Brokers 
           of
  Souls


   












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Crib prostitutes.......
The moment the steamship docked in Victoria harbour completly I was paraded completly naked on empty cargo crates along with a half dozen other girls my age.  

I wasn’t scared this time when the Chinese men poked and inspected us because I had been through it before in San Francisco two years earlier. In 1883 I was sold to a pimp for $300 and two years later the San Francisco municipality made prostitution illegal. My pimp knew he could make a quick buck if he sold me in Victoria harbour, he was right, I sold for $1200!

My price was so high because my new pimp was attracted to my four-inch feet. I don’t have feet, I have numb packaged nubs at the bottom of my legs. My toes are now embedded in the soles of my feet, a couple toes have even fallen off because of lack of circulation.
 
When I am making money, my pimp is quite charismatic and charming. He makes more money than any of the men headed for the gold fields. He has made is name in this unrestricted, pioneering town as a distinguished Chinese gangster.  He is starting to take control of the prostitution auctions that occur about once a month and needs to knock off his competition every once in a while.

Some girls are now smuggled into Victoria by a small number wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs. The flesh trade has gone underground in the past year because the Canadian government recently imposed a $10.00 head tax designed to restrict Chinese immigration.

I remember when I first came to the brothel in Market square, death and disease permeated the place. The girls were covered in bruises and had lifeless sunken eyes. Brothel girls have no youth, it has been pilfered for the incessant, indulgent sexual need of men incarcerated in society with virtually only one sex.

I dream of being stolen by a loan-sharks who will sell me to a labour camp. There I will meet my husband who has just discovered gold and he will take me back to China with him where we can start a family.

I could run away to the missionaries home down the street like a couple other girls have but my pimp warns me that he has no problem killing me if I try.

But I don't waste my time dreaming, when I am giong to eat next, beat next, pregnant next and a disease next is what dominates my thoughts.