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Posted by Cheryl on January 23, 2008, 9:15 pm
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to have been almost entirely disregarded." To this
Governor Hennessy replied: "On the general question of the Government
system of licensing brothels, your Lordship seems to think that I have
not sufficiently recognized that the establishment of the system was
a police measure, intended to give the Hong Kong Government some hold
upon the brothels, in hope of improving the condition of the inmates,
and of checking the odious species of slavery to which they are
subjected. I can, however, assure your Lordship, whatever good
intentions may have been entertained and expressed by Her Majesty's
Government when the licensing system was established, that it has been
worked for a different purpose." ... "The real purpose of the brothel
legislation here has been, in the odious words so often used, the
provision of clean Chinese women for the use of the British soldiers
and sailors of the Royal Navy in this Colony."
The real object of the Ordinance, commended by the Secretary of State
as answering to "an urgent claim" on the part of slaves "upon the
active protection of the Government," the operation of which was
placed in the hands of the so-called Protector of Chinese, was plainly
described in the preamble of the Ordinance as making "provisions for
checking the spread of venereal diseases within this Colony." No other
object was stated.
The intention of the Government was that the Ordinance should be
worked by the aid of the w
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