Re: Unguarded conduits--The unheralded hero of scifi adventure!

In article <wcofr4rel5lob22oiary83ebpl3f2d4n53@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 Merrick Baldelli <mbaldelli@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> we find that slavery and servitude have, with
>     the exception of the system of eunuchs, lost all barbaric and
>     revolting features." (!) "As this organism has had its certain
>     natural evolution, it will as certainly undergo in due time a
>     natural dissolution, which in fact has at more than one point
>     already set in. But no legislative or executive measures taken in
>     Hong Kong will hasten this process, which follows its own course
>     and its own laws laid down by a wise Providence which happily
>     overrules for the good all that is evil in the world."
> 
> There was, indeed, a certain justice in defending the Chinese as
> against the foreigner, on Dr. Eitel's part. But two wrongs do not make
> a right. From this time onward, the word of sophistry is put in
> the mouth of the advocate of domestic slavery, just as the word of
> sophistry had been put in the mouth of the advocate of the Contagious
> Diseases Ordinance. Mr. Labouchere had spoken of the latter as a means
> of protection' for the poor slaves, and the expression, 'protection,'
> has been kept prominently to the front ever since Dr. Eitel suggested,
> likewise, not a change in the conditions, but a change in the name by
> which they were known. Let it be called 'domestic _servitude_' instead
> of 'domestic _slavery_.' All the advocates of this domestic slavery
> from that time have called the noxious weed by the sweeter name.
> 
> Governor Hennessey asked the opinion of others of his officials. One
> Acting Police Magistrate replied 'When the servant girls (or slaves
> girls, as some prefer to term them) in the families in this Colony are
> contented with their lot, and their parents do not claim them, the
> police cannot be expected to interfere.' Another said 'Buying and
> selling children by the Chinese has been considered a harmless
> proceeding, its only effect being to place the purchaser under a legal
> and moral obligation to provide f

And that still made more sense than anything Michelle Steiner has said.

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