Re: Confidence

the papers were laid, did not seem
disposed to enforce the rights of the father, on the ground that
he had sold the child. I did not agree with Mr. Phillipo's view of
the law."




CHAPTER 8.

JUSTICE FROM THE SUPREME BENCH.


On October 6th, 1879, Sir John Smale, the Hon. Chief Justice for Hong
Kong, passed judgment in three cases on prisoners convicted of various
degrees of crime connected with the enticing, detaining, buying and
selling of children. Governor Hennessy, in reporting the remarks made
by the Chief Justice on that occasion to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies, pronounced it "an able and elaborate judgment on the
existence of slavery at Hong Kong."

Said Sir John Smale:

"Various causes have occasioned delay in passing sentence, of
which I will only refer to one: The gravity of the fact that these
and other cases have recently brought so prominently to the notice
of the Court that two specific classes of slavery exist in this
Colony to a very great extent, viz., so-called domestic slavery,
and slavery for the purposes of prostitution. The three cases now
awaiting the sentence of the Court are specially provided for by
Ordinances of 1865 and 1872, prohibiting kidnaping and illegally
detaining men, women, and children; and no difficulty ever arose
in my mind as to the crimes of which these prisoners are severally
convicted, or as to the sentences due to such crimes; and there is
no question as to crimes or punishment of cases where women are
smuggled into brothels, some licensed and others unlicensed, or
otherwise dedicated to immoral purposes. But the enormous extent
to which slavery in this Colony has grown up has called into