quarter of the town, are devoted to this
nefarious traffic, and are thronged every night with Chinamen who
loaf about and gaze into the front rooms and verandahs of the
brothels, for these front rooms open on the street and there
the women and girls are assembled in their best attire for the
inspection of the passers-by. Anything more ostentatiously and
revoltingly public could hardly have been devised, and it is
painful to reflect that the whole arrangement is the product of
Western civilization, such scenes being utterly unknown in China
except in the treaty ports, where public prostitution has also
been introduced by Europeans.

Taking Singapore as a sample of the working of this system of
regulated vice in the Straits Settlements, we will now proceed
to inquire into the means by which this army of prostitutes is
recruited. Out of the total of 1,800 prostitutes in Singapore the
Chinese women number on the average 1,600, and last year (1892) no
less than 621 women entered brothels from China and Hong Kong, in
spite of which the number of inmates fell from 1,657 in January
to 1,601 in December, so that it may fairly be inferred that more
than 650 women are required annually to fill up the vacancies
which occur. In order to explain the manner in which this large
number of girls and young women are obtained each year, it must be
stated that all the affairs connected with the inmates of houses
of ill-fame in the Straits Settlements are in the hands of
the brothel-keepers. These persons in Penang have formed a
"Brothel-keepers' Guild," which appears in the Report of the
Chines