Page:Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil - Elizabeth Blackwell (1883).djvu/89

Rh sense of justice as from a superior race, to these poor heathen women. No suggestion of a law to prevent young girls being sold into brothel slavery. No warning that fines must not be imposed upon women whose only way of paying them is to prostitute themselves or sell their children.

Lord Kimberley, in his final instructions for the guidance of the Government of Hong-Kong, sanctions the following principles:

1. The legalization of houses of ill-fame in consideration of fees paid to the Government, naively remarking: "If the word license is thought objectionable, it can be called a certificate of registration" (p. 59). 2. The systematic medical examination of women. 3. A great extension of the Act to poor women, boatwomen, and washerwomen, to be considered as prostitutes (p. 56). In order to force this corrupt system upon a weak, ignorant race, unable to protect themselves against the crushing domination of a stronger race, the employment of paid informers going about in plain clothes is justified; and marked money may be paid to a woman for prostituting herself, in order that it may be used in evidence against her (p. 57).

The words of Lord Kimberley, a statesman and Cabinet Minister of a Liberal Government, are as follows: "The detection of unlicensed houses was a duty cast upon the Registrar-General and the officers