The St. Johns herald., 1901-10-12
WANT TOBUYASLAVE?
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.

There are at a low estimate 10000, 900 human beings who are in servitude in the Celestial kingdom. China has S0,000,000 families and this makes one slave to every eight families. The av- craze 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 S1O to $100 and up ward in South China. They are sold at any age from 3 to 15, and most com monly at or g. 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. It is cheaper to buy servant than to hire one, for if you take girl of 8 you can have her serv- ices 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 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 a 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 Cau- casus, from where rich Turks so often
 
 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 ac- 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.
 It is common 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 a right to as many wives as he can maintain and secondary wife is cheaper than a 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 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 to pay for them. This is a philanthropic institution, and the children are bought l as a matter of charity and religion They are reared surrounded by Chris tian 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 and l the risk of death are too great. They prefer to have girls or boys of eight | years and upward.-London Express