called on the Attorney-General of the
day to prosecute a man against whom there was evidence that the
boy he was keeping as a servant had been bought by him direct from
a kidnaper. The then Attorney-General exercised his discretion,
and did not prosecute." "There are no difficulties in the way of
carrying out the punishment of kidnaping, and sellers and buyers
of children, or of keeping children by the purchasers, or in
selling and buying of women for brothels, or in dealing with
cases of brutal bondage." "I have spoken from criminal facts and
circumstances deposed to in Court; the Chinese and Dr. Eitel have
spoken from the favorable surroundings of respectable domestic
life in China. The conflicting views thus presented are but a
reproduction of conflicting testimony in reference to negro
slavery in the West Indies, and more lately in the United States.
Very benevolent persons, some my own friends, looking at facts
from the respectable standpoint, thought that such slavery was
based on human nature, and conduced to the spread of Christianity.
But the contrary view prevailed. I am quite satisfied that the
right view on this question will ultimately prevail. As a man I
have very decided views on these subjects, but as a judge I feel
it is not for me further to debate them. I expressly retired from
doing so on the 27th of October, 1879, although I thought it
necessary in March last to comment on what I thought to be an
erroneous view of the _patria potestas_."

Later, in response to a suggestion on the part of the Governor, for a
more explicit statement as to wherein his views differ from those of
the Chinese and of Dr. Eitel, the Chief Justice says, among other
things:

"I do not admit the statements of Dr. Eitel. They do not apply
to Hong Kong, but they may, and probably do, apply to certain
respectable classes in China proper, where China family life
proper exists. What I assert is that family life does not, in the
proper Chinese sense, exist in Hong Kong, and that although, under
certain very restricted conditions, the buying and selling, and
adopting and taking as concubines, boys and girls in China proper,
is permitted as exceptions to the penalties inflicted by Chinese
law in China proper, these conditions do not exist in Hong Kong;
and that the conditions necessary to these excepti