Newsgroup: it.scienza.ambiente
Titolo: Re: Paper Computer

The native woman, rented for a monthly stipend from her owners was
called "protected" at Hong Kong. What charm this word "protection,"
and the title "Protector" has held for certain persons, as applied
to the male sex! "Man, the natural protector of woman." Forsooth, to
protect her from what? Rattlesnakes, buffalo, lions, wildcats no more
overrun the country, and why is this relation of "protector" still
claimed? Why, to protect woman from rudeness, and insult and sometimes
even worse. But from whence comes that danger of rudeness and insult
or worse from which man is to protect woman? From man, of course.
Man is, then, woman's natural protector to protect her from man, her
natural protector. He is to set himself the task of defending her
from his injury of her, and he is charmed with the avocation. He will
protect her as Abraham protected Sarah when he took her into Egypt.
"Do so-and-so," said Abraham to Sarah, "that it may be well with
me,--for thy sake." The history of the Chinese slave woman as she came
in contact with the foreigner at Hong Kong and at Singapore proceeds
all along a pathway labelled "protection," down to the last ditch of
human degradation. "Well with me," was the motive in the mind of the
"protector." "For thy sake," the argument for the thing as put before
the woman and before the world.
CHAPTER 2.
TREACHEROUS LEGISLATION.
In 1849 a man whose name is known the world over as a writer of
Christian hymns, went to Canton as British Consul and Superintendent
of trade. After a few years he returned to England, and in 1854 was
knighted and sent out to govern the new colony of Hong Kong. It is he
who wrote that beautiful hymn, among others, "Watchman, tell us of
the night." He also wrote, "In the Cross of Christ I Glory." One is
tempted to ask, in which Cross?--the kind made of gilded tin which
holds itself aloft in pride 

of the system of eunuchs, lost all barbaric and
    revolting features." (!) "As this organism has had its certain
    natural evolution, it will as certainly undergo in due time a
    natural dissolution, which in fact has at more than one point
    already set in. But no legislative or executive measures taken in
    Hong Kong will hasten this process, which follows its own course
    and its own laws laid down by a wise Providence which happily
    overrules for the good all that is evil in the world."
There was, indeed, a certain justice in defending the Chinese as
against the foreigner, on Dr. Eitel's part. But two wrongs do not make
a right. From this time onward, the word of sophistry is put in
the mouth of the advocate of domestic slavery, just as the word of
sophistry had been put in the mouth of the advocate of the Contagious
Diseases Ordinance. Mr. Labouchere had spoken of the latter as a means
of protection' for the poor slaves, and the expression, 'protection,'
has been kept prominently to the front ever since Dr. Eitel suggested,
likewise, not a change in the conditions, but a change in the name by
which they were known. Let it be called 'domestic _servitude_' instead
of 'domestic _slavery_.' All the advocates of this domestic slavery
from that time have called the noxious weed by the sweeter name.
Governor Hennessey asked the opinion of others of his officials. One
Acting Police Magistrate replied 'When the servant girls (or slaves
girls, as some prefer to term them) in the families in this Colony are
contented with their lot, and their parents do not claim them, th

to
    which, under cloak of China custom, the iniquity of dealing in
    children has extended. From the evidence, I have no doubt that a
    vagabond clansman to whom the father had occasionally given out of
    his penury had originated the crime in enticing the child away,
    and it seems to me to be clear that the prisoner was as well known
    as a 'broker of mankind' as a receiver of stolen children, to sell
    them on commission, as receivers of old iron and marine stores
    could be found in this Colony to dispose of stolen property. The
    little girl bought and sold, aged 11 years, is a very intelligent
    child, and described the negotiations for her sale with great
    clearness."
The Chief Justice then went on to repeat the little girl's testimony
as to these "brokers of mankind," and the child's knowledge, from
personal observation of these purchases and sales, to which he adds:
    "Let me here ask, Is the trade, or rather profession, 'broker of
    mankind,' also a sacred China custom? I will not ask the queries
    which would naturally arise in case the question were answered in
    the affirmative. At present, however, I must say that, custom
    or no c

the buying and
    selling of female children in Hong Kong. This buying and selling
    is only an effect of which the existing system of Chinese
    prostitution is the cause. Get rid of that, and there is an end of
    kidnaping."
Again the nail had been struck on the head. _Licensed brothel
slavery_, as it exists at Hong Kong, was put forward by the Chinese
merchants as something to be dealt with before British officials
could consistently lay violent hands on the more trivial offenses of
_domestic slavery and so-called "adoption." Brothel slavery_, says
Mr. Francis, must be dealt with _as slavery_ before the practice of
_kidnaping_ can be put under control. This lesson was learned long
ago. What did all the laws against man-stealing and slave-trading ever
accomplish so long as the slave owner was allowed to keep his slave?
As soon as slave-holding was declared impossible in the United States,
there was no more trouble with slave-traders. Traders go to a market
where they can dispose of their goods, not to a place where their kind
of goods are a drug on the market.
Says Mr. Francis bluntly: "The Chinese custom of adoption, whether of
boys for continuing the family and worship of ancestors, or of girls
for the ordinary purposes of domestic service, is not the foundation
of all this buying and selling of women and girls; it is only the
pretext and excuse." Mr. Francis states that the buying and selling of
boys is rare as compared with the buying and selling of girls. That
there are few Chinese families in Hong Kong.
    "The better class Chinese leave their wives in China. The
    transaction of purchase of these boys takes place at the home of
    the fathers of them in China. Seldom is it necessary to buy a son,
    as the usual custom when a wife has no son is to take another
    wife, not to buy a boy for a son,--hence such buying of boys is
    for serv