Newsgroup: it.scienza.ambiente
Titolo: Re: Q:Help with Microcontroller selction

have in demanding a law for the discouragement of vice, and
places before the police officials a temptation to corruption. A mild
sentence, which invariably puts the procurer or brothel-keeper in
prison, is worth more than a heavy sentence by way of fine, which can
be met by further oppression of his slaves. Besides, the heavier the
sentence threatened, if there be an alternative fine, the more potent
implement it furnishes for blackmail in the hands of corrupt police
officials. Penalties by means of fines invariably tend to degenerate
into a monthly squeeze to the police, in payment for toleration, and
thus tend to make the police official a defender of social vice,
rather than an exterminator.
It has always been considered, among experienced workers, a most
difficult thing to attack prostitution itself by means of penalties,
for the reason that the punishment is invariably visited with greatest
severity upon the head of the female partner in shame, who is often
the mere victim, while the male partner g

is claimed, to prohibit Americans
associating with Orientals in vice, so as to prevent demoralization
and race quarrels. We do not dispute the motive, but the _effect_
is, that those who would work for the rescue of slaves are kept at a
distance, and no one who is likely to make a complaint against abuses
and law-breaking can approach the place without permission from
the police, which gives ample opportunity for getting everything
objectionable out of sight. As far as prevention of the commingling
of the different races is concerned, that may be hindered at certain
points, but American men are on the inside track here, as to making
money through these slaves. The building has been erected and is
owned by Americans, and one man of European name is a partner in the
immediate management of the place. On our first visit to this building
we were informed on reliable information that there were 125 Japanese
and over 50 Chinese girls in the place, and 100 more were expected to
arrive within a few days. Besides these, there are also Chinese slaves
in almost every Chinese settlement throughout the United States. In
California, they are to be found largely at San Francisco, Oakland,
Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, San Jose, Watsonville,
Monterey and Los Angeles. Willing or unwilling, the Chinese prostitute
is none the less a slave, bought and sold at pleasure from one to
another, earning wealth for others and never for herself. Recently,
three girls who were taken from a den in San Francisco, declared that
they had been 

being as man can, according to law ...
become a slave even by his own consent?" asks the Chief Justice.
"I say it is impossible in law, as Sir R. Phillimore, 1 Phill.,
International Law, vol. 1, p. 316, has said in a passage I read with
the most respectful concurrence, but too long for full quotation." "It
is unnecessary for me to trace how it became the Common Law of England
that whosoever breathes the air of England cannot be a slave." After
reference to notable decisions on the part of England's highest
authorities as to the unlawfulness of slavery; to the claim that
slavery was secured to the Chinese residents by the promise not to
interfere with their customs, and reminding his hearers that the
promise was made only "pending Her Majesty's pleasure"; after quoting
the Queen's proclamation against slavery at Hong Kong, and the
assurance in that proclamation that "these Acts will be enforced by
all Her Majesty's officers, civil and military, within this Colony,"
he asks:
    "Have all Her Majesty's officers, civil and military, enforced
    these Acts within this Colony? I think they have not; I confess I
    have not. Our excuse has been in the difficulty of enforcing these
    Acts, but mainly in our ignorance of the 

it obliges them
to make in their native customs, and if they will not do this they
must take the consequences.
No class of people, taken as a whole, are possessed of a greater
moral sense or can be reached more readily by moral suasion, than
the Chinese. We believe that if a proper condition of public moral
sentiment were maintained, by the enforcement of the laws of the
United States in Chinese communities, no class of people would be more
delighted than the respectable Chinese themselves, who are now left in
a state of terror for their own lives from the highbinders, and who
often dare not bring over their lawful wives from China, to live in
the midst of this reign of terror, at the mercy of slave-traders
and women-stealers. Then Chinese criminals would seek safer shelter
elsewhere, and respectable Chinese family life would take the place,
in our Chinatowns, of a combination of criminal men and slave women.
And Chinese men of weak character, separated far from home influences,
would not be met on every hand by temptations of the most potent sort.
Such is the real worth of the sort of Chinese character that one meets
in other parts of that country from those vitiated by familiar contact
with foreign profligates, that the presence of such could not but be
a benefit to us, and woul

profession, and
    trained in various accomplishments suited to brothel life.... They
    frequently know neither father nor mother, except what they call
    a 'pocket-mother,' that is, the woman who bought them from
    others.... They feel of course that they are the bought property
    of their pocket-mother or keeper, but they know also that this is
    the feeling of almost every other woman in China, liable as each
    is to be sold, by her own parents or relatives, to be the wife or
    concubine of a man she never sets eyes on before the wedding day,
    or liable, as the case may be, to be pledged or sold, by her
    parents or relatives, to serve as a domestic slave in a strange
    family.... They have the chance, if they are pretty and
    accomplished, of being wooed ... and they may look forward with
    tolerable certainty to being made the second, or third, or fourth,
    or at any rate the favorite wife of some wealthy gentleman. If
    not possessed of special attractions or wealthy lovers, they look
    forward to being taken out of the brothel by an honest devoted man
    to share the lot of a poor man's wife. Or they may endeavor to
    save money by singing, music and prostitution combined, and not
    only to purchase their freedom, but to set up for themselves,
    buying, rearing, and selling girls to act as servants or
    concubines or prostitutes, or they may finally come to keep
    brothels as managers for wealthy capitalists or speculators. There
    is further a certain proportion of prostitutes in Hong Kong who
    have, by the hand of their own parents or husbands, been mortgaged
    or sold into temporary servitude as prostitut

a human prayer and answered it, for
Christ's sake hear me now! Tell me which one to take!" She instantly
seized one of them, who fought savagely, and bit and scratched and
swore. Out she went with her, and all the way to the mission the girl
abused her terribly. But the instant the door closed behind them and
they were safe inside the home, she fell to the floor, seized her
deliverer's feet and bathed them with her tears, crying bitterly as
she said: "Oh, forgive me, forgive me! You know I did not mean it,
but it was the only way to do to be safe." God had guided aright. No
mistake had been made in the choice. Do you believe God did that,
reader? Try such heroic work for yourself, and you will find
a miracle-working God who seldom reveals His identity to the
self-indulgent. That rescued girl has turned out to be a wonder of
grace and of natural gifts, and is pursuing a professional career now,
after fine opportunities in training. It is worth while to save such
material, even from a slave-pen; such as she enrich the community in
which they live.
This slave-trade could not go on between Hong Kong and the United
States but for the white men who are in it, one way or another. White
lawyers defend the traffickers in court, and secure the return of
slaves by writ of habeas corpus, or by means of false accusations of
various sorts, such as of stealing. It is significant that, with rare
exceptions, the policemen seem not to have been trusted with definite
information as to the place about to be searched or raided, when told
off to accompany a rescue party, lest word be sent ahead, allowing a
chance to spirit away the girl for whom search is inst

pressed
along into it to lengths he did not at first intend to go. So it
proved in the case of many foreigners at Hong Kong. The foreigner
extended his "protection" to a native mistress. That "protected woman"
extended his name as "protector" over the inmates of her secret
brothel; and into that house protected largely from official
interference, purchased and kidnaped girls were introduced and reared
for the trade in women. The sensitive point seems to have been that
an enforcement of the anti-slavery laws would have interfered in many
instances with the illicit relations of the foreigner, exposing him
to ignominy and sending the mother of his children to prison. It was
sufficient for the "protected" woman to say, when the officer of the
law rapped at her door, "This is not a brothel, but the private
family residence of Mr. So-and-So," naming some foreigner,--perhaps
a high-placed official,--and the officer's search would proceed no
further.
It was claimed that this slavery, and also domestic slavery, which
sprang up so suddenly after the settlement of Hong Kong by the
British, was the outgrowth of Chinese customs, and could not be
suppressed but with the greatest difficulty, and their suppression
was an unwarrantable interference with Chinese customs, Sir Charles
Elliott having given promise from the first that such customs should
not be interfered with. But, as we have shown, that promise was only
made, "pending Her Majesty's pleasure," which had been very plainly
and pointedly expressed later as opposed to slavery.
As to the matter of "custom," Sir John Smale, Ch