boys and girls in China proper, is permitted as exceptions to the penalties inflicted by Chinese law in China proper, these conditions do not exist in Hong Kong; and that the conditions necessary to these exceptions in their favor in the Chinese Criminal Code do not exist in Hong Kong, and that the penalties would apply, if in China, to all such transactions as I have denounced in Hong Kong, of that I have no doubt. Dr. Eitel's vindication is of a system as recognized in an express exception to the Penal Code in China proper, which may, for aught I know, work well in China. What I have said is that the practices in Hong Kong do not come within the cases which are only the exception to the penal enactments in the Chinese Code against all such bondage in China. I have never said ... that all buying and selling of children for adoption or domestic service is contrary to Chinese law. What I have said is that all such buying and selling of children as has come within my cognizance in Hong Kong is contrary to Chinese law; but I do think that buying and selling even for adoption and domestic servitude under the best circumstances, constitutes slavery; legal according to Chinese law, but illegal according to British law. Reference is made to Chinese gentlemen; I believe that not one of them has his 'house' in Hong Kong; the wife (small-footed) is kept at the family home in China. Each of them has his harem only in Hong Kong. There may be an exception to this rule, but I have never heard of any such exception. (I know of only one, of a Chinese gentleman, who, for certain reasons, was afraid to return to China.) ... I have not known a single case of adoption by a Chinaman in Hong Kong. They may exist in China proper, and possibly in Hong Kong ... They are not in China proper a sacred religious obligation, except in
- posted
16 years ago