force in Hong Kong by its own
authority. We have also the provisions of the Local Ordinance 4 of
1865, sections 50 and 51, and 2 of 1875."

"Offenses against the provisions of these Ordinances, so far as
they relate to women or children, are still very common, and
are growing more numerous every day, and until the system of
prostitution which prevails in this Colony, and the system of
breeding up young girls from their infancy to supply the brothels
of Hong Kong, Singapore, and San Francisco, _is declared to be
slavery_, and is treated and punished as such in Hong Kong, no
stop will ever be put to the kidnaping of women and the buying and
selling of female children in Hong Kong. This buying and selling
is only an effect of which the existing system of Chinese
prostitution is the cause. Get rid of that, and there is an end of
kidnaping."

Again the nail had been struck on the head. _Licensed brothel
slavery_, as it exists at Hong Kong, was put forward by the Chinese
merchants as something to be dealt with before British officials
could consistently lay violent hands on the more trivial offenses of
_domestic slavery and so-called "adoption." Brothel slavery_, says
Mr. Francis, must be dealt with _as slavery_ before the practice of
_kidnaping_ can be put under control. This lesson was learned long
ago. What did all the laws against man-stealing and slave-trading ever
accomplish so long as the slave owner was allowed to keep his slave?
As soon as slave-holding was declared impossible in the United States,
there was no more trouble with slave-traders. Traders go to a market
where they can dispose of their goods, not to a place where their kind
of goods are a drug on the market.

Says Mr. Francis bluntly: "The Chinese custom of adoption, whether of
boys for continuing the family and worship of ancestors, or of girls
for the ordinary purposes of domestic service, is not the foundation
of all this buying and selling of women and girls; it is only the
pretext and excuse." Mr. Francis states that the buying and selling of
boys is rare as compared with the buying and selling of girls. That
there are few Chinese families in Hong Kong.

"The better class Chinese leave their wives in China. The
transaction of purchase of these boys takes place at the home of
the fathers of them in China. Seldom is it necessary to buy a son,
as the usual custom when a wife h