Re: M.I,5`Pers ecution ` w ho kno ws ab out it?

before the Protectorate. It is also declared that
notice is posted up in every brothel in a conspicuous place, that no
girl can be detained against her will. We visited a place on Fraser
Street the night of February 2nd; quoting from our journal:

"There was a middle-aged woman in charge, with a baby beside her
on the couch where she was sitting. There were six girls present,
the oldest barely sixteen years old in appearance, and one between
fourteen and fifteen--a thin, immature little creature. We asked
about this young girl, and one of our interpreters overheard the
keeper instruct her to say she had been in the house two years.
Then we asked the girl her name, and the keeper told her to tell
us a different name from the one she first gave us. We saw hanging
on the wall, a black bag, which we were allowed to take down and
examine. It contained a board eight by ten inches square, on which
was pasted a paper bearing a list of the inmates. The list was
headed by the keeper's name, Moo Lee, in writing. Then was printed
across the top in Chinese characters a statement that inmates
could not be confined against their will. (The question was
whether, in our absence, the girls would be allowed to take this
bag down, open it, and read the sentence of liberty inside.) We
showed this to the girls, and asked them if they could read the
Chinese written thereon, and they all, even to the brothel-keeper,
said they could not. We then asked them what was the _meaning_ of
the words, and none of them could tell. One girl said, 'We cannot
read them, but the great man at the Protectorate can read them.'
We asked them if they had tickets, and they showed us little
square pieces of paper exactly similar to one which we hold in
our