Kimberley 
 
 Lord Kimberley*s Defence 
 of the Government Brothel 
 System at Hong Kong 
 
 r
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 LORD KIMBERLEY'S DEFENCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GOVERNMENT BROTHEL SYSTEM 
 
 AT 
 
 HONG KONG. 
 
 "CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO THE CONTAGIOUS 
 DISEASES ORDINANCES IN HONG KONG." 
 
 {PRESENTED TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT IN 
 AUGUST, 1881.) 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE RT. HON. 
 
 JAMES STANSFELD, M.P. 
 
 Published by the 
 
 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR TEE REPEAL OF THE 
 
 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ACTS, 
 
 2, Wkstminster Chambers, London, S.W. 
 
 'To he had of the Secretary, price Sixpence, j^ost-free. 
 
 1882.
 
 London : 
 
 Printed by PEWTRESS & Co., 
 
 Steam Printing Works, 
 
 15, Great Qceen Steet, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C.
 
 Ha 
 
 1-X5- 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 I INVITE a very careful perusal of the following pages, 
 for the general accuracy of whose contents I am willing 
 to hold myself responsible. 
 
 In my opinion the correspondence must be held to 
 modify the rightful attitude and duty of "Repealers" 
 who are " Liberals " towards Her Majesty's Government. 
 
 Thev_Jia ve nothing to hope from a ny Governmen t of 
 whose views Lord Kimberley's l etter of July 26, 1881, is 
 a deliberate exposition, put forward whilst a Committee 
 of the House is still inquiring into the principles and 
 operation of the English Contagious Di seases, Acts. - 
 
 I shall take the earliest practicable opportunity of 
 challenging this declara tion of policy and principle in the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 J. STANSFELD. 
 
 Stoke Lodge, Hyde Park Gate, 
 London, S.W., 
 
 Jan, 18, 1882. 
 
 jO':
 
 LOED KBIBEELEY'S DEFENCE OF THE 
 GOYEENMENT BEOTHEL SYSTEM AT 
 HONG KONG. 
 
 ^'COEEESPONDENCE EELATING TO THE 
 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OEDINANCES IN 
 HONG KONG." 
 
 (Presented to both Houses of Tarliament in August, 1881. J 
 
 Ix the course of the Session of 1830, the Right Hon. J. Stansfeld,. 
 M.P., asked for the production of this Correspondence and was 
 answered that it should be " presented by command " when 
 concluded. It has now been presented and it concludes with the 
 letter of Jjfyrd Ivimberley to^the-iiQi'£riijQt_iiLJLmgJv^ Sir J. 
 Pope He nnessey, of June 26th, 1881, which is reprinted in the 
 following pages. 
 
 In the year 1877 Sir J. Pope Hennessey appointed a Commission 
 of Inquiry into the working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinances 
 in Hong Kong. Mr. Stansfeld asked for copies of their report 
 and of the evidence taken before them. Sir Michael Hicks Beach 
 consented to place on the table the report, but not the evidence. 
 It so happened, however, that both the evidence and the report 
 had been forwarded to Mr. Stansfeld by the Governor of Hong 
 Kong,* and Mr, Stansfeld placed both in the hands of the National 
 Association for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, who 
 published a summary of the information therein contained in the 
 columns of their organ, The Shield, which summary was 
 subsequently reprinted for distribution in pamphlet form. 
 
 Briefly stated, the circumstances which induced the Governor of 
 HongKongto appoint the Commission of Inquiry, wore as follows : — 
 An inquest was held, Oct. 17, 1877, at the Goverment Civil Hospital, 
 
 * For ■which Act the Governor wassoveroly taken to task by tlic Home 
 Government. See Appendix (A.)
 
 2 
 
 IIoiij^ Koug, upon tho bodies of two Cbiuoso women, who were killed 
 by fiillinp from tlie roof of a liouso, whither they had fled in the 
 httouipt to oscftpo from the police, who had broken into the house 
 on tho ground that it was an " unlicensed " brothel. The 
 coroner's jury, having corlilied tho cause of the death of the 
 women, appended to their verdict a recommendation " tha t the 
 whole s jstem of Q httiining convictions against j inlicensed brothels 
 
 be tboroaghly re vised, as the present pra ctice_iSjja their opinion , 
 both illegal and immoral," 
 
 The first letter in this important Correspondence is from 
 the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir J. Pope Hennessey, to 
 Lord Carnarvon (Nov. 1, 1877), forwarding the local papers 
 containing a full report of the inquest on the two Chinese women, 
 and calling attention to the recommendation of the coroner's jury. 
 Sir J. P. Henness ey adds, " I have taken the responsibility of 
 putting a stop to ajractice which has existed in this Colony since 
 Sep tember. 18 68,''' when Sir Ilichar d Mac Donnell san ctioned j /<£, 
 ap])ropnatiu7i of Govermmnt money for the parj of informers who 
 miijht induce Chinese uwnen t o jjrt?g(t'fit/g themselves and thus 
 brinij them under the penal clauses of the Contar/ious Diseases 
 Ordina7ice\. . . I had no idea that the Secret Service Fund w-as 
 used for this loathsome purpose until my attention was drawn to 
 an inquest on the bodies of two Chinese women who were killed 
 by falling from a house in which one of the informers employed by 
 the Registrar-General was pursuing his avocations." 
 
 It may, at first sight, app ear incredible that any Gov ernment 
 should syste m a t ica ll y employLiHie_clais_of^ the community to bribe 
 another class to commit prosti tution in order that they might incur 
 punishment at the han ds of the State, but full details of the 
 
 * There is, apparently, some error here as to date. The Commissioners 
 state in their Report (page 10) : "In this year (1860) the services of 
 informers were first resorted to," and they quote instances in which an 
 inspector and various police constables acted in that capacity in plain 
 clothes. It would seem that the practice was illegally carried on until it 
 was sanctioned by Sir B. MacDonnell in 1868 after the passing of Ordinance 
 10 of 1867. 
 
 t The Italics, throughout this pamphlet, are our own.
 
 purpose of the Government in so acting and of the results of their 
 action will be found in the official Report of the Commission 
 nominated by the Governor of Hong Kong to inquire into the 
 subject and the evidence thereunto appended. (House of Commons' 
 paper, No. 118, in 1880.) 
 
 From that evidence it appears that until the date of Governor 
 Hennessey's letter to Lord Carnarvon, quoted above, the Registrar- 
 General of Hong Kong had been in the habit of employing 
 " Ejirope^nSj^olJiers».5ailQrSj English members of the spy-police, 
 employes of the Naval Yard, inferior employes of the Registrar 
 GeneraPs Department, and the lowest class of Chinamen " to bribe 
 Chinese women to comroitprostitution in their own dwelling house 
 or_^ropm. These informers were provided with money* for the 
 purpose, in the form of dollar notes which were previously marked 
 by the inspectors of the spy-police, in order that the subsequent^ 
 finding of those notes in the accused woman's possession, or in her 
 apartment, might be used as evidence in support of the informer's 
 assertion that he had ace omplished the task set before him by the 
 representatives of the Government, and thus enable the Inspectors 
 to arrest her.f . 
 
 The Report of the Hong Kong Commission, the evidence brought 
 before that Commission and the official correspondence now 
 before us, between the Governor of Hong Kong and the Home 
 Government, clear up all that might have remained obscure as to 
 the motives which could induce the representatives of the English 
 Government to bribe Chinese women to commit prostitution for 
 the sole apparent aim of punishing them for so doing. 
 
 The purpose of the Officials isjwo.^iflld.: 
 
 In the first place we learn from these documents that the 
 Government has assumed to itself the sole right to trade in 
 
 * The Chief Insp ector of Brothels, Whitehead, in his evidence said : " My 
 instractions were to use European informers if possible," and it appears 
 from the evidence before the Commission that the informers got from 5 dels, 
 to 10 dels, and 20 dels. 
 
 t It is well to note here that the Registrar General whose employees 
 perform these services, is also the Judge in the first instance before whom 
 the arrested persons are taken, appeals being made practically impossible. 
 (See Appendix D, Ordinance 10 of 1867).
 
 prostitation in Hong K )ng ami is 6,)lo Tiicensor of brothels in that 
 Colony* It derives n co nsiderable ineom e both from the fees 
 received from "licousod" brothels and from the fines levied upon 
 those who carry on the trade of prostitution^ without pur- 
 chasing a permit. The Registrar General, whose business it 
 is to license brothels and to collect the revenue derived 
 from prostitution, consequently regards all females who 
 commit prostitution without paying duty to the Government, 
 precisely as the officials who collect other branches of the 
 revenue regard all persons, male or female, who carry on any 
 other trade by contraband. And the Government has reserved to 
 itself the right to levy a duty on the bodies of women in^ Hong 
 Kong, precisely as it has reserved to itself the right to levy duties 
 upon brand)', tobacco and other profitable articles of consumption ; 
 and heavy fines are therefore levied upon those who attempt to 
 defraud the revenue in this branch of commerce. 
 
 In the second place, the arrest of the women enabled the ofiicialg 
 to store those whose bodies were to be otfered for sale, in the 
 Government warehouses — the lawful, licensed brothels — and 
 thereby to secure that the articles offered by them to the public 
 should be periodically inspected and medicated by the surgeons 
 hired by the Government for that purpose ; it being held to be 
 obvious that every male person whose custom it was to commit 
 prostitution, would prefer that the bodies of the females pur- 
 chased by him should be cleansed, licensed and warranted by the 
 State, rather than by a private dealeii. 
 
 It is to be observed that although all brothels in Hong Kong, 
 whether for the use of the Chinese community or of Eur opeans ^ 
 have to be licensed and to pay license duties, the " sanitary 
 clauses " of the Ordinances have been only applied to the brothels 
 used by Europeans, on the ground of the insuperable objection of 
 the Chinese themselves to the system ; for we learn, from the 
 correspondence now published, that the po_pnlation ofHon g Kong 
 _didjiQt_ b y any means^ accept the poi nt of view of the Government 
 in respe ct of the official provisionofcleansed, medicatedTand licensed^ 
 prostituJtes. Governor Hennessey writes to Lord Carnarvon 
 (November 1, 1877) that " the European community are ashamed
 
 of the revelations that have been made at the inquest, and amongst 
 the Chinese the practice that has been brought to light is viewed 
 ■with abhorrence." The Governor also says: — "For many- 
 years past this branch of the Registrar General's office has 
 led to grave abuses. It^ has been a fruitful source of extortion,., 
 and, what is far worse, a department of the State, which is 
 supposed to be constituted for the protectipn* .ofthe Chinese, 
 .,has,.been employing a dangerously loose system, whereby the 
 sanctity of native households may be seriously compromised." 
 
 It appeared from the evidence given by the police inspectors at the 
 inquest on the Chinese women, that besides the monies entrusted 
 to them " to induce Chinese women to commit prostitution," the_ 
 informers were well rewarded for their real or professed success 
 in so doing, and tha,t all their " expenses " (wine, suppers, 
 &c., &c,) were paid by the Government. "We were told," said 
 Inspector Lee to the coroner's jury, "to engage men even at five 
 dollars each. We made out the bills, the Registrar General 
 signed them, and they were sent to the Captain Superintendent of 
 Police and paid out of the Secret Service Fund." 
 
 On April 4, 1878, Sir Harcourt Johnstone asked the Secretary 
 of State for the Colonies "If he would cause special investigation 
 to be made as to the manner in which the revenue derived from 
 licensing houses of ill-fame was raised and expended for the service 
 of the Colony." 
 
 Sir Michael Hicks Beach wrote to Governor Hennessey on 
 April 13, enclosing a copy of the above question and saying, "It 
 has been alleged that the balance of the fund now in hand amounts 
 to 50,000 dols.," and desiring him to obtain information on the 
 subject and report the result to him. 
 
 The Governor replied by despatch, " the licenses for prostitutes, 
 Ac, bring in a nett profit of about 50,000 dols." 
 
 * The Governor here alludes to the fact that (as stated by Mr. 
 H. T. Ball, then Acting Attorney General in Hong Kong, in his report on the 
 Contagions Diseases Ordinance of 1867) " by Sec. 4, of Ordinance 8 
 
 of 1858, the Registrar General is, by virtue of his office the 
 
 Protector of the Chinese Inbabiiants of this Colony." The reader will bo 
 enabled ,by-±h£aa _pages to jud^^o the nature and amount of 'iiroteclion 
 afforded by him to the female inhabitants of the Colony. 
 
 " ~ ' /^
 
 6 
 
 This dcppatch was followed by a letter (July 1, 1878) in which 
 Ibe Governor explained that " the section of the Contagious Diseases 
 Ordinance, No. 10, of 18()7, by which Imitlnl licoisrs aud flues (nul 
 jWs iromprnstittitrs wore to form a separate fund for tbopurposos of 
 the Ordinance was not complied with, but such monies were treated 
 as part of the regular revenue and used for the general purposes of 
 Ciovornmont." The meaning of this appears to bo that it had not 
 at first been supposed that the sum realised from " brothel 
 licenses, and fines and foes from prostitutes " would do more 
 than recoup the Government for^ the expenses incurred by them 
 iq their efforts to provide the I'luropean inhabitants of Hong 
 Kong with healthy Chinese prostitutes, but that on the discovery 
 that the amount of " nett profits " resulting from the trade in the 
 bodies of Chinese women was so large, the Government took to 
 itself the reward of its solicitude for the satisfaction of the sexual 
 appetites of its male subjects/'' The correspondence now before 
 ns reveals the deep sympathy felt by English officials at home 
 for the desires of their countrymen abroad in this matter of 
 prostitution, and their unceasing anxiety to surround men who 
 indulge in debauchery with every possible protection, facilitation, 
 comfort and convenience in their power. 
 
 On June 20, 1879, Sir Michael Hicks Beach forwarded a 
 copy of the Report of the Hong Kong Commission to the 
 Admiralty (June 20, 1879), calling their Lordships attention 
 to the " system of employing paid informers to discover prostitutes 
 
 • In illnstration of this solicitade on the part of the Government we may 
 mention that, on the 6th November, 1866, Lord Carnavon wro te to Sir E. 
 MacDonnell, then Governor of Hong Kong, forwarding a copy of the 
 Contagious Diseases Act of that year, saying : " I desire to impress npon 
 yba that Her Majesty's Government regard this question as one of great 
 importance, and I wish you take the earliest opportunity of bringing the 
 Bubject ander the consideration of your Legislature with a vieio to the 
 enactment of a lawfouruled on the principle of the Imperial Act. The matter 
 18 one which concerns the well-being of those places in which Her Majesty's 
 troops are quartered, scarcely less than the well-being of the troops them- 
 selves, and I am sure that I may calculate on the co-operation of your 
 Government and Legislature in giving effect to the desires of Her Majesty's 
 Oorernment." — Document 23, Appendix to Report of the Hong Kong 
 Commission, p. 218.
 
 in unlicensed houses, the medical examination of women who 
 have been found not to be prostitutes," the seizing of money in 
 unlicensed houses, and the illegal practice by which the inspectors 
 have arrested women instead of merely issuing summonses to the 
 inmates of such houses." These things Sir Michael Hicks Beach 
 stigmatized as " abuses which should be remedied," but, neverthe- 
 less, he required " to be acquainted with their Lordships views" as 
 to these illegal practices against the female inhabitants of a Colony 
 in the government of which he represented the British nation, 
 before taking any steps to put a stop to those abuses, 
 because they " might have a very important bearing on the sanitary 
 condition of Her Majesty's military and naval forces stationed at 
 or visiting Hong Kong." 
 
 Their Lordships, in reply (Aug. 5, 1879), " declined to criticize 
 the Ordinances of the Contagious Diseases Act in Hong Kong," 
 but added: "They trust that the Act will be maintained in that 
 Colony where it has proved of so much benefit to her Majesty's 
 Navy." Sir Michael Hicks Beach then requested their Lordships 
 (August 18, 1879) to reconsider their decision not to offer an 
 opinion on the subject, and " to favour him with a Keport on the 
 several recommendations of the Colonial Commission from the officer 
 who advises the Board of Admiralty on these matters." Their 
 Lordships consequently forwarded to the Colonial Office (Nov. 13, 
 1879) a copy of a letter from Mr. W. H. Sloggett, inspector of the 
 hospitals instituted by the Contagious Diseases Acts in England for 
 the inspection and medication of female prostitutes, and of his 
 remarks upon the Report of the Hong Kong Commission. 
 
 Reference to the " conclusions and suggestions " of the Report 
 of the Hong Kong Commissioners! will suffice to show that the 
 subject was felt by them to involve points of constitutional law, 
 and they state in the body of their Report, that " the Brothel 
 laws, having been founded on a system of coercion by means of 
 
 * The Commissioners give many instances in their Report in which women 
 and girls were ai-rested as prostitutes, sent to hospital, and compelled to 
 undergo the infamous ordeal of inspection bj the Government surgeon, and 
 found to be virgins. 
 
 f Sec Appendix B.
 
 8 
 
 fine and iiuprisoumont, their history, iu ouo of its most important 
 ivisious has been written iu Judicial llecords." Moreover, they 
 >|uoto in the appendix, the " most weighty objections urged by the 
 Allorney General, Mr., now Sir Julian Pauncefote, to the policy of 
 • .sul'j£cUn<i^trs(jMjO-Jifp''^.f(0iliiiiprLmnm(nt uithnut the .s(ij'eijuardl_ 
 irhich .ftirnntnil thr iKhnini.sti^iti'iii of Ju.stiir in n pul'lic and opeii- 
 murt.' " (See appendix to Report of the Hong Kong Commission, 
 Document 27, page 221 ). 
 
 Sir Richard MacDonnell, who was Governor of Hong Kong 
 in iyG7, appears to have been highly indignant at Sir Julian 
 Pauncefote's respect for these safeguards of personal free- 
 dom. Ho appended a minute to the Attorney General's 
 memorandum in which he said : " . . . I fail to see much 
 of the applicability of the Attorney General's argument to 
 the question. . . . At all events the experiment of dealing 
 with brothels and their inmates through the magistrates 
 in an open Court has been tried smd/alled. Why should we try 
 it again ? Experience has shown that the evidence which is 
 necessary for arriving at conclusions in points connected with the 
 ' Social Evil ' here, cannot he produced in open Court. The 
 whole machinery was at a stand-still. I have had in du bitable 
 evidence o f malpractices, but could npt obtain convictions, beca use 
 I could not get the evidencf; into open Courts and yet th e^Attorney- 
 Ge neral wishes to gacrijice the uhject of the projected legislation, 
 to some DRE.vii of the necessity for maintaining a Magna Charta 
 Palladium of LiiiEETv for people who do not understand it." (See 
 Appendix to the Report of the Hong Kong Commission, Document 
 28, p. 222). 
 
 The indifference of the Lords of the Admiralty to the judicial and 
 constitutional aspects of the subject was shown by the fact that 
 they appointed Mr. Sloggett to consider and report upon the Report 
 ox the Hong Kong Commissioners. Mr. Sloggett is an ex-examining- 
 surgeon, who, until he was appointed inspector of the hospitals in 
 which prostitutes are " prepared for the market," was himself 
 employed to inspect and prepare tbem. Lord Kimberley has 
 also ti ipuKht fit to support his defence of thft Gnyp.rnnnftnt brothel 
 system by the opinions of Mr. Sloggett, The action of the Admiralty
 
 9 
 
 and Lord Kimberley's indorsement of it afford further illustration of 
 our statement that the sole aim of the authorities who framed the 
 Contagious Diseases Ordinances of Hong Kong and the Con- 
 tagious Diseases Acts of England is, that of providing for the 
 heathful and comfortable debauchery of the male subjects of 
 Queen Victoria. Mr. Sloggett, who had much to do in framing 
 the " English Acts," and is paid by the English Government 
 to carry them out, thinks there is nothing like leather. 
 He " can but repeat " . . . . " that the Colonial 
 Ordinance should be based on the principles of the Con- 
 tagious Diseases Act of 1866, and its provisions limited to 
 the means of applying these most effectually to the prostitutes of 
 Hong Kong, such modifications only being admitted as the peculiar 
 habits of the people and the circumstances of the Colony might 
 render necessary," ■''■ and v^ith I'egard to the non-inspection of 
 vpomen in the brothels visited only by Chinese men, Mr. Sloggett 
 thinks "it is to be regretted that the principles of the 
 Contagious Diseases Act of 1866, viz., the periodical medical 
 inspection of all common prostitutes and their detention in 
 hospital when diseased, were not more closely followed out in the 
 Hong Kong Ordinance of 1867, which is that now in force."! 
 The " peculiar habits of the pe ople " induced Chinese men 
 strongly to ob,ieci to t he personal inspection of Chinese women. The 
 Registrar-General of Hong Kong, Mr. Cecil C. Smith, had stated in a 
 report to Lord Granville (Jan. 18, 1869) that it " would be impracti- 
 cable to introduce a system of medical inspection in the brothels for 
 the use of the Chinese ; " that if it were attempted " the whole of 
 the Chinese brothel-keepers would close their establishments; " 
 and his successor, Mr. Alfred Lister, also stated in February, 1869, 
 that " it would involve the Government in a very perplexing and 
 endless strife with Chinese prejudice." Mr. Sloggett, who obtained his 
 living by labouring ta-secure the__ comfortable debauchery 9X-iUii«_- 
 ji rtju^iIJri2l_Vrng]\^hmp.n n.i hamp., gbared the anxiety of the 
 
 * Sloggett to Secretary of the Admiralty, Oct. 7, 1879. 
 t Observations on tlie lleport of the Commissioners on the Contagious 
 Diseases Ordinances of Kong Kong (forwarded with above).
 
 10 
 
 Govermnont that equal c omforts sbouKl be providoil for them 
 abroad, and ho opco more " rogrots tlmt in th n administration of 
 t boso Ordinances in IIoul^ I v^^f! - pm atnr co nsideration had not 
 b een paid to the opinions of tho Imporj ul Govflrnment as evincod 
 i n the C\)uta{:;ioiis Diseases Acts of 18G(i and 18G 9." * 
 
 On June 21, 1880, Governor Hennessey wrote to the Secretary of 
 State for the Colonics — Lord Kimberley — on the subject, alluding 
 to " some of the more serious abuses laid bare by the Commis- 
 Bion," amongst others to the fact that on e of the E uropean 
 informers who were paid " to go about with marked money to g et 
 women to prostitute themselves," . . . and who •' had in- 
 this way become diseased, was still, after be had given evidence to 
 that eflect, carelessly retained by the Registrar-General as an 
 informer, and that a few days afterwards his evidence was again 
 recorded, showing that he Iiad been fnrnix/K'd with Governtiicnt 
 moneif to hare connexion in'th Chinese iromen irhcn lie was 
 a ctiiiilli/ ilisrascd. '^ The Governor further called attention to 
 the facts that " European inspectors of brothels who were known 
 to the Registrar General as married men were still employed as 
 informers .... that brothels were licensed by the 
 Registrar General and the examination-rooms for prostitutes placed 
 in streets where European clergymen resided and where schools 
 for European girls existed," etc., etc. 
 
 On the 23rd June, 1880, Governor Hennessey forwarded to Lord 
 Kimberley a despatch on the su bject of brothel slavery in Hong 
 Kon g, whi ch for snm e reason is not printed in th e official copy of 
 t he correspondence presented to Parliam ent. It appears that in 
 l^JB^ Mr. Labouchere said, in a despatch to Governor Bowring, 
 " The Colonial Government has not I think attached sufficient 
 weight to the very grave fact that in a British Colony large 
 numbers of women should be held in practical slavery for the 
 purposes of prostitution and allowed in some cases to perish 
 miserably of disease in the prosecution of this employment, and 
 for the gain of those to whom they suppose themselves to belong. 
 A class of persons who, by no choice of their own, are subjected 
 
 * Observations on Report.
 
 11 
 
 to such treatment have an urgent claim on the active protection 
 of the Government." 
 
 The first Contagious Dis ease Ordinance for Hong Kong was 
 passed in 185Z.''" It contained no provision for the protection of 
 ■^pmen from brothel slaver y. It was passed, as Mr. Sloggett tells us,f 
 " owing to the very strong representations made by different naval 
 officers in command on the China Station," and " for checking the 
 
 spread of venereal diseases." The Home Government and Colonial' 
 Government took no steps whatever to mitigate the slavery of the 
 women ; but it will be seen further on that Lord Kimberley gives the 
 Government, who did not carry out Mr. Labouchere's suggestion, 
 credit for the intention of doing so when they passed an 
 Ordinance dealing exclusively with another subject. Neither 
 the despatch in which Lord Kimberley asserts this, nor that 
 from the Governor to which it was a reply, is printed in the 
 correspondence, but their contents may be inferred from Governor 
 Hennessey's despatch of the 13th November, 1880, in which the 
 Governor writes : — 
 
 " I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Lord- 
 ship's despatch of the 29th September, 1880, | with reference to 
 my despatch of the 23rd June,§ on the subject of brothel 
 slavery in Hong Kong. 
 
 " Having quoted an extract from my despatch to the effect 
 that the existing law agaimt slaver ij, if j)yopcrhi enforced by the 
 police, should he su(Jicient to secure the real freedom of the 
 Chinese women referred to, your Lordship expresses the opinion 
 that I cannot have formed any distinct plan for grappling with 
 this long-standing evil, and that the despatches I have written 
 have reached no further than exposing the abuses connected with 
 the Government brothel system I found here, and especially the 
 employment of informers. I venture, however, to point out to 
 your Lordship that, in addition to the agency mentioned in the 
 extract from my despach, I indicated, in paragraph 5, another 
 source to which the Government would have also to look in dealing 
 
 * (See Appendix C.) f Observations on Keport. 
 
 X Not printed. § Not printed.
 
 12 
 
 ■with this subject, that is tho co-oporatiou of the leading members 
 of the Chineso community. 
 
 •• 1 tako some bhuno to myself for not having stated this 
 more omiihatically, as, iu fact, upon it depends tho possibility of 
 securing any bcneiicial ellect in this important matter quite as 
 much as upon the proper action of tho police. 
 
 " On receipt of the despatch now under reply, I called for a 
 precis of the recorded views of the leading Chinese, and a state- 
 ment of what the Chinese society your Lordship had sanctioned in 
 despatch of the 20lh May, 1880,' had actually accomplished in 
 this matter, and on receiving this information I shall forward it 
 without delay, when it will, I think, be made clear to your Lord- 
 ship that a beneficial effect has already been secured hy the action 
 of the Iciuliwi Chinese residents. 
 
 " On the general question of the Government system of 
 licensing brothels, your Lordship seems to think that I have not 
 sufficiently recognised that the establishment of the system was a 
 police measure, intended to give the Hong Kong Government some 
 hold upon the brothels, in the hope of improving the condition of 
 the inmates, and of checking the odious species of slavery to 
 •which they are subjected. 1 can, however, assure your Lordship, 
 uhatever youd intentions may have been entertained and exjjvessed by 
 Her Majesty's Government when the licensiny system was established, 
 that it has been worked for a dijf'erent pwpose from that ivhich 
 Mr. Labouchere in 185G, ajid your Lordship all alony would 
 desire. 
 
 " The re al purpose of the broth el legislation here has been, 
 i n the odious words so often used , the provision^ of clean Chinese 
 w pmen for the use of the British soldiers and the sailors of the 
 Koyal Navy in this Cnlnny, During the three or four years that 
 I have been here, I have received from each succeeding Admiral 
 on the station, and from the various officers in command of the 
 troops, re presentations respecting the^ brothel laws, and without a 
 single exception, b:h_ owing that they con sider ed that t he^ Govern:^ 
 tasn t system was devised for this end . I found the officials of the 
 
 * Not printed.
 
 13 
 
 Hong Kong Government, "who were entrusted with the working 
 of the system, devoted apparently to that end .... 
 
 " Speaking with whatever authority may attach to my residence 
 in the Colony and access to the official records, I am bound not 
 to conceal from your Lordship the undoubted fact that, so far 
 from checking this odious species of slavery, the Contagious 
 Diseases Ordinances of 1857 and 1867 undoubtedly intensified it. 
 
 " On the other hand, Sir Ar thur Kennedy's legislation of 1873 
 and 1875 icas designed to vre ven t the hwiinci and sellhvi of 
 Chinese women for prostitutio n, and was to s ome extent an 
 anfw(oi£_tQ_Jthe_bipJhellaws. The history of the legislation of 
 1873 and 1875 is in one respect not unlike that of the recent 
 action taken in Hong Kong to put down kidnap ping. Your 
 Lordship is aware that the year before the Chief Justice, Sir 
 John Smale, moved in the matter, the respectable Chinese 
 residents had memorialised me to take further steps to repress 
 kidnapping and the sale of Chinese women for prostitution, and 
 that at their request I appointed a Committee on the subject in 
 1878. In the same way I find that Sir Arthur Kennedy's 
 legislation of 1873 was to a great extent due to the representa- 
 tions made to him by the Chinese community. This fact appears 
 on the official records of 1872, and it is noticed in the memorial 
 of the Chinese which I transmitted to Sir Michael Hicks Beach on 
 the 23rd of January, 1880.- 
 
 " I lose no time in bringing this point particularly to your 
 Lordship's attention, so that Her Majesty's Government may see 
 the early and practical interest taken by the Chinese themselves 
 in this question, and that your Lordship may look forward with 
 confidence to settling it satisfactorily, provided the co-operation of 
 the native gentlemen of the Colony be secured." 
 
 Lord Kimberley replied to the above, December 31, 1880, 
 saying, "... I request that you will at your earliest convenience 
 furnish me with a statement containing such particulars as will 
 explain how the Contagious Diseases Ordinances of 1857 and 1867 
 have increased the slavery of the inmates of the brothels.'' 
 
 * Not printed.
 
 14 
 
 Tho Ciovornor ftiisworod on tbo loth June, 1881, submitting the 
 following consiilerations in support of tho statement ho had made : 
 "... That uiulor tho Ordinance No. 12 of 1857, the evils of brothel 
 slavery were into usilied and assumed day after day a graver aspect, 
 would seem to have been the opinion of tho llegistrar General, 
 Mr. Cecil C. Smith, who, ton years after Mr. Labouchero gave the 
 instructions which your Lordship quotes" (and which were not 
 carried out) " wrote on '2nd November, 18GG, as follows : — 
 
 " * There is another matter connected with the brothels, licensed 
 and unlicensed, in Hong Kong, which almost daily assumes a 
 graver aspect. I r efer to what is no less than the trafficking in _ 
 human t^ft s h bpHvppn i]m brothel-keepers and the vagabonds of 
 the Colon^\ "Wom en are bought and sold in nearly every brothg L. 
 i n the place. They are induced by specious pretexts to c ome to 
 Hong Kong ^and then, after they are admitted into the b rothels, 
 such a system of espionage is kept over them, and so fright ened 
 /^njliPiy gflt, ns to prp.vfint any application to the police.' 
 " So far for the Ordinance of 1857. 
 
 " As regards Ordinance No. 10 of 1867, there is the testimony 
 of another Registrar General, Mr. A. Lister, who stated before 
 the Commission in 1877, that he does ' not think the new 
 Ordinance had any real eli'ect, or could have had any eflect upon 
 the sale of women.' 
 
 " Such is indeed the case. 
 
 "But there is yet the important question whether or not the 
 condition of a woman, once sold into virtual slavery to the keeper 
 of a licensed brothel, was in any way ameliorated by the 
 Ordinance of 18G7. As regards this point I am disposed to say 
 that the Or dinance No. 10 of 18G7, by giving larger powers to 
 the Registrar General, and thereby indirectly to the inspectors 
 with whom the practical working of the Ordinance lies, made the 
 condition of the unfortunate women sold to the keeper of a 
 licensed brothel worse than it was before. For, as the experienced 
 police magistrate, Mr. May, stated in 1877 in his evidence before 
 the Commission, ' t he licensed hrothel-lieepcrs look upon the 
 i nspector s as their p rotector s.' There can be no doubt of the 
 truth of what Mr. Pang Ui-Shang told the same Commission that
 
 15 
 
 'the fa ct of licensing these brothels gives the keepers a sort of 
 official a uthority^' and that ' thev boast of the protection of the 
 inspectors.' The natural consequence of this is that the unfortu- 
 nate women, who, on being conveyed into the Colony, bring with 
 them an extraordinary dread of all foreigners, have no courage to 
 s eek their free dom, and, as Inspector Lee stated before the 
 Commission, ' if they had complaints would not make them.' * 
 
 " Another mode by which the Contagious Diseases Ordinance of 
 t 1867 intensified brothel slavery is to be found in the compulsory 
 m^edical examination of Chinese women by foreign doctors, a system 
 w hich has never been applied to the l icensed_brothels generally iiL_ 
 HongJKong, but only to those lice nsed forEuro;peans. Nevertheless, 
 as Governor Sir Richard MacDonnell stated, this compulsory medical 
 examination was kept in reserve for all brothels ' as a sj^iecies of 
 penalty that may be inflicted whenever the expediency of such a 
 measure was decided on.' But this very species of penalty is one 
 nf^ jhp, mjiavji hij irJiich keevers of licensed brothels enforce sub- 
 mission on th e part of the Chinese jcameju_ Mr. A. Lister, who 
 had been entrusted with the working of this Ordinance, stated 
 before the Commission that ' new women would almost have 
 
 preferred going to the whipping post,' and that ' the mere threat 
 o f sending them to examination was gen erally sufiicient to keep 
 them in order .' Thus also the keepers, b}^ threatening to place 
 their houses under medical inspection, (jaineiLpoa-er o ver those iromen. 
 " It is well known that the lot of a prostitute in a brothel in 
 Canton has less of the characteristics of slavery than the condition 
 of a prostitute in a Hong Kong licensed brothel. An intelligent 
 Chinese gentleman lately stated in explanation of this circumstance 
 that the reason why brothel slavery became intensified in Hong 
 Kong was that the prostitutes of Canton are near to their own 
 kith and kin, subject to a civic control that is itself subject to 
 
 * It is instructive to compare this with Mr. Sloggett's statement to the 
 Committee of the House of Commons with regard to the women subjected to 
 the slavery of the English Contagious Diseases Acts : " These women would 
 complain at once if they were listened to, but they never do." — An. 206» 
 page 11. House of Covunons, Evidence on the Contagious Diseases Acts, 
 Session 1869. t (See i\ppendix D, Ordinance of 1867.)
 
 16 
 
 public opinion, nntl tlmt tho koppers of brothels in Canton bavo not 
 tlmt semi-governmontal character which tho heepcrs of brothels 
 hero appear to derive from their limirra, the sujiport of the 
 imprrtois of' hrotheb, and the power of covipuhorij medication by 
 toreiijn ducturs. 
 
 " Mr. Cecil C. Smith recorded in 1860 his opinion that, as 
 regards brothel slavery, ' as long as the Chinese fail to assist 
 themselves by giving information on such matters to the police, it 
 seems hard to find a remedy for this evil.' " So far I entirely agree 
 with him. I am happy to add, however, that the Chinese have 
 come forward, and with your Lordship's sanction have established 
 a society for the protection of women and children, which society- 
 is now giving the Government valuable assistance in this matter." 
 
 To the above extremely conclusive letter, Lord Kimberley 
 replied to Governor Hennessey on July 26, 1881. It will be 
 observed that he throughout assumes that the benevolent 
 intentions of Mr. Labouchere for the protection of women from 
 brothel slavery have been embodied in Ordinances which 
 contain no siii^le clause or provision touching tipon that sufgect, 
 and the sanitary and financial provisions of which have been 
 shown by the Governor to have intensified the evil. 
 
 Lord Kimberley's letter is as follows : — 
 
 " Sir, — I have now the honour to communicate to you the con- 
 clusions\ which I have formed upon the report of the Commission 
 
 • It is worthy of remark that Mr. Cecil C. Smith, who found it hard to 
 remedy this evil without the assistance of the Chinese, had found it easy 
 for many years to cany on the system which intensifies the evil, in spite 
 of tho " abhorrence " with which it was viewed by the Chinese. 
 
 t These conclusions appear to be deliberate ; they are notified on the 
 26th June, 1881, and it will be remembered that it was early in the Session 
 of 1880 that Sir. Grant Duff informed Mr. Stansfeld that the corres- 
 pondence should be placed upon the table by command, as soon as it was 
 concluded. Lord Kimberley states in this letter that his decision was 
 "delayed from various causes, partly in order to obtain the opinion of 
 gentlemen who had experience of the subject in this country." During 
 the whole of this period a Committee of the House of Commons had 
 been sitting on the subject of the English Contagious Diseases Acts, and 
 taking evidence concerning them. Lord Kimberley made no communica-
 
 17 
 
 appointed by you to inquire into the working of the Contagious 
 Diseases Ordinances in Hong Kong. This decision has been 
 delayed from various causes, partly from the bulk of the papers, 
 partly in order to obtain the opinion of gentlemen who have had 
 experience of the subject in this country, and partly owing to the 
 necessity of further communication with yourself in the hope of 
 obtaining from you some practical suggestions for dealing with so- 
 called brothel slavery. I also waited to receive the special report 
 of the Colonial Surgeon upon the condition''' of the brothels in 1874, 
 which reached me in your despatch of the 17th of September last. 
 Since that date you have informed me, in your despatch of the 
 13th November, that the Contagious Diseases Ordinances of 1857 
 and 18G7 have undoubtedly intensified brothel slavery ; and in my 
 reply of the 31st December I requested you to furnish me with 
 particulars in explanation of that statement. 
 
 " In the first place I request you to convey to the three Com- 
 missioners an expression of the thanks of Her Majesty's 
 Government for their services and for the time and labour which 
 they devoted without remuneration to investigating this intricate 
 and unpleasant subject. 
 
 " The report of the Commission is a minute and copious 
 document, and throws light upon certain abuses which have 
 arisen in connection with the administration of the Ordinances in 
 question, and which you, as I am glad to acknowledge, have 
 shown every readiness as far as possible to remove. 
 
 " I regret, however, that I am unable to accept the conclusions 
 of the report with that full and entire confidence which I should have 
 been glad to bestow upon a document compiled with so much 
 labour. 
 
 tion to that Committee, and, as far as we are aware, his sole authoi'ity is 
 Mr. Sloggett ; while, with reference to Mr. Stausfeld, who mif^ht bo 
 supposed to have some experience upon this subject worthy the 
 consideration of an Ex-Cabinet Colleague, all that Lord Kimberley had 
 to say to the Governor of Hong Kong, who had communicated with 
 Mr. Stansfeld on the subject, was : " I feel ifc incumbent upon me to point 
 out to you that a Govei'nor is not justified in communicating to unofficial per- 
 sons in this country important documents which have not previously beou 
 transmitted by him to the Secretary of State." 
 
 * This report treats of the sanitary condition of brothels only.
 
 18 
 
 '• Tho roport is that of a majority, and ono of the Commis- 
 sionors dissonts in very iniportant points from his two colleagues. 
 At tho same time, those two latter gentlemen appear to mo not to 
 have sufficiently appreciated one of the chief objects aimed at in 
 tlwai' Onlin'itues, and I feel considerable difficulty in determining 
 what amount of reliance I can safely place upon their recom- 
 mendati<ins, owing to the omission from the printed f evidence of 
 material documents which deserved equal publicity Avith the other 
 official records, and to tho want of recognition in the report (in 
 particulars to which I will presently allude) of evidence which is 
 adverse to the views which they recommend for my adoption. 
 
 " Their fourth conclusion ! is at variance with the opinions of the 
 only European medical men whom they examined, and of the 
 medical authorities of Her Majesty's military and naval forces. 
 No medical or other officer of either branch of Her Majesty's 
 services was called before the Commission, but Dr. Wells and Dr. 
 Grant were asked in writing to express their opinion as to the 
 eflfect of the Ordinance upon the amount and character of venereal 
 disease, with an intimation that the evidence had left a most 
 unfavourable impression on the minds of the two Commissioners 
 (Mr. Keswick was then absent from the Colony). Both of these 
 gentlemen take a diflerent view from the Commissioners, and a 
 further element of doubt has been introduced by the receipt from 
 the Governor of tho Straits Settlements § of a despatch (copy 
 enclosed), from which it appears that a law following the lines of 
 the Hong Kong Ordinance, and affecting, as in Hong Kong, a 
 large Chinese population, is in the Straits Settlements considered 
 to have bad eminently satisfactory results. 
 
 * With regard to this gentleman's dissent see Appendix E. 
 
 + We have already pointed out that Lord Kimberley delayed formnlating 
 his conclasioDS for a whole year. During that time he might have 
 telegraphed for and obtained the material docnments in question. 
 
 J Tho fourth conclusion of the Commissioners is as follows : " That 
 licensed brothels for foreigners are in themselves sources of infection, and 
 that the evidence before us points to these establishments, rather than to 
 unlicenaed honsea, as the causes of disease to soldiers and sailors." 
 
 § Is not this Governor Mr. Cecil C. Smith, formerly Registrar General 
 and Licensor of Brothels in Hong Kong ?
 
 19 
 
 " The terms of the Commission indicate that the primary object 
 of the investigati on was th e revision of the method employed in 
 prosecutingjanlicensed brothels'" ; in other words, the administra- 
 tion of the law having been called in question, the machinery was 
 to be overhauled and a better system i ntroduced. The inquiry, 
 however, developed into a general investigation of the circum- 
 stances afiecting prostitution in China and in Hong Kong, into the 
 origin of these Ordinan ces, their, eifectjn re gard to ^jdnapping and 
 ill-treatment of the women by their keepers, their sanitary results, 
 and other cognate matters ; but one vital part of the subject seems 
 to me to have been insufficiently considered, namely, the bearing 
 of ^these la ws ppoj _the great evil of brothel slavery, f Looking to 
 the language of this report, it should have been accompanied by 
 nearly the whole correspondence between the Colony and this 
 office on the subject of both Ordinances. I gather from page 2 of 
 the report that you laid all this correspondence before the Com- 
 mission ; but, though portions are printed, other material documents 
 are omitted, and it is necessary for the proper comprehension of 
 the difficult questions involved that the whole correspondence 
 should be examined. [ 
 
 " The first page of the report states : — 
 
 " ' The shadow of a grave responsibility rests on all who have been 
 
 * Lord Kimberley is mistaken. The terms of the Commission indicate 
 far more than this. They are as follows : — " It is expedient that certain 
 inquiries and investigations should be made touching the operation of the said 
 Contagious Diseases Ordinance generally, and especially as to the regulations 
 and machinery in force for the suppression of unlicensed brothels." 
 
 f The Commissioners had perceived, although Lord Kimberley had not, 
 that the Ordinances contained no clauses in any way touching upon the 
 subject. Moreover the evidence before them proved the truth of the 
 Governor's assertion that their indirect effect was to intensify this " great 
 evil." 
 
 J The whole of the corrcsi)ondenco between the Colony and tho Colonial 
 Ofifice was surely within Lord Kimberley's reach, and if it was necessary to 
 examine it for tho proper comprehension of the difficult subject, was it nob 
 Lord Kimberley's duty to examine it before arriving at his conclusions, 
 and by publishing all matter in his opinion relevant, but omitted, to give 
 the public the opportunity of doing the same ?
 
 20 
 
 concorneJ, buth in tlio introiluctiou of this law and in its adminie- 
 trntion. 
 
 " * Bnt wc should ho flinching from our duty if wo allowed it to 
 be Ihonj^ht thiit, in onr judgment, this responsibility stops short 
 with tho authorities and olKcers of this Colony. The law was 
 originally introduced and has been since perpetuated greatly 
 through inllueiices from outside, and in deference to opinions 
 which have not stood tho test of experience, and the Ordinance 10 
 of 18G7 received its final sanction when the conclusion arrived at 
 bj' tho Colonial Government was before the Home Authorities, 
 showing that, in the event of the Ordinance becoming law, revenue 
 would be derived from the tainted sources of prostitution among 
 the Chinese, while it had been decided not to enforce against the 
 Louses for Chinese only those sanitary clauses ' (the medical 
 inspection and treatment of women) ' of the Ordinance which 
 formed its only raison iVctrc.'' " 
 
 " At page 7 it is said : — 
 
 " ' Legislation built very much on the lines subsequently followed 
 by Ordinance 10 of 1867, was first applied to the subject of 
 prostitution in this Colony more than 20 years ago. There are 
 certain differences between the Ordinance then passed and the 
 one now in force which we shall presently consider. But the 
 two main principles then adopted prevail to the present day, and 
 may be thus summarised : — 
 
 " ' 1. The legalization of bouses of ill-fame in consideration of 
 
 fees paid to the Government. 
 " ' 2. The medical examination of the persons of prostitutes, 
 and their segregation in a Lock hospital for treatment 
 when found diseased.' 
 
 " And the Appendix is referred to as containing the most 
 important documents relating to the institution of the Ordinance 
 of 1857. 
 
 " Again at page 8, there is this passage : — 
 
 •' ' The object of the Ordinance (1857), as declared hy its j)reamhle , 
 was strictly limited to making " provisions for checking the spread 
 of venereal diseases within this Colony ; " but houses solely for 
 the use of Chinese did not cease to be registered, nor did revenue 
 cease to be derived from them when it became clear that the 
 sanitary clauses of the enactment could never be applied to them. 
 Thus, b)- indirect means, never apparently contemplated by the 
 Legislature, was Government supervision or control, independent 
 of sanitary reasons, established over a very considerable portion of 
 the prostitution of the place.' 
 
 " At page 51 it is said : — 
 
 " ' The imperative sanitary reasons which formed the ostensible 
 and, indeed, the only admissible ground for establishing govern-
 
 21 
 
 mental relations with brothels, only hold good with respect to 
 less than one-third of the privileged establishments, and the 
 great majority have been allowed to contribute funds year by 
 year towards a sanitary scheme, the benefits of which their inmates 
 have refused practically to partake of.' 
 
 " The sixth conclusion, at page 52, in which you express your 
 
 entire concurrence, states : — 
 
 " 'That the Ordinances did not contemplate or justify the licensing 
 and regulation of such houses for purposes other than those 
 connected with the suppression of venereal disease, and that 
 such houses should never have been made a source of revenue.' 
 
 " And, at page 53, the report recommends that, — 
 
 *' ' In future, houses for the sole use of Chinese should not be 
 in any way subject to Government supervision.' 
 
 " From these passa ges it is evident that the framers of the 
 
 report are of opinion that the Ordinanc es were enacted c hiefly 
 
 for the purposes of preventin g disease and incrgasing^the revenue 
 
 of_the^Colony. I shall allude later on to the revenue question, 
 
 but in order to judge how far a main object was the prevention 
 
 of disease, the original proposals''' on the whole subject must be 
 
 borne in mind, and I cannot but express my regret for this 
 
 reason that the full correspondence was not printed with the 
 
 report. Sir John Bowring's despatch of 2nd of May, 1856, 
 
 which is not printed, forms, with the reports enclosed in it, an 
 
 important link in the chain of correspondence, showing how the 
 
 registration or licensing question arose, and leading up to Mr. 
 
 Labouchere's reply of 27th August, 185G, which is printed at 
 
 page 207. 1 
 
 * It is somewhat idle to bear in mind proposals which were not judged 
 worthy of being embodied in the Ordinances which are in question, not even 
 in the preamble. 
 
 t Lord Kiniberley regrets that all the correspondence is not published 
 because it would furnish important links in the chain of evidence as to how 
 Ordinance 12 of 1857 catne to be passed. Why does he not quote these 
 important links ? Is it because he forgets orremembers that if all the missing 
 links in the chain of evidence consisted of letters urging legislation of a 
 trnly protective character, they would prove still more conclusively that the 
 main object of the Government was the prevention of disease, since they 
 finally approved and passed Ordinance 12 of 1857 which, as stated in its 
 preamble, was strictly limited to that main object ; to making provisions 
 for " checking the S2Ji'ead of venereal disease."
 
 •' Mr. T.ftlMMu-Iu-ro'K dospatcb indicates tliat lio folt tliat tho 
 Colonial (Joveiiiim'iit was not sufficiently impressed with the 
 necessity of protecting tbo unhappy women who were, and many 
 <'f whom 1 fear are still, held in a state of practical slavery ; and 
 it authorised the passing of the Draft Ordinance which had been 
 sent home, but onh/ ((■•< a tcDiponiri/ iiwastirc until n jtrotcctive law 
 could bo framed and put in force. 
 
 " Sir John Bowring's reply, dated 20th March, 1857, is printed, 
 page 208, but the greater part of its enclosures''' are omitted, as well 
 as ^Ir.Labouchere's reply of 11th August, 1857. Itis consequently 
 impossible to gather from the printed documents that Sir John 
 Bowring transmitted two draft Ordinances in this despatch, or that 
 of these the one prepared by Mr. Anstey was merely the previous 
 draft slightly altered, while the other, prepared by Mr. Bridges, 
 and so strongly condemned in Mr. Anstey's letter f which is printed, 
 was in fact preferred by the Secretary of State, and with some 
 modifications became eventually Ordinance No. 12 of 1857. X 
 
 " Mr. Labouchere writes : — 
 
 *' ' Her Majesty's Government are disposed to prefer the provisions 
 of the Draft Ordinance of Mr Bridges to those of the ' Ordi- 
 nance for the Repression of certain Diseases.' My despatch of the 
 27th August lastj will have already explained the grounds of this 
 opinion, and the reasoning there advanced in favour of licensing 
 
 * Lord Kimberley might have quoted the remainder of the enclosures and 
 the despatch had he believed tliat they would prove his statement. 
 
 t Mr. Chisholm Anstey, then Attorney General of Hong Kong, gave, 
 amongst other reasons for his condemnation of the Draft Ordinance whicli 
 was adopted by the Government and became Ordinance 12 of 1857, the 
 reasons that " It over-legislates and yet falls short of the purview. It 
 violates the great principle of the law that none shall be forced to self- 
 crimination." 
 
 X Quite so ; and this is the Ordinance, whose title and preamble alike 
 describe it as an Ordinance " For Checking the Spread of Venereal Diseases " 
 within the Colony. We have printed it entire in Appendix C, and it will 
 be found to contain no provisions for the prevention of brothel slavery, or 
 for the protection of " the unhappy women." 
 
 § Not printed. Why did not Lord Kimberley quote it to show " the 
 grounds " on which the second (Ordinance was preferred, if tliose grounds 
 would have proved his case ?
 
 23 
 
 houses of this description only derives additional strength from 
 the great practical difficulty which has evidently attended all at- 
 tempts at legislation on the principles of mere repression. It 
 appears also that whatever objections of principle may be urged 
 against licensing this class of houses (and I am far from under- 
 rating their force) those objections apply with almost or quite equal 
 strength to the provisions of the "Repression" •■= Ordinance for 
 indemnifying brothel-keepers who act- in conformity with its 
 directions against legal molestation. In either case, brothels are 
 equally jjlaced under the jtrotectmi of the latr, though in a different 
 mode and under different conditions.' 
 
 "In referring to these passages I have not overlooked the passage 
 
 at page 44, when, after referring to Mr. Labouchere's despatch of 
 
 27th August, 1856, in terms which seem to imply that the idea of 
 
 registration, as well as of protection, originated with the Secretary 
 
 of State, which, if intended, is incorrect, the report says : 
 
 " 'Accordingly we find that, although the brothels set apart for 
 the sole use of Chinese were never subjected to medical super- 
 vision, they were kept in all other particulars under the same 
 control as those for the accommodation of foreigners.' 
 
 " I have also noted the paragraph which states at page 45, 
 " ' With the internal cleanliness and coinfort of brothels we think 
 the Government has but little to do, but the amelioration of 
 the condition of the inmates is a matter which certainly stands 
 on a different footing, and is one in which the Government has 
 a deep interest ; ' 
 
 " And that at the foot of page 49 respecting the few cases which 
 " ' Seem to have any material bearing on the question of the 
 
 liberty of the women in licensed houses or the amelioration of 
 
 their condition ; ' 
 
 " But, after reading these passages, it was with some surprise 
 
 that I found the report stating at page 51 that 
 
 " ' Sanitary reasons formed the ostensible, and, indeed, only 
 admissible ground for establishing governmental relations with 
 brothels,' 
 
 " And recommending at page 53, that 
 
 " ' Houses for the sole use of Chinese should not be subject 
 to Government " supervision." ' 
 
 * It Tvill be observed that Mr. Labonchere does uot allude to his own 
 proposal that the v:oinen should bo protected, obviously because that pro- 
 posal had not been embodied in either of the draft Ordinances in question.
 
 121 
 
 •' It is quito clear that Mr. Labouchore, having regard to the 
 unhappy circumstances prevailing in Hong Kong, considered the 
 necessity for the protection of the inmates, as distinguished from 
 their medical treatment, to be a valid reason for giving to the 
 Government supervision and control over all brothels in the Colony. 
 
 " Enough appears in the Appendix to indicate that the motives 
 which influenced ]Mr. Labouchere in 1857 wore recognized ■• in 
 18G7. This view is supported by some parts of Sir R. Mac- 
 donnell's despatch, of 10th August, 1857, the enclosures to which, 
 without the despatch, are printed at pages 218-220 of the Appendix | " 
 (to the Report), " and I notice that the special powers of supervision 
 created in 1857 wore continued in 18G7 to the Registrar-General, 
 the Superintendent of Police, and persons deputed by them ; and 
 these powers are found in a different part of the Ordinance from 
 the provisions relating to medical examination and the duties to 
 be discharged by the medical officers. 
 
 " That such was really the case is placed beyond doubt by Sir 
 
 R. MacDonnell's despatch, of 23rd March, 1868, which contains 
 
 the following passage : — 
 
 " ' These police powers of supervision it is proposed to exercise 
 at once and continuously for the protection :[: as well of the un- 
 fortunate inmates of all licensed houses as others of the same 
 class ; and practically the views of Mr. Labouchere, in his 
 despatch of 27th August, 1856, n-oulcl thus be carried out,' 
 
 * This makes the matter worse, if both in 1857 and 1867 they 
 "recognized" Mr. Labouchere's desire to protect the women only to 
 despise it. 
 
 t Not a single lino in these enclosures refers to the protection of the 
 inmates of brothels in any shape : the " police sui)ervision " being solely for 
 ithe purposes of checking venereal disease and securing payment of revenue, 
 and the "protection" afforded being solely the protection of brothel-heepers 
 by the police. As for Sir R. Macdonnell's despatch, Lord Kimberley could 
 have printed it had it borne out his statement. We have printed, above, 
 certain portions of a " minute " by Sir R. Macdonnell, which will show the 
 amount of feeling he had for the liberty of the Chinese women. 
 
 X It will be seen that it is absolutely untrue that the Ordinance of 
 1857 created any power of police supervision directed to the protection of 
 the unfortunate inmates of brothels, and that none such were either created 
 or continued by Ordinance 10 of 1867.
 
 25 
 
 "If it be true, as stated at page 46 of the report (though I am 
 not at present convinced upun the point), that Government 
 supervision increases in some respects rather than relieves the 
 servitude of the inmates, as to which, in reply to your despatch 
 of 13th November, 1880, I have called for further explanations, 
 this would form a ground for carefully reviewing and improving 
 the manner in which that supervision is exercised, not for with- 
 drawing it altogether from the houses for Chinese only, which 
 form the great majority of the brothels, and leaving the unhappy 
 inmates to their fate without an attempt at ameliorating their 
 condition ; and I have not failed to observe that Mr. Cecil Smith, 
 in the 17th paragraph of his letter to Sir F. Eogers, printed at 
 page 253 of the Appendix, reports : — 
 
 " ' That these instances of virtual slavery exist entirely in the 
 brothels for Chinese, where the women are seen by their own 
 countrymen, and not in the other houses which are frequented by 
 foreigners.'* 
 
 " The report, at page 47, states the intention of the Govern- 
 ment to have been that the Ordinance of 1857 should be worked 
 with the aid of the whole body of police, but indicates that the 
 then superintendent having set his face against the Ordinance, 
 and not having (to use his own words) 
 
 " ' Permitted the police to have anything to do with the control 
 and supervision of brothels under the Ordinance, being apart 
 from the general objects of police duties, and from the great 
 probability of its leading to corruption,' 
 
 " it came about that the office of Inspector of Brothels was 
 
 created, and fell into the hands of inferior men (Rep., pp. 47, 48). 
 
 * Lord Kimberley forgets to note that Mr. Cecil Smith states in page 3 
 of the same letter that " although the brothels are practically divided into 
 two classes, yet, except that the inmates of those which are kept apart for 
 Europeans and persons of nationalties other than Chinese are subjected 
 to regular medical inspection, no difference in the supervision is made. All 
 the houses are under the immediate control of the Registrar General and 
 his staff, and for the purpose of preventing any breach of the law, are 
 visited continually at all hoars both of the day and night." If therefore 
 instances of virtual slavery exist in the brothels for Chinese, the fault 
 must lie with the Registrar-General and his Staff, since such slavery is 
 " a breach of the law," though not of the provisions of the Ordinances. 
 With regard to this matter of virtual slavery, see Appendix F.
 
 'iC. 
 
 " Tho powor of visiting and inspecting registered brothels was, 
 by section 7 of the Ordiuauco of 1857, vested in the Registrar 
 General (who had some naonths previously, by Ordinance G ■ of 
 1857, been created Protector of the Chinese) and the chief officers 
 of police ; and it is evident, from the wording of the section, that 
 these powers were distinct, and proceededf upon other iiroumh 
 
 •There appears to bo some error here. Mr. Henry John Ball, then 
 Actinjf Attorney-General in Ilong Kong, states in his Report on the 
 Contagious Diseases Ordinance of Angust 9, 1867'. that the Protector- 
 ship was confered on the Registrar-General bj- Ordinance 8 of 1858, sec. 4. 
 
 + A glance at sees. 7 and 10 of the Ordinance will show the glaring inaccuracy 
 of this reference. It is perfectly monstrous that an English minister should 
 seek to deceive the public by this statement. Having in view the title and 
 preamble as well as the clauses of the Ordinance in question, no lawyer 
 will be found to say that protection of the inmates was within its 
 purview ; whilst it is to be remembered, that Mr. Labouchere himself, in 
 his letter of Angust 27th, 1856, in which he expresses his desire for the 
 protection of the inmates of the brothels from practical slavery, speaks of 
 the forthcoming Ordinance in these words : — " I am not at present prepared 
 to say, and I wish you seriously to consider in what shape and to what 
 extent it is practicable to give this protection. I do not see how it can 
 be given at all till the establishments in which such practices are supposed 
 to exist are brought under the eye, and in some measure under the control 
 of Government. On these grounds, therefore, independently of those 
 which have been pressed upon yoa by Sir John Stirling and others, I think 
 that these houses of ill-fame and their inmates should be registered and 
 subjected to Police regulations, in tloe first instance of a sanitary character, 
 that a strict medical inspection should be enforced, and that all diseased 
 persons should be removed to hospitals and placed under treatment. The 
 expense of their treatment should be paid either by the public or, if possible, 
 hy the persons from whose control they are taken, against whom, I will here 
 (jbserve, rather than their unfortunate instruments, the penal provisions 
 of tho law should be mainly directed. A law framed on these principles 
 besides the direct effect it would have on the public health, would furnish 
 some immediate protection to those who are the first victims of the present 
 system, and woald facilitate such furthe'r measures as the Government might 
 deem it expedient to take hereafter." It will be seen that the whole secret 
 is here. Mr. Labouchere's hope that the law would furnish protection to 
 those who are the first victims of the present system, is appealed to for the 
 purpose of making out a case, although it has never been attempted to realise 
 that hope, and no further measures were ever proposed with that object.
 
 27 
 
 than the sanitary inspection of the women by the medical 
 officers. 
 
 "A similar distinction is to be found in the 10th section of the 
 same Ordinance; and these powers of supervising registered 
 houses were again distinct from the provisions relating to the 
 prosecution of unregistered brothels, matters which it was 
 obviously meant should be dealt with by the police in the same 
 manner as other breaches of the statute law. 
 
 " The attitude, however, which the police were allowed to adopt 
 towards the Ordinance (rppears to }iie to he one of the causes irJdch 
 frustrated Mr. Lahouchere's humane intentions : and as soon as 
 the object was thus lost sight cf which induced the Secretary of 
 State to desire that these establishments should be ' under the 
 eye, and in some measure under the control of the Government,' 
 it not unnaturally followed that the special provisions of the 
 Ordinance came to be regarded as little more than machinery for 
 the detection and suppression of unregistered or unlicensed 
 brothels. And as the police, who, I presume, are acquainted with 
 the character of the houses in their several beats, seem to have 
 given little assistance towards the enforcement of the law in these 
 particulars, it is not surprising that the inspectors, whose means 
 of obtaining proofs were likely to be less complete, should have 
 been driven to e.ctraonlinari/ devices for procuring evidence in the 
 cases which in the discharge of their duties they found themselves 
 required to bring forward. It seems, indeed, from document 
 No. 32, printed at page 225, that there need have been no difficulty 
 in identifying unlicensed houses, for on that occasion, in 180G, 
 ninety-four were detected in two nights without the aid of the 
 inspector. 
 
 " The sy stem of informers paid t o obt ain evidence by personal 
 intercourse with women, which was introduced in 1868 simul- . 
 Ja neously with the appointment of inspecto rs (p. 10 of Report), 
 was a revolting abuse, •' which you most properly put a stop to as 
 far back as the month of October, 1877. 
 
 " The Commission is dated 12th November, 1877, and the 
 
 * Compare with pages 28 and 29 defending the practice.
 
 28 
 
 report December, 187^. It was, thorpfore, scarcely necessary for 
 tho report to bavo coutaiuod so full ;ui analysis of tbo cases ■' in 
 wbiob this discontinued system bad been employed, or tbe many 
 pages of proceodin<^s in sucb cases wbicb are printed iu tbe 
 Appendix. 
 
 " Turiiinf; to tbo medical side of tbe subject, I may observe tbat 
 tbe report seems to mo to pass over somewbat too li;^'btly tbo 
 borriblo circumstancesf wbicb gave rise to tbe discussion wbicb 
 led up to tbe Ordinance of 1857, and to attacb, at least, as mucb 
 weigbt to Mr. May's recollection of matters wbicb occurred 20 
 years before as it does to tbe official reports written at tbe time, 
 and not all printed." 
 
 [His Lordsbip bere gives details as to disease, upon tbe autbority 
 of Naval and Military officers, to wbicb be tbinks tbe Commissioners 
 did not attach sufficient importance in their report. He then goes 
 on to say : — ] 
 
 " The severe reprehension which is bestowed in tbe report on 
 the employment of informers to obtain evidence, and other grave 
 scandals, is well deserved, but tbe Commissioners in my opinion 
 go too far in their unsparing condemnation of everything connected 
 with the enforcement of the Ordinance. The detection of un- 
 licensed houses was a duty cast upon the Registrar-General and 
 tbe officers of his department by the provisions of the law, and 
 the obloquy which is cast upon them for their efiorts in the 
 discharge of this unpleasant duty appears to me not to be entirely 
 merited. Tbe use of plain clothes (p. 10, 17) seems both projier 
 
 * \\'e trust that the British Parliament and public will not share this 
 desire of Lord Kimberley that the truth should be concealed. It comes 
 with an ill grace from a Secretary of State who, in the same letter, com- 
 plains that the Commission have not printed certain correspondence which 
 he could himself produce if he liked, but which he has not chosen to produce. 
 We are not aware of any other instance in which a Commission has been 
 thus publicly rebuked for the publication of evidence which it deemed 
 necessary to elucidate its report. 
 
 t These horrible circumstances are simply the usual sensational accounts 
 of disease in the army and navy written by the medical officers of the 
 ser^-ices.
 
 29 
 
 and natural, considering the services in irhich the wearers 
 were engaged ; and I am not prepared to say that the use of 
 marked money is in itself necessarily reprehensible."' The 
 acceptance oi money in consideration of a request for sexual inter- 
 course is evidence of the character of the recipient and of the 
 nature of her abode ; and if the detective or informer, after giving 
 the money, leaves the honse,i as appears from the depositions to 
 have been not unfrequently the case, the fact of its acceptance, 
 verified by its discovery in the possession of the alleged recipient, 
 coupled with such other evidence as was forthcoming might be 
 given in proof of the charge. This is quite a separate question 
 
 * Compare this with page 27, line 3 from bottom, in which his Lordship 
 stigmatizes the system of informers paid to obtain evidence by jDersonal 
 intercourse with women as "a revolting abuse." 
 
 f Lord Kimberley does not suggest that informers who do not leave the 
 house should share the punishment inflicted on the women, or even go 
 unrewarded for " the services in which they were engaged." Tet Lord 
 Kimberley has read the Eeport of the Hong Kong Commissioners, and 
 must have seen their sternly ironical notice of some of these " services " 
 as follows : " It is to be noted, also, that one Hung-A-Wai did, as informer, 
 ivitJi the assistance of public inoney, and in the interests of justice, have 
 connexion with a child fifteen years of age (p. 198)," and " (case 
 No. 6,724, 13. 185) when Sonng.A-Wai slept with Tai-Yau against her unll, 
 which led to his being rewarded, and to her being fined 100 dols., and to 
 the loss of her child." [The wretched victim sold her child to pay 
 the fine.] It will be remembered that the Royal Commissioners on the 
 English Contagions Diseases Acts said in their Report: — "There is no 
 comparison to be made between prostitutes and the men who consort 
 with them. With the one sex the offence is committed as a matter of 
 gain, with the other it is an irregular indulgence of a natural impulse." 
 The evidence of the "cases" which Lord Kimberley thought it "scarcely 
 necessary" to report, sufficiently proves that in most instances the 
 informers did not leave the house without indulging their natural impulses. 
 His Lordship goes farther than the Royal Commissioners, and, apparently 
 thinks that the fact of finding pleasure in a disgusting act, raises the man 
 even when he commits it " for gain " to a position of proud superiority not 
 only over the woman who commits it "for gain," but even over a woman 
 who is compelled to submit. See also opinion of Mr. A. Lister, Registrar- 
 General, on the point of the informers leaving the house. (Appendix G.)
 
 no 
 
 from bftil faith in tho witness, such ns is suggested at p. 17, or 
 from tho revolting conduct ■' of informers themselves. 
 
 '* I have read tho cases referred to at page 17 of tho report, 
 which are selected ' in special illustration of that particular class 
 i)f prosecutions in which tho couvictiou is obviously based upon the 
 taking of money, which is afterwards found by the inspector upon 
 tho woman and matters have gone no further,' and would observe 
 
 that the receipt of the money is in each case only one of the facts 
 deposed to, and having regard to all tho evidence which was given 
 I think it may be open to some doubt i whether it is perfectly clear 
 that the convictions wore based on the taking of money. 
 
 " The practice of breaking into and arresting the inmates of 
 unlicensed houses led to undoubted abuses, although it seems clear 
 that the inspectors acted under a belief that their proceedings 
 were strictly according to law. 
 
 " In these, as in other defects of ad ministration, the cause 
 appears to lie in the want of sufficient care in selecting the men 
 actually charged with the working of the Ordinance, I and in leaving 
 them too much to themselves when appointed. 
 
 • In what does the " revolting conduct " consist ? It is not the act of 
 fornication, for the express purpose of the Ordinance Lord Kimberley 
 defends is, to provide opportunities for fornication. It must be that Lord 
 Kimberley considers it " revolting" to commit it otherwhere than in a 
 licensed, Government brothel. 
 
 t The Commissioners support their statement by evidence to that effect 
 given by the informers themselves. 
 
 J Does Lord Kimberley wish the inspectors to perform the "services" 
 in which the informers were engaged ? Tho Commissioners give many 
 examples in their Report of cases in which inspectors and policemen acted 
 as informers. The following are some of these which we give in the 
 words of the Report : — 
 
 " 1872 . . . The cases in which the inspectors themselves act as 
 detectives find some illustrations deserving notice among the depositions of 
 this year. Case No. 27 (p. 102), in which Horton, in the discharge of his 
 <iw<!/, 'got into bed ' with a Mrs. Cowie, wife of a turnkey in the gaol. . . . 
 Case No. 74, (P- 114-) . . . There Horton, having bargained with the 
 first defendant for the deflowering of the second defendant, a child of 15 
 years of age, arrested them and six others, and the child being taken to the 
 Lock Hospital and subjected to medical examination, proved to be a virgin.
 
 31 
 
 " There was no lack of funds from whicli to pay thoroughly 
 respectable and trustworthy men'' as inspsctors, and if they could 
 not be obtained on the spot for the salary offered, the assistance 
 of this office might have been asked for to obtain them from the 
 towns where the Imperial Acts are in force. It is not surprising 
 
 " . . . . It is noteworthy that in the case (No. 42, p. IG^), in which 
 two of the girls arrested proved to be virgins, Inspector Whitehead broke 
 into the house and arrested the women because ' there were reasonable 
 grounds for believing that the house is a brothel.' . . . and that the 
 third and fifth defendants were arrested because they Jiappcned to he in the 
 house, although, to the knowledge of Whitehead , they did not belong to it." 
 
 * Lord Kimberley believes what few Englishmen believe, that men who 
 are willing to act as brothel-spies, are likely to remain thoroughly re- 
 spectable and trustworthy. Mr. C. Yandeleur Creach, Acting Captain 
 Superintendent of Police, said to the Hong Kong Commissioners (An. 239 
 and 240) : — " I don't think it necessary to give the Inspectors of Brothels 
 the large powers they have. The police would have sufficient powers to 
 carry out the ordinary laws of the Colony as applied to brothels, without 
 any special powers. (Ans. 245 and 246.) If yon were to let in the whole 
 force to work Ordinance 10 of 1867, it would ruin the police force by 
 
 bribery and other temptations " Mr. Alfred Lister, Registrar 
 
 General, who " thinks he heard the very first ease under the Ordinance 
 of 1867," says : (An. 89) — " .... Peterson was my chief inspector 
 . . . . he may have taken bribes." (An. 118.) " Sometimes there was 
 a quarrel at the bottom of an information. I remember such a case 
 with a policeman of the name of McQuade." (An. 126.) " I was always 
 uneasy about my inspectors, because I knew many houses could afford to 
 bribe them." (An. 130.) " The Registrar General is very much dependent 
 on the inspectors, and their temptations are exceptionally great. An 
 inspector might easily double his salary — that is, he could do so without 
 giving rise to suspicions, or without squeezing the people to such an extent 
 as to give rise to complaints. The man whose cupidity was im- 
 hounded would soon be foand out. The moderate man is more 
 dangerous. . . . " The importance of the foregoing is inci'eased if 
 taken in conjunction with An. 128 : " In my experience a Chinaman never 
 complains of a policeman till he is in prison. Heis afraid to do so . . . ." 
 (Ans. 132.) " The whole thing is so demoralising that I don't think you 
 fhould entrust the whole police force with the working of the Ordinance 
 under any circumstances .... If an inspector escapes demoralisa- 
 tion, he does so from his own qualities. It was the greatest blessing for 
 the whole police force to have been free from working the Ordinance. If 
 demoralisation must take place, it should be confined to the smallest compass."
 
 that considernblo luxity resulted from allowing these men to become 
 inilcpcndont of polifo discipline, and to bo subject only to the 
 liOgistrar-Ctonorftl, instead of the details of administration being 
 supervised by moans of a daily report of occurrences, such as is 
 made in a police force. 
 
 " I agree with the Commissioners in their remarks (Report, p. 28) 
 upon the seizure of marked money if it is beyond doubt that the 
 money taken was detained from the women after it had been used 
 in evidence. The inspectors, however, do not appear to have been 
 questioned on the point, and if the allegation is substantiated by 
 other evidence it has escaped my attention. 
 
 " From page 49 of the report it appears that during the ten 
 years in which the Ordinance of 18G7 has been in force, the 
 Commissioners can only find 23 cases in all which seem to have 
 any material bearing on the question of the liberty of the women 
 in licensed houses, and the amelioration of their condition. 
 
 " In the Appendix however, the following cases which are not 
 
 mentioned in the Report, nor included in the above 23 cases, will 
 
 be found to have occurred in the year 1874.''' 
 
 " No. 4 (Appendix, page 147), where three women successfully 
 applied for assistance against the keeper who had refused to allow 
 them to leave the brothel. 
 
 * We have carefully studied the whole of these cases to which Lord 
 Kimbei-ley refers, and we can assert that in no one of them was the liberty 
 of women, in the licensed houses, in the slightest degree affected by the 
 existence of the Contagions Diseases Ordinance. Several of these are cases 
 in which brothel-keepers are fined for " keeping an incorrect list of inmates," 
 i.e. — having omitted to strike off the list, which they are compelled to keep 
 — the names of girls who had quitted the brothel. This they are perfectly 
 .free to do, although Lord Kimberley ignores the fact. (See Inspector White- 
 head's evidence, Appendix F., under heading " Brothel Slavery.") The cases 
 in which charges of interference with liberty are made, are, without excep. 
 tion, cases coming ander the ordinary law and in the adjustment of them 
 no assistance was rendered by the provisions of the Ordinance. We cannot 
 help thinking that Lord Kimberley would scarcely have referred to them in 
 the way he has done, if he had not known that the evidence accompanying 
 the Report was not accessible to the public and that, therefore, his interpre- 
 tation of those cases, if a mistaken one, was not likely to be called in 
 question. (See also Appendix F. )
 
 . 33 
 
 " No. 5 (Appendix, page 148), a similar case with one complainant- 
 
 "No. 19 (Appendix, page 152), where a keeper detained the 
 property of a girl who wished to leave. 
 
 " A case without number, but which apparently should be No, 37 
 (Appendix, page 160), where several girls were saved from being 
 sent to San Francisco against their will. No. 38 (page IGl) where 
 the property of the same girls was in question, and was apparently 
 recovered for them after it had got into improper hands. 
 
 " No. 63 (Appendix, page 164), where a woman complained that 
 her grand-daughter who had g.)ne willingly to Singapore had there 
 been sold, on behalf of a Hong Kong creditor, apparently a 
 procuress. In this case nothing could be done by the Registrar- 
 General, beyond binding the woman over ; but it instances the 
 working of the Ordinance. 
 
 " Also No. 57 (x\ppendix,page 165), where a girl of weak intellect 
 was rescued when about to be taken to Singapore without her 
 consent. 
 
 "These cases and No. 76 of 1871 (Appendix, page 97), and 
 No. 23 of 1873 (Appendix, page 125), neither of which are referred 
 to, and Mr. Whitehead's evidence (Answer 397), that the inmates 
 look upon the Registrar-Greneral as their protector,''' and Mr. 
 Creagh's statement! (Answer 238), that with reference to kid- 
 napping and sale of women, no case has originated with the Police 
 Force, appear to me to show that the operation of these Ordinances 
 has not been so entirely ineffective in securing the liberty of these 
 wretched women, as the Commissioners appear to consider (Report, 
 page 5). How far their eflfect may have been to deter the brothel- 
 keepers from attempts to keep women in a state of slavery is 
 necessarily matter of conjecture, but it was the opinion of Mr. 
 Smith in 1869 (Appendix, page 254, par. 17), that cases of virtualj 
 
 * The reader will remember that Mr. Whitehead ia a policeman, 
 employed as purveyor of women to the Government market ; they have 
 seen the Commissioners' statements as to the method by which the supply 
 of prostitutes is recruited for the Government brothels, and they will 
 attach about the same value to Mr. Whithead's evidence on this subject 
 as to Mr. Anniss' assertions with regard to the protection afforded by 
 himself to young girls. 
 
 t How the statement of a Superintendent of Police that no case of 
 kidnapping and sale of women has originated with the police force, can 
 tend to show that their supervision has been, in any degree effective 
 in securing the liberty of these wretched women, is entirely beyond 
 comprehension. 
 
 X See Appendix F.
 
 8i 
 
 «luvory \vi>ro cnnfinoil to tho houses for Cliineso ; ami if tliis bo 
 tho Cftso it nifty not unreasonably bo inferred that tbo closer super- 
 vision over the houses for foreigners had had Bomo cll'ect in pro- 
 tecting their inmates. 
 
 " On tho wliolo, I feel obliged to state as tho result of a 
 careful examination of tho report testing it by the evidence in the 
 Appendix and in tho records of this Department/' that its treatment 
 of questions both of fact and of principle is inconclusive, and I 
 find myself therefore placed in a position of some embarrassment, 
 since, in the despatch t transmitting it, you merely express your 
 entire concurrence in its conclusions, accompanying it with 
 no explanations on your own part, and with no opinion as to 
 the manner in which the machinery of the Ordinance should be 
 revised, such revision having been the prime object of appointing 
 the Commission. 
 
 " In the absence of this assistance, I must proceed to deal with 
 the various questions to the best of my power. 
 
 " Three points suggest themselves as necessary to be dealt 
 with : — 
 
 " <i. The supervision of brothels, for protective and sanitary 
 
 reasons. 
 " /'. The medical inspection of the inmates, and the preven- 
 tion of diseaee. 
 " c. The provision of the necessary funds. 
 
 " One of the objections now raised to the Hong Kong system is 
 that the houses are licensed to conduct a business which is 
 contrary to the law of England, and consequently of tho Colony. 
 That this is a very serious objection cannot be denied, 
 but, on the other hand, we have to face the undoubted fact 
 tliat it would be practically impossible to enforce that 
 law against the Chinese community [ of Hong Kong. Are 
 we then to ignore the existence of these houses, to shut our 
 
 * None of which records haa Lord Kimberley fuand it couveuient to 
 produce. 
 
 t No. 13 of 1879. 
 
 X VVe cannot enforce the Common Law of England which protects women 
 'rom indecent assaults, but we can, and we ought, on the ground of humanity, 
 to enforce an Ordinance which subjects them to indecent assaults !
 
 35 
 
 eyes to the methods by which the Chinese too often keep up the 
 supply of their inmates, and to leave these women to undergo 
 practical slavery without an endeavour to ameliorate their condition? 
 The answer has been from the first, and, in my opinion, must 
 continue to be, that, on the ground (if humanity, we cannot shrink 
 from this duty, and that the performance of it requires that a much 
 stricter and more direct control shall be kept over these houses 
 than is required or would be possible in an English community. 
 Unfortunately, this system of control has not been sufficiently 
 distinguished from the system of medical treatment for disease 
 which was introduced simultaneously ; and powers which were 
 intended ■■'■ for the purpose of protecting the inmates have been 
 disregarded! or viewed mainly, if not entirely, as having for their 
 object the detection and punishment of the keepers of unlicensed 
 houses. 
 
 *' I am not disposed to give up the special powers of visitation 
 originally provided under Mr. Labouchere's instructions, ;]: with the 
 view to afibrding protection to the women, and the co-operation 
 of the respectable Chinese, which is now assured, and which has 
 already been productive of good, as I am glad to learn from your 
 despatch of the 13th of November, 1880,§ would naturally lose 
 much of its efficacy unless the pcHce, and I think also the Registrar 
 General, possessed the power of entering these houses without 
 waiting to obtain a special warrant for the purpose whenever a 
 case requiring intervention is brought to their notice. In such 
 cases prompt action may be essential, and delay might defeat the 
 ends of justice. 
 
 " The disgusting state of some of these bouses, as disclosed by 
 the Colonial Surgeon's report of 1874, transmitted in your despatch 
 of the 17th of September, |j shows that the general health of the 
 city may be jeopardised if they are left un visited by any medical 
 or sanitary authority, and are allowed to continue in this filthy 
 
 * By Mr, Labouchere. t By the Government. 
 
 X We have shown that no powers affording protection to the women 
 w ere provided under Mr. Labouchere's or any other instructions. The 
 Ordinances exist to prove this. 
 
 § No, 35, II No, 31. of 1880.
 
 8G 
 
 eondition ; while Dr. Ayros' private memorandum (Appendix, 
 p. 2G8) proves that this state of things had, in fact, led to its 
 natural results, viz., an outbreak of typhoid fever, and that they 
 are romodiablo by the exercise of the power of supervision 
 which it is now proposed to take away from the Colonial 
 Surgeon. 
 
 " It seems to me, therefore, that on both grounds ample powers 
 should be given to the proper officers to visit and inspect all houses 
 of this description, in order to carry out any protective measures 
 which you may suggest, and to enforce such regulations 
 requiring, at least, ordinary cleanliness, as the experience of your 
 officers may indicate. I would refer you for assistance upon this 
 and similar matters of sanitation to the Public Health Act, 1875 
 (88 & 39 Vict., cap. 55). 
 
 " It would be necessary that all these houses should be registered 
 much as common lodging houses are in England, certificates of 
 registration being issued instead of licenses, if that wonl- is thought 
 objectionable. A fee on registration should be paid by the 
 keepers, and the number of inmates should be limited in propor- 
 tion to the size of the buildings. 
 
 ** These measures for police and sanitary measures should apply 
 to all brothels, whether used by Europeans or Chinese, though 
 they would presumably be chiefly required for the houses for 
 Chinese, if it be true, as is stated, that the instances of virtual 
 slavery exist entirely in houses of this description, and if, as may 
 reasonably be supposed, the European houses are free from the 
 more revolting features! reported by the Colonial Surgeon in 
 1874. 
 
 " These regulations should be distinct from those relating to the 
 medical inspection of women, and might be so printed in the 
 
 * Lord Kimberley will yet, we trust, be made to know that the 
 objections entertained are to the fact, and not merely to the word 
 " licensed." This coolly cynical suggestion to meet the case by a change 
 of phrase will be regarded as an insult to the moral convictions of every 
 opponent of the system of " State-Regulated Vice." 
 
 t These "revolting features" are material filth only. Moral filth is held 
 of no account, ashas beau seen above.
 
 37 
 
 Ordinance, or, if you prefer it might be included in a separate 
 Ordinance. 
 
 " Any euch measure, however, will be incomplete unless it 
 includes penalties for keeping brothels ■without registration, and 
 you should consider with the Attorney- General whether it la 
 necessary to enact any special test which shall be deemed sufficient 
 evidence of the existence of a brothel, or whether ordinary 
 evidence can be relied upon in[such cases. 
 
 "It will also be desirable to take summary powers for dealing 
 with any house that, from its situation or the disorderly conduct 
 of the inmates, creates a scandal or becomes a nuisance to the 
 neighbours or the passers by ; and to this, the cumherous jyroceed- 
 iwjs hy indictment at common hm * or under the Act 25 
 Geo. II., c. 36, s. 5, seem to be unsuited to the circumstances of 
 Hong Kong, where such cases may properly be dealt with as 
 police oflftnces, and determined by the police magistrate. 
 
 " Upon the second question, viz., the medical inspection of 
 women, looking to the practice in the past, and to the recommenda- 
 tion of yourself and of the three Commissioners on this head, I 
 concur in thinking that the inmates of houses for the sole use of 
 Chinese may be exempted from all liability to medical inspection. 
 At the same time it seems proper to subject to a penalty the 
 keeper of any such house in which a European is allowed to 
 have intercourse with the women. The fact may be difficult of 
 proof, but the knowledge that the penalty exists will have a 
 salutari/j: effect. 
 
 " As regards houses used by Europeans and other foreigners, 
 I think that the medical examination of the inmates, and their 
 separation if found diseased, should still be enforced, but unaccom- 
 panied by certain of the provisions of the existing Ordinance. I 
 should wish you to give careful consideration to the report of Dr. 
 Sloggett, with which you have been furnished, and to consider 
 
 * The cumbrous proceediugs at common law would require the evidence 
 of the neighbours as to the reality of the nuisance or scandal. 
 
 t Upon whom ? the European, the "virtual slave," or the brothel- 
 keeper ?
 
 88 
 
 wbotlior ftny bettor plan can be devised than the present 
 prnctico of keopiug lists of tho inmates of the houses, and of 
 holding the keepers responsible for the due observance of the 
 regulations. 
 
 " It must rest with yoa and the local officials to work out the 
 details of tho OrJiuauco, but the penalties on women who become 
 infected and transmit the disease should be omitted, and the power 
 of breaking into unregistered houses or parts of houses without a 
 warrant for tho purpose of proving the house to be a brothel can 
 scarcely be allowed to continue, but some sicch power will be 
 neci'ssiin/, as I have said before, to be used in case of emergency 
 for the repression of serious offences against the liberty of the 
 inmates/- The Imperial Actsf of 186G and 18G9, should be con- 
 salted and their provisions adopted whenever practicable. The 
 enactments dealing with out-door prostitution may be retained, 
 but such women should also be placed on the register, if one be 
 established, and I cannot but think that a more vigorous adminis- 
 tration of this part of the Ordinance would have improved the 
 state of the harbour of which the condition as stated in the 
 evidence reflects no credit upon the Colony. 
 
 " I commend to your attention the very just observations which 
 Dr. Sloggett makes upon the conduct of the so-called ' protected '| 
 women, and measures should be taken to prevent their houses 
 becoming in future unregistered brothels for other women who are 
 not under protection. 
 
 " It is manifest that the practice of allowing women who are 
 under treatment to leave the hospital ' on pass ' is opposed to the 
 principle of the regulations, and should be discontinued. 
 
 " I am at a loss to understand why these Ordinances, which are 
 
 * The liberty of the inmates is, we presnme, to be, once again, the 
 intention of a system which, as Govenor Hennessey has shown " intensifies " 
 their slavery. 
 
 t No such repression of offences against the liberty of the inmates is 
 provided for by the Acts. 
 
 J The " protected " women of Hong Kong are said, by the Commissioners, 
 to be women living as the recognised mistress of one man, who undertakes 
 to pay for the maintenance and education of tlie children.
 
 39 
 
 similar to those which work satisfactorily at Singapore, should not 
 have been equally effective at Hong Kong unless it be that all 
 branches of the public service, police as well as medical, which are 
 charged with enforcing the law have in the former Colony 
 mutually assisted each other in the discharge of their respective 
 duties, and this has not been the case at Hong Kong. I should 
 hope that similar co-operation in the future will produce the hke 
 results in the Colony under your Government. It is obvious that 
 the duties hitherto performed by the Inspectors of Brothels cannot 
 be entrusted to the general body of police, and men should, as in 
 England, be carefully selected for the work and strictly supervised 
 in the discharge of their duties. They should be members of the 
 police force, and subject to the general rules of the force, but for 
 the exercise of their special functions they should report to and be 
 immediately under the control of a particular officer, and you will 
 inform me whether you recommend for this duty the Deputy 
 Superintendent of Police or the Registrar-General. They should 
 be paid from the funds raised under the Ordinance, and should 
 receive sufficient emoluments to ensure the appointment of 
 trustworthy and competent men, who must be looked for in this 
 country if there is any difficulty in finding them in the 
 Colony. "'•'■ 
 
 * We would ask the reader to note that in the face of the strong 
 opposition to the i^rinciple as well as to the operation of the Contagious 
 Diseases Acts in this country, and of the fact that during the period of this 
 correspondence a Committee of the House of Commons has been sitting 
 to inquire into those Acts, Lord Kimberley has chosen to hold them out as 
 a model to the Colony of Hong Kong, with the addition of such still more 
 objectionable features as the licensing and registration of brothels ; and 
 that the authority on which he relies and the adviser whom he quotes is 
 Mr. Sloggett. 
 
 It appears to us to be an unseemly disrespect of Parliament and of 
 public opinion in this country thus to steal a march upon the opponents of 
 all State-regulation of Vice, and to indorse the system here by comiielling 
 its adoption in a distant colony, against the evident opinion and wish of the 
 Colonial Commission appointed to inquire into tho subject, and nf tlio 
 Governor himself. 
 
 Having in mind those facts, together with tlic infrequent sittings ajul
 
 -10 
 
 •• Yon may find it desirable to consult the Governor of the Straita 
 Settlements upon some of the details of the measures to be 
 prepared, and I shall be glad if you will communicate freely with 
 him upon any point in which the experience of that Colony may 
 appear Hkely to be useful. 
 
 " There remains the question of finance upon which I would 
 observe that whilst it is in my opinion indefensible to make a tax 
 on brothels a source of revenue to the Colony, it seems to me to 
 be sound in principle and just to the taxpayers that any amount 
 required to meet the cost of the necessary control and supervision 
 of these houses beyond the amount contributed by the Admiralty 
 should be levied on the brothel-keepers. 
 
 " Should the collections exceed the amount fairly chargeable 
 to all the several departments which have to do with this service, 
 including a due proportion of the Medical, the Police, and the 
 Registrar General's establishments, as well as the direct charges 
 of the Lock hospital and similar matters, the equilibrium between 
 revenue and expenditure may be maintained by increasing the 
 outlay should the efficiency of the service seem to require it ; or 
 by reducing the amount of the fees, chargeable for registration of 
 the houses. 
 
 " I have in conclusion to request you to take this whole subject 
 into your careful and early consideration, and to transmit to me, 
 with as little delay as possible, the draft of any Ordinance or 
 
 apparently unnecessary procrastination of the House of Commons' Committee 
 on the Contagious Diseases Acts, no one can be surprised that Mr. Stansfeld 
 has felt it to be his duty no longer to be pat off, but to make his appeal 
 to Parliament this session in any event. 
 
 The existing Ordinances, with or without such modiiications as Lord 
 Kimberley suggests, exceed in their patent immorality and unconstitution. 
 ality the English Acts ; but they farnish evidence to show how far our i-ulers 
 are prepared to go — when they dare — and the results which all such systems 
 inevitably develope. The shameless violation of the most sacred personal 
 rights of the weak, in the vain attempt to secure the pleasures of salubrious 
 debauchery for the strong, is the logical outcome of every system of State 
 regulated, organised and patented vice. 
 
 This correspondence has one merit in our eyes. It ought to cause, and 
 we believe that it will cause, the downfall of the system here.
 
 41 
 
 Ordinances which you would propose to lay before the Legislative 
 Council. 
 
 " In reply to your despatch of the 13th of November/'' I asked, 
 on the 31st of December,! for explanations in support of your 
 statement that the Ordinances of 1857 and 1867 have tended to 
 intensify the evils of brothel slavery, but I do not delay this 
 despatch until receiving your reply, as I shall be able to address 
 you further on that point, should it be necessary to add to what I 
 have said above. " I have, &c. 
 
 " Sir J. Pope Hennessey." (Signed) " KIMBERLEY. 
 
 On the 28th of July, Lord Kimberley again wrote to Governor 
 Hennessey, saying : — 
 
 " I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch 
 of the 15th of June,| in reply to mine of the 31st of December, 
 1880, § asking for particulars as to Contagious Diseases Ordinances 
 of 1857 and 1867 having caused an increase of brothel slavery. 
 
 " 2. My despatch of the 26th instant, || communicating the con- 
 clusions at which I have arrived upon the Eeport of the Com- 
 mission, was completed before the receipt of your despatch under 
 acknowledgment, and I have allowed it to proceed, as I do not 
 find that there is anything in this despatch to alter the opinions 
 which I have expressed. 
 
 " 3. You will observe that, under the proposed new regulations, 
 the inmates of brothels used by Chinese only, which form the 
 majority of the houses, will be exempted from all liability to 
 medical inspection. This will remove entirely the objections 
 stated in the fifth paragraph of your despatch. 
 
 " 4. I can quite believe that the women in these houses are in 
 great dread of their keepers ^ and ' have no courage to seek their 
 
 * No. 35 of 1880. t No. 36 of 1880. J No. 37 of 1881. § No. 36 of 1880. 
 
 II No. 38 of 1881. 
 
 ^ Reference to Governor Hennessey's despatch will show that lie speaks 
 of the " extraordinary dread " entertained by the wonaeu " of all foreigners," 
 and gives evidence to prove that their terror is of the j'oi.ice la the first 
 instance, andof their keepers who occupy a " semi-oflRcial position "through 
 the boasted protection of the police and threaten any unruly iriniatoB with 
 ■ surgical inspection. (See Appendix F.)
 
 42 
 
 freedom." Uufortunately recent experience has shown that this 
 state of things is not peculiar to Chinese brothels, but exists also- 
 in Europoau countries ; | but I am not prepared to agree in the view 
 that those unfortunate women will bo benefited by the withdrawal 
 nf all control over the houses in which they are immured, although 
 it would no doubt relieve the Government from a very disagreeable 
 duty if matters were left to take their course, and it would 
 probably be more in accordance with Chinese ideas and habits if 
 no interference were attempted with their peculiar brothel insti- 
 tutions. I view with much satisfaction the steps taken by the 
 respectable Chinese to co-operate with the Government in their 
 efforts to deal with this evil, and with their aid and an intelligent 
 and careful working of such regulations as I have suggested, I 
 should hope that a sensible check may be given to the nefarious- 
 practices of tha brothel-keepers. 
 
 "I have, &c. 
 
 (Signed) " KIMBERLEY. 
 " Sir J. Pope Hennessey." 
 
 We have said that we believe that the correspondence printe(J 
 above will lead to the downfall of the whole system of state- 
 licensed and patented vice, not merely in the Colonies, but at 
 home. For this it is only necessary that Englishmen should put 
 all party-consideralions aside and do their duty. 
 
 If they will remember that the organised iniquities which we 
 Lave disclosed, were originated "by the desires of Her Majesty's 
 Government," when that Government was " Liberal," and have 
 'since been pertinaciously upheld and maintained by Tory and Liberal 
 Governments alike ; that the actual Government, through their mouth- 
 piece, Lord Kimberley, is even now forcing this monstrous violation 
 of the Constitution upon an unwilling population in Hong Kong, and 
 
 * Why 80, since the Ordinances are intended, to protect them ; the police 
 protect them, and the Registrar General is Protector of the Chinese ? 
 t Wheresover the system of State-regulated Vice prevails.
 
 43 
 
 that they still uphold it here in the teeth of public opinion 
 and the moral sense of the people, the people will teach their 
 rulers that in their eyes the safeguards of personal liberty secured to 
 them by Magna Charta, the Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Eights, 
 are not the " dream " which Sir R. MacDonnell declared them 
 to be. 
 
 Our British Constituences have only to will that the rights won 
 for them by their fathers shall not be filche d from them in the dark, 
 and the remedy is in their own hands.
 
 45 
 
 APPENDIX (A). 
 
 FORWARDING REPORT TO MR. STANSFELD. 
 
 Sir Michael Hicks Beach wrote to the Governor of Hong 
 Kong on the 9th July, 1879, "I have observed in The Shield 
 Newspaper, No. 371, of the 31st May last, mention is made of the 
 Report now being considered by me as " an extremely interesting 
 document," and it is stated that Mr. Stansfeld gave a short 
 account of the results of the Hong Kong Commission. I presume 
 from this fact, that the Report must have been published in the 
 Colony. If it has not yet been published, I should wish you to 
 ascertain if possible how copies can have been furnished to private 
 persons in this country. If on the other hand, it has been given to the 
 public, I would point out that it would have been better, 
 considering the nature of the subject and of its history, not to 
 have published this report until I had had the opportunity of 
 considering it and arriving at some decision upon it." Sir J. P. 
 Hennessey replied, pointing out that " the inquiry arose out of a 
 public transaction, in which a coroner's jury had made a special 
 finding that a practice which had been carried on, apparently with 
 the sanction of the Government, was illegal and immoral, and the 
 local newspapers from time to time demanded the publication of 
 the proceedings. A question had been asked on the subject by 
 Sir H. Johnstone in the House of Commons, and Sir Michael 
 Hicks Beach's reply indicated no desire to keep the facts from 
 the public." When the report was published, he (the Governor) 
 sent copies to " the chief naval and military officers, to the judges 
 and members of council, the local newspapers, some half dozen 
 Members of Parliament who had served with him on the Select 
 Committee on the subject in 1864, and a few others who 
 were interested in the question, including Mr. Stansfeld." 
 The fact that the Report had been published in the Colony 
 did not appease the Home Government. The Hong Kong 
 newspapers might easily have escaped Mr. Stansfeld's eye. When 
 Lord Kimberley succeeded Sir Michael Hicks Beach, ho wrote 
 to the Governor of Hong Kong : " With respect to the 
 explanation given in the fifth and following pages of your 
 despatch respecting the premature distribution of the Report, 
 I feel it incumbent upon me to point out to you that a Governor 
 is not justified in communicating to unnjicinl prrsmis in this 
 country important documents which have not previously been 
 transmitted to the Secretary of State. . . I trust I may rely 
 upon your being careful to abstain from any such action in 
 future."
 
 46 
 
 APPENDIX (B). 
 
 The conclnsions and recommendations of the Colonial Commis- 
 eioners are as follows : — 
 
 " To sum up briefly the results of our inquiry, we are of 
 opinion : — 
 
 " 1. That the prosecutions which have been conducted both 
 
 under the ordinances of 1857 and of 18G7, have been attended 
 
 with serious scandals and abuses, and that the system of informers 
 
 employed in the detection of illicit prostitution cannot be too 
 
 emphatically condemned. 
 
 " 2. That, as regards the suppression or termination of unlicensed 
 houses and unregistered prostitutes, such precautions have been 
 ineflectual. 
 
 " 3. That the number of women under sanitary regulations has 
 always been, as compared with those left unregulated, 
 insignificant ; and that there is no sufficient evidence to show that 
 the spread of venereal disease has been checked or prevented, 
 or its type modified by the operation of the Brothel Laws. 
 
 " 4. That licensed brothels for foreigners are in themselves 
 sources of infection, and that the evidence before us points to 
 these establishments, rather than to unlicensed houses as the 
 causes of disease to soldiers and sailors. 
 
 "5. That Government has exercised a sound discretion in not 
 applying the medical clauses of the ordinances to houses for 
 the sole use of Chinese, and that any attempt to do so would end 
 in mischievous failure. 
 
 " 6. That Government supervision of houses for the sole use of 
 Chinese has had no appreciably beneficial results ; that the 
 Ordinances did not contemplate or justify the licensing and 
 regulation of such houses for purposes other than those connected 
 with the suppression of venereal disease, and that such houses 
 should never have been made a source of revenue. 
 
 " 7. That the employment of inspectors of brothels and 
 interpreters has been a frequent source of abuse and corruption ; 
 that the work they have to perform is thoroughly demoralising, 
 and that a wise discretion has been exercised '' in not permitting the 
 general body of police to be engaged in carrying out the Brothel Laws. 
 
 " 8. That the medical examination of their persons is odious to 
 Chinese women, that it is completely opposed to their own ideas 
 and feelings and exposes those who undergo it to the ridicule and 
 contempt of their countrymen. That the system is disliked by the 
 
 * By Mr. May, Superintendent of Police, of whose wise discretion Mr. 
 Sloggett and Lord Kimberley disapprove.
 
 47 
 
 Avhole Chinese community and is open to the gravest misconception 
 on their part. 
 
 " 9. That the quasi official recognition of the houses of ill-fame 
 implied by granting them licenses in return for fees paid is a very 
 ohjectionable system in the existitig brothel system and imposes on 
 the Government responsibilities ichich it cannot adequately fulfil. 
 
 " Our co7iclusions being therefore on all points unfavourable to 
 the existing brothel system, n-e should, had we been prepared, to 
 act altogether on our own convictions, have recommended its entire 
 ■abolition and the repeal of the Ordinance ; and that prostitution 
 he dealt with solely as a matter of law and order. But as the 
 high naval and military authorities, to whom ice referred the papers, 
 have, upon the same facts and figures as ice have founded our 
 opinions on, arrived at conclusioiu, as to the sanitary results of 
 the Ordinance, ichich do not coincide with our own, and as we 
 fully recognise the value of these conclusions, we recommend that 
 all prosecutions against the keepers and inmates of unlicensed 
 Isrothels, which we have been told, and which we believe, are 
 bound up with the system of informers hitherto employed, should 
 be definitely abandoned. 
 
 " We think it most probable that, without the compulsion of 
 criminal liability, a class of women will be found, as heretofore, 
 ready to enter as inmates of licensed brothels for foreignei's, and to 
 subject themselves to penodcal medical examination and segrega- 
 tion in hospital in the event of their being infected, in consideration 
 of the real or supposed advantage in the way of business their 
 recognised position will afford them. But in any event we are 
 distinctly of opinion that the continuance of the system of prose- 
 cution hitherto pursued is entirely out of the question. 
 
 " We recommend that the licenses to be granted in future should 
 be strictly limited to the houses for the accommodation of foreigners, 
 and that in the future houses for the sole use of Cliinese should 
 not be in any way subject to Government supervision. We can see 
 no reason why out-door prostitutes, whether in town or harbour, 
 should not be dealt with as heretoiore under the Ordinance, great 
 care and caution however being taken as to the evidence employed. 
 
 " We recommend that no prosecutions against women for 
 infecting men with venereal disease be allowed to be instituted in 
 future. We advise that both in the examination of their persons 
 and in their medical treatment, the feelings and prejudices of 
 the women should be consulted as far as possible. Sanitary 
 regulations ought not to be converted into a means of punislimont 
 further than the absolute necessity of the case requires ; and wo 
 think that the less irksome and distateful the rules for tho 
 sanitation of women are made, tho less likely are they to be 
 evaded. 
 
 " Finally we i-ecommend that an Ordinance be laid before tho 
 Legislative Council embodying the amendments in the law which 
 "we have suggested."
 
 48 
 
 APPENDIX (C). 
 
 ORDINANCE OF 1857. 
 
 Copy.) "Hong Kong, 
 
 "Anno vigesimo Victori.e Regin.^, 
 
 " No. 12, of 1857. 
 
 "By His Excellency. Sir John Bowring, Knight, LL.D., Governor and 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Colony of Hong Kong and its Dependencies, 
 and Vice-Admiral of the same. Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary and Chief 
 Superintendent of the trade of British subjects in China, with the advice 
 of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. 
 
 "An Ordinance for Checking the Spread of Venereal Diseases. 
 
 " 24th November, 1857. 
 
 " Whereas, it is expedient to make provision for checking the spread 
 of venereal diseases within this Colony : Be it, therefore, enacted and 
 ordained by His Excellency the Governor of Hong Kong, by and with 
 the advice of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows: — 
 
 " I. — In the interpretation of this Ordinance, the following words or 
 phrases shall have the respective meanings hereby assigned to them, that 
 is to say : — 
 
 " ' Prostitute ' shall mean any woman who shall live or reside in a 
 registered or a declared brothel. ' Declared brothel ' shall mean any 
 house in which women live or reside, or which they frequent, for the 
 purposes of prostitution, and which shall, in any judicial proceedings 
 under this Ordinance be sworn or deposed to be such by any two witnesses, 
 or which shall be declared to be such by the Registrar-General. ' Regis- 
 tered brothel ' shall mean any house in which women live or are kept 
 for the purposes of prostitution, and which shall be certified to be such 
 in writing by the Registrar-General, and which shall be entered and 
 numbered on a list or register of such houses, to be kept by the Registrar- 
 General. 
 
 " 2. — From and after the passing of this Ordinance no person shall keep 
 a brothe! within the Colony of Hong Kong, unless the same be registered, 
 nor unless the same be within one or other of the following districts 
 or portions of districts — namely, Ha-wau, from Spring Gardens, Eastward; 
 Sei-ing-Poon, from the Junction of Hollywood Road and Queen's Road, 
 West, Westward, and Tai-ping-shan, except such parts of such districts or 
 portions of districts as face the Queen's Road ; and if any persons shall be 
 convicted of keeping a brothel outside of such districts as aforesaid, or an 
 unregistered brothel within the same, such person shall, for the first 
 offence, be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding one hundred current 
 dollars, or to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not 
 exceeding three months, and for the second oftence to pay a fine not 
 exceeding two hundred current dollars, or to imprisonment, with or without 
 hard labour, for a term not exceeding six months, and for the third 
 offence to pay a fine not exceeding five hundred current dollars, or to 
 imprisonment, for a term not exceeding twelve months ; provided always, 
 that it may be lawful for the magistrate before whom such offender shall 
 be brought, to punish such offender both by fine and imprisonment, or by 
 one or other of such modes, according to his discretion ; and nothing 
 herein contained shall be taken to bar any person from indicting any 
 brothel whatsoever as a nuisance. 
 
 "3. — Upon the occasion of any person being for the third time convicted 
 of such offence as is aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the magistrate before
 
 49 
 
 whom such conviction shall take place, by warrant under his hand, to 
 remove all the inmates of the house wherein such ofteniJer shall have 
 dwelt or resided, and to close up such house, and forbid the same to be 
 reinb.abited, unless he shall be satisfied that the same will be occupied in 
 a proper and legal manner, and not as a brothel within the meaning of 
 this Ordinance, if situated outside of the aforesaid districts, or, cither as a 
 ','cgistercd brothel, or in any other proper and legal manner, if within 
 the said districts, or any of them : and that every person reinhabiting such 
 house, without a license or permission under the hand of the chief 
 or assistant magistrate shall be liable to a penalty of not more than five 
 hundred current dollars, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 
 twelve months. 
 
 " 4. — The averment of two v.'itnesses made on oath or by affirmation 
 within the meaning of Ordinance No. 7, of 1857, ^^^^ ^^Y house is occu- 
 pied as a brothel, may be received as sufficient evidence of such fact ; 
 and any person who shall appear, act, or behave himself or herself as 
 master or mistress, or as the person having the care or management of 
 any brothel, shall be deemed and taken to be the keeper thereof, and shall 
 be liable to be punished as such, notwithstanding he or she shall not, in 
 fact, be the real owner or keeper thereof. 
 
 " 5. — The Registrar-General shall keep a register of all brothels, and 
 shall enter in such register the names of the keeper of each of such brothels, 
 and also of the immediate landlord or lessor thereof, also of the Crown 
 lessee or tenant of the plot of ground on which the same may be standing 
 or built, and shall keep it corrected from time to time, according as such 
 keeper, immediate landlord or lessor, or Crown lessee or tenant, respec- 
 tively, may change, and according as any such house shall cease at any 
 time to be occupied as a brothel ; and shall furnish the Colonial Secretary 
 with a copy of such register, and shall inform him from time to time of 
 such corrections as may from time to time be made in such register as 
 aforesaid. 
 
 " 6. — Whenever any house shall be, in the opinion of the Registrar- 
 General, a house in which women reside, or which they frequent for the 
 purposes of prostitution, the Registrar-General shall forthwith declare such 
 house to be a brothel, and shall give notice to the immediate landlord or 
 lessor thereof, or if such immediate landlord or lessor cannot be found or 
 ascertained, then to the Crown lessee of the plot of ground on which the 
 same be built, that such house has been declared by him to be a brothel, 
 and as such, comes within the provisions of the second and third Sections 
 of this Ordinance : and in case such immediate landlord or Crown lessee or 
 tenant shall dispute such declaration of the Registrar-General, then the 
 party so disputing such declaration shall have an appeal to the chief or 
 assistant magistrate, or to any two justices of the peace, sitting for any 
 such magistrates, who are hereby empowered to adjudicate on such appeals, 
 and whose decisions thereon shall be final. 
 
 " 7. — Brothels registered under the provisions of Section 5 of this 
 Ordinance shall be liable to be visited by the Registrar-General, and by the 
 superintendent, deputy-superintendent, and inspectors of police, and by 
 the Colonial surgeon or other medical officer to be from time to time 
 appointed under the provisions of this Ordinance ; and the Registrar-General 
 t'.nd such several officers as aforesaid are hereby empowered to visit and 
 inspect the condition of such brothels ; and the Colonial surgeon or such 
 o'.her medical officer as aforesaid is hereby empowered and recjuired 
 to visit each one of such registered brothels, and inspect and examine each 
 one of the inmates therein at least once in every ten days. 
 
 "8. — Every keeper, mistress, or manager of a registered brothel shall 
 once in every week furnish the Registrar-General with a true report of the 
 condition of health of each and every of the inmates of the same. 
 
 " g. — In every registered brothel there shall be kept suspended, in some 
 public place, a board containing, in the English and Chinese languages, a 
 list of the names and ages of the inmates then resident in the house, and
 
 no 
 
 such list shall be altered from time to tiroe according as any inmate may be 
 absent therefmm, either by reason of leaving such house altogether, or of 
 being removed therefrom cither to gaol or hospital under the provisions of 
 this Ordinance. 
 
 " lo. — Any brothel-keeper or prostitute who shall offer any obstacle to, 
 or refuse to admit such Registrar-General, superintendent, or inspector of 
 police, for the purpose of making such inspection as aforesaid, or shall refuse 
 to submit to such inspection or examination by the Colonial surgeon or 
 such other medical officer as aforesaid, or shall furnish a wilfully false 
 report of the condition of health of the inmates, as is herein required, or 
 shall not keep suspended such list of such inmates, and keep the same 
 altered or corrected from time to time, as is herein required, as the case 
 may be, shall for each offence be liable to a penalty of not more than loo 
 current dollars, or may be imprisoned, with or without hard labour, for any 
 time not exceeding three months. 
 
 "II. — Every prostitute, or inmate of a registered brothel, who shall 
 be at any time declared by the Colonial surgeon, or such other medical 
 officer as aforesaid, to be aftected with any venereal disease, shall be by 
 order of the Registrar-General, given under his hand, removed to such 
 hospital as shall be built or set apart for women aftected with venereal 
 diseases, under the provisions of this Ordinance, and such prostitute shall 
 be kept under the control of the medical officer of such hospital, and shall 
 not leave, or attempt to leave the same, until properly discharged as cured 
 by such medical officer ; and on every occasion of discharging any such 
 prostitute from the said hospital, as cured, the medical officer so discharging 
 such prostitute, shall give her a certificate under his hand of having been 
 so discharged, which certificate, should such prostitute return to a brothel, 
 is to be produced and shown to the Registrar-General, or to the superinten- 
 dent or inspector of police, whensoever the production of the same shall be 
 by him or them demanded ; and any prostitute who shall during her 
 continuance in such hospital refuse to submit to or obey the directions of 
 the medical officer thereof, or shall leave, or attempt to leave, the same 
 until she be properly discharged as cured, as aforesaid, shall be liable to be 
 imprisoned, with or without hard labour, for any time not exceeding three 
 months : and the expenses which may be incurred in and about the main- 
 tenance and treatment of any such prostitute in such hospital shall be a 
 debt due to the Cmcii, and shall be paid by the keeper of the brothel of which 
 such prostitute shall have been an inmate, or from which she shall have 
 been so removed, and the same in case of non-payment shall be sued for 
 and recovered by the Registrar-General. 
 
 "I2.^1fany prostitute labouring under a venereal disease, shall, /o //(c 
 satisfaction of the chief or assistant magistrates, be proved to have infected 
 any person with such disease, such prostitute, on conviction thereof, sliall 
 be punished by iniprisonnunt, either in gaol or hospital, for a term not 
 exceeding three months, and the keeper of the brothel in which such prosti- 
 tute shall be found shall in every such case be fined a penalty not exceeding 
 two hundred current dollars. 
 
 " 13. — Every keeper of a registered brothel shall pay to the Registrar- 
 General, or his collector, the sum of four current dollars per mensem, tvhich 
 the Registrar-General is hereby empowered to demand and collect, and all 
 such sums are to be paid by the Registrar-General into the Colonial 
 Treasury. 
 
 " 14. — All monies collected under or by virtue of Sections 13 and 19 are 
 to be appropriated to the formation of a general fund for the purposes of 
 this Ordinance, out of which a monthly sum (to be fixed by his Excellency 
 in Council) is to be paid to the Colonial surgeon, or to such other medical 
 officer as may be from time to time appointed for the purposes of this 
 Ordinance, under the provisions of Section 7, as his remuneration for 
 performing the duties required or imposed by this Ordinance ; and the said 
 Colonial surgeon, or such other medical officer as aforesaid, is hereby 
 empowered (with the sanction of his Excellency the Governor) to nominate
 
 51 
 
 or appoint a deputy or assistant, being a person properly qualified to act for 
 him, in case he shall be at any time incapacitated or unable to perform such 
 duties, or any portion of them. 
 
 " 15. — Every keeper of a registered brothel shall be allowed, upon giving 
 notice thereof to the superintendent of police, and obtaining his authority, 
 to employ a constable for tlie protection of, and the preservation of order in, 
 such brothel, such constables to be under the control of, and responsible to, 
 and to be paid by, the superintendent of police, and to tcear a uniform to be 
 chosen for the puipose, but to be solely employed about the protection of the 
 brothel by the keeper of which each of them is employed ; and every keeper of 
 a brothel so employing such special constable as aforesaid, shall pay 
 quarterly in advance to the superintendent of police, a sum sufficient to 
 cover the expenses which may be incurred in payment of the wages of, and 
 providing the uniform for such constable, and such sum shall, in case of 
 non-payment be sued for and recovered by the superintendent of police. 
 
 " 16. — A hospital shall be built, or premises in the first instance hired, 
 exclusively for the reception and treatment of women affected with 
 venereal diseases, the cost of renting such premises to be defrayed out of 
 the fund to be raised under Sections 13 and 19, and the remainder of the 
 moneys which shall from time to time be collected under the said sections, 
 over and above such sums as shall be applied in payment of the Colonial 
 surgeon, or such other medical officer as aforesaid, and in payment of the 
 expenses of renting and maintaining such premises as aforesaid, shall go 
 and be applied to the formation of a fund for the purpose of building, 
 fitting-up, and maintaining such hospital, and enlarging the same from 
 time to time as may be required, and all fees directed to be levied and 
 paid by Section 13, in case of non-payment, shall be sued for and recovered 
 by the Registrar-General, who shall pay the same into the Colonial 
 Treasury. 
 
 " 17. — -Every keeper of a licensed boarding house for seamen shall furnish 
 to the harbour master, once in every week, a list of seamen then resident 
 in his house, and shall report in such list as to the state of health of each 
 seaman, so far as he may be able to ascertain the same ; and every 
 seaman who may be reported or may be otherwise discovered to be 
 affected with a venereal disease, unless then under medical treatment, 
 shall be removed by warrant, under the hand of the harbour master, to a 
 hospital, where he shall be kept until he be, by the medical attendants 
 thereof, discharged as cured, and shall have obtained from such medical 
 attendants a certificate of his having been so discharged, which certificate 
 he shall produce, and show to the harbour master, when required so to do ; 
 and the expenses which may be incurred in and about the maintenance 
 and treatment of any such seaman in such hospital, shall be a debt due to 
 the Crown, and shall be paid by such seaman ; or in case of the keeper of 
 the boarding house in which such seaman shall have resided before his 
 removal to hospital not having reported, or having made a false report, as 
 to the state of health of such seaman, then such expenses shall be paid 
 by such boarding house keeper, in case it shall appear to, and be 
 certified by, the Colonial surgeon or his deputy, or the medical attendants 
 of the hospital to which such seaman may be removed, that the disease 
 with which he may be aft'ectcd is of such a nature as that the keeper of the 
 boarding house could, with ordinary and reasonable observation, have 
 ascertained its existence ; and in all cases such expenses shall in case of 
 non-payment be sued for and recovered by the harbour master on behalf 
 of the hospital. 
 
 " 18. — If any seaman affected with a venereal disease, and reported so to 
 be by the keeper of the boarding house in which such seaman may 
 be residing, shall refuse or offer any hindrance or obstruction to his 
 removal to hospital ; or, havinj^' been removed to hospital, shall attempt 
 to leave the same before he shall be properly discharged cured ; or" having 
 been discharged cured, shall refuse to produce his certificate of discharge 
 when required by the harbour master or his deputy, authorised to demand
 
 the same ; oi being affected with a venereal disease, shall neglect or refuse 
 to inform the keeper of the lioardintj; house in which he may be residing, 
 then, and in every such case, such seaman so ofiending shall be liable to a 
 tine not exceeding twenty-tive current dollars, or to imprisonment, with or 
 without hard labour, for any term not exceeding one month. 
 
 '• ig. — The master of any merchant ship, before shipping any seaman, 
 may require that such seaman shall be inspected by the Colonial surgeon, 
 or other medical ofhcer, who may be appointed for such purpose in connec- 
 tion with the harbour master's department, and who is hereby required to 
 attend at stated hours in the forenoon and afternoon of each day at the 
 harbour master's office for the purposesof such inspection ; and the Colonial 
 surgeon, or such other medical ofticer, upon such inspection, is to give a 
 certificate under his hand as to the state of health of such seaman, which 
 certificate such seaman is to produce and show to the master of the ship 
 in which he may be about to serve ; and for every such certificate there 
 shall be paid the fee of fifty cents, to be paid by the master, or agent, of the 
 ship, ill ease siieh seaman should prove to be in sound health, and by the 
 seaman himself, or the boarding house keeper 7i<iih whom he shall have been 
 residing, in case he shall prove to be affected tvith any venereal disease ; such 
 fee to be received by the harbour master, and in case of non-payment to be 
 sued for and recovered by him, and paid into the Colonial Treasury for the 
 purposes of this Ordinance. 
 
 '• 20. — In all cases where punishment by imprisonment shall be inflicted 
 under this Ordinance, such imprisonment may be either in gaol or in hospital, 
 and may be with or without hard labour as the Court shall adjudge. 
 
 " 21. — In all cases in which fines shall be imposed under the provisions 
 of any section of this Ordinance, and the brothel-keeper on whom such fine 
 shall be imposed shall be unable to pay or discharge the same, then the 
 same shall be recovered from the immediate landlord or lessor of such 
 house ; and in case such landlord or lessor be not known or cannot be 
 ascertained, then from the Crown lessee of the plot of ground on which 
 such house may be erected or built, provided it be proved to the satisfaction 
 of the magistrate that such Crown lessee was cognisant of the purposes for 
 which such house shall have been let or occupied. 
 
 " 22. — No house in which any trade or business shall be carried on shall 
 be registered, or be capable of becoming a registered brothel under the pro- 
 visions of this Ordinance. 
 
 " 23. — No moneys which shall be raised under the provisions of this 
 Ordinance by way of any fee shall at any time be applied or applicable to any 
 purposes otner than or different from the specific purposes for which the 
 same are to be raised, and to which they are to be applied under the pro- 
 visions of this Ordinance. 
 
 "24. — His Excellency in Council is hereby empowered from time to 
 time to make such regulations and bye-laws as may be deemed neces- 
 sary for carrying into ettect the provisions of this Ordinance, and for 
 the regulation and control of registered brothels within the aforesaid 
 districts. 
 
 " 25. — All cases arising under this Ordinance shall be tried and adjudi- 
 cated by, and all fines and penalties herein mentioned, and all sums herein 
 declared to be recoverable, shall be sued for and recovered before, any 
 magistrate of police, either singly, or any two or more justices of the peace 
 in the manner provided by Ordinance No. 10 of 1844, entitled, ' An Ordinance 
 to regulate Summary Proceedings before jfustiecs of the Peace, and to pro- 
 tect justices in the execution of their duty.' 
 
 "JOHN BOV/RING. 
 
 " Passed by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 
 " this 24th day of November, 1857, 
 
 "J. M. D'ALMADA E. CASTRO, 
 
 "/or the Clerk of Councils.''
 
 53 
 
 " No. 3g. Proclamation. 
 
 " John Bowring, 
 
 " By his Excellency Sir John Bowring, Knight, LL.D., Governor and 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Colony of Hong Kong, and its dependencies 
 and Vice-Admiral of the same, Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary and Chief 
 Superintendent of the Trade of British Subjects in China. 
 
 " Whereas the commands of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, 
 conveyed through the Right Honourable the Principal Secretary of State 
 for the Colonies, have been received, approving of and confirming the 
 following* Ordinance, namely : — 
 
 " No. 12, of 1857, entitled — 
 
 " An Ordinance for Checking flic Spread of Venereal Disease. 
 
 " Now, therefore, it is hereby declared, that the said Ordinance has been 
 so approved and confirmed as aforesaid. 
 
 " By his Excellency's command, 
 
 "W. T. BRIDGES, 
 
 " Acting Colonial Secretary. 
 
 " God save the Queen." 
 "Given at Victoria, Hong Kong, this 26th April, 1858." 
 
 *The foregoing.
 
 64 
 
 APPENDIX (D). 
 
 ORDINANCE 10 OF 18G7. 
 
 Tho Houg Koug Commissioners say of this Ordinance: "A 
 preat deal of knowledge bus been acquired during the ten years 
 the old law had been in force of the feelings of the Chinese 
 with respect to the personal examination of prostitutes and of tho 
 dread which the women entertained of the operation. It was 
 clearly enough seen that these formed the chief causes of tho 
 paralysis of the old sj'stem, and it was therefore resolved that the 
 new legislation should inaugurate a more vigorous policy of 
 coercion. 
 
 " The key note of the new rriiime was struck by the Cxovernor's 
 first minute on the subject dated 20th October, 1866 (Docu- 
 ment 20, p. 21-1), in which he wrote that he was ' anxious early to 
 introduce to the Council an amended brothel Ordinance conferring 
 iiecessdrilij ■ almost despotic powers on the Registrar General, 
 modified, when necessary, by by-laws to be passed by the Governor 
 in Council,' and the Ordinance which eventually passed the legis- 
 lature certainly fell but little short of his Excellency's intentions." 
 
 ORDINANCE No. 10 of 1867. 
 
 Contagions Diseases. 
 
 Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell, Knight, C.B., 
 
 Governor and Conwiander-in-Chief. 
 
 No. 10 or 1867. 
 
 Title. 
 
 An Ordinance enacted by the Governor of Hong Kong, with the 
 Advice of the Legislative Council thereof for the better Preven- 
 tion of Contagious Diseases. 
 
 [23rd July, 1867.] 
 Preamble. 
 
 Whereas it is expedient to make further Provisions calculated to prevent 
 the spreading of certain Contagious Diseases: Be it therefore enacted by 
 the .Governor of Hong Kong, with the Advice of the Legislative Council 
 thereof, as follows : 
 
 Preliminary. 
 
 I. Short Title. — This Ordinance may be cited as " The Contagious 
 Diseases Ordinance, 1867." 
 
 * The italica are the Governor's own.
 
 55 
 
 II. Interpretation of Terms. — In this Ordinance : — 
 
 " Contncrioiis Disease:' — The Expression "Contagious Disease " means 
 Venereal Disease including Gonorrhcea. 
 
 " District:'— The word " District " means a District of the City of 
 Victoria as defined by " The Victoria Registration Ordinance, 1866." 
 
 " Superintendent of Police:' — The Expression " Superintendent of 
 Police " means the Captain Superintendent of Police appointed under 
 Ordinance No. g of 1862. 
 
 '' Honseliolder" and '' A^ent:' — The Words "Householder" and 
 " Agent " mean a Householder and his accredited Agent as defined by 
 " The Victoria Registration Ordinance, 1866." 
 
 "Keeper of a Licensed BrotlieL" — The Expression "Keeper of a 
 Licensed Brothel " means the Registered Keeper thereof and any Person 
 appointed by a Keeper during his absence. 
 
 ''Keeper of an Unlicensed Brothel :' — The Expression "Keeper of an 
 Unlicensed "Brothel " includes the Tenant of the House or part of the 
 House, as the case may be, wherein the same shall be kept. 
 
 " Inmate of a Licensed BrotlieL" — The Expression "Inmate of a Li- 
 censed Brothel " means any female residing in such Brothel. 
 
 III. Suspending Clause. — This Ordinance shall not come into operation 
 until Her Majesty's confirmation thereof shall have been proclaimed in this 
 Colony by the Governor. 
 
 IV. Repeal of Ordinance No. 12 0/ 1857.— Ordinance No. 12 of 1857 is 
 hereby repealed, but such repeal shall not affect the Validity or Invalidity 
 of anything done or suffered before the commencement of this Ordinance 
 and shall not apply to or in respect of any Offence, act or thing committed 
 or done or omitted before the commencement of this Ordinance and every 
 such Offence, act or thing shall after and notwithstanding the commence- 
 ment of this Ordinance have the same consequences and effect in all 
 respects as if this Ordinance had not been passed. 
 
 Registrar General. 
 
 V. Power of Registrar General. — For the purposes of carrying into effect 
 the provisions of this Ordinance the Registrar General shall in the first 
 instance have exclusive Jurisdiction to hear and determine all matters 
 except where otherwise specially provided and shall have full power to do 
 in addition to the other duties imposed upon him hereby whatever a Police 
 Magistrate is by any Ordinance of this Colony authorised to do. 
 
 VI. Power of appeal to the two Magistrates.— It shall be lawful for any 
 Person aggrieved or affected by any Order, Decision, or Proceeding of the 
 Registrar General within the meaning of this Ordinance other than and 
 except such proceedings as are authorised by so much thereof as is con- 
 tained between Sections XX. and XXIV. both inclusive, to appeal therefrom 
 to the Two Magistrates the Decision of whom when sitting together shall 
 be final and conclusive ; Provided always that no such appeal shall lie 
 unless within Three clear Days after the determination by the Registrar 
 General of any matter in respect of which an appeal is hereby allowed 
 application shall have been made to him to state and sign a case setting 
 forth the facts of the matter and the ground of his determination ; and upon 
 every such appeal the Registrar General shall transmit the Depositions or 
 Minutes of Evidence taken by him to the Two Magistrates who may take 
 such further Evidence as they shall think fit. 
 
 LiCENSici) Brothels. 
 
 VII. Registrar General may grant Brothel Licenses.— The Registrar 
 General may grant to any Person whom he shall think fit a License to keep
 
 a Biotlifl in such Dislrict or other locaHty as the Governor in Counci 
 may from time to time appoint. 
 
 \'III. \o I.iciutsi-il lirotlul to bi' kept in a House, €-^c. 7('hcrc aiiv Tritdc 
 Is carried on. — No Licensed Brotlicl shall be kept in any House in which 
 any Trade or Business is carried on nor in any House communicating by 
 any Passage Uoor or otherwise \\ ith any House or Room in wliich any 
 Trade or Business is carried on. 
 
 IX. Cancellation or Suspension of License. — The Registrar General may 
 at any time cancel or suspend a License. 
 
 X. .-1 Resrister of Licensed Brothels to be kept. — A Register of Licensed 
 Brothels shall be kept in the Office of the Registrar General who shall cauiie 
 to be entered therein : — 
 
 (i.) The name and address of every Keeper of a Licensed Brothel. 
 
 (2.) The address of every House whereof the whole or any part shall be 
 occupied or used as a Licensed Brothel. 
 
 (3.) The name and address of the Householder of every such House or 
 of the Tenant of every part of such House. 
 
 (4.) Any other particulars which the Registrar General may from time 
 to time deem expedient to be entered in the said Register subject never- 
 theless to such Regulations as the Governor in Council may make. 
 
 XL Keeper of Licensed Brothel to exhibit and to furnish to the Registrar 
 Cciural a List of Inmates.. — Every Keeper of a Licensed Brothel shall 
 cause a List of the names and ages of the Inmates thereof in the English 
 language and also in such other language as the Registrar General may 
 direct to be affixed in some conspicuous place in such Brothel and shall 
 cause the said List to be altered from time to time as occasion may require 
 and shall furnish the Registrar General with a copy of such List and of all 
 alterations made therein. 
 
 XII. Penalty in case of any Person hcing infected in a Licensed Brothel. — 
 If any Person shall to the satisfaction of the Registrar General be proved 
 to have been infected with a Contagious Disease in any Licensed Brothel 
 the Keeper thereof shall be liable to a Fine not exceeding 200 dols. and the 
 inmate thereof who shall have infected such Person as aforesaid shall be 
 liable to Imprisonment for any Term not exceeding Six Months. 
 
 XIII. Penalty in case of a Person infecting any Inmate of a Licensed Brothel. 
 — If any Person shall to the satisfaction of the Registrar General be proved 
 to have infected with a Contagious Disease the Inmate of any Licensed 
 Brothel such person shall be liable to a fine not exceeding 200 dols. or to 
 Imprisonment for any term not exceeding Six Months. 
 
 XIV. Penalty for allotcing any Child under the age of 15 to be in a 
 Licensed Brothel. — If any Child being in the opinion of the Registrar 
 General above Eight and under Fifteen Years of age be found in any 
 Licensed Brothel the Keeper thereof shall be liable to a Fine not exceeding 
 100 dols. or to Imprisonment with or without Hard Labour for any Term 
 not exceeding One Month for the first Oftence, Three Months for the second 
 Offence, and Six Months for the third or any subsequent Offence. 
 
 XV. Inspection of Licensed Brothels. — Every Licensed Brothel shall be 
 liable to be inspected at all times by the Registrar General, the Inspector of 
 Hospitals, the Visiting Surgeons, the Superintendent of Police, and any 
 Person who may be deputed by them respecti\'ely for the purpose of such 
 inspection, and every Keeper of such Brothel and every other Person whom- 
 soever who shall ofter any obstacle or resistance to such inspection shall be 
 liable to Imprisonment with or without Hard Labour for any Term not 
 exceeding Six Months or to a Fine not exceeding 200 dols. 
 
 XVI. Keeper of Licensed Brothel to reside therein and appoint Substitute 
 during absence. — Every Keeper of a Licensed Brothel shall reside therein
 
 57 
 
 and shall not absent himself from the Colony without giving notice to the 
 Registrar General and appointing some Person to act as Keeper thereof 
 during his absence, and in every case where the Keeper of a Licensed 
 Brothel shall fail to comply with the requirements of this Section, the 
 License granted in respect of such Brothel shall become ipso facto void. 
 
 XVIL Recovery of Fines on Keeper of Registered Brothel. — The Provisions 
 of Sections XVIL, XVIII., and XIX. of " The Victoria Registration Ordi- 
 nance, 1866," shall apply to the recovery of any Fine imposed upon the 
 Keeper of a Licensed Brothel. 
 
 XVIII. Fees payable for a Brothel License. — Every Keeper of a Licensed 
 Brothel shall pay to the Registrar General the sum of 4 dols. a month 
 during the continuance of such License or such other sum as may from time 
 to time be fixed by the Governor in Council. 
 
 UxLicENSED Brothels. 
 
 XIX. No Unlicensed Brothels to be kept. — From and after the passing of 
 this Ordinance no Person shall keep a Brothel unless the same shall have 
 been licensed and registered as hereinbefore in that behalf provided. 
 
 XX. Poiver to enter or break into Houses suspected of being Unlicensed 
 Brothels. — Whenever the Registrar General or the Superintendent of Police 
 shall have reason to suspect that any House or portion of a House is used 
 as an Unlicensed Brothel, it shall be lawful for them or either of them and 
 for any Constables or other Persons deputed by them or either of them for 
 the purpose at any time without warrant to enter, and if necessary to 
 break into such House or portion of a House and to take into custody 
 any Person who shall appear, act, or behave himself as the Person having 
 the care or management of such House or Portion of a House so sus- 
 pected as aforesaid and such Person shall be brought forthwith before 
 the Registrar General who may as he shall think fit order such Person 
 to be discharged from custody or may deal with him or her under the 
 Provisions of Section XXI. of Ordinance No. 8 of 1858. 
 
 XXI. Investigation by Registrar General as to suspected Brothel. — It shall 
 be lawful for the Registrar General whenever he shall have reason to 
 suspect that a House or a portion of a House is used as an Unlicensed 
 Brothel to institute an Investigation with reference thereto and for such 
 purpose or for the purpose of any appeal under Section XXIV. to summon 
 in writing before him the Householder or his Agent and any Tenant or 
 occupier of any portion of such House and all other Persons cajiable of 
 giving Evidence in such matter and to examine them upon oath touching 
 the subject of such Investigation and any person who shall neglect or 
 refuse to appear before the Registrar General at the time and place 
 specified in such summons or to answer all questions which may be put 
 to him in the course of such examination shall be liable to a Fine not 
 exceeding 500 dols. or to be Imprisoned with or without Hard Labour for 
 any Term not exceeding Six Months and in the event of his giving false 
 testimony in the course of such examination he shall be lial^le to be tried 
 and punished for Perjury and for that purpose every such Investigation 
 shall be deemed a Judicial Proceeding. 
 
 XXII. Notice of such Investigation. — The Registrar General shall give 
 notice of such Investigation by advertisement in the Gazette and also to 
 the parties interested in the Land whereon such House shall be situate so 
 far as they can be ascertained by reference to the Records of the Land 
 Office but the want of such notice shall not invalidate any Proceedings. 
 
 XXIII. Declaration by Registrar General that a House or Part of a House 
 is an Unlicensed Brothel. — The Registrar General shall take notes of the 
 Evidence given during such Investigation and if he shall be of opinion that 
 such House or part of a House as aforesaid is an Unlicensed Brothel he
 
 58 
 
 shall ckclaic the same to be such umler his hand and seal of office and a 
 Noiilicalioii of such Declaialion shall be inserted in the (hizittc as soon as 
 practicable after the makin>; tiiereof. A copy of the (inzittc containing 
 sucii Notification shall be conclusi\e evidence of such Declaration, and of 
 the fact tliat such House or part of a House is an Unlicensed Brothel 
 subject nevertheless to appeal as hereinafter provided. 
 
 XXIV. Appeal from such Declaration to yudf^c of Court of Suiiiniarr 
 yiirisilietioii. — Any person aggrieved or affected by any such Declaration 
 may within Ten Days from the date of the Notification thereof in the 
 Giizetti-, or at any time by leave of the Judge of the Court of Summary 
 Jurisdiction appeal from the Decision of the Registrar General to the said 
 Judge and the Registrar General shall, upon notice of such appeal forth- 
 with transmit to the said Judge the notes of the Evidence taken by him 
 during such Investigation and upon which such Declaration shall have 
 been made, and for the purpose of such appeal shall take and transmit 
 in manner aforesaid such further evidence as the said Judge shall direct 
 and the said Minutes and further evidence if any shall be laid before the 
 said Judge who may confirm the said Declaration or may order in writing 
 the same to be cancelled. 
 
 XXV. Who shall be deemed Keeper of an Unlicensed Brothel. — Any 
 Person who shall appear, act, or behave himself as the Person having the 
 Care or Management of any Unlicensed Brothel shall be deemed and 
 taken to be the Keeper thereof and shall be liable to be punished as such 
 notwithstanding he may not in fact be the Keeper thereof. 
 
 XXVI. Penalty on Women residing in or frcqncnting Unlicensed BrotJicls 
 for purposes of Prostitution. — Every Woman who shall reside in, frequent, 
 
 or he found in an Unlicensed Brothel for the purposes of Prostitution 
 shall upon proof thereof to the satisfaction of the Registrar General 
 be liable to a Fine not exceeding 50 dols. or to Imprisonment for any Term 
 not exceeding Two Months. 
 
 XXVII. Penalty for kecpins; Unlicensed Brothel. — ^Every Keeper of an 
 Unlicensed Brothel shall be liable for the first Offence to a Fine not exceed- 
 ing 100 dols. or to imprisonment with or \\ ithout Hard Labour for a Term 
 not exceeding Three Months, for the second Offence to a Fine not exceeding 
 200 dols. or to Imprisonment with or without Hard Labour for a Term 
 not exceeding Six Months, and for a third and any subsequent Offence to a 
 Fine not exceeding 500 dols. or to Imprisonment with or without Hard 
 Labour for a Term not exceeding Twelve Months : Provided always that 
 it shall be lawful for the Registrar General to punish such Offender both 
 by Fine an Imprisonment if he shall think fit. 
 
 XXVIII. Premises twice declared to be used as an Unlicensed Brothel may 
 be closed up. — Whenever any House or part of a House shall have been 
 twice declared by the Registrar General to be an Unlicensed Brothel it 
 shall be lawful for him by Warrant under his hand to remove all the In- 
 
 'mates of such House or part of a House as the case may be and to close 
 up the same and such House or part of a House shall not be re-inhabited 
 unless the Registrar General shall be satisfied that the same will be occu- 
 pied in a proper and legal manner and not as an Unlicensed Brothel, or 
 unless the Governor shall otherwise direct and permit ; and every Person 
 knowingly re-inhabiting any House or part of a House so closed up as afore- 
 said without the Permission of the Governor or of the Registrar General 
 shall be liable to a Fine not exceeding 200 dols. or to Imprisonment with 
 or without Hard Labour for any Term not exceeding Six Months. 
 
 XXIX. Saving of other Remedies. — Nothing herein contained shall as 
 regards Unlicensed Brothels affect any other remedies applicable by the 
 Laws in force in the Colony for the time being for the Suppression 
 thereof.
 
 59 
 
 Outdoor Prostitution. 
 
 XXX. Woman found in Street, &>€., for purposes of Prostitution liable to 
 Fine and Imprisonment — Every Woman who shall be found in any Street, 
 Road, Matshed, or other Place within One Mile of any District for the 
 purposes of Prostitution shall be liable to a Penalty not exceeding 25 dols. 
 or to be imprisoned for any Term not exceeding Three Months with or 
 without Hard Labour. 
 
 XXXI. Woman found on board any Junk, &'c., for purposes of Prostitution 
 liable to Fine and Imprisonment. — Every Woman who shall be found on board 
 of any Junk, Boat, Sampan, or Craft of any kind or description within 
 Colonial Waters, for the purposes of Prostitution shall be liable to a 
 Penalty not exceeding 25 dols., or to be imprisoned for any Term not ex- 
 ceeding Three Months with or without Hard Labour. 
 
 XXXn. Personin charge ofjfunk, &'c. in which Woman found for purposes 
 of Prostitution liable to Fine a)id Imprisonment, and funk, &-c., toforfciture. — 
 Every Person apparently in charge of any Junk, Boat, Sampan, or Craft when 
 any Woman shall be found therein for the purposes of Prostitution shall be 
 liable to the same penalties as in the last preceeding Section mentioned and 
 in addition thereto such Junk, Boat, Sampan or Craft, may on proof of any 
 Woman having been found therein for the purposes aforesaid be forfeited to 
 the Crown. 
 
 XXXHL Constable authorized to arrest without Warrant Persons found 
 offending and to seize], jfunk, &'c. — It shall be lawful for any Constable 
 belonging to the Police Force to take into Custody without Warrant any 
 Person in any manner offending against the Three last preceding Sections and 
 to seize, detain and take possession of any Junk, Boat, Sampan, or Craft 
 in which any Woman shall be found for the purpose aforesaid. 
 
 Inspector of Hospitals and Surgeons. 
 
 XXXIV. Appointment of Inspector of Hospitals and Visiting Surgeons. — 
 An Inspector of Hospitals and Visiting Surgeons shall be appointed whose 
 respective duties shall from time to time be defined by the Governor. Until 
 the Governor shall otherwise direct and during any vacancy the Colonial 
 Surgeon shall be Inspector of Hospitals, 
 
 Hospitals. 
 
 XXXV. Power to Governor to provide Hospitals. — The Go\crnor may 
 from time to time provide any Buildings or parts of Buildings as Hospitals 
 for the purposes of this Ordinance and the fact of such Buildings or parts 
 of Buildings being so provided shall be notified in the Gazette. A copy of 
 the Gazette containing any such Notification shall be conclusive evidence 
 thereof. 
 
 XXXVI. Superintendent of Hospital. — A Superintendent shall be 
 appointed for each. Hospital who shall have the control and management 
 thereof, subject nevertheless to the directions of the Inspector of Hospitals 
 and to any Regulations made and approved under this Ordinance in respect 
 thereof. 
 
 XXXVII. Power to make Regulations for Hospitals.— The Inspector of 
 Hospitals shall make Regulations for the management and government of 
 every Hospital as far as regards Women authorized by this Ordinance to be 
 detained therein for Medical Treatment or being therein under Medical 
 Treatment for a Contagious Disease such Regulations not being inconsis. 
 tent with the Provisions of this Ordinance and may from time to time alter 
 any such Regulations ; but all such Regulations and all Alterations theieof 
 shall be subject to the approval in writing of the Governor in Council.
 
 GO 
 
 XXXVIII. F.vidiiicc of Rfv:nlat'n>us. — A printed copy of Rtgulations pur- 
 porting to he Regulations of a Hospital so approved such copy heing signed 
 by the Inspector of Hospitals shall he evidence of the Regulations of the 
 Hospital and of the due making and approval thereof for the purposes of 
 this (.)rdinance. 
 
 XXXIX. Care and tnatiucnt of Women detained in Hospital. — Every 
 Woman detained in a Hospital shall during the period of such detention be 
 carefully provided for and furnished free of expense to her with lodging, 
 clothing and food. 
 
 XL. Expenses of treatment of Women in Hospitals. — The expenses whicli 
 may be incurred in or about the treatment of any Prostitute detained in a 
 Hospital as specified in the last preceding Section shall be a Debt due to 
 the Crown and payable by the Keeper of the Hrothel or by the Keeper or 
 Person apparently in charge of the House wherein such Person may have 
 been residing. The same in case of non-payment may be sued for and 
 recovered from such Keeper or Person by the Registrar General, or other 
 duly authorized Officer, subject nevertheless to the Provisions in the next 
 Section contained. 
 
 XLI. Amount to be certified by Visiting Surgeon. — No Keeper of a 
 Licensed Brothel shall be liable to such payment unless the amount thereof 
 shall have been certified under the hand of the Visiting Surgeon to be in 
 accordance with a scale of charges to be from time to time fixed by the 
 Inspector of Hospitals with the approval of the Governor and such Certifi- 
 cate shall be evidence of the due making and approval of such scale of 
 charges for the purposes of this Ordinance, and of all other facts therein 
 certified. 
 
 XLIL In case of non-payment License to become raid and amount 
 recoverable from Householder. — In case the Keeper of a Licensed Brothel 
 shall refuse or neglect to pay to the Registrar General the amount due to 
 the Crown and payable by him in respect of such expenses as aforesaid 
 within Three Days after the service upon him of a notice in that behalf or 
 within such further period as the Registrar General may allow the License 
 granted to such Keeper in respect of such Brothel shall from the expiration 
 of the said Three Days or such further period as aforesaid be suspended 
 until such payment shall have been made or recovered, and the Provisions 
 of Section XVII. as to the Recovery of Fines shall be applicable to the 
 Recovery of the said amount. 
 
 Medical Examination. 
 
 XLIII. Inmates ofLiccnsd Brothels at all times liable to Medical Exami- 
 nation. — Every Inmate of a Licensed Brothel shall be liable at all times to 
 Medical Examination by a Visiting Surgeon in such Brothel or at such 
 Hospital as he shall direct. 
 
 XLIV. On Information the Registrar General may issue Notice to Common 
 Prostitute. — Where an Information on Oath is laid before the Registrar 
 General by the Superintendent or an Inspector of Police charging to the 
 Effect that the Informant has good cause to believe that a Woman therein 
 named is a common Prostitute, and is resident within a District of Vic- 
 toria or if not being so resident has within Fourteen Days before the laying 
 of the Information been within a District of Victoria or within the Harbour 
 thereof for the purpose of Prostitution the Registrar General may if he thinks 
 fit issue a notice thereof addressed to such Woman which notice the Super- 
 intendent or Inspector of Police shall cause to be served on her. 
 
 XLV. Power to Registrar General to order periodical Medical Exami- 
 nation. — In either of the following cases namely : — 
 
 1st. If the Woman on whom such a notice is served appears herself or
 
 61 
 
 by some Person on her behalf at the time and place appointed in the 
 notice or at some other time and place appointed by adjournment. 
 
 2nd. If she does not appear and it is shown to the satisfaction of the 
 Registrar General that the notice was served on her a reasonable time 
 before the time appointed for her appearance or that reasonable notice of 
 such adjournment was given to her (as the case may be) ; 
 the Registrar General on Oath being made before him stibstantiating the matter 
 of the Information to his satisfaction may if he think fit order that the 
 Woman be subject to a periodical Medical Examinatian by a Visiting 
 Surgeon for any period not exceeding One Year for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining at the time of each such examination whether she is affected with a 
 Contagious Disease and thereupon she shall be subject to such a periodical 
 Medical Examination and the Order shall be a sufficient warrant for a 
 Visiting Surgeon to conduct such Examination accordingly. 
 
 The Order shall specify the time and place at which the Woman shall 
 attend for the first examination. 
 
 The Superintendent of Police shall cause a copy of the Order to be served 
 on the Woman. 
 
 XLVI. Power to make Regulations as to Medical Exaviinations. — The 
 Governor in Council may from time to time make Regulations respecting 
 the times and places of Medical Examinations under this Ordinance, and 
 generally respecting the arrangements for the conduct of those Examina- 
 tions ; and a copy of all such Regulations from time to time in force shall 
 be sent to the Registrar General, the Inspector of Hospitals, the Visiting- 
 Surgeons, and the Superintendent of Police. 
 
 XLVII. Visiting Surgeon to prescribe ti lies, &'c. — The Visiting Surgeon 
 having regard to the Regulations aforesaid and to the circumstances of 
 each case shall at the first examination of each Woman examined by him 
 and afterwards from time to time as occasion requires prescribe the times 
 and places at which she is required to attend again for Examination and he 
 shall from time to time give or cause to be given to each such Woman 
 notice of the times and places so prescribed. 
 
 XLVIII. Voluntary Submission by Woman. — Any Woman may volun- 
 tarily by a submission in writing signed by her in the presence of and 
 attested by the Registrar General subject herself to periodical Medical 
 Examination under this Ordinance for any period not exceeding One Year. 
 
 Detention in Hospital. 
 
 XLIX. Certificate of Visiting Surgeon. — If on any Medical Examination 
 under this Ordinance the Woman examined is found to be affected with a 
 Contagious Disease she shall thereupon be liable to be detained in a 
 Hospital subject and according to the Provisons of this Ordinance and a 
 Visiting Surgeon shall sign a Certificate to the Effect that she is aftected 
 with a Contagious Disease naming the Hospital in which she is to be 
 placed. Such Certificate shall be sent to the Registrar General and the 
 Woman shall be detained in such Hospital until discharged therefrom as in 
 the next succeeding Section mentioned or under the Provisions of Section 
 LI. of this Ordinance. 
 
 L. Detention in Hospital. — Where a Woman certified by a Visiting 
 Surgeon to be affected with a Contagious Disease is placed as aforesaid in 
 a Hospital for Medical Treatment she shall be detained there for the 
 purpose by a Visiting Surgeon unlii dischaged by him by writing under his 
 hand. 
 
 The Certificate of a Visiting Surgeon shall be sufficient autliority for such 
 Detention. 
 
 LI. Power to transfer to another Certified Hospital.— Thi: Inspector of 
 Hospitals may if in any case it seems to nim expedient by Order in writing
 
 sipned by him direct the Transfer of any Woman detained in a Hospital 
 for Medical Treatment from that Hospital to another named in the 
 Order. 
 
 Every such Order shall be sent to the Kej^istrar General and shall also 
 be sufficient authority for the Superintendent of Police or an)- Person 
 actin<; under his Order to transfer the Woman to whom it relates from the 
 one Hospital to the other and to place her there for Medical Treatment and 
 she shall be detained there for that purpose by the Visiting Surgeon until 
 discharged by him by writing under his hand. 
 
 The Order of the Inspector of Hospitals shall be sufficient authority for 
 such Detention. 
 
 LH. Limitation of Detention. — Provided always that no Woman shall be 
 detained under any one Certificate for a longer time than Three Months 
 unless the Visiting Surgeon certify that her further Detention for Medical 
 Treatment is requisite in which case she may be further detained in the 
 Hospital in which she is at the expiration of the said Period of Three 
 Months by the Visiting Surgeon until discharged by him by writing under 
 his hand. 
 
 LHI. To-.cer to fip/>ly for discharge — If any W' Oman detained in any Hospital 
 considers herself entitled to be discharged therefrom and the Visiting 
 Surgeon refuses to discharge her such Woman shall on her request be 
 conveyed before the Registrar General and he shall if satisfied upon 
 Medical Examination that she is free from a Contagious Disease discharge 
 her from such Hospital and such Order of Discharge shall have the same 
 Effect as the Discharge of the Visiting Surgeon. 
 
 Refusal to be Examined, &c. 
 
 LIV. Penalty for refusal to be examined, &--C. — In the following cases, 
 namely : — 
 
 (i.) If any Woman who is the Inmate of a Licensed Brothel or who is 
 subjected by Order of the Registrar General under this Ordinance to 
 periodical Medical Examination at any time temporarily absents herself 
 in order to avoid submitting herself to such Examination on any occasion 
 on which she ought so to submit herself or refuses or wilfully neglects to 
 submit herself to such Examination on any such occasion ; 
 
 (2.) If any Woman authorised by this Ordinance to be detained in a 
 Hospital for Medical Treatment quits the Hospital without being 
 discharged therefrom by the Visiting Surgeon by writing under his hand 
 (the Proof whereof shall lie on the accused) ; 
 
 (3.) If any Woman authorised by this Ordinance to be detained in a 
 
 Hospital for Medical Treatment or any Woman being in a Hospital under 
 
 Medical Treatment for a Contagious Disease refuses or wilfully neglects 
 
 while in the Hospital to conform to the Regulations thereof made and 
 
 approved under this Ordinance ; 
 
 then and in every such case such Woman shall be guilty of an Offence against 
 
 this Ordinance and on a summary conviction shall be liable to Imprisonment 
 
 with or without Hard Labour in the case of a first Offence for any term 
 
 not exceeding One Month, and in a case of a second or any subsequent 
 
 Offence for any term not exceeding Three Months, and in case of the 
 
 Offence of quitting the Hospital without being discharged as aforesaid, the 
 
 Woman may be taken into Custody without Warrant by any Constable. 
 
 LV. Effect of Order of Imprisonment for absence, ^'C, from Examination. — 
 If any Woman is convicted of and Imprisoned for the Offence of absenting 
 herself or of refusing or neglecting to submit herself to Examination as 
 aforesaid, the Order subjecting her to periodical Medical Examination 
 shall be in force after and notwithstanding her Imprisonment unless a 
 Visiting Surgeon appointed under this Ordinance at the time of her
 
 63 
 
 discharge from Imprisonment certifies in writing to the Eftect that she is 
 then free from a Contagious Disease (the Proof of which Certificate shall 
 lie on her) and in that case the Order subjecting her to periodical Medical 
 Examination shall on her Discharge from Imprisonment cease to operate. 
 
 LVI. Effect of Order of Imprisonment for quitting Hospital, &-c. — If any 
 Woman is convicted of and Imprisoned for the Offence of quitting a Hospital 
 without being discharged or of refusing or neglecting while in a Hospital 
 to conform to the Regulations thereof as aforesaid, the Certificate of the 
 Visiting Surgeon under which she was detained in the Hospital shall con- 
 tinue in force and on the expiration of her term of Imprisonment she shall 
 be sent back from the Prison to that Hospital and shall (notwithstanding 
 anything in this Ordinance) be detained there under that Certificate as if it 
 were given on the day of the expiration of her term of Imprisonment unless 
 a Visiting Surgeon appointed under this Ordinance at the time of her Dis- 
 charge from Imprisonment certifies in writing to the Effect that she is then 
 free from a Contagious Disease (the Proof of which Certificate shall lie on 
 her) and in that case the Certificate under which she was detained and the 
 Order subjecting her to periodical Medical Examination shall on her Dis. 
 charge from Imprisonment cease to operate. 
 
 LVII. Penalty on Woman dischaged iincured condxuting herself as a 
 Prostitute. — If on any Woman leaving a Hospital a Notice is given to her 
 by the Visiting Surgeon to the Effect that she is still affected with a Con- 
 tagious Disease and she is afterwards in any place for the purpose of Prosti- 
 tution without having previously received from one of the Visiting Surgeons 
 appointed under this Ordinance a Certificate in writing (Proof of which 
 Certificate shall lie on her) to the Effect that she is then free from a Con- 
 tagious Disease she shall be guilty of an Oft'ence against this Ordinance and 
 on summary conviction before the Registrar General shall be liable to be 
 Imprisoned with or without Hard Labour in the case of a first Oft'ence for 
 any term not exceeding One Month, and in the case of a second or any 
 subsequent Offence for any term not exceeding Three Months. 
 
 Duration of Order. 
 
 LVIII. Order to operate 7vhcnever from time to time the Woman is -d'ithin 
 the Colony but not for more tlian One Year. — Every Order under this Ordinance 
 subjecting a Woman to periodical Medical Examination shall be in operation 
 and enforceable in manner in this Ordinance provided so long as and when- 
 ever from time to time the Woman to whom it relates is within the Colony 
 but not in any case for a longer Period than One Year and where the Visit- 
 ing Surgeon on the Discharge by him of any Woman from the Hospital 
 certifies that she is free from Contagious Disease (Proof of which Certificate 
 shall lie on her) the Order subjecting her to periodical Medical Examination 
 shall thereupon cease to operate. 
 
 Relief From Examination. 
 
 LIX. Application for Relief from Examination.— U any Woman sub- 
 jected to a periodical Medical Examination under this Ordinance (either on 
 her own submission or under the Order of the Registrar General) desiring 
 to be relieved therefrom and not being under detention in a Hospital makes 
 application in writing in that behalf to the Registrar General he shall appoint 
 by notice in writing a time and place for the hearing of the application and 
 shall cause the notice to be delivered to the applicant and a copy of the 
 application and of the notice to be delivered to the Superintendent ot Police. 
 
 LX. Order for Relief from E.xamination on Disconliiiuance of Proslitulion. — 
 If on the healing of the appHcalion it is shown to the satisfaction of the 
 Registrar General that the applicant has ceased to be a common Prostitute 
 or if the applicant with the approval of the Registrar General enters into a
 
 04 
 
 Recognizance with or without Sureties as to the Registrar General seems 
 nicet for her good Behaviour during Three Montlis thereafter the Registrar 
 General shall order that she be relieved from periodical Medical Examination. 
 
 LXI. rorfciluri of R,co<^iiisaiici- by Rctiini to Prostitution. — Every such 
 Recognizance shall he deemed to be forfeited if at anj' time during the term 
 for whicl) it is entered into the Woman to whom it relates is in any public 
 rhoroujjhf.ire. Street or Place or in any Junk, Boat, Sampan or Craft for 
 the purpose of Prostitution or otherwise conducts herself as a common 
 Prostitute. 
 
 PENALTIES FOR HARBOURING. 
 
 LXII. Penalty for pcnititting Diseased Prostitute to resort to any House 
 for Prostitution. — If any Person being the Occupier of any House, Room or 
 Place, or being a Manager or Assistant in the management thereof having 
 reasonable cause to believe any Woman to be a common Prostitute and to 
 be affected with a Contagious Disease induces or suffers her to resort to or 
 be in that House, Room or Place for the purpose of Prostitution he shall 
 be guilty of an Offence against this Ordinance and on summary Conviction 
 thereof before the Registrar General shall be liable to a penalty not exceed- 
 ing too dols. or at the discretion of the Registrar General to be Imprisoned 
 for any Term not exceeding Six Months with or without Hard Labour. 
 
 Seamen and Boarding Houses for Seamen. 
 
 LXIII. Keepers of Licensed Boarding Houses for Seamen to furnish 
 Harbour Master ti'ith locekly Lists of the Seamen resident in their Houses, 
 and report their state of Health. Diseased Seamen to be removed to a 
 Hospital. — Every Keeper of a Licensed Boarding House for Seamen shall 
 furnish to the Harbour Master, once in every Week, a List of Seamen then 
 resident in his House, and shall report in such List as to the state of Health 
 of each Seamen so far as he may be able to ascertain the same ; and every 
 Seaman who may be reported or maybe otherwise discovered to be affected 
 with a Contagious Disease, shall be removed by Warrant under the Hand 
 of the Harbour ?tlaster to a Hospital, where he shall be kept until he be, by 
 the Visiting Surgeon thereof, discharged as cured, and shall have obtained 
 from such Visiting Surgeon a Certificate of his having been so discharged 
 which Certificate he shall produce and show to the Harbour Master when 
 required so to do; and the Expenses whicli may be incurred in and about 
 the Maintenance and Treatment of any such Seaman in such Hospital, shall 
 be a Debt due to the Crown, and shall be paid by such Seaman ; or, 
 in case of the Keeper of the Boarding House in which such Seaman 
 shall have resided before his removal to Hospital not having 
 reported, or having made a false Report as to the state of Health of such 
 Seaman, then such Expenses shall be paid by such Boarding House Keeper, 
 in case it shall appear to, and be certified by, the Visiting Surgeon of the 
 , Hospital to which such Seaman may be removed, that the Disease with 
 wliich he may be affected is of such a Nature as that the Keeper of the 
 Boarding House could, with ordinary and reasonable Observation, have 
 ascertained its Existence ; and in all Cases such Expenses shall in case of 
 non-payment be sued for and recovered by the Harbour Master on behalf 
 the Hospital. 
 
 LXIV. Penalty for offering any Obstruction to removal to Hospital. — If 
 any Seaman affected with a Contagious Disease, and reported so to be by 
 the Keeper of the Boarding House in which such Seaman may be residing, 
 shall refuse or offer any Hindrance or Obstruction to his Removal to a 
 Hospital : or having been removed to a Hospital, shall attempt to leave the 
 same before he shall be properly discharged cured ; or having been discharged 
 cured, shall refuse to produce his Certificate of Discharge when required by 
 the Harbour Master authorized to demand the same ; or being affected with
 
 1 
 
 65 
 
 a Contagious Disease, shall neglect or refuse to inform the Keeper of the 
 Boarding House in which he may be residing, — then, and in every such case, 
 such Seaman so offending shall be liable to be brought before the Harbour 
 Master and subjected to a Fine not exceeding Twenty-five Dollars, or to 
 Imprisonment with or \\ithout Hard Labor, for any Term not exceeding 
 One Month. 
 
 LXV. Masters of Ships before shipping Seamen may require them to 
 undergo Medical inspection. — The Master of any Merchant Ship, before 
 shipping any Seaman, may require that such Seaman shall be inspected by 
 the Colonial Surgeon by notice in writing to that effect addressed to the 
 Harbour Master or a visiting Surgeon appointed in pursuance of this Ordi- 
 nance and the Colonial Surgeon or such Visiting Surgeon upon such 
 Inspection is to give a Certificate under his Hand as to the State of Health 
 of such Seaman which Certificate such seaman is to produce and show to 
 the Master of the Ship in which he may be about to serve ; and for every 
 such Certificate there shall be paid the Fee of Fifty Cents, to be paid by 
 the Master or Agent of the Ship in case such Seaman should prove to be 
 in sound Health, and by the Seaman himself or the Boarding House Keeper 
 with whom he shall be residing in case he shall prove to be affected with 
 any Contagious Disease; such Fee to be received by the Harbour Master, 
 and in case of non-payment to be sued for and recovered by him, and paid 
 into the Colonial Treasury for the Purposes of this Ordinance. 
 
 Expenses of Execution of Ordinance. 
 
 LXVI. Fines and Fees levied and collected to form a General Fund. — All 
 Fines imposed and levied for Offences against this Ordinance and all Fees 
 and paj'ments collected under the Provisions thereof shall be appropriated 
 to the formation of a General Fund for the purposes of this Ordinance. 
 
 Appointment of Officers, Bye-Laws, Regulations, &c. 
 
 LXVII. Potvcr to Governor to appoint all Officers. — The Governor shall 
 from time to time appoint all Officers employed in carrying out the 
 Provisions of this Ordinance and the Duties and Salaries of all such Officers 
 shall be regulated from time to time by the Governor in Council. 
 
 LXVIII. Power to Governor in Council to make Bye-Laws. — The Governor 
 in Council may from time to time make such Regulations and Bye-Laws as 
 may be deemed necessary for carrying into Effect the Provisions of this 
 Ordinance and tor the control of Licensed Brothels. 
 
 LXIX. Bye-Laws to take effect Seven Days after Publication in Ga:jetfe. 
 — No such Regulation or Bye-Laws shall take effect until Seven Days after 
 the Publication thereof in the Gazette and a copy of the Gazette containing 
 such Publication shall be conclusive Evidence of such Regulations or Bye- 
 Laws. 
 
 Procedure. 
 
 LXX. Place of Proceeding before Registrar General to be fixed by Governor 
 and shall not he in open Court unless by desire of party affected.— The Place 
 in which the Registrar General shall sit in discharge of his duties shall be 
 such place as may from time to time, be appointed for that purpose by the 
 Governor, and the Place in which any Proceeding under this Ordinance 
 before the Registrar General or on appeal shall take place, shall not, unless 
 the Person accused or affected by such Proceedings so desires, be deemed 
 an open Court and unless such Person otherwise- desires the Registrar 
 General, the Magistrates, or the Judge of the Court of Summary Jurisdiction 
 as the case may be, may order that no Person have access to or be or 
 remain in that Place without permission. 
 
 LXXI. Every offence against this Ordinance a Misdemeanour. — Every
 
 Person violating inc Provisions of this Ordinance or of any Rej^ulation or 
 Hyc-Laws made in pursuance tliereof shall he RU'l'yof a Misdemeanour and 
 except where otherwise provided bj' this Ordinance or by any Re<julations 
 or Hve-I.aws made as aforesaid shall be liable on Summary Conviction before 
 the kefjistrar Cieneral to a l"ine not exceedinj^ 200 dollars or to Imprison, 
 ment with or without Hard Labour for any Term not exceeding Six Months. 
 
 LXXII. Forms inSiludiilc may be used. — The forms of Certificates, Orders, 
 and other Instruments given in the Schedule to this Ordinance or Forms to the 
 like eft'ect with such variations and additions as circumstances require may 
 be used for the purposes therein indicated and according to the directions 
 therein contained and Instruments in those forms shall (as regards the Form 
 thereol) be valid and sufficient. 
 
 LXXIII. Prcsnmption in favour of authenticity of Signatures, &'C. — In any 
 Proceeding under this Ordinance every Notice, Order, Certificate, Copy of 
 Regulations, or other Instrument shall be presumed to have been duly signed 
 by the Person and in the Character by whom and in which it purports to be 
 signed until the contrary is shown. 
 
 LXXIV. Mode of Service. — Every Notice, Order or other Instrument by 
 this Ordinance required to be served on a Woman shall be served by 
 Delivery thereof to some Person for her at her usual Place of abode or by 
 Delivery thereof to her personally. 
 
 LXXV. yudge, i^c. to frame Rules for regulating Appeals. — For the 
 purpose of regulating Appeals under this Ordinance, the Judge of the Court 
 of Summary Jurisdiction and the Magistrates respectively shall frame Rules, 
 Orders and Forms, and may from time to time amend such Rules, Orders 
 or F"orms, and such Rules, Orders and Forms or amended Rules, Orders or 
 Forms certified under the hand of the said Judge or under the hands of 
 the said Magistrates as the case may be shall be submitted to the Legisla- 
 tive Council who may allow, disallow or alter the same. 
 
 LXXVI. Liniitatiun of Actions, &-c. — .'\ny Action, Plaint or Prosecution 
 against any Person for anything done in pursuance or execution or intended 
 execution of this Ordinance or of any Regulations or Bj-e-Laws made in 
 pursuance thereof shall be commenced within Three Months after the 
 thing done and not otherwise. 
 
 Notice in writing of every such Action or Plaint and of the cause thereof 
 shall be given to the intended Defendant One Month at least before the 
 Commencement of the Action or Plaint. 
 
 In any such Action or Plaint the Defendant may plead generally or set 
 up by way of Special Defence that the Act complained of was done in 
 pursuance or execution or intended execution of this Ordinance or of any 
 such Reg«lation or Bye-Law as aforesaid and give this Ordinance and 
 &\iz\\ Regulation or Bye-Law and the special matter in Evidence at any 
 trial to be had thereupon. 
 
 The Plaintiff shall not recover if Tender of sufficient amends is made 
 before Action or Plaint brought or if after Action or Plaint brought a suffi- 
 cient Sum of Money is paid into Court by or on behalf of the Defendant. 
 
 If a Verdict passes or Decree is given for the Defendant or the Plaintiff 
 becomes nonsuit or discontinues the action after Issue joined or if on 
 Demurrer or otherwise Judgment is given against the Plaintiff, the Defen- 
 dant shall recover his full Costs and shall have the like remedy for the same 
 as any Defendant has by Law for Costs in other Cases. 
 
 Though a Verdict or Decree is given for the Plaintiff he shall not have 
 costs against the Defendant unless the Judge before whom the Trial is had 
 certifies his approbation of the action or Plaint.
 
 67 
 
 SCHEDULES. 
 
 (A.) 
 
 (Gazette Notice of Appointments.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867. 
 
 His Excellency the Governor has been pleased to appoint \_ 
 to be [ ] under the above mentioned Ordinance. 
 
 By Order, 
 
 Colonial Secretary, 
 Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, [date]. 
 
 (B.) 
 
 [Notification of Hospital.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 In pursuance of the above mentioned Ordinance it is hereby notified that 
 His Excellency the Governor has provided the following Building (or part 
 of a Building) namely [^Herc describe the same generally^ as a Hospital for 
 the purposes of this Ordinance. 
 
 By Order, 
 
 Colonial Secretary. 
 Colonial Secretary's Office. Hong Kong, [date]. 
 
 (C.) 
 
 (Information.) 
 
 " THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 Hong-Kong"^ The Information of [ ] Superintendent 
 
 to wit. 3 [or Inspector] of Police taken this Day of 
 
 18 before the undersigned who says he has good 
 cause to believe that [ ] is a Common Prostitute 
 
 and (is resident within a District of "Victoria that is to say dilate address']) 
 (or " was within 14 Days before the laying of this Information within a 
 District of Victoria or within the Harbour thereof for the purpose of Pros- 
 titution.") 
 
 Taken and sworn before me the Day and Year first above mentioned. 
 
 (Signed,) , 
 
 Registrar General. 
 
 (D.) 
 
 (Notice for Attendance of Women.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 ToA.B. of 
 
 Take notice that an Information a Copy whereof is subjoined hereto has 
 been laid before me and that in accordance with the provisions of the above 
 mentioned Ordinance the Truth of the Statements liierein contained will be 
 inquired into before me at 
 
 on the Day of iS at o'clock in 
 
 the noon.
 
 G8 
 
 You me ihcicfoic to appear before tne at that Place and Time and to 
 answer to what is stated in the saiii Information. 
 
 You may appear yourself or by any person on your Behalf. 
 
 If you do not appear you may be ordered without further Notice to be 
 subject to a periodical Medical Examination by the Visiting Surgeon under 
 the said Ordinance. 
 
 If you prefer it. you may by a Submission in writing signed by you in my 
 presence and attested by me subject yourself to such a periodical Ex- 
 amination. 
 
 If vou do so before the Time above appointed for your appearance it will 
 not be necessary for you to appear before me. 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 
 
 (Signed,) — , 
 
 Registrar General. 
 [^Subjoin Copy of Iii/uriiiafioii.'] 
 
 (E.) 
 (Order subjecting Woiiieii to Exaniiiiatioii.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 Hong Kong ) Be it remembered, that on the Daj' of 
 
 to wit. ) in pursuance of the above mentioned 
 
 Ordinance, I, [ ] do order that A.B., of , 
 
 be subject to a periodical Medical Examination by the Visiting Surgeon for 
 
 Months from this Day, for the purpose of ascertaining; at the 
 
 Time of each such Examination whether she is aifected with a Contagious 
 
 Disease within the Meaning of the said Ordinance, and that she do attend 
 
 for the First Examination at on the Day of 
 
 at o'clock in the noon. 
 
 (Signed,) — , 
 
 Recristrar General. 
 
 [Voluntary Submission to Examination.) 
 " THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 I, A.B., of , in pursuance of the above mentioned 
 
 Ordinance, by this Submission, voluntarily subject myself to a periodical 
 Medical Examination by a Visiting Surgeon for Months 
 
 from the Date hereof. 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 
 
 Witness, 
 
 X.Y., 
 
 Registrar General. 
 
 (Signed,) A.B. 
 
 (G.) 
 (Notice by Visiting Surgeon to Woman of Times, &>€., of Examination.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 To^.B. of 
 
 Take Notice, that in pursuance of the above mentioned Ordinance, you 
 are required to attend for Medical Examination as follows : 
 
 \_Hcre State Times and Places of Examination.'] 
 Dated this Day of 18 
 
 (Signed,) E.F., 
 
 Visiting Surgeon.
 
 69 
 
 (H.) 
 
 (Certificate of Visiting Surgeon.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 In pursuance of the above mentioned Ordinance, I hereby certify that I 
 have this Day examined A.B. of , and that she is 
 
 affected with a Contagious Disease within the Meaning of that Ordinance ; 
 and the Hospital in which she is to be placed under the said Ordinance is 
 the 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 
 
 (Signed,) E.F., 
 
 Visiting Surgeon. 
 
 (]■) 
 
 (Order by Inspector of Hospitals for Transfer.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 By virtue of the Power in this Behalf vested in me by the above mentioned 
 Ordinance, I hereby order that A.B. of , now detained under 
 
 that Ordinance in the Hospital of for Medical Treatment, 
 
 be transferred thence to the Hospital of 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 
 
 (Signed,) M.N., 
 
 Inspector of Hospitals. 
 
 (K.) 
 
 (Certificate for Detention beyond Three Months.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 I, the undersigned, hereby certify that the further Detention for Medical 
 Treatment oi A.B. oi , now an Inmate of this Hospital, 
 
 is requisite. 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 , at the 
 
 Hospital. 
 
 (Signed,) M.N., 
 
 Visiting Surgeon. 
 
 (L) 
 
 (Discharge from Hospital.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 In pursuance of the above mentioned Ordinance, I hereby discharge A.B. 
 of , from this Hospital [^udd according to the Fact,] 
 
 and certify that she is now free from a Contagious Disease. 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 , at the 
 
 Hospital. 
 
 (Signed,) G.H., 
 
 Visiting Surgeon.
 
 70 
 
 (M.) 
 (drt'ificalc on Dischtirf^^i- from Iiiiprisoiinit'iif.) 
 
 •Tin: CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 W'licicns under the above mentioned Ordinance A.B. of 
 was on the Day of convicted of tlie OlTence of 
 
 and has since been imprisoned for that Offence in 
 
 and is now discharged from Imprisonment 
 therein: Now in pursuance of the said Ordinance I hereby certify that she 
 is now free from a Contagious Disease. 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 . 
 
 (Signed,) R.O., 
 
 Visiting Surgeon. 
 
 (N.) 
 (Notice to Woman leaving Hospital.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 To^.«. 
 
 As 3^ou are now leaving this Hospital, I hereby, in pursuance of the above 
 mentioned Ordinance, give you Notice that you are still affected with a 
 Contagious Disease. 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 
 
 (Signed,) G.H., 
 
 Visiting Surgeon. 
 
 Note. — The above mentioned Ordinance provides as follows : — 
 If on any Woman leaving a Hospital a Notice [_sct out Section of Ordinance.'] 
 
 (0.) 
 
 (Certijicate on last foregoing Notice or Copy.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 In pursuance of the within mentioned Ordinance, I hereby certify that 
 the within named woman is now free from a Contagious Disease. 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 
 
 (Signed,) E.F., 
 
 Visiting Surgeon. 
 
 (P.) 
 {Application to be relieved from Examinations.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 To L.M., Esq., Registrar General. 
 
 I, A.B. of , being in pursuance of the above mentioned 
 
 Ordinance, subject to a periodical Medical Examination on my own Submis- 
 sion [_or under your Order, as tlie case may be'], dated the 
 Day of , do hereby apply to be relieved therefrom. 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 
 
 (Signed,) A.B. 
 
 Witness, G.W
 
 71 
 
 (Q-) 
 
 {Notification in Gazette that a House is declared an Unlicensed Brothel.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1S67." 
 
 It is hereby notified that the House [or part of a House] hereinafter 
 mentioned that is to say [describe the same] was on the 
 Day of 18 , pursuant to Section XXIII. of the above 
 
 Ordinance, declared by me under my Hand and Seal of Office to be an 
 Unhcensed Brothel. 
 
 Res^istrar General. 
 
 (K.) 
 
 [Certificate of Hospital Charges.) 
 
 "THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ORDINANCE, 1867." 
 
 In pursuance of the above mentioned Ordinance, I do hereby certify that 
 of Licensed Brothel No. has been an Inmate of Certified 
 Hospital of [ ] from the Day of 
 
 to the Day of , and that the charges 
 
 hereto marked A. are in accordance with the scale of charges fixed by me 
 with the approval of His Excellency the Governor pursuant to Section XLI. 
 of the above mentioned Ordinance. 
 
 Dated this Day of 18 
 
 Inspector of Hospitals.
 
 72 
 
 APPENDIX (E). 
 
 MTi. KESWICK'S DISSENT FROM THE KEPORT OF THE 
 HONG KONG COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 Sir Michael Hicks Beach wrote to Governor Hennessey (on 
 July 9, 1879), requesting an explanation upon this point. At 
 the end of the Report it is stated that 
 
 " As Mr. Keswick was about to leave for England," (before the 
 examination of witnesses was concladed) " the evidence already taken 
 was fully discussed, and resolutions were drafted by the Chairman upon 
 the conclusions arrived at. These resolutions were discussed xeriatim, and, 
 after being modiiied in certain points, it was agreed tliat they should form 
 as far as possible, the basis of the report ; the examination of witnesses to 
 be continued by the Chairman and Dr. Eitel i-especting points not suffi- 
 ciently cleared up." Sir M. H. Beach adds : . . . " The inference 
 naturally to be drawn from the above is that Mr. Keswick was sub- 
 stantially at one with his fellow Commissioners as to the report. In the 
 spare copies, however, which reached this office on the 5th and 27th of 
 May, I find a note by Mr. Keswick, dated 27th March, ten days subse- 
 quent to the date of your despatch under acknowledgment, expressing 
 his dissent from several ofthe conclusions arrived at by his colleagues." 
 
 Governor Henessey replied to the above in a letter addressed to 
 Sir M. H. Beach's successor, Lord Kimberley, on June 21, 1880, 
 saying : — 
 
 "... Unfortunately Mr. Keswick was absent from Hong Kong when the 
 majority of the witnesses, including the medical officers of the colony and 
 the head of the police were examined, and when the records of the 
 department that had administered the brothel laws were under considera- 
 tion. He was in England for some time, and on his return to Hong Kong 
 he was unable to deal with the subject as he was summoned to Japan. 
 . . . It will be seen from Dr. Eitel's report that Mr. Keswick's brother 
 Commissioners are of opinion that Mr. Keswick's note is not consistent 
 with the resolutions to which it is alleged he agreed before his departure 
 for England. . . . For this and other reasons 1 did not think it neces- 
 sary to notice his opinion that ' the very serious abases which were proved ' 
 were inevitable." 
 
 _ The Report by Dr. Eitel, to which Governor Hennessey 
 alludes, is as follows : — 
 
 "I have the honour to submit a brief statement of facts which will in 
 itself afford a sufficient explanation of the discrepancy observed between 
 the note appended to the Contagions Diseases Report by Mr. Keswick and 
 the statements made in the Appendix to the Report (732). 
 
 " On the 8th January, 1878, a paper containing a series of draft resolu- 
 tions intended to form the basis of our Report, was seriatim discussed by 
 the three Commissioners, Mr. Keswick, Mr. Hayllar and myself. Many of 
 these draft resolutions had, in consequence of previous discussion (5th 
 •January, 1879 *) been specially altered to meet the respective ^iews of 
 
 * Obviously an error in date. This should be, we apprehend, 5th January, 1878
 
 73 
 
 the indiviclual members of the Commission, and some had, accordingly, 
 been specially altered to meet Mr. Keswick's personal views. The resolu- 
 tions thus revised icere then signed hy all the members of the Commission, 
 Mr. Keswick adding to his signature words to the effect that the resolu- 
 tions fairly embody his views on the subject. 
 
 " The Eeport was accordingly drawn up by Mr. Hayllar and myself in 
 strict accordance ivith the spirit and letter of the resolutions agreed upon, and 
 was in type on 1st December, 1878, when a few copies of the Report and 
 Appendix were struck off preparatory to final typographical revision by the 
 Commissioners. Mr. Keswick had returned to Hong Kong, and Mr. Hayllar, 
 with myself, believed and assured his Excellency the Governor that the 
 Report as it stood, barring trifling corrections of typographical errors, 
 would be formally signed by the three members of the Commission with- 
 out any dissentient note." . . . "A copy of the complete first edition of 
 the Report and Appendix was sent to Mr. Keswick early in December, 
 1878, and Mr. Hayllar also sent him the paper containing the Resolutions 
 agreed to on 8th January, 1878 ; but on 25th December, 1878, a conflagi-ation 
 broke out in Hong Kong which destroyed the type, and as this necessitated 
 setting the Report up afresh from the copies previously struck off, a delay of 
 several months occurred. 
 
 " By March 1st, 1879, the second edition of the Report, identically the 
 same as the first, was finished. ... I called on Mr. Keswick on March 
 26th, 1879, but was surprised to find that he declined signing the Report. 
 
 " On my reminding him that he had in January, 1878, agreed to the 
 Resolutions then drawn up, and that the report tallied exactly with those 
 resolutions, he replied that hk had since then had conversations with 
 NAVAL and iiiLiTAiiY DOCTORS and others, and changed his mind, liemem- 
 bering then that in the case of the Royal Commission Report, a minority of 
 members of the Commission recorded their divergent views in a memorandum 
 appended to the Report, I suggested to Mr. Keswick to do the same. He 
 accordingly sent me next day the paper headed ' Note by Mr. Keswick,' 
 and signed by himself. This is the note which apiaears appended to our 
 Report, and to which I added, on the printed proof, the date ' 27th March, 
 1879.' 
 
 " The Report and Appendix, identically the same as the first edition of 
 December, 1878 (with the exception of the divergent note of Mr. Keswick, 
 now added), was accordingly republished on 27th March, 1879. 
 
 " In December, 1879, when my attention was drawn to the fact that 
 Mr. Keswick's divergence of views, and the existence of a double edition 
 of the Report (December, 1878, and March, 1879), had been noticed else- 
 where, I communicated with Mr. Hayllar, asking him to let mo have the 
 paper containing the resolutions of 8th January, 1878. 
 
 " Mr. Hayllar then told me that the paper had been sent by him to 
 Mr. Keswick, in December, 1878, and had not been returned iohhn, and ho 
 added that if he had been in the colony whdu Mr. Keswck appended liis 
 note to our report, he woidd have protested against it as acontravention of 
 our agreement of 8th January, 1878. The paper has not been found, xince. 
 
 (Signed) " E. T. Erricn."
 
 74 
 
 APPENDIX. (F). 
 
 " BROTHEL SLAVERY." 
 
 Lord Kimberley attempts to found upon an extract from 
 Governor Hennessey's despatch of June 15, 1881, a statement, in 
 the form of a quotation, that the women in Chinese houses are " in 
 great dread of their keepers, and have no courage to seek their 
 freedom," the theory that Imithrl sidi-cnj exists only in the brothels 
 frequented by the Chinese. The attempt is entirely disengenuous, 
 as the reader will be enabled to infer if he will refer to the despatch 
 itself, given in the text. The Governor was writing to prove 
 that brothel slavery was " intensified " by Ordinance 12 of 1857, 
 and that Ordinance 10 of 1867 " by giving larger powers to the 
 Registrar-General, and thereby, indirectly, to the inspectors with 
 whom the practical working of the Ordinance lies, made the con- 
 dition of the unfortunate women sold into slavery irurse than 
 before." Reference to the despatch will show that the " extra- 
 ordinary dread '" entertained by the women conveyed into the 
 Colony is, a dread oi all /(ireii/ner.s ; and that they fear their keepers 
 because those keepers " look upon the inspectors " — the foreigners 
 — " as their proctectors ; " that the " licensing of the brothels gives 
 the keepers a sort of (iffivial authority " (derived from the dreaded 
 foreigners) because the keepers " boast of the protection of the 
 inspectors" and that the "natural consequence" of this interference 
 of the foreigners and of the threat of the horrible examination 
 enforced by the foreigners is, that the women " have no courage 
 to seek their freedom." 
 
 Equally disengenuous is Lord Kimberley's use of Mr. Cecil C. 
 Smith's assertion that "these instances of virtual slavery exist 
 only in the brothels for Chinese." Mr. C. C. Smith is speaking of 
 the species of slavery which Mr. Labouchere desired to mitigate, 
 the " buying and selling of women for purposes of prostitution," 
 not of the still more grievous moral slavery produced by intensi- 
 fying that evil through the official protection afforded to their 
 purchasers, by the Contagious Diseases Ordinances. 
 
 Mr, Smith says : (Doc. 75 referring to the working of Ordinance 
 12 of 1807. Appendix to report, Hong Kong Commissioners, 
 page 254). 
 
 " Yet while these cases and others havinj^ the wilful commission of an 
 offence for a foundation, give rise to the assertion that a system of virtual 
 slavery exists in the brothels in Hong Kong, they are, in my opinion happily 
 very exceptional, compared with what I understand was brought to light 
 in former years. Buying and selling still takes place, but of the two (or it
 
 T5 
 
 may be three parties to the transaction), each is a willing participator as a 
 rule, or if she who is most concerned proves unwilling, she either does not 
 care or dare to give the necessary evidence for the law to take effect." 
 
 From this " buying and selling " the women have been set free 
 by law, and the evidence before the Commission shows that the 
 women who do avail themselves of their right to leave the brothels 
 at their pleasure are precisely the women in the brothels for 
 Chinese. 
 
 Inspector Whitehead told the Commissioners (answer 345) 
 " women rarely go from foreign to Chinese brothels " and (346) "in 
 the Chinese brothels there is much fluctuation. Every morning 
 there are ' from 20 to 30 changes, sometimes 50 including changes 
 in servants.' " And Mr. C. C. Smith who told the Commissioners 
 (answer 6) that " many of the women contract a debt with the 
 brothel-keepers and then work it oiF," adds : (answer 12) " all the 
 inmdtcH ill the hrothch Inioio thnt theij (ire free, but the national 
 custom is very strong against their leaving them " (the brothels) 
 " in debt." And (answer 10) " the inmates consider their debts to 
 the brothel-keepers to be debts of honour, at least they honestly 
 attempt to pay them off by their earnings." 
 
 It is precisely this fact that the inmates of the brothels know 
 that they are legally free, that explains Governor Hennessey's asser- 
 tion that the Brothel Ordinances have renderal their mnditioit ivorsc. 
 Those who are dissatisfied are prevented from leaving by the threat 
 of being conveyed by the Inspectors to examination by the dreaded 
 foreign doctors, and if, rightly or wronglj', pronounced diseased, to 
 imprisonment in the Lock hospital. This is the system of terror, 
 by which, although Lord Kimberley chooses to ignore it — the con- 
 dition of the unhappy women is intensified into a real slavery of a 
 most hideous kind. 
 
 In all other respects every witness, from Mr. Cecil C. Smith 
 downwards, gives evidence to show that the women are far better 
 off in Chinese brothels than in the brothels registered for 
 foreigners. 
 
 Mr. Smith writes to the Under-Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies, January 18, 18G9 (Appendix Report, p. 253) : — 
 
 " There can be no doubt that the inmates of tho brothols licensed for 
 Europeans are of the lowest class to be found in the Colony, who liavo in 
 most instances found in such a trade the only hope of gaining a livelihood. 
 Their ranks are with difficulty recruited," &c. 
 
 And of the brothels for Chinese he says : — 
 
 " The inmates of a large number of these are of a far better class than can 
 be found in the other houses. In some cases indeed they are not there 
 primarily for the purposes of prostitution, but simply that tlioy may assist 
 in making tlie nuinenMis entertainments given in tho l)ri)tlielH attractive 
 through their musical acconiplisliments. These women are /lot unfro- 
 qnently bought or redeemed out of tlio brothel by rich merchants wlio 
 ultimately take them home as a second and third wif(\ This buying 
 however is, I believe, no more than following out tho priiicii>Io wliicli obtains 
 in China of the future husband paying money to his fatiier or mother-in-
 
 76 
 
 liiw ns a dowry wluMi ho takos liis hrido to liis own liouse. It is, nover- 
 thcless, ainoii^j sm-h womoii that it woiihl bo iin|)rat'ticable to introduce a 
 system of medical inspection. Tiiey woidd consider that the iulcrl'erence 
 of tlie foreiiT'ier in such a nuittcr would cause them to lose caste, atid they 
 wouhl declin(> to remain in lionaes subject to fiuc}i supervision. And in this 
 they would bo followed by the less respectable (if 1 may use the term 
 •when speakinj; of these persons) of their number, who, however dej^raded 
 they maybe, still preserve all the prejudices and superstitious feelings of 
 their class. They look upon the Lock Hospital as worse than a prison ..." 
 
 Inspector Lee also told the Commissioners (Ans. 45G and 
 457) :— 
 
 " In the brothels for Chinese the women are of a higher class than in 
 those for Europeans ; (4o7) second-class prostitutes for Chinese are equal to 
 the first-class for Europeans. I arrive at this conclusion from inspection." 
 
 APPENDIX (G). 
 
 Mr, Alfred Lister, Registrar General, told the Commissioners, 
 Ans. 114, " On the whole I preferred that an informer if he went 
 to a brothel at all, should be able to state that he had had con- 
 nexion with a woman, as I thought it very unjust that a woman 
 should be condemned simply because she had a dollar in her pos- 
 session."
 
 73 
 
 the individual members of tlie Commission, and some had, accordingly, 
 been specially altered to meet Mr. Keswick's personal views. The resolu- 
 tions thus revised icere then signed hy all the members of the Cornmission, 
 Mr. Keswick adding to his signature words to the effect that the resolu- 
 tions fairly embody his views on the subject. 
 
 " The Report was accordingly drawn up by Mr. Hayllar and myself in 
 strict accordance ivith the spirit and letter of the resolutions agreed iipon, and 
 was in type on 1st December, 1878, when a few copies of the lleport and 
 Appendix were struck off preparatoiy to final typographical revision by the 
 Commissioners. Mr. Keswick had returned to Hong Kong, and Mr. Hayllar, 
 with myself, believed and assured his Excellency the Governor that the 
 Report as it stood, barring trifling corrections of typographical errors, 
 would be formally signed by the three members of the Commission with- 
 out any dissentient note." . . . "A copy of the complete first edition of 
 the Report and Appendix was sent to Mr. Keswick early in December, 
 1878, and Mr. Hayllar also sent him the paper containing the Resolutions 
 agi-eed to on 8th January, 1878 ; but on 25th December, 1878, a conflagration 
 broke out in Hong Kong which destroyed the type, and as this necessitated 
 setting the Report up afresh from the copies previously struck off, a delay of 
 several months occurred. 
 
 " Bj' Max'ch 1st, 1879, the second edition of the Report, identically the 
 same as the first, was finished. ... I called on Mr. Keswick on March 
 26th, 1879, but was surprised to find that he declined signing the Report. 
 
 " On my reminding him that he had in January, 1878, agreed to the 
 Resolutions then drawn up, and that the report tallied exactly with those 
 resolutions, he replied that he had since then had conversations with 
 NAVAL AND MILITARY DOCTORS and others, and CHANGED HIS MIND. Remem- 
 bering then that in the case of the Roj'al Commission Report, a minority of 
 members of the Commission recorded their divergent views in a meniorandnm 
 appended to the Report, I suggested to Mr. Keswick to do the same. He 
 accordingly sent me next day the paper headed ' Note by Mr. Keswick,' 
 and signed by himself. This is the note which appears appended to our 
 Report, and to which I added, on the printed proof, the date ' 27th March, 
 1879.' 
 
 " The Report and Appendix, identically the same as the first edition of 
 December, 1878 (with the exception of the divergent note of Mr. Keswick, 
 now added), was accordingly republished on 27th March, 1879. 
 
 "In December, 1879, wlien my attention was drawn to the fact that 
 Mr. Keswick's divergence of views, and the existence of a double edition 
 of the Report (December, 1878, and March, 1879), had been noticed else- 
 where, I communicated with Mr. Hayllar, asking him to let mo have the 
 paper containing the resolutions of 8th Januai'y, 1878. 
 
 "Mr. PJayllar tlien told me tliat the paper had been sent by him to 
 Mr. Keswick, in December, 1878, and laid not heen returned ^)hini, and lie 
 added that if he liad been in the colony when Mr. Keswck appended his 
 note to our report, lie wcnild have protested against it as acontravhntion of 
 our agreement of 8th January, 1878. T/ie paper has not been found since. 
 
 (Signed) " E. T. Eitel."
 
 74 
 
 APPENDIX. (F). 
 
 ♦'BROTHEL SLAVERY." 
 
 Lord Kimberley attempts to found upon an extract from 
 Governor Hennessey's despatch of June 15, 1881, a statement, in 
 the form of a quotation, that the women in Chinese houses are " in 
 great dread of their keepers, and have no courage to seek their 
 freedom," the theory that hyuthd shivcnj exists only in the brothels 
 frequented by the Chinese. The attempt is entirely disengenuous, 
 as the reader will be enabled to infer if he will refer to the despatch 
 itself, given in the text. Tbe Governor was writing to prove 
 that brotbel slavery was '' uitensijied" by Ordinance 12 of 1857, 
 and that Ordinance 10 of 1867 " by giving larger powers to the 
 Registrar-General, and thereby, indirectly, to the inspectors with 
 whom the practical working of the Ordinance lies, made the con- 
 dition of the unfortunate women sold into slavery irarse than 
 before." Reference to the despatch will show that the " extra- 
 ordinary dread " entertained by the women conveyed into the 
 Colony is, a dread of all fnrei;/nirs ; and that they fear their keepers 
 because those keepers " look upon the inspectors " — the foreigners 
 — " as their proctectors ; " that the " licensing of the brothels gives 
 the keepers a sort of officidl authority " (derived from the dreaded 
 foreigners) because the keepers " boast of the protection of the 
 inspectors" and that the "natural consequence" of this interference 
 of the foreigners and of the threat of the horrible examination 
 enforced by the foreigners is, that the women " have no courage 
 to seek their freedom." 
 
 Equally disengenuous is Lord Kimberley's use of Mr. Cecil C. 
 Smith's assertion that "these instances of virtual slavery exist 
 only in the brothels for Chinese." Mr. C. C. Smith is speaking of 
 the species of slavery which Mr. Labouchere desired to mitigate, 
 the " btiying and selling of women for purposes of prostitution," 
 not of the still more grievous moral slavery produced by intensi- 
 fying that evil through the official protection afforded to their 
 purchasers, by the Contagious Diseases Ordinances. 
 
 Mr. Smith says : (Doc. 75 referring to the working of Ordinance 
 12 of 1867. Appendix to report, Hong Kong Commissioners, 
 page 254). 
 
 " Yet while these cases and others having the wilful commission of an 
 offence for a foundation, give rise to the assertion that a system of virtual 
 slavery exists in the brothels in Hong Kong, they are, in my opinion happily 
 very exceptional, compared with what I understand was brought to light 
 in former years. Buying and selling still takes place, but of the two (or it
 
 75 
 
 may be thi-ee parties to the transaction) , each is a willing participator as a 
 rule, or if she who is most concerned proves- unwilling, she either does not 
 care or dare to give the necessary evidence for the law to take effect." 
 
 From this " buying and selling " the women have been set free 
 by law, and the evidence before the Commission shows that the 
 women who do avail themselves of their right to leave the brothels 
 at their pleasure are precisely the women in the brothels for 
 Chinese. 
 
 Inspector "Whitehead told the Commissioners (answer 345) 
 " women rarely go from foreign to Chinese brothels " and (346) " in 
 the Chinese brothels there is much fluctuation. Every morning 
 there are ' from 20 to 30 changes, sometimes 50 including changes 
 in servants.' " And Mr. C. C. Smith who told the Commissioners 
 (answer 6) that " many of the women contract a debt with the 
 brothel-keepers and then work it ofi"," adds : (answer 12) " (dl the 
 inmates in the brothels know thrit they are free, but the national 
 custom is very strong against their leaving them " (the brothels) 
 " in debt." And (answer 10) " the inmates consider their debts to 
 the brothel-keepers to be debts of honour, at least they honestly 
 attempt to pay them off by their earnings." 
 
 It is precisely this fact that the inmates of the brothels know 
 that they are legally free, that explains Governor Hennessey's asser- 
 tion that the Brothel Ordinances have rendered their eondition tvorse. 
 Those who are dissatisfied are prevented from leaving by the threat 
 of being conveyed by the Inspectors to examination by the dreaded 
 foreign doctors, and if, rightly or wrongly, pronounced diseased, to 
 imprisonment in the Lock hospital. This is the system of teiTor, 
 by which, although Lord Kimberley chooses to ignore it — the con- 
 dition of the unhappy women is intensified into a real slavery of a 
 most hideous kind. 
 
 In all other respects every witness, from Mr. Cecil C. Smith 
 downwards, gives evidence to show that the women are far better 
 off in Chinese brothels than in the brothels registered for 
 foreigners. 
 
 Mr. Smith writes to the Under-Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies, January 18, 18G9 (Appendix Report, p. 253) : — 
 
 "There can bono doubt that tlie inmntes of the brothels licensed for 
 Europeans are of tlio lowest class to be found in the Colony, who have in 
 most instances found in such a trade the only hope of gaining a livelihood. 
 Their I'aiiks are with dilFiculty recruited," &c. 
 
 And of the brothels for Chinese he says : — 
 
 " The inmates of a large number of those are of a far bettor class than can 
 be found in the other lionses. In some cases indeed they are not there 
 primarily for the purposes of prostitution, but simply that tlicy may assist 
 in making the numerous entertainments given in the brothels attractive 
 through their musical accoiiiplishmontH. These women aro not unfre- 
 quently bought or redeemed out of tlio brothel by rich merchants wlio 
 ultimately take them home as a second and third wife. This buying 
 however is, I believe, no more than followiiig out tho iirinciplo wliicli obtains 
 in China of the future husbaud paying money to his fatiier or niothcM- in.
 
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