almost total identity of the whole
system of prostitution, which since times immemorial is an
established institution all over the large empire of China. The
other point to be kept in mind is the radical difference
which distinguishes the personal character, the life and the
surroundings of Chinese prostitutes from all that is
characteristic of the prostitutes of Europe." ... "At the present
day the Chinese prostitutes of Hong Kong have but very little to
distinguish them, either in the past, present, or future of their
personal lives, or in their position and surroundings, from
the prostitutes of the 18 provinces of China.... Those of the
prostitutes of Hong Kong who are inmates of brothels licensed for
foreigners only, or who live in sly brothels for foreigners,
have adopted a different style of dress, but are otherwise in no
essential point differently situated from prostitutes in China,
except that the inmates of brothels licensed for foreigners are
subject to compulsory medical examination, and consequently far
more despised by their countrymen and even other prostitutes."
"Prostitutes in Europe are, as a general rule, fallen women,
the victims of seduction, or possibly of innate vice. Being the
outcasts of society, and having little, if any, prospect of being
again admitted into decent and respectable circles of life,
deprived also of their own self-respect as well as the regards
of their relatives, occasionally even troubled with qualms of
conscience, they mostly dread thinking of their future, and seek
oblivion in excesses of boisterous dissipation. The Chinese
prostitutes of Hong Kong are an entirely different set of
people.... Very few of them can be called fallen women; scarcely
a