The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1922-06-02
SELL DAUGHTERS,
BRAC OF PRICES
Fathers in French South African
Colony Drive Hard Bargain
With Suitors.
TOWN HALL IS MARKET PLACE
Deals Are Always Settled in the
Oriental Manner of organizing
French Government SSeks to
Wipe Out Practice.

paris.-The French olonial Office
is investigating ways and means OF
wiping out slave selling and slavery
In general in certain sections of
Frances possessions in Africa.
In the tribe of the KabyIie, the
French colony in Africa, fathers sell
their daughters and brag of the high
prices they get for them. A Partisan
traveller, DE Walelfe, who went to
Africa with Albert Sarraut, the French
colonial minister, and has Just re-
turned from extensive journeys in
the colonies. reports that France is
very much misguided in believing that
Women are comparatively free and
highly considered in the Babylie tribe.
NJ. de WalefIe was told by a proud
father tina he had sole his first
daughter for 5000 francs, but that he
got 1900 francs for the second girl.
as she was very pretty. All the fathers
gather for their Turkish coffee at the
C-aravanserai and discuss between
puffs of their n~arghiles turkish
water-pipes) the prices they expect to
get for their daughters or brag Ct the
aInoun somebody paid them.
Suitors Drive Hard Bargain.
The deals are always settled in the
typical oriental manner of bargaining.
The father asks several times as much
as he thinks he can get and the sutton
offers as little as he can without in
sulting the maiden. Then they settle
down to business, each reducing or
raising the price as the hours pass.
Iri,,,IJx- thoy taaah q nnint midway hp-
tween the two original figures and the
transaction is over; but it has takeE
days to accomplish.
The women of Kabylie are sold at
an early age, sometimes at twelve or
thirteen years. Once they leave their
paternal roof for the harem of their
purchaser their days of pleasure are
over and they face a lifelong slavery
of hard work..
The one redeeming factor in he /
sale of the women in Kabylie is that
they are sold only as wives.
In Asia Minor, where the many scat
tered tribes of Circassians sell their
women. the morality is not so high,
and the daughters of the tribes are
sold TO anybody as long as a high
enough price is paid.
Edhem Said Bey. a Turk who was
feeling acutely the servant problem in
Constantinople, tells of going to Asia
Minor and buying half a dozen ser
wants. He went to the first Circassian
village and asked the chief of the ED
ers to exhibit the daughters for sale.
Fathers Assemble Girls.
In the evening fifteen to twenty
girls were assembled In the town hall
with their fathers. They were dressed
to show themselves off to advantage.
Every man wanted as much as he
could get for his daughter, and the
)ey had to deal with them one by one.
listening to them enunlerate the par
ocular charms and abilities.
After long bargaining with the
fathers the hey went to the market
bought donkeys, buffaloes and
,ilver-mounted arms for a tenth of the
orice he had agreed upon for the
girls. These were hen presented to
he fathers as payment.
When these girls are delivered they
ire carefully yelled and can travel
anywhere With their purchasers un-
for in the Near East no
me. not even a government official,
would dare lift the veil of a Moslem