ORIENTALS SELL MANY GIRLS AS SLAVES
County Authorities in Fight to Place Damsel in Bondage.
Rather Than Return to Life of Shame She Will Die in Jail.
Judge Hanford and Governor McBride Opposed by Prosecuting Attorney.
Chinese slave-owners, aided by the California police authorities and the prosecuting attorney's office of King County, are making a hard fight, despite the opposition of Gov. McBride and Federal Judge Hanford, to take back to the slavery from which she escaped Gung Sen, the pretty young Oriental wife of Fick Mun, a prosperous Chinaman of Walla Walla. Yesterday afternoon the highbinders and their agents, who are using the processes of the criminal courts to return the Oriental woman to the clutches of the man who bought her six years ago for $1,000 and put her to a life of shame, were given a severe repulse by Judge Hanford when he ordered Sheriff Cudihee to release the girl on a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, after he had treated the prosecuting attorney's office to a severe condemnation for the course taken by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Gleason and James Callaghan, the deputy sheriff connected with the prosecuting attorney's office, for the air they gave the highbinders.
Slavery Known to Exist.
That Asiatic slavery exists in Seattle and in all Coast cities is a well-known fact to immigration officials, but the public never learns of it, except in such cases as that of Gung Sen. Ordinarily, the officer of the law are found fighting the slave-owners and engaged in aiding the girl to escape from the men who own her as a chattel and force her to sell her body and soul to bring them money upon which they can live in luxury; but in this instance the authorities are found aiding the California highbinders to regain control of the girl who ran away from them and settled down to the respectable life that she desired.
Twenty-five years ago Guns Sen was a tiny, cunning Chinese baby, crawling around the sidewalks of San Francisco's Chinatown. Even then she was noted among her people for her beauty. She grew up, and her babyhood beauty grew with her. Six years ago she was sold to Fong Wing, a San Francisco highbinder. After the Chinaman had taken his purchase from the market where he bought her, he placed her in a house of ill-fame, filled with slave girls, who were working for the men who owned them. Most of her sisters had allowed themselves to become callous to all moral feeling and to be contented with their lives. Not so with Gung Sen. Day and night she watched and planned a way of escape. At last it came. She fled to the Presbyterian Missionary School, presided over by Miss Donaldine Cameron.
There she stayed for some months, and when she thought it was safe she returned to her own people, only to be given back to the slave-owner, who again placed her in a disreputable house under a closer surveillance than before. But her desire to escape from the life of shame only made her more ingenious, and finally she escaped to Walla Walla, four years ago.
Marries in Walla Walla.
For once the slave owner was off her trail. His human bloodhounds took up the pursuit and tracked day and night the Chinatowns of Seattle and Portland, but failed to locate the girl. During this time she was living in Walla Walla as a domestic. Last March she married Mun, a wealthy Chinaman of that place. The girl had never been in China, so the husband planned that she should visit her native country for a few months. She came to Seattle July 15 to take a steamer for China, but the human bloodhounds whom she had thrown off her trail locate her here.
Then the slave muster in California decided to use the laws of this country as an instrument to get his girl back. He swore to a warrant charging her with embezzling $1,000 from him last fall in San Francisco. The girls was arrested as a fugitive from justice and Detective T. J. Coleman of San Francisco was sent after the girl. Thursday the governor refused to extradite Gung Sen on the ground that the affidavits of prominent people of Walla Walla and Seattle among them Thomas Dovell of Seattle proved conclusively that the girl had not been out of Walla Walla for four years.
Ordinarily this would have ended the matter. But the slave owners were so powerful and had such influence that they enrolled the officials of King County in the plan to send the girl back to the living hell from which she had escaped. She was brought back to Seattle and put in jail here without any legal warrant whatsoever.
But Gung Sen's husband had money, and he was not willing to see her go back to San Francisco.
Yesterday afternoon Judge Hanford was applied to for a writ of habeas corpus. Prosecuting Attorney Scott appeared in behalf of the California detective and asked that the girl be held until a warrant could be obtained from California. No return was made to the petition asking for the girl's release. Judge Hanford continued the matter until yesterday morning. When the appointed time came Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Gleason appeared to ask that it be continued until afternoon, as Prosecuting Attorney Scott had been called out of town and he had not time to look up the matter.
Treats Court Disrespectfully.
The court continued the matter and during the few hours' interval Deputy Sheriff Callaghan swore to a warrant charging the girl with being a fugitive from justice on the ground that telegrams received by the California detective showed a new warrant sworn out yesterday. When Judge Hanford heard of this novel movement of the prosecuting attorney's office he did not mince words in telling what he thought of the officials who were aiding slave owners by swearing to the warrant charging the girl with being a fugitive when they knew nothing about the case.
The statement that a Chinaman named Gun Lung was on his way from California to swear that he saw the girl entrusted with the money for her master had little weight with the court, who is acquainted with Chinese perjury. Speaking of the contemptuous way in which the court had been treated by the prosecuting attorney's office. Judge Hanford remarked that the girl for the twenty-four hours past had been in the custody of the federal court. The only previous authority for holding her was invalid. Since the sheriff had arrested the girl while she was in the custody of the federal court, it was not a valid warrant.
"I should think," remarked the court, "the fact that a Chinaman is coming here to identify Gun Sen is not good ground for the sheriff wanting to take the responsibility of holding her. There is now no legal process under which the girl is deprived of her liberty. On the substantial facts there is still less reason for holding her. It cannot be conceived that the governor of the state, on the testimony of a Chinaman, would send her to California is the face of the strong identifying testimony of reputable citizens of this state. Prepare an order for her discharge."
Gung Sen was at once hurried to a hack by her friends. Although she has escaped the slave owner for the present, the cunning of the man who can enlist the San Francisco authorities in his trade and the prosecuting attorney of King County to fight the governor of this state and Judge Hanford, will always keep her in dread of capture. The slave owner never lets go of his chattle and the girl will be tracked the rest of her life and vengeance will be sworn against the Chinamen who helped her. Early next week it is expected that the
Another Slave in Seattle.
This is not the only story of Asiatic slavery that has stirred Seattle people in the last week. Tan Sin, who gave her name when arrested as Ah Sou, is in the county jail, invoking her heathen gods night and day that some missionary society will save her from return to slavery. Tan Sin was born in Chicago and was taken when two years old to China by her parents. Thirteen years she lived in the Oriental land and then she returned to Portland. There she entered the Mission School to learn the language.
The slave buyers heard stories of the girl and decided that she would be a valuable chattel in the market. For months they schemed to get her away from the missionaries. Oriental cunning and ingenuity evolved a plan that deceived the girl and the missionaries. Lung Chung, a good looking Chinaman, presented himself as a suitor for the girl's hand. He told of the stores and houses he owned in Seattle, of the wealth he had accumulated as a merchant. One day the girl agreed to be his wife and he obtained a marriage license. Tan Sin left the home to marry him, but the ceremony never took place. She was slated for a house of ill-fame and not for a domestic home.
Sends Her to Washington Street.
Lung Chung turned her over to a fellow countryman to bring her to Seattle and place her in a life of shame in the house filled with slave girls on the corner of Third Avenue and Washington Street. Three nights she was kept in Seattle prior to putting her in a house. The immigration officers swooped down on her, and finding that she had no certificate, ordered her deported.
She appealed to Judge Hanford. He heard her story of how her parents in China had sold her into slavery from which she escaped. He was convinced that if she returned to the old country she would be again sold by her people and forced into the life from which she had made a hard fight to escape. The money put up to make the fight against her deportation was supplied by the Portland slave owner, who thought if she stayed in the country he could hold her.
Rather Die in Jail.
But Tin San wanted to stay, convinced that once in a missionary school the Highbinder could never get her again. But the United States authorities were unwilling to have Judge Hanford's humanitarian interpretation of the laws stand as a precedent, so they decided to appeal from his decision, and the girl was put under $700 bonds until the appeal should be decided. She was taken back to the county jail, and a few hours afterwards her Portland master appeared with the bonds to get her out, intending to put her in a Chinese house of ill-fame so she could earn the money he advanced for her defense and a great deal more. The girl refused to leave the jail, and is still there and says she will not leave until she can go to some missionary school where she will be safe.
The girl is delicate and the jail life is telling on her health. If she stays long she will be dead, as her condition is getting worse daily. If she goes out in the care of Chinese she must take up the life that she loathes.
Japanese Own Girls Too.
Such instances as this come up occasionally in Seattle among the Chinese. But to one of these Chinese [illegible] there may be found a score of examples of Japanese bondage in this city's restricted district. The ownership of women and their sale as chattels is one of the most perplexing problems with which the immigration inspectors of Puget Sound are forced to deal.
It is a fact, but one which can be legally proved only with great difficulty, that many of the Japanese women who room in Seattle's restricted district and those of other western cities are the property of men who bought them from their parents or from their kidnapers in Japanese country towns.
The women are handled by men who make it their business and a lucrative one at that, to buy and sell them. They are taken from the little villages to seaports and are shipped in steamers. They are landed here as the wives of Japanese. In this manner they pass inspection. It is a frequent thing for Japanese to make trips back to their mother country and to return with groups of these little alien women, each of whom is labeled as wife or relative of some local countryman.
Ship Them From Seattle.
From Seattle these women are shipped to smaller towns. They go all over the West and know nothing of their own destinations. They are compelled to go into lives of shame and the proceeds from such life go to the men who have bought them.
Frequently one may find in lodging houses in the southern part of the city Japanese women whose alleged husbands guard them closely until their time for shipment arrives. Then they are taken away and in a short time the husbands reappear alone.
By no means are the women always unwilling victims. They know no particular moral ideals. Such things are not often found in Japanese country towns. Occasionally a girl rebels and then trouble comes. As a rule the whole affair is kept quiet. There are few officers who can get information from men of this nation. More than this, there is seldom any complaint. In fact almost never, for the average Japanese likes to go about his business and let his neighbor attend to his.
Oriental secretiveness, combined with Oriental cunning, have enabled the men who deal in Japanese slaves to go ahead with their business unmolested only at rare intervals. At times, through the work of immigration inspectors, or through the efforts of local missionaries, some case does get into the courts. But owing to the construction of our immigration laws, the woman is invariably sent back to Japan at such times, and that means that she returns to conditions similar to or worse than those she left in America.
[Photo caption]: TAN SIN OR AH SOU. Who has escaped from the clutches of the slave dealers