Newsgroup: it.scienza.ambiente
Titolo: Re: D.I.S.C.O.U.N.T...P.R.I.C.E...F.O.R...C.I.G.A.R.E.T.T.E.S....isabelle

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, Chief Justice of
Hong Kong, said, in 1879, in the Supreme Court, on the occasion of
sentencing prisoners for slave trading and kidnaping:
    "Can Chinese slavery, as it _de facto_ exists in Hong Kong, be
    considered a Chinese custom which can be brought within the intent
    and meaning of either of the proclamations of 1841 so as to be
    sanctioned by the proclamations? I assert that it cannot.... A
    custom is 'such a usage as by common consent and uniform practice
    has become a law.' In 1841 there could have been no custom of
    slavery in Hong Kong as now set up, for, save a few fishermen and
    cottagers, the island was uninhabited; and between 1841 and 1844,
    the date of the Ordinance expressly prohibiting slavery, there was
    no time for such a custom to have grown up; and slavery in
    every form having been by express law prohibited by the Royal
    proclamation of the Queen in 1845, no custom contrary to that law
    could, after that date, grow up, because the thing was by express
    law illegal. I go further, and I find that the penal law of China,
    whilst it facilitates the adoption of children into a family to
    keep up its succession, prohibits by

be
suspected, He desires to make them above suspicion, etc.
577. God has made the blindness of this people subservient to the good of
the elect.
578. There is sufficient clearness to enlighten the elect, and sufficient
obscurity to humble them. There is sufficient obscurity to blind the
reprobate, and sufficient clearness to condemn them and make them
inexcusable. Saint Augustine, Montaigne, Sebond.
The genealogy of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament is intermingled with so
many others that are useless that it cannot be distinguished. If Moses had
kept only the record of the ancestors of Christ, that might have been too
plain. If he had not noted that of Jesus Christ, it might not have been
sufficiently plain. But, after all, whoever looks closely sees that of Jesus
Christ expressly traced through Tamar, Ruth, etc.
Those who ordained these sacrifices knew their uselessness; those who have
declared their uselessness, have not ceased to practise them.
If God had permitted only one religion, it has been too easily known; but
when we look at it closely, we clearly discern the truth amidst this
confusion.
The premiss.--Moses was a clever man. If, then, he ruled himself by his
reason, he would say nothing clearly which was directly against reason.
Thus all the very apparent weaknesses are strength. Example; the two
genealogies in Saint Matthew and Saint Luke. What can be clearer than that
this was not concerted?
579. God (and the Apostles), foreseeing that the seeds of pride would make
heresies spr