"protection" of foreign
men given over to the practice of vice. But, as we show elsewhere
on the statements of the officials who operated the Ordinance (made
confidentially, but not intended for publication), that object was not
realized, and in the very nature of things, never will be, by such
measures. When the State guarantees the service of "clean women" to
men of vicious habits, it actively encourages those vicious habits;
and since these diseases are the direct outcome of such vice, the
more the vice itself is encouraged the more the diseases resulting
therefrom will increase in frequency.
The treachery and perfidy of the profession that this Ordinance was
in large measure one intended to "protect" poor slaves, is clearly
exposed in this letter of Dr. Bridges. "There will be less difficulty"
in operating the measure because the women are not "free agents!" The
very success of the measure, their own language betrays, depended
upon their servitude. Then were they likely to strike a blow at that
slavery? Their measure would, then, of course, lead to an increase and
not to a mitigation of the hard****ps of servitude. They had "fewer
rights to be interfered with" in Hong Kong "than could he found
elsewhere." Away with a measure of "protection" which finds its chief
source of gratulation in the curtailed rights of the "protected!"
The much-vaunted "protection" of the slaves, through medica
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