Holbrook argus., 1901-09-28
WANTTOBUYASLAVE?
THEY SELL AT VERY MODERATE
PRICES IN CHINA.
Millions of Human Beings Are Held in
Bondage There-Thirty Slaves in a
Single HonG-Kong Family Pretty
Girls Raised For Market.

Girls Raised For Market.
There are at a low estimate 10000,
600 human beings who are in servitude
in the Celestial kingdom. China has
100000 900 families and this makes one
slave to every eight families. The av-
erage is greater in South China, where
nearly everyone owns slaves. There
is scarcely a Chinese family of means
in Nankin, Canton, Macao or Annoy but
possesses one or more slave girls. Slave
boys are less common, but the girls are
found in every street and in almost
every house.
Girls fetch from $40 to 500 and up
ward in South China. They are sold
at any age from to 10, and most COM
monty at or 8. The prettiest girls
are the most desirable, as in case of
marriage or sale they will bring more
to the family which buys them. Most
of the slave girls are bought to work
about the house. 1t is cheaper to buy
a servant than to hire one, for if you
take a girl of s you can have her serv-
y
of work for nothing but her board and
clothes, and then sell her for perhaps
ten times your original price.
Theoretically there are no slaves in
Hongkong, as it is British territory, but
in reality 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, it is not uncommon to
find from twenty to thirty slaves in
single family.
Female slaves are often presents
from one man to another and not in
frequently they form a part of the
bridal outfit. They are commonly
bought as secondary wives and often
as teachers.
There are localities in China where
the girls are noted for their beauty.
The cities of Yang-Chau and Su-Chau
are as famous for rearing handsome
young girls as is Georgia in the eau
casus, from where rich Turks so often
obtain their wives. There are persons
in these cities who make a business Of
raising slave girls.
They search the country about for
promising young girls and put them
through a regular course of training.
They have farms where the slaves are
taught to sing, play upon musical in
struments and to acquire other &C
complishments which, added to beauty,
will cause them to sell for high prices
to the rich mandarins. These girls are
! chiefly the daughters of poor people
or the daughters of slaves.
1t is common for man to purchase
his wife. Indeed, there are more wives
acquired in this way than in any other.
Every man in China has a right to as
many wives as he can maintain and a
secondary wife is cheaper than hired
servant. The first wife is the legal one,
but the others have their rights, al
though practically slaves.
The man who is addicted to the
opium habit will sell his children, and
not infrequently his wife, to supply his
appetite. Wives are sometimes sold
by gambling husbands, being put on
the turn of a card or the rakeout of the
cash at fan-fan.
There are slave brokers in all the
large Chinese cities. Their business in
creases at times of famine and the
starvation which lately prevailed in
North China caused many parents to
sell their children. With some it was
a question of allowing them to starve
or selling them. The result is that girl
babies are a drug in the market.
Think of buying a baby for a shill
ing? This is the price which one of the
infant asylums of Shanghai is said tC
pay for them. This is a philanthropiC
institution, and the children are bought
as a matter of charity and religion
They are reared surrounded by Chris
tan influences, are taught all sorts OF
domestic duties, and when they arrive
at the proper age are given respectable
husbands.
The brokers, as a rule, do not buy
babies. The cost of rearing them an(
the risk of death are too great. They
prefer to have girls or boys of eigh
years and upward.-London Express