The age-herald., 1901-05-11
SLAVERY IN CHINA.
le London Express.

From the London Express
 There are at a low estimate 10000 900 human beings who are in servitude in the Celestial kingdom, China has S0.0OO.0o0 families. and this makes one slave to every eight families. The average 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 f2 to f20 and upward in south China. They are sold at any age from to 15, and most commonly at z or 8. The prettiest girls are the most de- sirable, 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. It is cheaper to buy a servant than to hire one, for if you take a girl of s you can have her services until she Is 15, getting eight years 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 Hong Kong, as 1t 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, 1t is not uncommon to find from twenty to thirty slaves in a single family.
 Female slaves are often presents from one man to another, and not infrequently 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 Caucasus, 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 regular course of training. They have farms where the slaves are taught to sing and play musical accom- pamments 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.
 It is common for man to purchase his wife. Indeed, there are more wives ac- quired 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 a hired servant The first wife Is the legal one, but the others have their rights, although they are practically slaves.
 The man who Is addicted to the opium habit will sell his children, and not in- frequently his wife, to supply his appe- tite Wives are sometimes sold by gam bling husbands, being put up on the turn of a card or the ralxe-out of the cash at fan-tan.
 There are slave brokers in all the large Chinese cities. Their business increases at times of famine, and the starvation caused many parents to sell their chill dren. With some 1t was a question of allowing them to starve or selling them. The result Is that girl babies are drug in the market.
 Think of buying baby for shilling! This is the price which one of the infant asylums of Shanghai is said to pay for them. This is a philanthropic institu- tion. and the children are bought as a matter of charity and religion, They are reared surrounded by Christian influences and are taught all sorts of domestic du- ties, and when they arrive at the proper age are given respectable husbands.
 The brokers. as a rule, do not buy ba- bies The cost of rearing them and the risk of death are too great. They prefer to have girls or boys of eight years and upward.