A SLAVE IN CHINA.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 July 1922, Page 2

A SLAVE IN CHINA.

AUSTRALIAN WOMAN’S FATE. Further particulars have come to hand of the extraordinary history attached to an Australian woman who recently arrived at Fremantle, a frail and battered wreck, from Singapore. Twenty-four years ago she married a Chinese gardener at the Perth Registry office. She lived with him for some years, and then went with him to China. For a while all went well, but the Chinaman then said she was getting too old. He married a young Chinese wife and made the first wife his household drudge.

Later the husband died, and the Australian woman lived with his mother, who was 88 years old. Four years passed well enough. Then the mother died and the uncle took charge of the property, including' the Australian woman. lie sold- her for 60 dollars to a rich Chinese, who wanted to learn English. Then came the famine, and the woman being bought as a slave, was given barely enough food to keep her alive, and she was sold again for the second time.

A leg injury, due to a fall, brought her under the notice of a missionary, who supplemented her meagre diet, and later took her into hospital and amputated her leg. British officials learned of the circumstances and quietly got the woman to Singapore. There a Western Australian citizen, hearing her story, arranged a passage to Fremantle. The local Immigration Department took charge of the woman, who will be accommodated in a religious home.