Evening star., 1900-12-22
Ten Million Human Beings Are Held
in Bondage.
BOUGHT AND SOLD LIKE CATTLE
A Secondary Wife isCheaper Than
Hired Girl.
WHERE THEY COME FROM
copyrighted, 1900. by Frank G. Carpenterl

II the powers are to mOdernize China they
must in some way bring about the abolition
of slavery. China is the great siGve
country of the world. 1t has perhaps more
slaves than all the rest of the world put
together There are. l should say, at a low
estimate 1O.GO,OD human beings who are in
servitude here. China has 4m,03o,OoO in
habitants. 1t has SoOOO0OO families, and
this makes one slave to every eight fami-
lies The average is greater In south China.
Here nearly every one owns slaves. There
Is scarcely a Chinese family of means IN
Hong Kong, Canton, Macao Annoy but
what possesses one or more slave girls
Slave boys are less common, but the girls
are found in every block and in almost
every house.
I was offered beautiful Chinese girl in
Shanghai for $50 I did not see the girl
herself. but her photograph was among
some l was looking over at Yuen Ming
shop, and 1 admired her. Yuen Mings
said: Yes. she is pretty and she is for
sale She is slave girl. but her master
will part with her, and his price is $50 sill
yer in cash.
Girls bring from $40 to 500 and upward
In this part Of China. They sold at
any age from three to fifteen, and most
commonly at seven or eight. The prices
rarge from SO upward. according to age
and beauty. The prettiest girls are the
most desirable, as in case of marriage or
sale they will bring more to the family
which buys them. The most Of the girls are
bought to work about the house. 1t is cheap
to buy a servant than to hire one, for if
you take girl of eight you can have her
services until she is fifteen getting eight
years of work for nothing but her board
and clothes, and then sell her for perhaps
ten times your original price. In such sales
clause Is often put in the agreement that
the girls are not to be resold for improper
nllr m
they please
slaves I'm British Colony.
Theoretically there are no slaves in Hong
Kong. as ii is British territory. but in real
ity the city is full of them. They are the
maid servants and nurses of the Chinese
Every small-footed lady needs slaves to
help her about and in the houses of the
rich. where there are many daughters. 1t is
not uncommon to find from twenty to thirty
slaves in a single family. When l called
upon How Qua. the millionaire, two slave
giris brought his mother in to see me. The
old lady weighed about 2D pounds. but she
had feet not bigger than the end of a base
ball bat. In going through the streets
herr You often Gaily dressed woman
riding out to call the back of a slave
girl. The womanS arms thrown about
the neck of the slave and her bound legs
and little feet peep out of her petticoatS
behind AZ she Is thus toted to the house of
her ueighbor.
Female slaves are often presents from
man to- another. and not infrequently they
form Il part of the bridal outfit. They are
commonly bought as secondary wives and
often IS teachers.
heard the other day of a mandarin VINO
is 10, king out for an Engiish-spea aking slave.
He wants her one of his secondary
wives, in which case he can sell her again
# he chooses. This man is connected with
the vice"Oy of Canton and his income is
nomnally $40 a month. although 1T is prob
ably ten times that in reality. He has four
wives. sixteen children and twenty-one
slaves He keeps his family in another
province. and recently wrote his mother to
send down two of his wives to him as he
was lonesome. The old lady replied that
she needed the wives to take care OF his
sixteen children and that he had better
buy more where he was. The man.
DARN has decided to do this and inasmuch
he is anxious that his boys should learn
English he is now looking after an English
or American girl to act his companion,
and at the same time prepare his little ones
for the new Chinese era How much ne
will pay | do not know. but | suppose ne
would consider $500 high price.
Where the Prettiest Girls Come From.
There is as much choice in girls here
anywhere in the world. There are locali-
ties in China where the girls are noted for
their beauty. The cities of Yang Chow
and Suchau are as famous for rearing hand
some young girls Is Georgia in the Cau-
cassus, from where the sultans harem is
repltniShed. There are persons in these
cities who make a business of raising slave
girls. They drum the country about for
promising young females and put them
through a regular course of training.
They have farms where the slaves are
taught TO sing, play upon musical lnstru-
mentS and to acquire the other accomplish
ments. which, added to beauty, will cause
them To sell for high prices to the r.ch man.
darims. These girls chiefly the daugh-
tiers IF poor people the daughters of
slaves. The slave girls of Shanghai
good looking and there are thousands Of
right pretty slaves the flower boats OF
Canton.
II is common here for a man to purchase
his wife. Indeed, there are more wives
acquired in this way than in any other.
Every man in China has right to many
wives he maintain, and as l have
already said. a secondary wife is cheaper.
than a hired girl. The first wife is the
legal one, but the others have Their rights,
although they practically slaves. In
deed. the largest class of slaves here are
these secondary wives or concubines. l have
il estimated that there millions
of such slaves in the empire. All men OF
all classes have one or more of them and
men with means number. Such women
are usually We'll treated. and If their
ters rich they may have slaves of their
own The standing of the secondary wife
in the household is largely at the caprice
e the master, although she is supposed to
have voice in the management Of af-
fairs, and cannot even control her own
children. Sometimes her lot s a sad one.
Prosecuted by her husbands mother and
his other wives she eats her heart out
in discomfort. for although well dressed she
is still a slave.
Their Husbands Sell Them.
1t is not a common thing for Chinese
husband 10 sell his wife or his concubine,
especially when they have given him chill
dren. There a:e cases, however. in which
wives sold. but the act is disgracerul,
and Is usually confined to opium tiends.
gamblers and the poorest classes.
The man who is addicted to the opium
habit Will sell his children and not infre-
quently his wife to supply his appetite.
Wives sometimes sold by gambling hus-
bands, being put up on the turn of a card
or the rake out of the cash at fan-tan. A
case of this kind recently happened at
Pekin An inveterate gambler there hav-
ing sQuandered all his ancestral property
at fan tan arranged 10 cover his losses and
get a new capital by deciding away his bet
ter half He made all arrangements but
before the sale was conSummated the wife
forestallcd his brutal design by taking her
own life. She swallowed opium. and when
the gambler came home to tell her that
he had sold her she was dying. He called
in doctor, but it was too late.