Newsgroup: it.scienza.ambiente
Titolo: Re: rs232 to vga converter

she is _fit
    to practice prostitution_; but observe, she is never more a free
    woman, for her name is on the register of Government prostitutes,
    and she is strictly under the eye of the police, and is bound to
    come up periodically,--it may be weekly or fortnightly,--to be
    again outraged.
    "If she is found to have signs of disease, she is sent to a
    hospital, which is practically a prison, where she is kept as
    long as the doctors please. She may be kept for weeks or months,
    without any choice of her own. When cured, she is again set free
    with her certificate. During the first years of this law, a
    certificate on paper was given to every woman who had passed
    through this cruel ordeal; on this paper was the name of the
    woman, and the date of the last examination. The Abolitionist
    party, however, represented so strongly the shame of the whole
    proceeding, that the Government ordered that the piece of paper
    or ticket should not be given to the women any longer. But this
    change made no real difference, for it was well known that
    the women were forced to submit to the outrage of enforced
    examination.... You know that every criminal,--murderer, or thief,
    or any other,--has the benefit of the law; he or she is allowed an
    open trial, at which witnesses are called, and a legal advocate
    appears for the defense of the accused. But these State slaves
    are allowed no trial. It is enough that the police suspects and
    accuses them; then they are treated as criminals.... It will be
    clear to you that this law is not for simple healing, as Christ
    would have us to heal, caring for all, whatever their character
    or whatever their disease. This law is invented to _provide
    beforehand_ that men may be able to sin without bodily injury (if
    that were possible, which it is not). If a burglar, who had broken
    into my house and stolen my goods, wer

is permitted under certain restrictions in that country. Nothing
could exceed their stringency at the point of any resistance on the
part of the slave to the condition of servitude. From that set of laws
we quote the following:
    "If a female slave deserts her master's house she shall be
    punished with 80 blows." ... "Whosoever harbours a fugitive wife
    or slave, knowing them to be fugitives, shall participate equally
    in their punishment." ... "A slave guilty of addressing abusive
    language to his master shall suffer death by being strangled....
    If to his master's relations in the first degree he shall be
    punished with 80 blows and two years' banishment. If to his
    master's relations in the second degree, the punishment shall
    be 80 blows. If in the third degree, 70 blows. If in the fourth
    degree, 60 blows." "The master or the relations of a master of a
    guilty slave may ... chastise such slave in any degree short of
    death, without being liable to punishment. Nevertheless, if
    a master or his aforesaid relations, in order to correct a
    disobedient slave or hired servant, should chastise him in a
    lawful manner on the back of the thighs or on the posteriors, and
    such slave or hired servant should happen to die, or if he is
    killed in any other manner accidentally, neither the master nor
    his aforesaid relations shall be liable to any punishment in
    consequence thereof."
    "All slaves who are guilty of designedly striking their masters
    shall, without making any distinctions between principals and
    accessories, be beheaded.
    "All slaves designedly killing their masters, or designedly
    striking so as to kill their masters, shall suffer death by a slow
    and painful execution.
    "If accidentally killing their masters, they shall suffer death

" and the most brazen forms of
slavery "servitude." To this extent the individual Christians of these
colonies are in many cases guilty of compromise with slavery; and to
this extent the title of this book applies to them.
The vices of European and American men in the Orient have not been
the development of climate but of opportunity. It is not so easy in
Christian lands to stock immoral houses with slaves, for the reason
that the slaves are not present with which to do it. Women have
freedom and cannot be openly bought and sold even in marriage; women
have self-reliance and self-respect in a Christian country; they have
a clean, decent religion; women who worship the true God have His
protecting arm to defend themselves, and through them other women
who do not personally worship God share in the benefits. If free,
independent women of God were as scarce in America as in Hong Kong the
same moral conditions would prevail here, without regard to climate,
for, _if women could be bought and sold and reduced by force to
prostitution, there are libertines enough, and they have propensities
strong enough to enter at once upon the business, even in America_.
That which has elevated women above this slave condition is the
development of a self-respect and dignity born of the Christian faith.
But let us take warning. If the women of America have not the decent
self-respect to refuse to tolerate the Oriental slave-prostitute in
this country, the balance will be lost, libertines will have their own
way through the introduction into our social fabric of their slaves,
and Christian womanhood will fall before it. "Ye have not proclaimed
liberty every one to his fellow, therefore I proclaim liberty to you,
saith the Lord, to the sword, 

with them at once to work off the debt by prostitution.
But what could a Chinese woman do in the face of such a debt? A
painter's wages at Hong Kong at this time were five dollars a month. A
woman's wages at any respectable occupation would not have been more
than half that amount. Ten cents a day would be a fair computation.
And all the time she would be trying to earn the money the debt would
be increasing by the interest on it; and her little boy would increase
more rapidly in value than in years.
All this occurred in November, 1876. About the first of October, 1877,
nearly a year later, she engaged a single room for herself and a
servant[A] at 42 Peel street, of a woman named Lau-a Yee. Mrs. Lau,
the landlady, had the top floor of a little house. Another family
had the first floor, and the street door leading up to Mrs. Lau's
apartments ended in a trap door which was shut down at night. There
were also folding doors half way up the stairway, not reaching to the
ceiling, however, that could be locked at night to make the place
doubly secure from intruders. The little upper flat consisted of only
three rooms. Mrs. Lau occupied the front room, and her servant woman
slept on the floor in the passage-way, and took care of Mrs. Lau's
little child. This servant woman had a friend come over from Canton to
spend the night with her and seek for employment. The middle room
was occupied by Tai Yau, the woman who had sold her little boy into
slavery, and her servant. The back room was vacant. Tai Yau was about
twenty-six years old, and her servant nearly sixty.
[Footnote A: The evidence does not make it clear how so poor a wom

of inspecting the coolies. When permission is given to disembark,
    the unpaid passengers are made up into small parties and marched
    through the town to the depots under the escort of the brokers and
    several of their assistants, with much yelling and good deal of
    rough handling, and an occasional halt while a straggler or a
    would be runaway is brought back to the party. That the coolies
    are frequently successful in their attempts to escape is shown
    in the Report of the Chinese Protectorate, 160 being returned as
    'absconded either when landing or at depot' in Singapore, and 101
    at Penang, or about 1-3/4 per cent of the "unpaid passengers". On
    arrival at the depot, the coolies are probably surprised to find
    themselves securely confined in houses which look uncomfortably
    like prisons, and the passer-by may see the dirty and unkempt
    _sin-khehs_ or "new men," as these emigrants are called, peering
    out between the thick wooden bars of the windows. The coolies
    are thus forcibly detained at the depots until the brokers are
    successful in finding employers who are prepared to pay the price
    per head which they demand, a sum of about £10. In the meanwhile
    however, it appears from the Report that nearly 4-1/2 per cent of
    the inmates of the depots are discovered and redeemed by their
    friends, the numbers being 414 at Singapore, and 278 at Penang,
    and a further 1-3/4 per cent, or