but he too well knows the conse-
quences of refusal to proceed to venture it.
To yet more strongly bind him, the crimp
has, of course, advanced him a few dollars
with which to gamble on the passage down;
and the restitution of this sum would be in
any case beyond his power. On the one hand,
therefore, he has the choice of imprisonment
until the sum be repaid; on the other chance
of making his fortune abroad. So he elects
to go. By and by, as the wearisome mono
tony OF the voyage is beginning to make him
long for any change, no matter what, the few
leading spirits always to be found among a
few hundred, suggest mutiny. He jumps at
the suggestion, sometimes to be put down
with meroiless severity, sometimes to sue
cessfully escape, but yet more commonly to
die miserable death, while those who per
suaded him secure their own safety. Such is.
in nine cases out of ten, the history of a
''coolie tragedy"
STATE RIGHTS AND MILITARY PIE.