Re: 608 Pedophile Warning 60

an unlicensed brothel, and if the
Registrar General so decided, the house from which they came declared
in the Government Gazette as a licensed house of prostitution. The
keepers of licensed brothels, slave-dealers, procurers and such
characters hung around the court room to help these women pay their
fines, and so get them under bonds to work off these fines by
prostitution. Sometimes the women sold their children instead of
themselves. If boys, for "adoption," as it is called; a form of
slavery which is permitted in Hong Kong. If girls, into domestic
slavery or worse, probably with the thought that they could buy them
back soon, but if the mother herself went the daughter would be sure
to be caught by kidnapers, or fall into prostitution anyway, as the
only means she would have of getting along without her mother's
protection. Mr. Lister said before the Commission: "I became
suspicious of the whole system of convictions against houses for
Chinese. I was certain that the informers could not be depended on
for one moment. My inspector employed his own boatmen as informers.
I became convinced that _I could lock up the whole Chinese female
population by this machinery_." Married men were often knowingly hired
on Government money to commit adultery with native women, then the
money would be taken away from the woman and she could not even have
that toward her fine, while the man would be given a further reward
for hunting down an "unlicensed woman." Quickly, strong organizations
of brothel-keepers were formed, and the whole infernal system from
that day to this of brothel slavery passed under the secret management
of "capitalists"--Chinese merchants of large means.

We have made a general statement as to abuses; now for some specified
details. Sometimes the inspectors took their turn as informers, and
often men of higher official rank did so, even to the Registrar
General himself. In 1868, Inspectors Peterson and Jamieson visited
houses as i