The Hawaiian gazette., 1901-03-08
SLAVERY AMONG AsiATlcs.

The FoGcrai Grand Jury VIII. &c is re-
ported b' asked to investigate lho sys
tenn 0i slavery which ~ said to obtain
in the Oriental quarter. Whr,' q.
attention VIII be- directed to specific In
stances OF human bondage We do not
know. though The jury must, uf course.
get hold Of such Incidents to enable DO
90 bring indictments. Already dctec-
tiVcs have been at work Undoubtedly
their task was q hard one. owing tu
the facility with which the lowcr-Class
Oriental tells an untruth for the bcncht
Of himself or any one else of his race
Ia whom he has an interest but hard
as IT was, the task OF the Grand Jury
In getting at the facts OF slavery, II
such facts exist, promises TO be con-
sidcrably harder.
once In a long time Chinese OF
jar ancsc woman announces herself a.
a slave ard calls upon the law t. gt8Cua
her. but the cases are few and far he
tween and some of them are manifest
~ fraudulent. AS the fruit OF long eN.
pcrence, the san Francisco authorities
co not always receive the escaping
slave girl with open arms any IN Ire
than they do the Chinaman VINO COL
fcsses that he was smuggled into the
country and has no right to stay. Oue
of the first "stave girls tn put herself
into the hands of the san Francisco
police vas given over to charity, the
good women composing which trium-
phantly shipped her back to China at
their own expense. 1t turned out aft
erward that she was the daughter of
a merchant who wanted to sell her to
mandarin nnuvillinp N
save trans-PaciGc passage money. She
went, and with a light heart,
from freedom to bondage. The scheme
worked so well that whenever a mer-
chant wanted to send his wife or
daughter back to the old home he had
her escape" to the passage paying So
ciety and in due time-for this was be-
fore the day of the Geary law--he got
her back again. Since exclusion began,
with all its Photographic and book of
record appurtenances, there has not
been much doing at San Francisco in
the Escaping slave" line. Occasionally
a girl gets miffed and runs away from
home to the arms of the authorities,
police or charitable, but she generally
goes back again. If in slavery she is
not displeased, for sometimes in that
state She mas more comforts than she
gets under the family roof.
The form of slavery that exists
lmong the coolie japanese is apt to be
Daternal or maternal. Girls sold or in
lentured make money for their parents
~ the process of sale. How far this
system goes in Honolulu we do not
Know; but it is said to exist and to be
by species of bondage
which has no parental standing or ex-
use. If this is true it is proper sub
eCt for the Federal Grand Jury to in
estigate, though we confess to mSgiv-
ngs that anything indiCtable can be
proved. True, there have been one or
wo highpriced offers to charitable
people to take japanese women off the
lands OF alleged masters" but col
usion is suspected and If the money
lad been paid it might have been d.
'ided afterwards by chuckling conspir-
ltors. The great difficulty the Jury
viii have is to discover any woman
Who, If enslaved, really wants to es-
ape from bondage or who will tell the
ruth in the witness box about her po-
itical ard social condition.