The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-09-02
SLAVES OF CHINESE.
INIOUITIEs WHICH CRY TO HEAVEN
IN SAN FRANCISCO.

Crying In Vain, However, Since Not Only
| Does No Miracle Ever Wrest the Poor
Ignorant Chinese Girl From Her Bes-
| tial Owner, But Laws and Courts Are
| Useless Aeaisst the Infinite Cunsine
! and General, AH-Round. Lying Cussed'
ness Of the Oriental Trsnicker In Human
Flesh.
San Francisco, Sept. las long almost
as there have been Chinese in California
| there has fourished in San Francisco
system of slavery infinitely more hideous
and degrading than that which helped
| to breed the rebellion. To-Day IL exists
still in the shadow of San Francisco
| most fashionable church, within stone
throw of wehere will soon stand the
city's hall of justice. Customs ofhclais
are as complaisant as ever; judges, fed
eral and state, are as unsuccessful as
ever in distinguishing truth from false
hood in the testimony of the impassiVe
oriental. who is a past master in the
gentle art Of perjury. The cumorous
and costly machinery Of the exclusive
laws has only made it a little more diffl-
cult to import the woman slave from
across the Pacific, and has served only
20 make her price little higher in the
market place. And so, day by day, the
papers tell of how the good people OF the
mission have rescued this girl or that
from such and such a den in the foul
labyrinth Of Chinatown; how her back
is SCARED with knife or lash or brand
ing iron; now she has managed to SNUG
gle out word of her horrible bondage,
and how she leaped from third story
window to the waiting rescuers; how
they beat back the jabbering crowd OF
Mongols, defied the white special po-
licemen" and finally locked against the
pursueing Mongols the strong doors of
the mission house; how the slaves own
ers haveinvoked the aid of courts, charg-
ing the rescued with larceny OF clothes
jewelry, procuring against her rescuers
the sacred writ of habeas corpus. If the
rescued slave woman be lucky enough TO
dodge the processes Of law one day she
marries a ferchant, who finds the mis-
sion house cheaper place than Hong
Kong for buying an additional wife, and
then she is safe from high binder and
brothel keeper. Perhaps she may be
sent back to China only to be sold once
more TO the slave traders, who Will see
to it this time that there is no rescue.
All these things are old stories to easy
going San Francisco. A few good peo-
pie are trying just now to roll up mon
ster petition to President Mckinley cry
ing out against the iniquities of the Chin
csc slave traffic and begging that he do
something to stop it. There is not much
interest in the matter. The average San.
Fracsscan knows that the president
could not, if he would, devise a system
that the slave traders and highbinders
could not beat; he knows that for forty
years, in spite of all the manner of laws
and regulations and restrictions, Chin
csc women have chen brought into San
Francisco, branded as slaves and chat
tells; he knows, too, that the best of Off
cial inquiries will come to nothing, will
add nothing to his knowledge of the in
human traffic, will ont rescue Single
slave from her life Of shame, will not
even seriusly hinder the traffic-where-
fore he regards the petition business
with polite Indifference. Probably there
are today in Chinatown five hundred
girls living in absolute slavery, Their
only hope Of emancipation is in the rich
visitor, who now and then buys the girl
who pleases his fancy and adds her to
his polygamous household, when she
may wait upon his number one wife,
whose little feet give her secure title to
first place in her lords esteem. Their
ignorance is unbelievable. Most Of them
have reason TO fear their brutal masters
and to loathe the terms of servitude, but
that is nothing to their dread of the
kind hearted fan kwai" ((foreign devil'
who wants to rescue them. 1t is only
now and then that one of them has the
intelligence and courage to brave the
unknown terrors OF the white mans
world.
RAID ON HUMAN CHATTELS.
Some five months ago Special Treas
ury Agent Moore planned and, with the
slave dens that yielded as returns more
than 100000 worth Of human chattels.
Spies were sent into Chinatown, and
from their reports a big map was drawn
showing all the dens to be searched, the
entrances, exits. trapdoors and barri
cades and giving the number OF women
in each place and the names Of all the
brothel keepers. Fifty policemen did the
work, under Captain Wittman's direction
The descent was made at noon. An hour
later the perspiring policemen formed in
a hollow square, were herding sixty
scolding, squaling Chinese girls up the
hill to the Presbyterian mission house,
at No. go Sacramento street In. groups
OF four the policemen and the federal in
spectors sorted them. trying to discern
those who had Illegally been landed. |
Many were sullen and defiant, some suik-
ed, aud some were frightened nearly into
As they were ranged in line for COM |
parison with the photographs of women
lawfully landed they twisted their faces
out of shape and loosed their hair. Thir- |
teen were detained Cor invest cation and |
the rest were promised homes and pro- |
lection il they wanted 10 escape from |
their masters. but the reply was a cho- |
rusei refusal. o: those detained the |
prettiest and youngest, wild with terror. !
tried desperately 10 kill herself She /
dashed her head against the walls Of her /
prison. dug her nails into her |
q \ |