informed them that "slavery in any
form could not be allowed in the Colony." They protested that their
system of adoption and of obtaining girls for domestic purposes was
not slavery; "and they referred to the more immoral practice of buying
girls for the Hong Kong brothels, which, they alleged, Government
departments had connived at, though it was a practice most hateful to
the respectable Chinese." The Governor then asked them for their views
in writing, and they sent them to him in the form of a memorial,
containing the following words:

"Your petitioners are informed that his Lordship, the Chief
Justice, after the trial of a case of purchasing free persons for
prostitution, said, in the course of his judgment, that buying
and selling of girls for domestic servitude was an indictable
offense;--which put all native residents of Hong Kong in a state
of extreme terror; all great merchants and wealthy residents in
the first instance being afraid lest they might incur the risk of
being found guilty of a statutory offence, whilst the poor and low
class people, in the second instance, feared being deprived of a
means to preserve their lives (by selling children to be domestic
servants)."

These petitioners claimed:

That the buying of boys for "adoption" and of girls for domestic
servitude, "widely differs from the above-mentioned wicked
practices" of kidnaping and buying and selling of girls into
brothels.

That the domestic slaves "are allowed to take their ease and have
no hard work to perform," and when they grow up, "they have to be
given in marriage."

That all former Governors had let them alone in the exercise of
their "social customs."

That Governor Elliott had promised them freedom in the exercise of
their native customs.

That infanticide "would be extremely increased if it were entirely
forbidden to dispose of children by buying and selling;" parents
deprived of the means of keeping off starvation by selling their
children would "drift into thiefdom and brigandage."

Following the petition was an elaborate statement on the subject,
full of subtle arguments, misstatements and perversions, together, of
course, with some well-put statements, forming ten propositions in
favor of domestic slavery. Their first claim is not exactly true, as
even Dr. Eitel, who defended domestic servitude, was bound to de