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law! But Cecil C.
Smith, formerly Protector of Chinese (Registrar General) at Hong Kong,
was knighted and made Governor at Singapore, and about a year later
than this, says, in reference to this very representation: "The
Protector of Chinese has no efficient means of dealing with the
accounts of the inmates of brothels, nor has he ever dealt with them.
The Government should hold itself entirely aloof from interfering with
such matters." We see, then, of how much account the representations
of Mr. Pickering were as to the usefulness of the "Protector" to the
women at this point, but incidentally he has revealed a shocking state
of slavery perfectly known and not in the least interfered with by the
"Protector."
Mr. Pickering continues: "At that time the majority of inmates of
brothels were in the same condition; besides this, they were subject
to great cruelty and restraint." He professes a great improvement,
since then, but we may take his word for what it is worth on such
a point. "We, indeed ... have asked for, and trust to get, more
legislation to enable us to rescue the numbers of small children who,
purchased in China, are brought down here and trained for a life of
prostitution." Nothing of the sort. He knew perfectly well, as did
every Englishman in the Colony, that the Common Law alone of Great
Britain, if there were nothing more, was quite sufficient to deliver
every one of these children, as well as every slave girl, in the
country. If more legislation were desired it was for some other
purpose than to empty the brothels of their slaves. He goes on to
state that children born in brothels "in case of free women belong
to the mother, but when prostitutes, their issue is claimed by their
owners, unless their mothers complain to the Registrar," which of
course, he knew, they would never venture to do. "We know well that
even now there is a deal of traffic in young girls going on, and
that a number of inmates of brothels are rea

much the same reason.
If a man marries the liberated slave of a brothel keeper, the
high-binders will teach the lesson that he has stolen another man's
property, by watching their chance and assassinating him. Why are not
these societies broken up, root and branch? Cannot? Nonsense; the
officers of the law have not made the attempt with any degree of
earnestness as yet.
For years, the "Protectors" at Singapore and at Hong Kong have
summoned the slaves into their offices and informed them that they
were free, and asked them if they freely consented to going into a
life of shame, before putting them there? But to what purpose? Let the
Police Magistrate, H.E. Wodehouse, reply, as he did concerning a
case of suicide: "When registering her name she said she had no
pocket-mother, that her parents were both dead, and that she became a
prostitute of her own free will. The inspector said that that was the
description of themselves that nearly all prostitutes gave, and that
it was very rarely that it was true." Remember that, reader, when
the columns of your morning paper inform you that all the girls of
Chinatown have been interrogated, and that they all said they were
there of their own free will? It is "very rarely that it is true."
Referring to this case, which we describe on page 118, the Marquess
of Ripon wrote to Hong Kong that the brothel-keeper who attempted to
extort money from the young man before delivering up his captive to
him for marriage, should have been prosecuted, and adds: "A single
successful prosecution in a case of this kind would, in all
probability, do more to show that the inmates of brothels are free to
leave such places when they wish, than could ever be effected by the
present system, under which efforts are indeed made to explain their
positions to the inmates of brothels." This is a very clear statement
of exactly what is needed in California. The public should refuse to
be satisfied with vi

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 sold for three thousand dollars apiece to the keeper,
and that they were flogged when their earnings for the keeper fell
below three hundred dollars each a month. If the prostitute were not
willing to be a slave, that would not procure her liberty,--it would
only procure her more abuse than the willing slave. On the ship
coming over, the slaves are well drilled in their task on arrival, of
swearing themselves into slavery, and well threatened if they dare
to disobey. Then they are packed with stories as to the terrible
character of Americans, particularly the rescue workers. One Chinese
girl concluded she would take all the abuse of the rescue home rather
than forego a chance for liberty, though she knew of no reason to
disbelieve the fearful warnings she had received. On the first night
of her arrival she did not undress nor go to bed when the other girls
retired. Someone found her standing about, and asked her why she
was not off for bed. She replied pathetically: "I am waiting for my
beating." She had been informed that it was in that fashion all the
girls were put to bed each night. At a very conservative estimate,
there are not less than one thousand Chinese b

ignorant of the girls being sent to California, and
    said she was supported by Tai-Ku; the fifth defendant declared she
    knew nothing of the buying and selling of girls; and the sixth
    defendant claimed she had gone to the house to obtain the payment
    of a debt; she was discharged.
    The sentence was:--First, second, third, fourth and fifth
    defendants to find two securities, householders, in $500 each,
    to appear at any time within the next six months, to answer any
    charge in any court in the Colony.
    Whether the girls were sent to California to swell the number of
    wretched slaves on the Pacific Coast, or remained in slavery in
    Hong Kong, there is no record to be found; nor, even with abundant
    evidence concerning this licensed brothel which the Inspector
    himself declared he was long familiar with as a place "where young
    girls were kept to be shipped off to California," and with the
    evident collusion between A-Neung and Tai-Ku with the son-in-law
    and husband respectively of the two women, situated most favorably
    on a steamer for managing this wicked business at the California
    end of the line, and with all the testimony of the neighbors and
    the girls, yet no effort was made by the Registrar-General to
    punish these people for trafficking in human flesh.
    5. An old man complained before the Registrar-General, that his
    granddaughter, A-Ho, had got into debt because of sickness, and in
    order to pay the money, she was induced by an uncle of Su-a-Kiu to
    apply to the latter for help. Su-a-Kiu promised to advance her the
    money, $52, if A-Ho would serve her eight months in a brothel kept
    by a "friend" of the woman in Singapore. A-Ho's stress was so
    great that she entered into these har

the doorway into the street, calling lustily
for help, but whisper to the missionary, "Tell the officer to carry
me out." When once, in spite of the feigned struggle, she is carried
outside, and her pursuers are well behind in the chase, the ruse is
cast aside, and it becomes a race for dear life between the rescuer
and the rescued to make the city of refuge,--the mission home,--and
generally the fugitive gets there first. Once a rescue worker found
her girl secreted with four others in a loft, to which she had been
removed because the brothel-keeper feared an attempt at rescue. She
was so carefully guarded and watched that the poor thing dared not
signify to the missionary that she was the one who wished to be taken,
and all five struggled with equal apparent fierceness against rescue.
What was the missionary to do! She lifted her heart in the despairing
cry, "Oh, God, if ever you heard 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 th

times. During this year
the Registrar General so far forgot that there was even a sanitary
pretext for the Ordinance for the law he was set to operate as
to employ as an informer one Vincent Greaves, whom he knew to be
diseased. From about this time on, many cases of conviction were
secured against women where it was evident the matter had gone no
further than that they had accepted the marked money of the informers,
or, as was actually proved in some cases, this marked Government money
had been secreted by the informers in the rooms occupied by women.
Inspector Lee in one instance found the money on a table in a room
into which an informer had insinuated himself. The woman denied having
ever accepted it of him, yet she was convicted on that evidence alone.
With rewards offered to men of the lowest character, who would secure
the conviction of women so that the latter could be forced into the
life of open prostitution, all the presumptive evidence should have
turned such a case as this against the informer. Many similar cases
of the conviction of women of being keepers and inmates of secret
brothels, were secured on this sort of evidence. One young girl of 14
was entrapped by marked money being found in her toilet table. The
court records showed that this was the second time she had been
entrapped in this manner. This second time she was convicted and sent

with such bitter opposition, that,
like an old criminal, the measures seek to hide themselves under all
sorts of _aliases_. Mrs. Josephine Butler describes such legislation
in general in the following simple, lucid manner:
    "By this law, policemen,--not the local police, but special
    Government police, in plain clothes,--are employed to look after
    all the poor women and girls in a town and its neighborhood. These
    police spies have power to take up any woman they please, on
    _suspicion_ that she is not a moral woman, and to register her
    name on a shameful register as a prostitute. She is then forced to
    submit to the horrible ordeal of a personal examination of a kind
    which cannot be described here. It is an act on the part of the
    Government doctor such as would be called an indecent or criminal
    assault if any other man were to force it upon a woman. And it is
    the _State_ which forces this indecent assault on the persons of
    the helpless daughters of the poor.
    "If a woman refuses to submit to it, she is punished by
    imprisonment, with or without hard labor, _until_ she does submit.
    "If, after she has endured this torture, she is found to be healthy
    and well, she is set free, with a certificate that 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 t

itself under its wing, as it were; and lastly, at Singapore
coolie labor is managed by the same set of officials. What these
officials have done has been accepted by the Oriental people about
them as done by the Christian civilization. It cannot be said that the
evils mentioned above have been the outgrowth of Oriental conditions
and customs, principally. It has been rather the misfortune of
the Orient that there were brought to their borders by Western
civilization elements calculated to induce their criminal classes to
ally themselves with these aggressive and stronger "Christians" to
destroy safeguards which had been heretofore sufficient, for the most
part, to conserve Chinese social morality.
Christian people, even as far back as Sir John Bowring, Governor
of Hong Kong, and up to the present time, both at Hong Kong and
Singapore, have acquiesced in the false teaching that vice cannot be
put under check in the Orient, where, it is claimed, passion mounts
higher than in the Occident, and that morality is, to a certain
extent, a matter of climate; and in the presence of large numbers of
unmarried soldiers and sailors it is simply "impracticable" to attempt
repressive measures in dealing with social vice. These Christians
have listened to counsels of despair,--the arguments 

of
    the law."
CHAPTER 8.
JUSTICE FROM THE SUPREME BENCH.
On October 6th, 1879, Sir John Smale, the Hon. Chief Justice for Hong
Kong, passed judgment in three cases on prisoners convicted of various
degrees of crime connected with the enticing, detaining, buying and
selling of children. Governor Hennessy, in reporting the remarks made
by the Chief Justice on that occasion to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies, pronounced it "an able and elaborate judgment on the
existence of slavery at Hong Kong."
Said Sir John Smale:
    "Various causes have occasioned delay in passing sentence, of
    which I will only refer to one: The gravity of the fact that these
    and other cases have recently brought so prominently to the notice
    of the Court that two specific classes of slavery exist in this
    Colony to a very great extent, viz., so-called domestic slavery,
    and slavery for the purposes of prostitution. The three cases now
    awaiting the sentence of the Court are specially provided for by
    Ordinances of 1865 and 1872, prohibiting kidnaping and illegally
    detaining men, women, and children; and no difficulty ever arose
    in my mind as to the crimes of which these prisoners are severally
    convicted, or as to the sentences due to such crimes; and there is
    no question as to crimes or punishment of cases where women are
    smuggled into brothels, some licensed and others unlicensed, or
    otherwise dedicated to immoral purposes. But the enormous extent
    to which slavery in this Colony has grown up has called into
    existence a greatly increasing traffic, especially in women and
    children. The number of Chin

port, on the
    voyage in which we are interested, I visited the ship to interview
    the Chinese women on board, and there for the first time met our
    little dark-eyed friend, Kum Ping. She had been carefully coached
    on the way as to the visits she might receive from foreign
    missionaries, and the replies to all our questions showed a
    guarded suspicion that seemed quite hopeless. Our cheerful
    interpreter talked on, nevertheless, and finally won a quiet smile
    and the offer of some roast duck (a great delicacy among Chinese).
    All warnings about the dangers and wickedness of Chinatown
    apparently fell on deaf ears. "I am a married woman, my husband
    can take care of me. I do not need your protection!" was the
    rather indignant response. So we presented some bright flowers as
    a token of good will and friendship, and with them slipped into
    the small, soft hand a talisman that might help her out of future
    trouble. Just a slip of paper, but the magic of the name and
    number written there many an escaped slave girl can bear witness
    to. Some weeks passed by after our visit to Kum Ping on the
    steamer. She had landed, and, like hundreds of others, had simply
    disappeared from view in that place of many mysteries, old
    Chinatown. One night perhaps a month later, I was called to the
    reception room to see a strange visitor (Chine

master does not do his duty the actual parents have their remedy.
    The answer is, so far as Hong Kong is concerned, the far greater
    number of actual parents are far away in China, have entirely lost
    sight of the child, and are far too poor to seek a remedy in Hong
    Kong. They would have a remedy, if they were present and knew it,
    but they do not know that there is a remedy. They had their remedy
    from the first in China proper. Well, a remedy in the Mandarin
    Court, where the longest purse prevails, and into which a poor man
    seldom dares to enter a complaint."
    "Lastly, it is said that the lot of these children is far happier
    than if they had been left to their ordinary fate. So say these
    Chinese gentlemen; so said the noble and wealthy, the much
    respected slave trader and holder, a century ago in England. The
    answer to him then is the only answer for these Chinese gentlemen.
    It is a long one which presents itself to everyone who has studied
    the slavery and the slave-trade question. Besides this long
    argumentative answer, one question must be answered:--Is it right
    to do or sanction wrong that good may come?"
    "A very long time has elapsed since I received your letter
    forwarding that dispatch [containing the request of the Secretary
    of State for the Chief Justice to state his views as to Dr.
    Eitel's representations], in June last; but the delay has been
    advantageous, as it has enabled me to obtain a memorandum on the
    subject by Mr. Francis, barrister here, and for a year Acting
    Puisne Judge ... I write on this subjec

differing from what had been observed and known formerly?" To this
the Chinese gentlemen present replied that "there was indeed a marked
difference observable in the proceedings of kidnapers of late, because
they had become acquainted with the loopholes British law leaves open,
also with the principle of personal freedom jealously guarded by
British law, and that through this knowledge their proceedings had
not only become less tangible for the police to deal with, but
the kidnapers had been emboldened to give themselves a definite
organization, following a regular system adapted to the peculiarities
of British and Chinese law, and using regular resorts and depots in
the suburbs of Hong Kong." In support of this, Mr. Fung Ming-shan laid
on the table two documents written in Chinese. One of these contained
a list of 38 different houses in the neighborhood of Sai-ying-pim and
Tai-ping-shan used by professional kidnapers, whose names are given,
but whose residence could not be ascertained. The other document
consists of a list of 41 professional kidnapers whose personalia have
been satisfactorily ascertained.
The foreign Magistrates present then pointed out to the 

keeper of a
    brothel came to buy me, and look me over to see how much I was
    worth. A Chinaman living next door, knowing how I was treated and
    that I was going to be put in a brothel, when I saw him in the
    passageway, asked me if I wished to come to the Mission, and I
    said 'Yes.' My mistress had gone out into the next room, leaving
    her daughter and another slave girl in the room. I said I would go
    at once, and he brought me. I am very glad to live here and lead a
    good life."
    No. 3. The rescuer was requested to meet a girl at the corner of
    Stockton and Jackson streets. She did so. K---- Y---- was comely
    and refined looking. She had been sold into a brothel at a tender
    age. When about 22 she met a young Chinese man who wished to marry
    her, and he paid down $600 for her, promising $1,400 more in time.
    Another man objected to the sale, because the girl had mortgaged
    herself to him for $600. Through the Mission the girl was released
    from her bondage, and remained at the Mission one year and then
    married the first man, and they left San Francisco and resided for
    a time in an inland town. Here an effort was made to kill her in
    her own garden one evening. Her husband brought her back to San
    Francisco, and later she went back to China.
    No. 4. Came from a brothel on Spofford alley. She was occasionally
    allowed to attend the (Chinese) theatre. One evening when at the
    theatre she had word conveyed to the Mission to come get her
    immediately. The rescuer did so, and the girl promptly arose, when
    the rescuer entered 

a free woman."
Now listen, reader, to the wonderful chances of becoming a free woman
under the British flag, this "Protector" holds out to the slave girls
who are placed in his officially managed brothels:
    "The girls with their promissory notes are passed from hand to
    hand in sale, or as pledges for loans; and in one brothel I found
    two girls, who had, on arrival in Singapore from China some six
    years previous, signed a note for $300 each, of which every cent
    had been received and taken back to China by the person who had
    disposed of them. During the six years they had been the property
    of two or three successive owners, and when I found them in Penang
    they were still being detained with the original promissory note
    hanging over them, though the sum had been paid over and over
    again. On my insisting on accounts being produced by the
    brothel-keeper, I discovered that for three years the girls had
    been earning from 20 to 30 dollars each per month, all of which
    went to the master, who was surprised when the girls were released
    and himself threatened with the law." (!)
From this we discover that Mr. Pickering intends that we shall think
that the reason why he has a salary from the British Government,
is, among other things, to see that slave girls only need to redeem
themselves by hard earned money through unspeakable humiliation from
one, or two, or more owners, and then there is an end to the patience
of the "Protector" with the slave-trader, who will be surprised to
find himself "threatened"--not punished--with the law! But Cecil C.


against their owner, stating that she
    intended to sell them to go to California. One of these had been
    bought by this woman for eighty dollars; the girl saw the price
    paid for her; the other said her mother was very poor, and sold
    her for twenty dollars. Each declared she had been living under
    the "protection" of a foreigner until recently, and that she had
    not "acted as a prostitute"; they now feared being "sold into
    California" by the woman in charge. The Inspector said: "There has
    been at times a number of women residing in the house, and I do
    not know what has become of them. I believe that they have been
    sent to California by the defendant." One of the girls being
    recalled, and seeming to have gained courage, witnessed that she
    had been in the house when several women had been brought there
    and after some time had been sent away to California. She had been
    present when bargains were struck for the women, the price being
    various; bought here, the women cost from fifty to one hundred
    and fifty dollars, and when sold in California they were to be
    disposed of from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty
    each.[A] She said the woman had "made a great deal of money. She

Hong Kong, at first
    deceiving them by the promise of finding them employment (as
    domestic servants), and then proceeding to compel them by force
    to become prostitutes, or exporting them to a foreign port, or
    distribute them by sale over the different ports of China, boys
    being sold to become adopted children, girls being sold to be
    trained for prostitution." "Your petitioners are of opinion
    that such wicked people are to be found belonging to any of the
    [neighboring] districts, but in our district of Tung Kun such
    cases of kidnaping are comparatively frequent, and all the
    merchants of Hong Kong, without exception, are expressing their
    annoyance."
Accompanying the petition was a statement of the situation:
    "Hong Kong is the emporium and thoroughfare of all the neighboring
    ports. Therefore these kidnapers frequent Hong Kong much, it being
    a place where it is easy to buy and to sell, and where effective
    means are at hand to make good a speedy escape. Now, the laws
    of Hong Kong being based on the principle of the liberty of the
    person, the kidnapers take advantage of this to further their own
    plans. Thus they use with their victims honeyed speeches, and give
    them trifling profits, or they use threats and stern words, all in
    order to induce them to say they are willing to do so and so. Even
    if they are confronted with witnesses it is difficult to 

buying or selling a female, with or without her
consent, for prostitution; against a husband forcing or influencing a
wife to lead an evil life; against a husband even consenting to his
wife practicing prostitution; against keeping a house of ill-fame; and
against knowingly renting a house for a place of prostitution. But all
these laws, almost the world over, as well as in California, are weak
at one point, namely, that they provide for imprisonment _or_ fine,
whereas they should provide for imprisonment _and_ fine. This is not
because the penalty would then be heavier, of necessity, but in order
that the law may not be prostituted into license. The alternative of
a fine instead of imprisonment defeats the object the public-spirited
citizens 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 t

" 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 wa

never in our remotest
conception connected it with the man the Doctor had introduced to us.
Concealing our surprise we sat down for a few moment's interview. The
man knew his lesson "like a book." We could have prompted him, had he
made a mistake in reciting it, from the State documents which we had
with us,--the same from which we have compiled the chapters of this
little book. "The work of the Protectorate is really rescue work, _and
that only_." He had lived in Singapore nearly thirty years. He said he
had disapproved of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance, when it was
in existence, but a good thing had grown out of it in the matter of
provisions for the "protection", of women. We asked, in reference to
his remark that the Protectorate was a Rescue Society, if it did not
look after men, too. He replied, "Oh yes, the coolies; all are brought
here, but the men go to the other side of the building; the women come
here." We asked if all the women came before him; he said, "Before the
Protector; but in his absence before me." We pondered on the thought
of this "rescue work" carried on by this particular Protector of whom
we had heard that he had been almost unspeakably vile from boyhood
up. He showed us a book which contained a list of all deck-passengers
coming to Singapore, who had been passed under review at the
Protectorate; they were listed by families. He then showed us a
separate list of women and girls who came alone, without families. He
had underscored with red ink the names of those in the list who had
gone into brothels. He said that suspicious cases either went to the
Protectorate Refuge, or those under whose charge they went to live
were obliged to give bonds or securities, 500 Mexican dollars was the
usual amoun

present day, it is absolutely necessary for a
    full and just comprehension of it, to keep in mind two distinct
    considerations. One is the almost total identity of the whole
    system of prostitution, which since times immemorial is an
    established institution all over the large empire of China. The
    other point to be kept in mind is the radical difference
    which distinguishes the personal character, the life and the
    surroundings of Chinese prostitutes from all that is
    characteristic of the prostitutes of Europe." ... "At the present
    day the Chinese prostitutes of Hong Kong have but very little to
    distinguish them, either in the past, present, or future of their
    personal lives, or in their position and surroundings, from
    the prostitutes of the 18 provinces of China.... Those of the
    prostitutes of Hong Kong who are inmates of brothels licensed for
    foreigners only, or who live in sly brothels for foreigners,
    have adopted a different style of dress, but are otherwise in no
    essential point differently situat

On the two cases to which the attention of the Governor had been
brought, the Attorney General reported:
    "With the greatest respect for the Chief Justice, I doubt the
    policy of prosecuting the woman he refers to, having regard to the
    fact that the magistrate had discharged her for want of testimony,
    and looking to his further report. The magistrate should always be
    supported if possible; and if he discharged the woman, and put her
    at the bar as a witness, and she was used again at the Supreme
    Court, it might look like a breach of good faith to treat her now
    as a criminal.... As to the druggist's case, I think that the only
    thing that can be said is that it would look to be a breach of
    faith to proceed against him now."
When the case was referred to the Crown Solicitor, he said:
    "As to the druggist the parties had now left the Colony, and there
    were no witnesses against him. The purchase by Chinese of young
    orphans, and indeed of others whose parents are too poor to keep
    them, is a social custom amongst the natives, and is of constant
    occurrence in Hong Kong. These 'pocket-children,' as they are
    usually termed, are often treated with great affection, and are
    far better off than they were previous to their being so bought."
It was the 30th of May when the Chief Justice called the Governor's
attention to these cases. It was July before the Attorney General and
the Crown Solicitor seem to have paid any attention to the cases. It
was no wonder, then, that some of the witnesses could not be found.
Meanwhile the Governor had left the Colony for a trip to Japan, and
W.H. Marsh was acting in his place. On July 16th, he returned answer
to the Chief Justice that he had now received a report on the cases
from the Attorney General, the committing magistrate and 

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 goes free. But surely
those men who make a business of cultivating vice and vicious
practices,--who use every sort of device to corrupt the youth and
develop the trade in women, can be reached by just and wholesome laws.
We cannot make men moral by act of parliament, but we can restrict
their depredations.
It has long been our feeling that every form and kind of spurious
marriage, such as bigamy, polygamy, illegal divorce and remarriage,
seduction, adultery, and bastardy, besides constituting sometimes
cause for civil action, might with good results be lifted into
offenses against the State. National development depends not upon
the individual but upon the _family unit_, and that family unit is
non-existent outside the monogamous relation, or, at least, is so
frail as to easily crumble. Nothing could be more vicious in moral
education to the youth than the average suit for civil damages, in
which the whole decision of the case is made to depend upon whether
some young girl can or cannot be ruined in reputation by lawyers
of the defense and by their client, concerning whom there is not a
question as to their lack of a decent reputation. When the State rises
to defend itself against counterfeit marriage, just as it defends
itself against counterfeit coin, then the whole horizon of the life of
a profligate woman will not be brought before the public gaze every
time she comes into court, but will be kept in deserved obscurity, and
the woman will be tried for a _single_ offense, just as the man is
tried, and not for all the offenses and indiscretions of a life-time.
The penalty for such wrong doing may not be place

the Government is powerless to touch.
    Exeter Hall in possession of these facts would indeed have a theme
    for pious lucubrations."
Commenting upon the same case the _Singapore Free Press_ says:
    "A recent investigation into a case of suicide in Hong Kong brings
    into strong prominence what is really a system of slavery of the
    worst kind, and which is not unknown in Singapore."
    Such testimony is valuable from papers which have consistently
    supported the Contagious Diseases Ordinances and vilified the
    opponents of the State regulation of vice. There can be little
    doubt that a large proportion of the girls and young women who are
    brought to the Straits Settlements for immoral purposes have been
    sold in China to the brothel-keepers' confederates. In many cases
    girls are thus sold by their parents for the payment of gambling
    and other debts, and sometimes, alas, to provide money for the
    purchase of opium. Surely it is a burning shame that British
    Colonies should have become the market for the sale of Chinese
    women into this diabolical form of slavery.
    This article cannot be closed without a brief reference to another
    and more subtle form of slavery which is 

ravishing of native women "protection," and the most brazen forms of


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, and the famine, and the pestilence."
Having yielded before counsels of despair, those who should h

custom there." A very
broad stairway, scarcely less imposing than the front entrance to the
theatre, leads down into the alley, and to the brothel. The seats for
women in the theatre are reached by a special door leading to this
alley. The heart of this building is approached through "Washington
Place," an alley, at the entrance of which one encounters a sign, "No
White Men Admitted Here, Only Chinese." This notice, which has been
put up at the entrance of Oriental brothels in Chinatown, has been
ordered by the Chief of Police, it 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


by just and wholesome laws.
We cannot make men moral by act of parliament, but we can restrict
their depredations.
It has long been our feeling that every form and kind of spurious
marriage, such as bigamy, polygamy, illegal divorce and remarriage,
seduction, adultery, and bastardy, besides constituting sometimes
cause for civil action, might with good results be lifted into
offenses against the State. National development depends not upon
the individual but upon the _family unit_, and that family unit is
non-existent outside the monogamous relation, or, at least, is so
frail as to easily crumble. Nothing could be more vicious in moral
education to the youth than the average suit for civil damages, in
which the whole decision of the case is made to depend upon whether
some young girl can or cannot be ruined in reputation by lawyers
of the defense and by their client, concerning whom there is not a
question as to their lack of a decent reputation. When the State rises
to defend itself against counterfeit marriage, just as it defends
itself against counterfeit coin, then the whole horizon of the life of
a profligate woman will not be brought before the public gaze every
time she comes into court, but will be kept in deserved obscurity, and
the woman will be tried for a _single_ offense, just as the man is
tried, and not for all the offenses and indiscretions of a life-time.
The penalty for such wrong doing may not be placed at even so high a
figure in the Statute Book as it now stands, while accounted a civil
injury, but the dignity of the trial would give serious lessons
in virtue to the youth. No nation can long exist that does not
incessantly discourage the practice of e

sold the child." The Governor
concludes: "I did not agree with his view of the law."
The last case was referred back to the Acting Police Magistrate to
know why the woman, Leung A-Luk, was allowed to go unprosecuted. The
Police Magistrate replied: "It appeared to me that 4th defendant
(Leung A-Luk) being a well-to-do woman, and having no children of her
own, had purchased the girl with a view to adopting her." He adds:
"When Acting Superintendent of Police last year, I wished to prosecute
a man for detaining a child ... but as it was shown that the boy had
been sold by his father some months previously, the Attorney General
considered the purchaser was _in loco parentis_, [in the place of a
parent] and could not be purchased."


.. have
exceeded the duty imposed upon them by law."
From such responses as these we readily learn that it was not alone in
Hong Kong that these outrageous abuses of every principle of justice
in dealing with Chinese women failed to arouse more than a lukewarm
interest in their behalf, and all the way through Sir John Pope
Hennessy, with one or two notable exceptions, so far as the records
go, was shown but scant sympathy in his efforts to correct these
abuses.
On April 2nd, 1878, Sir Harcourt Johnstone asked in the House of
Commons the Secretary of State for the Colonies, "whether his
attention has been directed to a recent outrage committed ... at Hong
Kong, which is now forming the subject of inquiry by a Commission
appointed by the Governor. And if he will cause special investigation
to be made as to the manner in which the revenue derived from
licensing houses of ill-fame is raised and expended for the service of
the Colony."
In answer to this question, the Commission reported that, "the monies
raised both by the licenses from houses of ill-fame, and from the
fines inflicted under the provisions of these Ordinances, have been
expended in the general services of the Colony; and that the actual
revenue derived from this source, since and including 1857 down to
the end of 1877, amounted to $187,508, to which must be added the
Admiralty allowance from 1870 to 1877, amounting to $28,860, and fines
estimated at $5,000, making a 

Was he allowed precedence of chaplains, or how
otherwise? and was he expected to dine with the Bishop? Was he
decorated on the abolition of his office, and allowed a good service
pension? or is he still in the service of 'our religious and gracious
Queen?'" That officer still remains in the service of the Government,
both at Singapore and at Hong Kong. By the ruse of denominating all
the tasks connected with the Government management of immoral houses
at Singapore "protection," the Chief Inspector of brothels in this
place holds a more honored place in the community than at Hong Kong.
As to Mr. Scott's ironical questions in regard to that officer's
rank, we cannot answer, nor whether he is invited to the Governor's
receptions; but Mr. Scott would have been astounded, indeed, had
he, like ourselves, first met the Chief Inspector of brothels at a
reception given to ministers of the Gospel and missionaries; had he,
like ourselves, been introduced to the official by a minister of the
Gospel than whom none stands higher in British India, and that in
terms of eulogy of the Inspector's activity in Christian work. How
can we explain such a state of affairs? Just as we would explain the
religiousness of early days of America and England associated with the
monstrous cruelty of the slave traffic. There is often in connection
with great human wrong great moral confusion, and without judging the
individuals living under such conditions, we can say emphatically,
those conditions are most 

but if the latter, no slavery is worse. This as to females. And
    as to males, the purchaser holds them until they can redeem
    themselves, and, according to my experience, generally never.
    Again, the Chinese gentlemen allege that if the adoptive parent or


failure, as
shown by honestly handled statistics. There have, to be sure, been
many doctors, some of high scientific qualifications, who have
produced statistics strongly tending to prove the sanitary benefits
of such measures on superficial survey. But these statistics have
afterwards been shown to be mistakenly handled or designedly
manipulated to make such a showing. This is not a medical book, and
any extended treatment of figures as to disease would be entirely out
of place in it, so we will content ourselves by saying that during
late years physicians of prominence from every part of the world have
assembled twice at Brussels for Conferences in regard to this matter.
These physicians are in large numbers Continental doctors, the very
ones who have had most to do in enforcing such measures. Each time
the number of opponents to the Contagious Diseases Acts has rapidly
increased, after listening to the testimony from all sides as to
their inutility; in fact, the whole force of opinion at each of these
Conferences, in 1899 and 1902, was against State Regulation, though
there was a division of opinion as to the substitute for it.
In 1903, the Minister of the Interior of France, the country where
these Acts originated, nominated an extra-Parliamentary Commission to
go thoroughly into these questions. This Commission held its numerous
sittings in 1905, and in the end by almost a two-thirds' majority
condemned the existing system of regulation in France, and furthermore
rejected the alternative proposal of notification with compulsory
treatment, by sixteen votes to one. In reporting on the Conferences
held in Brussels, the _Independence Belge_ said, in a leading article:
"Regulation is v

were kidnaped. He then spoke of a drug
which was used by the women traffickers to destroy the girls' wits; he
believed in its existence and its use. He said of these cases of fraud
and kidnaping, "We can usually do nothing." We asked if a woman was
found bringing girls over and over again whether she could not be
prosecuted: he answered that she might be. We then asked if the
Protectorate had ever prosecuted: he replied, "Oh yes, a few times."
But he grew uneasy under these questions; said no one could know or
appreciate the present situation who did not know the conditions
of the things in the past, but now he thought they had the best
arrangement possible for protecting the women and girls, and
exclaimed, "But if this ordinance were abolished I do not know what
would become of them." He confessed at the close of our talk that he
would like to speak freely to us about certain things connected with
the work which could not be mentioned publicly, and said there were
"perplexities--great perplexities." Yet at the beginning of the
conversation, when speaking of the criticism passed upon the
Protectorate's work, he had said, "Why do they not come here for
inform

law, as to receive this recognition and
acknowledgment on the part of the Secretary of State at London:
    1st, That it is a "grave fact that" at Hong Kong "large numbers of
    women" are "held in practical slavery."
    2nd, That this slavery is "for the gain of those to whom they
    suppose themselves to belong."
    3rd, That it is so cruel that "in some cases" they "perish
    miserably ... in the prosecution of their employment."
    4th, That it is "by no choice of their own" that they prosecute
    their employment, and "are subjected to such treatment."
    5th, That they have "an urgent claim upon the active protection of
    Government."
    6th, That the service to which these slaves are doomed, through
    "no choice of their own," is the most degraded to which a slave
    could possibly be reduced, i.e., "prostitution."
When Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin," she sounded
the note of doom for slavery in the United States. After that, slavery
became intolerable. Many have remarked on the fact that the book
should have so stirred the conscience of the Christian world, when
there are depicted in it so many even engaging features 

to this day, called the "Protector of
Chinese."
The new Ordinance embodied the following features:
    1st, The registration of immoral houses.
    2nd, Their confinement to certain localities.
    3rd, The payment of registration fees to the Government.
    4th, A periodical, compulsory, indecent examination of every woman
    slave.
    5th, The imprisonment of the slave in the Lock Hospital until
    cured, and then a return to her master and the exact conditions
    under which she was "from no choice of her own," exposed to
    contagion, with the expectation that she would be shortly returned
    again infected.
    6th, The punishment by imprisonment of the slave when any man was
    found infected from consorting with her, through "no choice of her
    own."
    7th, The punishment by fine and imprisonment of all persons
    keeping slaves in an _un_registered house (which was not a source
    of profit to the Government).
This was the only sort of "active protection" that the Government
of Hong Kong at that time provided to the slave. The matter of
"protection" which concerned the "Protector of Chinese," related to
keeping the women from becoming incapacitated in the prosecution of
their employment, and to seeing that the hopelessly diseased were
eliminated from the herd of slaves. The rest of the "protection"
looked to the physical well-being of another p

could think of nothing so profitable
as securing women and girls to meet the demands of the foreigners.
Marriage having always been, to the Oriental mind, scarcely anything
beyond the mere trade in the persons of women, it was but a step from
that attitude of mind to the selling of girls to the foreigner, and
the rearing of them for that object. The "protected women," being of
the Tanka tribe, were well situated for this purpose, for they had
many relations of kindred and friendship all up and down the Canton
river, and the business of the preparation of slave girls for the
foreigners and for foreign markets (as the trade expanded) gradually
extended backwards up the Canton river, until many of its boats were
almost given over to it. "Flower-boats" were probably never unknown to
this river, but, besides their use as brothels, they became stocked
with little girls under training for vice, under the incitement of an
ever-growing slave trade. These little girls were bought, stolen or
enticed from the mainland by these river people, to swell the number
of their own children destined to the infamous slave trade. Chinese
law forbids this kind of slavery, but, as we have seen, the Tanka
people were sort of outlaws, the river life facilitated such a
business, and Hong Kong was near at hand.
In later years Dr. Eitel, Chinese interpreter to the Governor, stated:
"Almost every so-called 'protected woman,' i.e. kept mistress of
foreigners here, belongs to the Tanka tribe, looked down upon and kept
at a distance by all the other Chinese classes. It is among these
Tanka women, and especially under the protection of these 'protected'
Tanka women, that private prostitution and the sale of girls for
concubinage flourishes, bei

the beginning of the nineteenth
century, when Great Britain began to send Government-manufactured
opium from India to China, and when China prohibited the trade the
drug was smuggled in. When Chinese officials at last rose up to check
this invasion by foreign trade, wars followed in which China was
worsted, and the island of Hong Kong, together with the Kowloon
peninsula, became a British possession as war indemnity. Hong Kong
is a "mere dot in the ocean less than twenty-seven miles in
circumference," and when Great Britain took possession its inhabitants
were limited to "a few fishermen and cottagers."
The Tankas helped the British in many ways in waging these wars, and
when peace was established went to live with them on the island. This
action on the part of these "river people" is significant as showing
as much or more attachment to the foreigner than to the other classes
of Chinese. There seems always to be less conscience in wronging
an alien people than in injuring a people to whom one is closely
attached, and this sense of estrangement from other Chine

two managed to withdraw. A supper
of fowls, stuffed pigs' feet, sausages, eggs, and plenty of native
wine was brought in, and they feasted, the men getting under the
influence of drink. A-Nam, the pander, went out and hunted up two
more girls for the feast. Perhaps these suspected a plot, for they
withdrew. Then A-Nam went again, and returned with Tai-Yau.
It was about nine o'clock when A-Nam came to 42 Peel street and called
Tai Yau out. Mrs. Lau saw her go out with him, but was not uneasy, for
she had seen him there before as a friend of Tai Yau. Is it not quite
likely it was from him she borrowed the money? He was the kind of man
whose profession would lead him to hang around the Registrar's court
in order to get on the track of unlicensed women and to get them in
his power. If such were the case, and she owed him money, she would be
terribly in his power.[A] She went away with him to the feast near
by at No. 9 Lyndhurst Terrace, and at twelve o'clock she returned in
company with A-Nam and a strange man. Mrs. Lau was up and worshipping
in her room. She came and said to Tai Yau: "Who is this?" seeing the
strange man sitting on a chair. "What is this strange man doing here?"
Tai Yau replied, "Oh, he is a shopman and is my husband."
[Footnote A: Chief Inspector Whitehead testified before the
Commission: "When an unlicensed brothel is broken up the women have to
resort in most cases to prostitution for a living." Though the wrong
done Tai Yau had been "against her will," yet it had brought her into
court up

to the peculiarities
of British and Chinese law, and using regular resorts and depots in
the suburbs of Hong Kong." In support of this, Mr. Fung Ming-shan laid
on the table two documents written in Chinese. One of these contained
a list of 38 different houses in the neighborhood of Sai-ying-pim and
Tai-ping-shan used by professional kidnapers, whose names are given,
but whose residence could not be ascertained. The other document
consists of a list of 41 professional kidnapers whose personalia have
been satisfactorily ascertained.
The foreign Magistrates present then pointed out to the Chinese
members of the meeting that one great difficulty the Government
frequently met in dealing with such cases was the question, what to do
with women or children found to have been unlawfully sold or kidnaped;
how to restore them to their lawful guardians in the interior of
China; how to provide for them in case such women or children had
actually been sold by their very guardians, who, if the woman or child
in question were restored to them, would but seek another purchaser;
how to deal with persons absolutely friendless, etc. The Chinese
members of the meeting replied that they were prepared to undertake
this duty. They would employ trustworthy detectives to ascertain the
family relations of any kidnaped person, who would see to such persons
being restored to their families upon guarantee being given for proper
treatment; and in cases where restoration was impossible or not
advisable, they would take charge of such kidnaped persons, maintain
them, and eventuall

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 section 78 the receiving into
    his house by any one of a person of a differen

Kong? The Report of the Commission answers the
    question: 'The great majority of them are owned by professional
    brothel-keepers or traders in women in Canton or Macao; they
    have been brought up for the profession, and trained in various
    accomplishments suited to their 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 are owned in Macao and Canton. They are bought as infants.
    They come to Hong Kong at 13 or 14, and are deflowered at a
    special price which goes to the owners. The owner gets the whole
    of their earnings, and even gets presents given to the girls, who
    are allowed three or four dollars a month pocket-money. When some
    of the girls are sent away on account of age, new ones are got
    from Canton. If these girls are not slaves in every sense of the
    word, there is no such thing as slavery in existence. If this
    buying and selling for the purpose of training female children up
    for this life is not slave-dealing, then never was such a thing
    as slave-dealing in this world. There are 18,000 to 20,000
    prostitutes in Hong Kong to 4,000 or 5,000 respectable Chinese
    women.... Once in five years the stock has to be renewed. It is
    for this purpose, and not for the legitimate or quasi-legitimate
    purposes of Chinese adoption and Chinese family life, that
    children and women are kidnaped and bought and sold ... Until
    this slave-holding and slave-dealing are entirely suppressed, the
    grosser abuses arising out of it and incidental to it (kidnaping
    of women and children) can never be put an end to."
It was on May 20th, 1880, that the Secretary of State asked for the
first statement of Sir John Smale's views as to kidnaping and domestic
slavery. His reply is dated August 26th, and in it he refer

who "supposed themselves to belong" to masters would be
    at once told that they were free agents and belonged to no one.
    3rd, The master who dared claim the ownership of a former slave
    would be prosecuted and suitably punished.
    4th, Any slave perishing miserably from disease would not only be
    healed at public expense, but placed where there was no further
    risk of contagion.
    5th, Since such slaves had "an urgent claim on the _active_
    protection of the Government," they would be treated as wards of
    the State until safe from like treatment a second time.
    6th, Since this slavery had sprung up in defiance of law, any
    official who at a future time connived at such crime would be
    liable to impeachment.
The Ordinance sent home for sanction, and approved of by Mr.
Labouchere as needed for the "protection" of slave women, was
proclaimed as Ordinance 12, 1857, after some slight modifications, and
an official appointed a few months before, called the "Protector of
Chinese," was charged with the task of its enforcement. This official
is also called the Registrar General at Hong Kong, but the former name
was given him at the first, and the official at Singapore charged
with the same duties is always, to this day, called the "Protector of


is also called the Registrar General at Hong Kong, but the former name
was given him at the first, and the official at Singapore charged
with the same duties is always, to this day, called the "Protector of
Chinese."
The new Ordinance embodied the following features:
    1st, The registration of immoral houses.
    2nd, Their confinement to certain localities.
    3rd, The payment of registration fees to the Government.
    4th, A periodical, compulsory, indecent examination of every woman
    slave.
    5th, The imprisonment of the slave in the Lock Hospital until
    cured, and then a return to her master and the exact conditions
    under which she was "from no choice of her own," exposed to


dependent, and therefore subject to be disturbed
by a thousand accidents, which bring inevitable griefs.
171. Misery.--The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is
diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this
which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which makes
us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of
weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of
escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to
death.
172. We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as
too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the
past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in
the times which are not ours and do not think of the only one which belongs
to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and
thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally
painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and, if
it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it
by the future and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for
a time which we have no certainty of reaching.
Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with
the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we
think of it, it is only to take l

but the example of
so many pious writings makes me believe the contrary. It is no longer
allowable to write well, so corrupt or ignorant is the Inquisition!
"It is better to obey God than men."
I fear nothing; I hope for nothing. It is not so with the bishops.
Port-Royal fears, and it is bad policy to disperse them; for they will fear
no longer and will cause greater fear. I do not even fear your like
censures, if they are not founded on those of tradition. Do you censure all?
What! Even my respect? No. Say then what, or you will do nothing, if you do
not point out the evil, and why it is evil. And this is what they will have
great difficulty in doing.
Probability.--They have given a ridiculous explanation of certitude; for,
after having established that all their ways are sure, they have no longer
called that sure which leads to heaven without danger of not arriving there
by it, but that which leads there without danger of going out of that road.
921.... The saints indulge in subtleties in order to think themselves
criminals and impeach their better actions. And these indulge in subt

behind you, escape to the
mountain, lest you be consumed." 
==========================================================================
Pensees
   * PENSÉES
        o SECTION I: THOUGHTS ON MIND AND ON STYLE
        o SECTION II: THE MISERY OF MAN WITHOUT GOD
        o SECTION III: OF THE NECESSITY OF THE WAGER
        o SECTION IV: OF THE MEANS OF BELIEF
        o SECTION V: JUSTICE AND THE REASON OF EFFECTS
        o SECTION VI: THE PHILOSOPHERS
        o SECTION VII: MORALITY AND DOCTRINE
        o SECTION VIII: THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
        o SECTION IX: PERPETUITY
        o SECTION X: TYPOLOGY
        o SECTION XI: THE PROPHECIES
        o SECTION XII: PROOFS OF JESUS CHRIST
        o SECTION XIII: THE MIRACLES
        o SECTION XIV: APPENDIX: POLEMICAL FRAGMENTS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   PENSÉES
                              by Blaise Pascal
                                    1660
                         translated by W. F. Trotter
                                   PENSÉES
                  SECTION I: THOUGHTS ON MIND AND ON STYLE
1. The difference

They are somewhat surprised that they should in this respect find
themselves so different from the idea they generally had entertained of
godly persons. For, though grace be indeed of a far more excellent
nature than they imagined, yet those who are godly have much less of it,
and much more remaining corruption, than they thought. They never
realized it, that persons were wont to meet with such difficulties,
after they were once converted. When they are thus exercised with doubts
about their state, through the deadness of their frames, as long as
these frames last, they are commonly unable to satisfy themselves of the
truth of their grace, by all their self-examination. When they hear of
the signs of grace laid down for them to try themselves by, they are
often so clouded, that they do not know how to apply them. They hardly
know whether they have such and such things or no, and whether they have
experienced them or not. That which was the sweetest, best, and most
distinguishing in their experiences, they cannot recover a sense of. But
on a return of the influences of the Spirit of God, to revive the lively
actings of grace, the light breaks through the cloud, and doubting and
darkness soon vanish away.
Persons are often revived out of their dead and dark frames by religious
conversation: while they are talking of divine things, or ever they are
aware, their souls are carried away into holy exercises with abundant
pleasure. And oftentimes, while relating their past experiences to their
Christian brethren, they have a sense of them revived, and the same
experiences are in a degree again renewed. Sometimes, while persons are
exercised in mind with several objections against the goodness of their
state, they have Scriptures one after another coming to their minds, to
answer their scruples, a

to the last), was not so able to observe them. There had
also long prevailed in the town a spirit of contention between two
parties, into which they had for many years been divided; by which they
maintained a jealousy one of the other, and were prepared to oppose one
another in all public affairs.
But in two or three years after Mr. Stoddard's death, there began to be
a sensible amendment to these evils. The young people showed more of a
disposition to hearken to counsel, and by degrees left off their
frolics; they grew observably more decent in their attendance on the
public worship, and there were more who manifested a religious concern
than there used to be.
At the latter end of the year 1733, there appeared a very unusual
flexibleness, and yielding to advice, in our young people. It had been
too long their manner to make the evening after the sabbath, [It must be
noted, that it has never been our manner, to observe the evening that
follows the sabbath, but that which precedes it, as part

the infinite God. If it were only
the wrath of man, though it were of the most potent prince, it would be
comparatively little to be regarded. The wrath of kings is very much
dreaded, especially of absolute monarchs, who have the possessions and
lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at
their mere will. Prov. 20:2. "The fear of a king is as the roaring of a
lion: Whoso provoketh him to anger, sinneth against his own soul." The
subject that very much enrages an arbitrary prince, is liable to suffer
the most extreme torments that human art can invent, or human power can
inflict. But the greatest earthly potentates in their greatest majesty
and strength, and when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but
feeble, despicable worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and
almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth. It is but little that
they can do, when most enraged, and when they have exerted the utmost of
their fury. All the kings of the earth, before God, are as grasshoppers;
they are nothing, and less than nothing: both their love and their
hatred is to be despised. The wrath of the great King of kings, is as
much more terrible than theirs, as his majesty is greater. Luke 12:4,5.
"And I say unto you

which
does not exceed the natural power of the means which are employed for it.
Thus, those who heal by invocation of the devil do not work a miracle; for
that does not exceed the natural power of the devil. But...
805. The two fundamentals; one inward, the other outward; grace and
miracles; both supernatural.
806. Miracles and truth are necessary, because it is necessary to convince
the entire man, in body and soul.
807. In all times, either men have spoken of the true God, or the true God
has spoken to men.
808. Jesus Christ has verified that He was the Messiah, never in verifying
His doctrine by Scripture and the prophecies, but always by His miracles.
He proves by a miracle that He remits sins.
Rejoice not in your miracles, said Jesus Christ, but because your names are
written in heaven.
If they believe not Moses, neither will they believe one risen from the
dead.
Nicodemus recognises by His miracles that His teaching is of God. Scimus
quia venisti a Deo magister; nemo enim potest haec signa facere quae tu
facis nisi Deus fuerit cum eo.178 He does not judge of the miracles by the
tea

the master tells him
only the act and not the intention. And this is why he often obeys
slavishly, and defeats the intention. But Jesus Christ has told us the
object. And you defeat that object.
898. They cannot have perpetuity, and they seek universality; and therefore
they make the whole Church corrupt, that they may be saints.
899. Against those who misuse passages of Scripture, and who pride
themselves in finding one which seems to favour their error.--The chapter
for Vespers, Passion Sunday, the prayer for the king.
Explanation of these words: "He that is not with me is against me." And of
these others: "He that is not against you is for you." A person who says: "I
am neither for nor against"; we ought to reply to him...
900. He who will give the meaning of Scripture, and does not take it from
Scripture, is an enemy of Scripture. (St. Augustine, Of Christian Doctrine.)
901. Humilibus dat gratiam;223 an ideo non dedit humilitatem?224
Sui eum non receperunt; quotquot autem non receperunt,225 an 

18, 19. Jer. 23:6, 7.
Prophecy.--The Jews shall be scattered abroad. Is. 27:6. A new law, Jerem.
31:32.
Malachi. Grotius. The second temple glorious. Jesus Christ will come. Haggai
2:7, 8, 9, 10.
The calling of the Gentiles. Joel 2:28. Hosea 2:24. Deut. 32:21. Malachi
1:11.
716. Hosea 3.--Is. 42. 48. 44. 60. 61. last verse. "I foretold it long since
that they might know that it is I." Jaddus to Alexander.
717. Prophecies.--The promise that David will always have descendants. Jer.
13:13.
718. The eternal reign of the race of David, II Chron., by all the
prophecies, and with an oath. And it was not temporally fulfilled. Jer.
23:20.
719. We might perhaps think that, when the prophets foretold that the
sceptre should not depart from Judah until the eternal King came, they spoke
to flatter the people and that their prophecy was proved false by Herod. But
to show that this was not their meaning and that, on the contrary, they knew
well that this temporal kingdom should cease, they said that they would be
without a king and without a prince, and for a long time. Hosea 3:4.
720. Non habemus regem nisi Caesarem.[140] Therefore Jesus Christ was the
Messiah, since they had no longer any king but a stranger, and would have no
other.
721. We have no king but Caesar.
722. Daniel 2: "All thy

qui me misit.170
Nemo scit, neque Filius.171
Nubes lucida obumbravit.172
Saint John was to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and Jesus
Christ to plant division. There is not contradiction.
777. The effects in communi and in particulari. The semi-Pelagians err in
saying of in communi what is true only in particulari; and the Calvinists in
saying in particulari what is true in communi. (Such is my opinion.)
778. Omnis Judaea regio, et Jerosolmymi universi, et baptizabantur.173
Because of all the conditions of men who came there.
From these stones there can come children unto Abraham.
779. If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon them. Ne convertantur
et sanem eos, et dimittantur eis peccata.174
780. Jesus Christ never condemned without hearing. To Judas: Amice, ad guid
venisti?[175] To him that had not on the wedding garment, the same.
781. The types of the completeness of the Redemption, as that the sun gives
light to all, indicate only completeness; but the types of exclusions, as of
the Jews elected to the exclusion of the Gentiles, indicate exclusion.
"Jesus Christ the Redeemer of all." Yes, for He has offered, like a man who
has ransomed all those who were willing to come to Him. If any die on the
way, it is their misfortune; but, so far as He was concerned, He offered
them redemption. That holds good in this example, where he who ransoms and
he who prevents death are two persons, but not of Jesus Christ, who does
both these things. No, for Jesus Christ, in the quality of Redeemer, is not
perhaps Master of all; and thus, in so far as it is in Him, He

master, saying
to the one, "Go," and to another, "Come." Sub te erit appetitus tuus.77 The
passions thus subdued are virtues. Even God attributes to Himself avarice,
jealousy, anger; and these are virtues as well as kindness, pity, constancy,
which are also passions. We must employ them as slaves, and, leaving to them
their food, prevent the soul from taking any of it, For, when the passions
become masters, they are vices; and they give their nutriment to the soul,
and the soul nourishes itself upon it and is poisoned.
503. Philosophers have consecrated the vices by placing them in God Himself.
Christians have consecrated the virtues.
504. The just man acts by faith in the least things; when he reproves his
servants, he desires their conversion by the Spirit of God, and prays God to
correct them; and he expects as much from God as from his own reproofs, and
prays God to bless his corrections. And so in all his other actions he
proceeds with the Spirit of God; and his actions deceive us by reason of
the... or suspension of the Spirit of God in him; and he repents in his
affliction.
505. All things can be deadly to us, even the things made to serve us; as in
nature walls can kill us, and stairs can kill us, if we do not walk
circumspectly.
The least movement affects all nature; the entire sea changes because of a
rock. Thus, in grace, the least action affects everything by its
consequences; therefore everything is important.
In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and
future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all
those things. And then we shall be very cautious.
506. Let God not impute to us our sins, that is to say, all the consequences
and results of our sins, which are dreadful, even those of the smallest
faults, if we wish to follow them out mercilessly!
507. The spirit of grace; the hardness of the heart; external circumstances.
508. Grace is indeed needed to turn a man into a saint; and

case of every soul in this congregation that has not been born
again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise
be. Oh that you would consider it, whether you be young or old! There is
reason to think, that there are many in this congregation now hearing
this discourse, that will actually be the subjects of this very misery
to all eternity. We know not who they are, or in what seats they sit, or
what thoughts they now have. It may be they are now at ease, and hear
all these things without much disturbance, and are now flattering
themselves that they are not the persons, promising themselves that they
shall escape. If we knew that there was one person, and but one, in the
whole congregation, that was to be the subject of this misery, what an
awful thing would it be to think of! If we knew who it was, what an
awful sight would it be to see such a person! How might all the rest of
the congregation lift up a lamentable and bitter cry over him! But,
alas! instead of one, how many is it likely will remember this discourse
in hell? And it would be a wonder, if some that are now present should
not be in hell in a very short time, even before this year is out. And
it would be no wonder if some persons, that now sit here, in some seats
of this meeting-house, in health, quiet and secure, should be there
before tomorrow morning. Those of you that finally continue in a natural
condition, that shall keep out of hell longest will be there in a little
time! your damnation does not slumber; it will come swiftly, and, in all
probability, very suddenly upon many of you. You have reason to wonder
that you are not already in hell. It is doubtless the case of some whom
you have seen and known, that never deserved hell more than you, and

He did not allow them. Other things
which He has left without general prohibition, and which for that reason are
said to be permitted, are nevertheless not always permitted. For when God
removed some one of them from us, and when, by the event, which is a
manifestation of the will of God, it appears that God does not will that we
should have a thing, that is then forbidden to us as sin; since the will of
God is that we should not have one more than another. There is this sole
difference between these two things, that it is certain that God will never
allow sin, while it is not certain that He will never allow the other. But
so long as God does not permit it, we ought to regard it as sin; so long as
the absence of God's will, which alone is all goodness and all justice,
renders it unjust and wrong.
669. To change the type, because of our weakness.
670. Types.--The Jews had grown old in these earthly thoughts, that God
loved their father Abraham, his flesh and what sprung from it; that on
account of this He had multiplied them and distinguished them from all other
nations, without allowing them to intermingle; that, when they were
languishing in Egypt, He brought them out with all these great signs in
their favour; that He fed them with manna in the desert, and led them into a
very rich land; that He gave them kings and a well-built temple, in order to
offer up beasts before Him, by the shedding of whose blood they should be
purified; and that, at last, He was to send them the Messiah to make them
masters of all the 

the other. And thus they have spoken
differently of the Pope. (Saint Cyprian: Sacerdos Dei.)[216] But in
establishing one of these truths, they have not excluded the other.
Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not
depend on plurality is tyranny. There is scarcely any other country than
France in which it is permissible to say that the Council is above the Pope.
872. The Pope is head. Who else is known of all? Who else is recognised by
all, having power to insinuate himself into all the body, because he holds
the principal shoot, which insinuates itself everywhere? How easy it was to
make this degenerate into tyranny! That is why Christ has laid down for them
this precept: Vos autem non sic.[217]
873. The Pope hates and fears the learned, who do not submit to him at will.
874. We must not judge of what the Pope is by some words of the Fathers--as
the Greeks said in a council, important rules--but by the acts of the Church
and the Fathers, and by the canons.
Duo[218] aut tres.219 In unum. Unity and plurality. It is an error to
exclude one of the two, as the papists do who exclude plurality, or the
Huguenots who exclude unity.
875. Would the Pope be dishonoured by having his knowledge from God and
tradition; and is it not dishonouring him to separate him from this holy
union?
876. God does not perform miracles in the ordinary conduct of His Church. It
would be a strange miracle if infallibility existed in one man. But it
appears so natural for it to reside in a multitude, since the conduct of God
is hidden under nature, as in all His other works.
877. Kings dispose of their own power; but the Popes cannot dispose of
theirs.
878. Summum jus, summa injuria.220
The majority is the best way, because it is visible and has strength to make
itself o

were saying, Peace and
safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace
and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows. 
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider,
or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully
provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as
worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer
eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times
more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is
in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn
rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you
from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing
else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered
to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And
there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell
since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up.
There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell,
since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by
your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, th

prayer, so far as can be
observed, for she seems to have no desire that others should observe her
when she retires, being a child of a reserved temper. Every night,
before she goes to bed, she will say her catechism, and will by no means
miss. She never forgot it but once, and then, after she was a-bed,
thought of it, and cried out in tears, I han't said my catechism! and
would not be quieted till her mother asked her the catechism as she lay
in bed. She sometimes appears to be in doubt about the condition of her
soul; and when asked, whether she thinks that she is prepared for death,
speaks something doubtfully about it. At other times she seems to have
no doubt, but when asked, replies, Yes, without hesitation. In the
former part of this great work of God amongst us, till it got to His
height, we seemed to be wonderfully smiled upon and blessed in all
respects. Satan seemed to be unusually restrained; persons who before
had been involved in melancholy, seemed to be as it were waked up out of
it; and those who had been entangled with extraordinary temptations,
seemed wonderfully freed. And not only so, but it was the most
remarkable time of health that ever I knew since I have been in the
town. We ordinarily have several bills put up, every Sabbath, for sick
persons; but now we had not so much as one for many sabbaths together.
But after this it seemed to be otherwise.
When this work of God appeared to be at its greatest height, a poor weak
man who belongs to the town, being in great spiritual trouble, was
hurried with violent temptations to cut his own throat, and made an
attempt, but did not do it effectually. He, after this, continued a
considerable time exceedingly overwhelmed with melancholy; but has not
for a long time been very greatly delivered, by the light of God's
countenance lifted up upon him, and has expressed a great sense of his
sin in so far yielding to tempt

Deus absconditus.86
519. John 8. Multi crediderunt in eum. Dicebat ergo Jesus: "Si manseritis...
VERE mei discipuli eritis, et VERITAS LIBERABIT VOS." Responderunt: "Semen
Abrahae sumus, et nemini servimus unquam."[87]
There is a great difference between disciples and true disciples. We
recognise them by telling them that the truth will make them free; for if
they answer that they are free and that it is in their power to come out of
slavery to the devil, they are indeed disciples, but not true disciples.
520. The law has not destroyed nature, but has instructed it; grace has not
destroyed the law, but has made it act. Faith received at baptism is the
source of the whole life of Christians and of the converted.
521. Grace will always be in the world, and nature also; so that the former
is in some sort natural. And thus there will always be Pelagians, and always
Catholics, and always strife; because the first birth makes the one, and the
grace of the second birth the other.
522. The law imposed what it did not give. Grace gives what it imposes.
523. All faith consists in Jesus Christ and in Adam, and all morality in
lust and in grace.
524. There is no doctrine more appropriate to man than this, which teaches
him his double capacity of receiving and of losing grace, because of the
double peril to which he is exposed, of despair or of pride.
525. The philosophers did not prescribe feelings suitable to the two states.
They inspired feelings of pure greatness, and that is not man's state.
They inspired feelings of pure littleness, and that is not man's state.
There must be feelings of humility, not from natur

not I, the Lord?"
Is. 46: "Remember the former things of old, and know there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that
are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my
pleasure."
Is. 42: "Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I
declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them."
Is. 48:3: "I have declared the former things from the beginning; I did them
suddenly; and they came to pass. Because I know that thou art obstinate,
that thy spirit is rebellious, and thy brow brass; I have even declared it
to thee before it came to pass: lest thou shouldst say that it was the work
of thy gods, and the effect of their commands.
"Thou hast seen all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shewed thee new
things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.
They are created now, and not from the beginning; I have kept them hidden
from thee; lest thou shouldst say, Behold, I knew them.
"Yea, thou knewest not; yea, thou heardest not; yea, from that time that
thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou couldst deal very
treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb."
Reprobation of the Jews and conversion of the Gentiles.--Is. 65: "I am
sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not;
I said, Behold me, behold me, behold me, unto a nation that did not call
upon my name.
"I have spread out my hands all the day unto an unbelieving people, which
walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; a people that
provoketh me to anger continually by the sins they commit in my face; that
sacrif

heard praised? A well-turned heel.
117. The heel of a slipper.--"Ah! How well this is turned! Here is a clever
workman! How brave is this soldier!" This is the source of our inclinations
and of the choice of conditions. "How much this man drinks! How little that
one"! This makes people sober or drunk, soldiers, cowards, etc.
118. Chief talent, that which rules the rest.
119. Nature imitates herself A seed grown in good ground brings forth fruit.
A principle instilled into a good mind brings forth fruit. Numbers imitate
space, which is of a different nature.
All is made and led by the same master, root, branches, and fruits;
principles and consequences.
120. Nature diversifies and imitates; art imitates and diversifies.
121. Nature always begins the same things again, the years, the days, the
hours; in like manner spaces and numbers follow each other from beginning to
end. Thus is made a kind of infinity and eternity. Not that anything in all
this is infinite and eternal, but these finite realities are infinitely
multiplied. Thus it seems to me to be only the number which multiplies them
that is infinite.
122. Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the
same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.
It is like a nation which we have provoked, but meet again after two
generations. They are still Frenchmen, but not the same.
123. He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite
believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young, and she
also; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her yet, if she were
what she was then.
124. We view things not only from different sides, b

we must even add at the end of
each truth that the opposite truth is to be remembered.
568. Objection. The Scripture is plainly full of matters not dictated by the
Holy Spirit. Answer. Then they do not harm faith. Objection. But the Church
has decided that all is of the Holy Spirit. Answer. I answer two things:
first, the Church has not so decided; secondly, if she should so decide, it
could be maintained.
Do you think that the prophecies cited in the Gospel are related to make you
believe? No, it is to keep you from believing.
569. Canonical.--The heretical books in the beginning of the Church serve to
prove the canonical.
570. To the chapter on the Fundamentals must be added that on Typology
touching the reason of types: why Jesus Christ was prophesied as to His
first coming; why prophesied obscurely as to the manner.
571. The reason why. Types.--They had to deal with a carnal people and to
render them the depositary of the spiritual covenant. To give faith to the
Messiah, it was necessary there should have been precedent prophesies, and
that these should be conveyed by persons above suspicion, diligent,
faithful, unusually zealous, and known to all the world.
To accomplish all this, God chose this carnal people, to whom He entrusted
the prophecies which foretell the Messiah as a deliverer and as a dispenser
of those carnal goods which this people loved. And thus they have had an
extraordinary passion for their prophets and, in sight of the whole world,
have had charge of these books which foretell their Messia