Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them

Cats are very much prized in a Chinese city, because of the fierce depredations of the rats; and in Chungking cats are always kept prisoners, and only occasionally let loose at night. It is sad to see the poor things tied up; and we have never been able to make up our minds to keep our cats thus chained. The consequence is they are always stolen, and have a miserable life of it, tied up, and probably far less well fed than they would have been with us. Fowls and pigs are both kept in Chinese cities, and the eggs get a most unpleasing flavour from the vile nature of the places where the poor hens have to lay them.

When I pay a call on a lady, my chair has to be carried over the thresholds of the various courtyards, and set down quite close to the guest-room, where the lady of the house receives, so that I may at once step out of the chair into the house. A woman-servant, almost certainly a slave, comes to offer her shoulder as a help to my tottering footsteps, and I am conducted into the guest-room, round the walls of which there are little tables, large carved wooden chairs with straight backs being placed one on either side of each table against the wall. The ladies bow after the Chinese lady's fashion, placing the right hand on the top of the left against the chest, and moving the right hand slowly up and down; the servants are ordered to bring tea; and then conversation commences. It is never very interesting. The floors are as often as not made of hard mud; the walls whitewashed, with long-shaped pictures, or kakemonos, hanging upon them, often with epigrammatic sentences in the decorative Chinese character. At one end of the room is the altarlike table, above which is the ancestral tablet, and on it stand generally candlesticks made of pewter, flower-vases, an incense-burner, and a small vase for incense-sticks. Embroideries are not hung over this table and on the backs of the chairs, unless it is the Chinese New Year time or a dinner party. When the tea is brought, little sugared cakes accompany it; and men say the etiquette is to go away directly you have sipped the tea. But I have never known ladies observe this etiquette. Indeed, the chief fault in Chinese visits is that they are interminable. As no one exerts herself to talk more than she feels inclined, there is, indeed, no reason why they should ever come to an end.

Chinese ladies appear very affectionate, and are very caressing. Whether they really do like me or not, they almost always succeed in making me think they do; and I think other European ladies would say the same. But as to whether the holding one's hand and occasionally stroking it means anything, I really do not know. They never have shown me anything, unless they wanted to sell it, except their children. At an artist's house pictures are brought out; but they are all carefully rolled up and put away again. And at other houses embroideries worked by various brides of the family have been shown me; but this was in order to see if I would buy them. It must be recollected that to the Chinese a foreign woman's tight-fitting dress showing her figure is very indecent. It also seems to them very shocking for a lady to go about unattended by a woman; and for a woman to stand up firmly on her feet and walk on them like a man seems far more indelicate than it does in England to wear so-called rationals. Thus there are great difficulties to be got over at first. They are, indeed, greatly concerned about our indecency; for they have heard no European woman wears trousers, and their first great anxiety is to examine under our petticoats, and see whether this is really true. Trousers are the one essential garment to a woman in China. Sometimes they ask, "Do you really eat with your waist girt in like that? How do you manage then?" But this they have only once had the opportunity of asking of me; for knowing it to be considered objectionable, I avoid wearing anything that shows the figure, in China, as far as I can. After all, tea-jackets admit of many pretty varieties. A European man's dress is, of course, a still greater scandal; and to Chinese, the only explanation of it is that the poor fellow had not enough cloth to cover himself properly. After spending any length of time amongst Orientals, I think every one must feel that our European dress is lacking in grace and elegance.

It takes longer to get a letter the fifteen hundred miles from Shanghai to Chungking than it does to get a letter the thirteen thousand from England to Shanghai. Freight of goods is a great deal higher; indeed, a ton of goods costs £6 from Shanghai to Chungking, and £36 to get it to Talifu in Yunnan. Once I wrote to England on Christmas Eve for stockings, saying I was in such need of them I should like to have them sent out by post; and yet I never received those stockings till the following spring year. In an ordinary way, with good luck, you ought to get an answer to a letter from England in four months; therefore, if you keep up a very animated correspondence with an English friend, always answering every letter directly you receive it, you write three letters a year. And curiously enough, whatever you may do at Chungking, the sense of its being so very far away deters other people from writing to you. Charles Lamb has written a beautiful Elia essay upon this. He explains it by the suggestion that the writer, thinking of the great distance the letter has to travel, fancies it growing tired. Anyhow, the result tends to heighten the sense of isolation, which is perhaps nowhere so much felt as among Chinese. Whether it is their expressionlessness, their want of sympathy, or the whole character of their civilisation being so different from ours, very few Europeans can spend more than a year amongst Chinese without suffering from it. Some go mad with it, and all are accused of growing odd. There is no doubt that most of us become somewhat self-centred and unduly impressed with the importance of our own affairs; but the depression that often overtakes people, women especially, is sadder to witness. In sending out missionaries, this is a point that ought to be specially considered: Have they enough strength of character to continue the work of an apostle without any outside spiritual or inspiriting influences whatsoever? It is not long since a man I had thought so ardent said to me: "I am going away; and I never mean to return. I cannot go on giving out, and having no spiritual help myself." Yet, just because they are trying to live for others, missionaries stand this trial best. I have known other men who from the moment they arrived in a Chinese town found no pleasure but in counting the days. "One more spent here! —one less to spend!" and this without even the least idea of when they would go away.

To Chinese children I always think life in a Chinese city must be very pleasant. There are the great festivals: the Chinese New Year, with all its countless crackers; the Dragon Boat Festival, when each district of the city mans a boat shaped like a dragon, and all paddle like mad, naked to the waist, and with a strange shout that must be very dear to children. Then there are the visits to the graves, when all the family goes out into the country together; and the long processions, when the officials are carried through the city in open chairs and long fur gowns, hundreds of umbrellas of gay colours going before them, and their retainers also riding in pairs and in fur coats of inferior quality. All the beggar-children of the city have a high day then. With fancy dress of various sorts over their rags, they walk or ride or are carried round the city, sometimes as living pictures, sometimes representing conquered aborigines, sometimes even Englishmen in short square coats and tight trousers. In the spring-time a procession goes out to meet the spring, and sacrifice an ox in the river-bed in its honour; and, strangely enough, the day in February on which this is done is always the most genial springlike day, though after it is over winter sets in with renewed severity. At other times it is the image of the fire-god that is carried round, to show him the buildings he is honoured to protect. Then, again, one evening there will be about four miles of little lanterns sent floating down the great river in honour of the dead. Or there will be the baking of the glutinous rice-cakes, accompanied by many curious ceremonials. And in it all the child takes his part; and his elders are very kind to him, and never bother him with cleaning up or putting on clothes to go out. He strips to the waist or beyond it in summer; then, as the winter comes on, puts on ever another and another garment, till he becomes as broad as he is long. At night-time, perhaps, he takes off some clothes; but they are all the same shape, all quite loose and easy. Then he never need be afraid of breaking anything or spoiling anything; for most things are put away, and Chinese things are not like European: the shining black polished table, for instance, can have a hot kettle stood upon it, and be none the worse. No one ever tells the Chinese child to hold himself up, or not to talk so loud, or to keep still; so he shouts and wriggles to his heart's content. And European children grow like him in this respect; and when readmitted to European houses, their feet are for ever rubbing about, and their hands fidgeting with something, which spoils, as European things will spoil.

Although there is so much rain in the west of China, and when it does not rain the air is generally damp to saturation-point, yet sometimes there is a long continuance of summer heat.One year, although according to the Chinese calendar the ending of the great heat had come—and, indeed, also the beginning of autumn, when, if it does not rain, according to the saying, no rain will fall for forty days—yet no rain fell, no thunder cooled the air.The ground was growing harder and harder, and the hills acquiring the yellow baked look so familiar down-river, but so unusual in Chungking.

The south gate was not closed. The idea is, that heat comes in from the south; therefore, when it is too hot, the south gate is always closed. There was, however, too much traffic through it. But no meat, fowls, nor eggs were allowed to go in thereat, and the various cooks and coolies sent in on foraging excursions from the hills returned disconsolate. If any one sold anything, it was with the air of a thief, one man reported. Europeans were beginning to consider what they would have to eat, if this prohibition were strictly enforced. Already for two days the killing of pigs had been forbidden. Outside most houses in the city stood a tub of water ready to be dashed over the too dry woodwork. Already report had been busy destroying the thriving and populous city of Luchou higher up the river by fire; but on a telegram being sent to inquire, the report was found to have arisen in people's own heated imaginations. The danger of fire is ever with us in China, with our wooden houses all dry as tinder and our closely packed opium-smoking population. As to the amount of dirt then concentrated in Chungking, it was shocking to think of; for the place had not been washed out for six weeks.

There is an old saying that drought never wrought England harm. One has the same feeling in Szechuan; and when day by day the beautiful red-golden glow spreads along the range beyond range of mountain-tops, and the sun arises upon a cloudy sky, we cannot help thinking these clouds must gradually get lower, and rain come to cool the air and refresh the country. At night, as we see the lightning flash on the clouds south and west of us, and feel the cool breath of distant rain, we again think it must be on its way. Only during the long hot day there seems no prospect of it; the clouds reveal themselves as summer clouds; the sun shines; and we think how hot it must be in that southern region from which the hot wind comes to us, and wonder whether it is in Tongking, or where, there has been a tremendous rainfall. Has there been somewhere some great convulsion of nature? or is it again all a case of sun-spots? When it is so very hot, what can one think of but the weather?

I never saw the thermometer mark higher than 120° Fahr. in our sitting-room; but then, when it got to that, I always went down into the cellar, and did not come out again till evening. The Chinese have cool, dark places dug out of the rock into which they retire to schwa, i.e.enjoy themselves.All the guild gardens round Chungking are provided with such places.The worst of them is, there is no air in them.But, then, every one has a fan.Even the man heavily laden like a beast of burden has his fan stuck into his waist-belt; the soldier has his fan.It is not a luxury, but a necessary of life, in a Chinese city in summer.

In the spring-time what can be prettier than the environs of a Chinese city? The rape-fields are all fragrant with their bright-yellow flowers; whilst the still sweeter scent of the bean blossom makes it a real pleasure to walk along the narrow paths by the river-side. Every one is walking about with a bunch of roseate peach blossom, and the tangles of trees in the gardens are all flowering and all scented. Then a little later the poppy-fields become gorgeous almost up to the city gates, only shortly afterwards to give out a poisonous exhalation most irritating to the mucous membrane. After that everything trembles and glitters with the scorching sunshine, all the leaves droop, gigantic sun-flowers are running to seed, and the large pink-and-white lily flowers of the lotus float upon the waterside. Every woman has a white gardenia flower stuck on the left side of her glossy black hair. And all outside the city is inspiriting, when the sun shines and the blue rivers laugh back at the blue sky. But inside the city it is still all dark and dank, and all is pervaded by a sickly sweet odour, the emanation from the opium-pipe; while the lean ribs and yellow faces of the opium-smokers controvert without the need of words all the scientific assertions about the non-volatilisation of the opium poison. With opium-dens all over the place, with exquisite opium-pipes and all the coquetries of opium-trays and other accessories in the houses of the rich, how is it that we all give warning to a servant when we hear that he has taken to opium? How is it that the treasure on a journey is never confided to a coolie who smokes? How is it that every man shrinks with horror from the idea of an opium-smoking wife? And this in a land in which all important business dealings are concluded over the opium-couch, where, indeed, alone, with heads close together, is privacy to be obtained, and in which all important military posts are confided to opium-smokers, not to speak of most of the important civil offices!

There is, it is true, an immense difference between the man who smokes and him who has the yin, or craving, that must at all costs be satisfied; just as there is at home between the moderate drinker and the dipsomaniac.But in China people refuse to employ the moderate smoker to sweep out their rooms for them.Yet they will confide an army to him!These, however, are secrets of State, not to be got to the bottom of simply by life in a Chinese city.

There is one other matter, however, I must touch upon—the all-pervading babble, row I had almost called it, of the boys in the schools, here, there, and everywhere, so that it is almost impossible to get out of earshot of them, all at the top of their boy voices shouting out the classics, as they painstakingly day after day and year after year commit them to memory. With the sickly sweet smell of the opium, and to the sound of the vast ear-drum-splitting army of China's schoolboys, all must for ever associate life in a Chinese city. And through it all, and up and down its flights of stairs, painfully hobbles the Chinese girl-child, the most ungraceful figure of all girl-children,—poor little mutilated one, with her long stick and dreadful dark lines under her sad young eyes! Whatever the men may be, certainly the little girls of China are brought up as Spartans even never were, and those who survive show it by their powers of endurance.

CHAPTER IV.
HINDRANCES AND ANNOYANCES.

As an illustration of the position of Europeans up-country, I will relate very briefly the trivial events of two days. First I must say that nearly every woman in the place was ill—some very seriously so; and as I thought I was not well either, on hearing that my husband and another gentleman, who had gone for a cure to the sulphur baths about thirteen miles from Chungking, found the people quiet, I decided I would join my husband when his friend left him. The villagers, not the priests, objected to my sleeping in the airy temple, where the gentlemen had been allowed to put up their beds, amongst all the gilded images; so my bed and I and a servant moved down to the inn, where some twelve or fifteen persons assisted at the remaking of the bed in an already sufficiently stuffy room—although, happily, most of the dirty paper was gone from its one window—and being accustomed to the ways up-country, I slept just as well in that filthy inn room as I could have anywhere.

Next day, with a chair and a variety of coolies and boys, we took three photographs, and spent the morning under the shade of a magnificent banyan-tree in a lonely valley, stuck over with palms as a pincushion is with pins.The baths were so very hot, my husband thought he would refresh himself by a swim in the limpid stream that runs with many a beautiful cascade down the extremely picturesque limestone valley of the Wentang.Meanwhile, though it was extremely hot, so that it was an effort to move, especially after the hot sulphur baths, yet, being like Frederick "a slave to duty," I took a chair and five coolies to go a hundred yards across the bridge and photograph that and the hot springs from the opposite side.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, about twenty little laughing boys ran whooping along with me, joined as they went by some older people. This is so usual, I was only bored by it as I got out, and, studying the scene first from one point and then from another, was telling the coolies to bring the camera to a grassy plot from which the best view of the arches of the bridge and the deep pool and the hills behind could be obtained, when some agriculturists rushed forward, one lusty fellow violently threatening me with a stone, and at once snatching my alpenstock out of my hand. I trust I did not move an eyelid, certainly I did not budge a step, as I said: "Is this your land? If so, you are master here; and if you do not wish me to photograph, I certainly will not. But I am doing no harm." The head coolie did his best to explain what other photographs I had taken, and that photographing did not spoil crops. But the agriculturist first listened, and then resumed his violence. Probably he was excited by the prospect of all my following capering across an infinitesimal bit of cultivation that he had squeezed out of the rocks below. He told them not to do so. The coolie told them not to. They did not. But he continued to be violent. The best plan seemed to be to get into the chair and secure the camera; and as all the crowd began to get uproarious, I thought I would be carried quickly away instead of back through them. A very steep hill must, I thought, choke my following off. But it did not. And I had either to return with them to the town, in which case there was sure to be a row, or go to a distance of about two hours up one side of the stream by a very pretty path, and back again the other side by one of the most lonely of wild mountain roads. I had done it all before, having enjoyed all these scenes two years ago, when there was no thought of violence. However, my following kept with me, and grew. So I tried my old plan, the only one I have ever found effectual with a Chinese crowd, and, getting out of the chair, standing quite still, looked solemnly and sadly at first one, then another, till he wished the ground would cover him and retired. I fancy glasses heighten the effect. Anyway, they all sat down, each one hiding behind the other as far as he could.

We went on, and thus came near a very large Chinese house and garden, with a queer tale of a dead magician, where we had been hospitably entertained two years before.The people knew he had been a magician, because he used to disappear every day at a certain hour; and some one peeped through a crack one day, and saw him actually in a cold-water bath like a fish.I thought it would be a pleasure to visit the garden once more; but again a man shouting and gesticulating, this time armed with one of those heavy hoes they use in digging, which he brandished across my face!It seemed his master, who had entertained us, was dead, and this rustic would have no photography.It was a long way back by the other side of the river, so that it was quite dark when we got back to the little town.This perhaps was just as well.

Next day by daybreak we set off for Chungking. After five pretty but surely very long miles, we came to a market town; and, alas! it was market day. The coolies were desired to carry me to the best inn, and take me in quickly. Of course, it was necessary for them to get some refreshment, or we should not have stopped. I walked to the farthest end of the huge room set out with tables; but the agitated innkeeper asked me to come into a bedroom beyond, there were so many people. He banged to the doors, and then there began a hurly-burly, everybody wanting to get a sight of me. He begged me to go into a bedroom beyond down a steep ladder, and again bolted the doors. This room was even nastier than the first,—four beds with straw, no chair, and a frowsy table. It was so good of him to tell me it was clean, for I should never have imagined it otherwise. A young gentleman occupying an adjacent bedroom began to look furious at the noise and the barring of the doors. With a haughty air he unbarred them. I did not wonder he did not like it. I did not either. Who wants to be barricaded in a chairless, windowless bedroom on a hot day?

It was a great relief when my husband quickly followed me, passing in through the files of people gazing at closed doors.But no one could serve us with tea, and the people got all round the room trying to peep in through the cracks, as also to pull down one partition.Meantime, there was what Germans call "scandal."At last our coolies had fed, the chairs were ready, and, handsomely escorted, we passed out through people in rows, to find the street outside and all the houses one living mass of human heads all staring.It was easy enough to get into the chair, but the coolies had to fight the crowd back to get the poles on their shoulders; and so, amongst a chorus of the usual soft Szechuan imprecations, we departed.I have composed a song with it for the chorus; it sounds pretty, but I am told it is untranslatable.One moves everywhere to the music of it.

Probably our coolies' temper was not improved by the hustling. For, a mile and a half farther on, when we had to take a boat, and after the usual amount of wearisome bargaining had secured one, they greeted a boatman, who kept us waiting some time till he appeared with the long pole iron-spiked used for poling the boat off rocks, with the usual Szechuan oath, and a tag, that seemed to me harmless enough. But the boatman, a tall, fine-looking man, said he could not stand that, and immediately rolled one of our coolies in the mud. In a minute all our gang together were on him. Vainly did my husband call them off. At last, however, somehow they got into the boat again and pushed off; and the great thing seemed to be to get away, for there was the infuriated giant with his pole and his friends wildly springing from rock to rock to get at us. But whether because we were caught in a whirlpool, or whether the owner of the boat steered it back, or what, there we were presently drifting round to the now assembled village, all shrieking, and many armed with carrying-poles. The only thing to do seemed to be to sit quite still; but I felt the more frightened, because it was impossible even to speak to my husband for the uproar. And, indeed, for a time mine was the silence of despair; for a tap from one of those carrying-poles, and all would be over for me, whilst the river was running so strongly, to get into that would be certain drowning. The fight, however, was, after all, not so bad; for a village elder appeared, and again and again collared the infuriated giant and forced him off the boat. Meanwhile, every one shouted, and the expressions of the crowd were something horrible to see, especially those of some women, whose faces seemed to have passed away and left nothing behind but concentrated rage. One of these viragoes actually came on to our boat, and was proceeding herself to capture the one of our coolies who may be said to have begun it all by his inconsiderate language. This first gave me courage. If she, a thin, weak-looking woman, could venture into the midst of these angry men, she must know they were not really so violent as they appeared, I argued. But she also was forced away by the elder. Then two spitfires of boys became prominent, shrieking menaces and brandishing their arms.

At last there was a sufficient lull for my husband and the village elder to exchange names, smiles, and courtesies, which they did with as much ceremony and as pleasant expressions as if they had just met in a London drawing-room.After a second row, the elder asked us to get into another boat.This we did.It was much smaller; but a man with cucumbers, who had been bent on getting a passage for nothing in our boat, and had been ejected, managed now to establish himself in it along with us.He was the only one who seemed to have gained anything out of the whole transaction.We had grown too weak to eject him again.We had been delayed a whole hour in a burning sun; and thanks to this, and the delay in the market town, reached Chungking about noon, both suffering from slight sunstroke.

Each time the mail came in one winter we expected to hear that some Shanghai Volunteers had gone on a little expedition, and somehow managed to knock up against the prison in which the poor people were shut up whose sole crime was having sold an estate near Kiukiang to an Englishman. In the old days the young men of Kiukiang once had a picnic, to which they invited blue-jackets from a man-of-war in port; and that picnic gained for the place undisputed possession of the bungalow where so many Europeans have since then regained health. There was no fighting, no threat of fighting, no ultimatum; they just went and did what had to be done themselves, their friends the blue-jackets helping them. But by the last accounts Kiukiang was occupied with private theatricals, whilst the men who sold their land to Englishmen—nothing more, only had dealings with Englishmen—were still in prison. Whilst that is so, whilst the man who allowed Christian services to be held in his house near Wenchow is persecuted, whilst our beautiful hills are all studded round with upright slabs of stone forbidding Europeans to build upon any of the sites sold to them, how can we expect as Englishmen to be respected in China? One American and one Englishman had even begun building upon these hills. There were the projected sites of the houses, with the hewn stones lying round and the foundations laid. Round about the upright slabs have been stood up, with the legends upon them forbidding any further building within these charmed enclosures.

No people like better to insult other people than the Chinese, in spite of all the lovely adjectives Mr. Ralph showers upon them in the pages of Harper,—"polite, patient, extremely shrewd, well dressed, graceful, polished, generous, amiable"; while Dr. Morrison, the "Australian in China," talks of "their uniform kindness and hospitality and most charming courtesy," and says again, "Their friendliness is charming, their courtesy and kindliness are a constant delight to the traveller." In illustration of all this there were these men in prison at Kiukiang and Wenchow. Do people at home realise what was the crime of which they had been accused? Short of the Home Government, it often seems as if the different European communities in China could make themselves more respected, and protect those who dealt fairly by them, with their own right hands. No Government could urge them to do so. But, as even Sir John Walsham used to say, "There are so many things Englishmen might do even in Peking—if they only would not come and ask me if they might."

In 1897 a Chinese in foreign employ was had up about an alleged debt of 500 taels. By a bribe his accuser had the matter brought before a magistrate who was well known as anti-foreign, and who no sooner heard he was in foreign employ than he ordered him to be beaten without going into the case. This was contrary even to Chinese law. The unfortunate bookkeeper was unable to do his work again for months; he was disfigured past all recognition, and, indeed, too horrible to look upon. His offence was "foreign employ." Can we wonder that the Chinese are not very fond of us? The marvel to me is that they dare associate with us at all.

Other nations seem to protect their nationals and those dependent upon them far more vigorously than the British Government does. When Chungking was first made a Treaty Port, the then British Consul, a most able and energetic man, was not even advised from Peking that the port was open. Consequently, he was absent from all public functions instituted at the formal opening, took no part in the drawing up of the regulations under which British trade was to be established there, had no voice in the rules issued by the Chinese Customs. Subsequent incumbents of the Consulate have not unnaturally employed any liberty of action given them less in promoting British interests than in keeping things quiet for the Chinese, and so have refrained from endorsing the requests made from time to time to have the obstructive Customs rules modified or the position of the port in any way improved. The rules, issued in Chinese, were so impracticable that successive Commissioners of Customs suspended their action from the day they were published; but this suspension, it afterwards appeared, was a privilege revocable at the arbitrary will of the Commissioner for the time being, and an American Commissioner revoked them to the detriment of the only bona-fide European shipping firm as yet established there, thus doing what lay in his power to take away business from European firms and throw it into the hands of the Chinese firms, which continued as before to enjoy a suspension of the Customs rules.

Business at Chungking is all carried on by so-called chartered junks. They are not really chartered; but before they can clear the Customs, they must fly a foreign house-flag and number. The permission to fly this must be obtained by a foreigner through his Consul. The British Consul, up till then the only one there, resided at the opposite end of the city to the business quarter, where the Customs Office is situated. This entailed some hours delay. And when it is considered that one junk carries as a rule from fifty to a hundred packages only, it "passeth the wit of man" to conceive why this red-tapeism was allowed to continue. The China Merchants' Steamship Co. , the largest shippers in Chungking, were allowed to obtain their "passes" from the Custom-house direct—a great convenience, as the Custom-house is in one part of this city, the Customs' Bank in another, and the examining-pontoon across the river at the head of a rapid. The junks mostly lie in a reach below; and it is no exaggeration to say that it takes a day for a man to get round to the three places. Yet the Customs rules do not allow the duty to be paid until the cargo has passed examination at the pontoon; nor is the cargo-boat allowed to leave it until a duty-paid certificate is brought back and exhibited at the pontoon. This necessitates the cargo being left in an open boat all night at the head of a rapid, and much loss has resulted from the delay that occurs there in any case. Consequently, this rule had never been enforced, and the cargo-boat had been allowed to leave and proceed to load the chartered junk in safety immediately after examination. But an application to his Consul by the Britisher was met by a "despatch" in the stereotyped language, "I cannot interfere with the Customs regulations."

The telegraph office, formerly situated in the business quarter of the city, was then moved into the distant country enclosure which forms a part of all Chinese cities, because the manager owned a piece of land there, and thus rented it to advantage.Naturally here the foreign merchant could not expect a remonstrance to be of any avail, as the telegraph is a purely native concern.

It would take too much space to enumerate the further difficulties to which a foreigner is at present exposed. To enforce a claim for debt he must apply to his Consul. A Chinaman unwilling to pay is never at a loss to invent an excuse,—the papers are not in order, just as in cases of sale the land was not really his. If the Consul is content to become merely the translator of these Chinese excuses, which by transmission he appears, indeed, even to accept, and to a certain extent to endorse, we, as the farmer said, "seem to get no forrader." How far the actions of Consuls in these matters, and with regard to obstructions about buying land and renting houses, come from individual action or from instructions from Peking, of course it is not for a mere woman to decide. We used in China at one time to put down everything that went wrong to Lord Kimberley. Now even sometimes we fancy it is a Kimberley legacy. But very likely we are quite wrong.

It will be obvious from the above how much depends upon the disposition of the Consuls.Naturally they vary greatly.The theory used to be that they were too apt to look upon themselves as protectors of the Chinese against the encroachments of their nationals.Having suffered severely under the most flagrant specimen of this class, I am happy to add that I think it is dying out.Most of the Consuls in China now seem only too able for the importance of their posts.At the same time, one never knows when a crisis may arise; and then the men, who as a rule have been foremost in all the social life each of his own port, are admirably seconded by willing communities, that rejoice to follow the lead of those who are certainly generally in all things the opposite to the delightful caricature sketch well known to have been written by a leading member of the China Consular body:

"THE HAPPY CONSUL.

Even, however, where the Consul is all he should be—and probably no body of men ever was more respected and trusted than the British Consular Body in China—yet British subjects' interests must suffer, if the British Minister will not support them.Nor can the British Minister do much, if the permanent officials at the Foreign Office wish him to do little.

When two men were murdered at Wusüeh, the village ought, at least, to have been razed to the ground. When the Kucheng massacre occurred, the Viceroy and the Chinese officials, who laughed about it all as they talked with the British officials sent to settle about compensation with them, ought one and all to have been degraded at the very least. No one likes bloodshed. The Chinese only get on as they do without an army or a police force by means of very exemplary punishments; they understand slight punishment as a confession of weakness, or an acknowledgment that the offender was not so much to blame after all. Nor does any one who lives in China believe in Chinese peasantry ever daring to murder foreigners except at the instigation of men in high place. People in England often fancy missionaries are very much disliked in China. As a rule, they seem greatly liked and respected each in his own neighbourhood, although in the abstract officials and old-fashioned literati may object to them.

Whatever may be said about all these matters, an English subject cannot but be pained on finding how little British Consuls are able to effect in redressing serious grievances, such as inability to buy or rent land in the surrounding country, whereby we were for many years forcibly compelled to live in a Chinese house in a filthy street inside the walls of an overcrowded Chinese city. Let a Frenchman or a Russian be the aggrieved party, and instantly his Consul is on the war-path, and the Chinese have to give way at once. Englishmen have gone on paying likin illegally, until a Frenchman, backed by his Consul, successfully protested. British steamers are illegally arrested and detained by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, and no redress is obtainable; when a French steamer is only boycotted by Chinese shippers, an indemnity is immediately claimed, and at once paid.

It is little things like these, for ever being repeated, that lead to Englishmen in the west of China often saying they must take out naturalisation papers as Frenchmen or Italians in order to get on. Possibly the bitterness thereby engendered will do the British Government no harm; but it paralyses commercial enterprise. And Manchester will suffer from it, when it is too late to alter anything, unless a more consistent and dignified policy be pursued in the Far East. People have not been proud of England out in China lately. It may be stupid of us all; but as a rule it takes a good deal to make Englishmen ashamed of their country. And that point has been unfortunately reached some time ago.

CHAPTER V.
CURRENT COIN IN CHINA.

She was not long out from England, and a comprador order was as yet an unnatural phenomenon to her. She supposed it was something like a cheque upon a bank, or a circular note, with which Continental travel had made her intimately acquainted. "What is the value of a dollar in English money?" she had asked before starting on her tour from Shanghai. "Oh yes, I understand it depends upon the exchange. I used always to keep myself in gloves on what one gained in Italy. Now it is horrid; one gains nothing. I don't quite know why it is. But how much about is the dollar worth, when exchange is—is—nothing particular?" Then she had such long speeches made to her, and heard so much conflicting information, she felt deafened, but ultimately arrived at the conclusion that there were about—yes! about six dollars in an English pound, and there ought not to be so many. Now, somewhat to her consternation, she discovered that her comprador orders had taels printed upon them; so she made out her order in taels, secretly wondering what they were. She had never seen them.

"Do you think I got the right exchange?"she asked of her Boy; then, trying to suit herself to his needs, and speak English "as it is spoke," "He pay my right money?"

"My no savey what thing one taelee catchee Hankow side," said the Boy, with flippancy but decision.He came from farther inside the province.

She felt abashed, and supposed she must just take her money, hoping it was right.Next time she would be wiser.Arrived at Ichang, she scratched out taels, and was about to write in dollars.

"Dollars!Dollars aren't known at Ichang," said the Captain.

"What had I better do?"she asked of the oldest resident.Again she was overwhelmed with words.But she gathered she ought to ask for taels.

"Taels don't exist," said the Captain."I never saw a tael, did you?He'll bring you your money in lumps of silver, if you don't take care."

"Yes," said the old resident, "you had better not get lumps of silver."

"They vary in value, according to the quality of the silver," persisted the Captain."You won't know what to do with them.You can't break them up.You will have to weigh them.And what can you pay for in lumps of silver?Nobody will take them for anything you want to buy."

They actually both talked to her as if she wished for solid, uncoined lumps of silver. She felt confounded! But, determined to preserve her calm, she said, "I had better write, and say I want so many strings of cash, then, had I? Ten thousand cash? Twenty thousand cash? I can't carry them, you know; and I don't know where I can keep them. But I must have at least so much money in hand, if it is only to pay for my washing."

"Pay for your washing!"they both burst out, as if that were a most superfluous proceeding.

"I wouldn't write for cash, I think," began a third adviser."I would write down how many taels you require, and say you'd take it in cash."

"Then I shall never know if I get the right amount."

"A—h!"they all said, waving their hands, as if no one ever did know if he got the right amount in China.

"It varies.It varies from day to day," said the oldest resident.

Needless to relate, she never saw those cash, never heard how many she had received, nor where they were stowed away.The Boy said he had them, it was all right.He said also that at Ichang it was very shocking how few cash they gave for the tael.

She was determined she would learn Chinese, of course! Was she not just out from home? And being just out from home, and anxious to be polite to every one, it was a trouble to her mind that she did not know how to greet her teacher when he came. She stood up, and rubbed her hands together, which, she understood was the Chinese for a curtsey; but it seemed feeble without a word, so she said, "Koom Shee! Koom Shee!" as she had heard the country people say.

"Oh! you should not say Koom Shee!Koom Shee! Not to a teacher, who comes every day," said a Sinologue.

"He says it is quite right," said she. "I am sure I understand that much. But he said I could also say Tsao!"

"Oh no—no! Not Tsao," said the Sinologue; but he never made any suggestion as to what she should say.

"I could not think what I ought to say when he went away," she continued. "But he says Man man tso."

"Oh no! that is a great deal too much to a teacher who comes every day."

"Well, that is what he says," she repeated rather wearily, after having waited a little to see if he would suggest any polite speech for her. "I do want to say something polite."

"It is very difficult to be polite in Chinese," said the Sinologue solemnly. That seemed final. But she asked another Sinologue. "No, I should not say Man man tso. Not Man man tso," said he dreamily."Not to a teacher—who comes every day."

"But what do you say?"asked she in desperation.

"Well, it is very polite to say Shao pei—I don't go to the door with you, you know; I only go a few steps with you.That is the polite thing to say after a call from a mandarin."

"But surely it would be polite to go to the door?"

"Oh yes—in China it would."

"Well, I think anywhere it would be polite."

"Yes, but not—not from a lady.It would not be expected."

"A—h! yes! then I can say Shao pei."However, she did not feel quite satisfied, and she watched her opportunity.

Next time she heard a Sinologue converse with a Chinaman, she listened to hear what he would say in parting. Alas! it was not Man man tso, it was not Shao pei

"What was that you said to him in taking leave?"

"Oh—I didn't say anything,"—with the instinctive horror of being detected in possibly a false tone.

"Yes—yes, you said something as you turned away and took leave. And I do so want to know what it was, that I may know what to say."

"Oh, I said——" mumbling very much, so that it was impossible to hear what he said."I don't think it was the thing to say to a man of his station and quality.I think I should have said—— Let me see— I really don't know what was the right thing for me to say."

And so now she is giving it up—giving up being polite in Chinese, giving up ever ascertaining the value of money or the price of anything. For how can things have fixed prices where money has none? There is only one comfort to her soul: if any one looks offended, or if a too sensitive conscience makes her fear she has given cause of offence, she promptly says Tetsui—"I am to blame, I apologise." No one has yet made distinctly evident that he does not understand her, nor has any Sinologue yet told her she is wrong. Tetsui is therefore the one golden word for her. And while she is in China she foresees she must live in one constant state of being to blame.

In this manner I at the time recorded my first impression of the coinage and language of China. But the matter of payment is even more complicated than I then fancied. The only coinage of China is copper cash, of which about forty go to a penny. They are round, with a hole in the middle, and generally about a thousand are strung on two strings and tied together; and when carried, hanging over the shoulder, they look like so many snakes. But I say about a thousand advisedly; for there are generally a number of small and comparatively worthless cash in every string, the average amount of these varying in different parts. The lumps of silver with which my friends threatened me are made up into what are called "shoes," but what look like very large coarse thimbles. These are of various degrees of purity, and their purity has to be tested before they are weighed or broken up. In Chungking there were three different degrees of purity in different parts of the city; therefore it made quite a considerable difference whether you agreed to pay a sum of money in the upper, lower, or middle town. And the result of so much difficulty about payment is that every one is in debt to every one else, keeping a sort of running account going.

Of late years foreign mints have been started in several places; and lest this chapter should seem altogether too frivolous, I here subjoin the essay that gained the prize, when, at the Polytechnic Institution in 1890, the Governor of Ningpo started an essay competition, giving as his theme:

"The south-eastern provinces now have much foreign money in circulation, and the natives consider it a great convenience to trade.Should China set about coining gold and silver money?Would it circulate freely?Would it be advantageous to the country, or the reverse?"

The Governor himself looked over the essays, and awarded the palm to the composition of Mr. Yang, a B.A.of Kwangtung Province, of which the following is a translation:

"Those who treat at the present time of the causes which are draining away the wealth of China to foreign countries are, as a rule, in the habit of confining their observations to two of these causes: the importation of foreign opium, and the purchase of foreign ships and munitions of war. They appear to be ignorant, indeed, for the most part, that there is another cause at work, persistent, insidious, whose effects are more far-reaching than either.

"The first silver money brought to China from abroad was the so-called 'Luzon Dollar,' coined by the Spaniards from the product of the mines which they had acquired in America, a new country first settled by them.The Spanish dollar was followed by others, made in the same style—first the American, and then the Japanese.From Kwangtung and Fukien these invaders spread to Kiangsu and Chekiang, Kiangsi, Anhui, and Hupeh, in the order named, with great rapidity.Their beauty and convenience were soon in everybody's mouth, and the loss to the country became heavier and heavier as their importation increased.

"To speak of loss from the influx of foreign dollars may appear paradoxical to those who have only eyes for the palpable loss to the country caused by the importation of foreign opium and manufactures and the purchase of foreign ships and cannon. Very little reflection, indeed, suffices to show the disastrous tendency of exchanging for a useless weed the bounteous produce of our harvests, of deluding with new-fangled inventions the practical minds of our people, of spending on a gun or a ship tens of thousands of taels. But I shall endeavour to show that the proposition is no paradox, and that the loss to China caused by the influx of foreign dollars is, if less visible on the surface, at bottom none the less real.

"During the reigns of Tao Kwang and Hien Fêng (1821-1862), to buy each of these dollars China parted with eighty-five tael cents; and as the real value was seventy-two tael cents, on every dollar which she purchased she lost thirteen tael cents.As, taking all the provinces together, she must have been purchasing at least forty or fifty million dollars every year, she must have been losing every year by exchange the enormous sum of four or five million taels.

"Times have changed; but vast numbers of dollars are yearly imported from various countries, most of them composed of one-tenth alloy; and, in payment of this silver blended with baser metal, our pure silver is shipped away in heaps.Moreover, dollars which are worth at most seventy-two or seventy-three tael cents are sold in market at one, two, three, or four tael cents more than that.Such a drain will end in exhausting our silver supply, even if we had mountains of it, if not checked betimes.

"We cannot prevent the importation of foreign dollars, nor prohibit their use by the people; for the people wish for them, although they are depleting the country of its wealth.There appears to me only one way of checking this depletion, and that is by China coining dollars herself.

"Opponents will say, even if China coin them, they will not circulate. They will point to two previous instances where such an attempt was made and failed. The first was towards the end of the reign of Tao Kwang (about 1850): two officials obtained permission from the Governor of Chekiang to start a silver-mint, and everybody looked at the coins, rung them, and declined to have anything to do with them. The second experiment was made at Wusih by Mr. Lu Sueh-tsun: he turned out dollars which compared favourably with foreign dollars in every particular except one—namely, that nobody would use them. The opponents of the measure point to these two examples, and say the coinage of dollars in China will never succeed.

"Some of these opponents do not go so far, but merely say that, even if the Chinese Government is able to put home-made dollars into circulation, it can only be in the southern and eastern provinces, as in the north and west the people, accustomed to sycee and paper money, would shrink from the manifold inconveniences involved in a sudden change to a dollar medium of exchange.

"This appears to me more the language of narrow-minded pedants than of practical men of the world. Which one of all who stand under China's sky and feed off China's fields but desires his country's exaltation and the depression of foreigners? If to-day all love foreign money, it is because there is as yet no Chinese money. Once let there be Chinese money, and we shall see how many will leave it for foreign. The two instances alleged above only show that the coins which people looked at, rung, and rejected were false in look and false in ring. The semi-private way in which they were coined in a village was in itself enough to excite the suspicions of the great mass of the public. An Imperial Mint, openly conducted and turning out good work, would arouse no such suspicions; and its money would very soon be current, not only in the provinces of the south and east, but also in those of the north and west, for the following reasons:

"The travelling merchant and trader of the north and west has now to carry with him both silver sycee and copper cash.Copper cash is heavy, and it is impossible to carry much value in that form; whilst the carrying about of silver entails many and grievous losses in exchange.It is natural to suppose that he would welcome as the greatest boon a gold and silver currency which, by its portability and uniformity of value, would relieve him of the obstacles which the present system in vogue in the north and west spreads in the path of commerce.

"The opponents of an Imperial Chinese Mint for the precious metals commonly adduce four dangers, the contemplation of which, they say, should make China hesitate to incur them. Let us look them in the face. They are, firstly, the facility of counterfeiting the new coinage; secondly, the difficulty of coinage, if commenced; thirdly, the loss to China's prestige by an imitation of foreign manufactures; fourthly, the possible venality of officials and workmen in the Mint.

"Would it not be the depth of pusillanimity, the extreme of unreasonableness, for our great nation to give up, for fear of dangers such as these, a plan which, carried out under the guidance and control of well-selected men, will admittedly dam the outflow of our wealth, and put an end to our impoverishment, which is now going on year after year for the benefit of foreigners?

"The impossibility of coining the precious metals without alloy will no longer afford the foreigner a profit.This profit will go to our own Government, who will not be taking it from the people for nothing, but amply earning it by giving them a universal uniform medium of exchange.Its universality and uniformity will relieve the honourable merchant of the present uncertainty of exchange, and deprive the shifty speculator of his present inducement to gambling in time-bargains dependent on the rise and fall (mai k`ung).

"I began this essay by enumerating various evils which are sapping the wealth and power of China. How best to counteract these evils is a problem which our statesmen and politicians are now devoting their zealous endeavours to solve. The measures hitherto proposed involve, when compared with that which I have advocated, a larger expenditure at the outset, and do not seem to promise in any instance so speedy a return of benefit to the nation. A gold and silver coinage by the Imperial Government would, in all probability, in a very few years be conferring on every province of the empire advantages in comparison with which the initial inconveniences would hardly be worthy of attention. It is, of course, an essential condition of the success of the Mint that it should be organised in such a complete manner as to leave no contingency unprovided for, and thus to ensure its stability and permanence. I shall be happy if any of my humble remarks are worthy to contribute to such a result."

Mr. Yang's essay seems already to have borne fruit, and nothing could more check the little peculations so rife in China as a proper coinage of the same value all through the country. Yet such is the innate disorder and corruption attendant upon all Government undertakings in China, that, without the supervision of the despised "foreigner," all such schemes must fail in gaining the confidence of the people, as they have notably failed hitherto. While we were in Chungking, the Viceroy there introduced dollars coined by the Viceroy of Hupeh; but as the local officials refused to take these dollars in payment of taxes except at a discount of 3 per cent. , nominally for "shroffage," the people naturally refused them, and they are now no longer to be seen. The Chinese prefer the Mexican dollar, firstly, because they are familiar with it; secondly, because they can depend upon it. The statement in Mr. Yang's jejune essay that the Chinese give pure silver in exchange for foreign dollars containing 10 per cent. alloy is, of course, absurd. Copper cash form the real currency of the masses in China, and it is the fluctuations between this, the only current coinage, of late years shamefully debased, and silver (amounting in 1897 to 30 per cent.) that seriously disturbs the equanimity of "the honourable merchant." Unfortunately, so far each Viceroy seems to be setting up his own mint, irrespective of others. The idea of a Central Government, managing the customs, posts, coinage, or even the army and navy, is altogether alien to the Chinese mind.

CHAPTER VI.
FOOTBINDING.

It is a popular error in England to suppose that binding the feet is a mark of rank in China. In the west of China women sit by the roadside begging with their feet bound. In the far north, where women do field-labour, they do it, poor things! kneeling on the heavy clay soil, because they cannot stand upon their poor mutilated feet. Another popular error in England is that the custom was introduced in order to prevent women from gadding about. Never in all the many conversations I have had with Chinese upon this subject have I heard this reason alleged or even hinted at, nor is it ever alluded to in any of the Chinese literature upon the subject. The popular idea in China is that P`an-fei, a favourite of the Emperor Ho-ti, of the Chi Dynasty, whose capital was Nanking, was so beautiful that golden lilies sprang out of the ground wherever she stepped; hence the name of "golden lilies" for the hideous goatlike feet Chinamen so strangely admire. Ho-ti is said to have so loved P`an-fei as to have had golden lotus flowers strewn on her path for her to walk on. But there is another tradition that T`an-ki, the wife of the last Emperor of the Shang Dynasty, who in despair burned himself in his palace with all his treasures in 1120 B.C.—that T`an-ki was the introducer of these strange feet. She seems to have been a semi-mythical character—a changeling, with "hinds' feet" covered with hair. So she wound bandages round them, and wore lovely little fairy shoes, and every one else tried to follow suit. But to come to later and somewhat more historic times, a King of the Sung Dynasty, A.D. 970, had a favourite wife Niao-niang, whom he used to like to see posing or dancing upon golden lotus flowers. And to make her feet look more lovely she used to tie strips of coloured satin round them, till they resembled a crescent moon or a bent bow; and thus the fashion began, some say.

It is obvious, however, that a nation that has not stockings naturally takes to bandaging its feet, and that so doing, quite without intending it, it is very easy to alter the shape of the feet by binding them ever a little tighter, as many a European lady has done with her waist. Chinese civilisation being very ancient and conservative, abuses there go on increasing, and become exceptionally exaggerated. The Chinese are also as a nation curiously callous to suffering either in themselves or others, not taking pleasure in the infliction of it, as is the case with some more highly strung natures, but strangely indifferent to it. In all probability at first women simply bandaged their feet somewhat tightly. And just as a man in Europe used a little while ago to attach especial importance to a woman's being well shod and to the turn of her ankle, so did a Chinese man, till in the course of a thousand years we have arrived at the present abortions with a two-and-a-half-inch measurement, as also at all these stories of long dead and gone empresses and lotus flowers.

The method of binding and the period of beginning naturally differ somewhat over the whole extent of this vast empire. In the west binding seems generally to begin at six years old. In the east it is generally from five to seven, or at the latest at eight, years of age. Tsai, the good-natured Governor of Shanghai, when I met him there at a dinner party at our Chief Justice's, looked across the table at me, and said in his somewhat humorous, jerky voice, "I know what you want to talk to me about. You want to talk to me about footbinding. It is very hard, is it not? The poor little things have but two years to run." So that it would seem as if in his part of the country or in his own family binding began earlier. In the east of China the bandage is said to be of strong white cotton-cloth, two yards long and about three inches wide; and I have generally seen a two yards long bandage. The cloth is drawn as tightly as the child can bear, leaving the great toe free, but binding all the other toes under the sole of the foot, so as to reduce the width as much as possible, and eventually to make the toes of the left foot peep out at the right side and the toes of the right foot at the left side of the foot, in both cases coming from underneath the sole. Each succeeding day the bandage is tightened both morning and night; and if the bones are refractory, and spring back into their places on the removal of the bandage, sometimes a blow is given with the heavy wooden mallet used in beating clothes; and possibly it is, on the whole, kinder thus to hasten operations. Directly after binding, the little girl is made to walk up and down on her poor aching feet, for fear mortification should at once set in. But all this is only during the first year. It is the next two years that are the terrible time for the little girls of China; for then the foot is no longer being narrowed, but shortened, by so winding the bandages as to draw the fleshy part of the foot and the heel close together, till it is possible to hide a half-crown piece between them. It is, indeed, not till this can be done that a foot is considered bound. During these three years the girlhood of China presents a most melancholy spectacle. Instead of a hop, skip, and a jump, with rosy cheeks like the little girls of England, the poor little things are leaning heavily on a stick somewhat taller than themselves, or carried on a man's back, or sitting sadly crying. They have great black lines under their eyes, and a special curious paleness that I have never seen except in connection with footbinding. Their mothers mostly sleep with a big stick by the bedside, with which to get up and beat the little girl should she disturb the household by her wails; but not uncommonly she is put to sleep in an outhouse. The only relief she gets is either from opium, or from hanging her feet over the edge of her wooden bedstead, so as to stop the circulation.

The Chinese saying is, "For each pair of bound feet there has been a whole kang, or big bath, full of tears"; and they say that one girl out of ten dies of footbinding or its after-effects. When I quoted this to the Italian Mother Superior at Hankow, who has for years been head of the great Girls' School and Foundling Establishment there, she said, with tears in her eyes, "Oh no, no! that may be true of the coast towns." I thought she was going to say it would be a gross exaggeration in Central China; but to my horror she went on, "But more here—more—more." Few people could be in a better position to judge than herself; for until this year the little girls under her charge have regularly had their feet bound. As I have understood, there the bandages were only tightened once a week. The children were, of course, exempted from all lessons on those days; and the Italian Sister who had to be present suffered so much from witnessing the little girls' sufferings that she had to be continually changed, no Italian woman being able to endure the pain of it week after week. Of course, the only reason they bound the children's feet was from anxiety about finding husbands for them in after-life, and from fear of parents not confiding their children to them unless they so far conformed to Chinese custom. But this year the good Mother has at last decided that public opinion has been sufficiently developed to make it possible for her to dispense with these hateful bandages. "Do you suppose I like them?" she said, the last time I saw her. "Always this question of new shoes of different sizes, according as the feet are made smaller; always more cotton-cloth being torn into bandages: the trouble it all entails is endless—simply endless." This was a point of view I had never considered. But it is a comfort to think the good Mother is delivered from it; for she wrote to me in the spring of 1898 that she knew I should be glad to hear fifty little girls had just been unbound, and no more girls were to have their feet bound under her care.

Dr. Reifsnyder, the lady at the head of the Margaret Williamson Hospital at Shanghai, says toes often drop off under binding, and not uncommonly half the foot does likewise. She tells of a poor girl's grief on undoing her bandage—"Why, there is half my foot gone!" and how she herself had said to her that, with half her foot, and that half in good condition, she would be much better off than those around her. And so it has turned out. This girl walks better than most others. Her feet had been bound by a cruel mother-in-law; and, according to Dr. Reifsnyder, of all cruel people a Chinese mother-in-law is the cruelest to the daughter-in-law under her keeping. The foot of another daughter-in-law, she knew, dropped off entirely under the process of binding. Another error, Dr. Reifnysder points out, is that people often think that, after the first, binding does not hurt. She had in her employ a woman fifty years old; and she knew that, after standing more than usual, this woman's feet would still bleed, as is not unnatural, when it is considered this woman, weighing one hundred and forty pounds, stood up in shoes two and a half inches long.

Dr. Macklin of Nanking, on my asking him what sort of cases he had come across, he having the reputation of thinking many things more pressing than unbinding the feet of the women of China, at once told me of a little child of a poor family brought to his hospital with an ulcer that had begun at the heel, caused by the bandages.When he first saw the child, the ulcer extended half-way up to the knee; and the child would have died of blood-poisoning in a few days, if she had not been brought to him.Another of his cases ended more sadly.The poor little girl was the granddaughter of an official, her father a teacher.When only between six and seven, she was brought to the hospital, both her feet already black masses of corruption.Her relations would not allow her feet to be amputated; so in a few months they dropped off.The stumps were a long time in healing, as the skin was drawn back from the bone.The child was taken home, gradually became weaker and weaker, and after a year and a half of suffering died.

Dr. McCartney of Chungking mentions one case in which he was called in to a little girl. When he removed the binding, he found both feet hanging by the tendons only, with gangrene extending above the ankles. Immediate amputation was at once necessary; but the unfortunate child will have to go through life without feet. The mother of the child was a confirmed opium-smoker, and her indifference had led to the result indicated. The two greatest curses in China are, in his opinion, opium-smoking and footbinding. Another case was an unmarried woman who had paralysis in both legs. She was treated by removing the bandages on her feet, by massage, and electric current. In less than a month she was able to walk. Her trouble was caused by nothing more or less than footbinding. He says the Chinese know nothing of the physiology and anatomy of the human body; and this ignorance causes untold suffering to the women and children of China. Footbinding has nothing to recommend it but the dictates of a senseless fashion. Women with small feet are unable to stand still, but are continually swaying and taking short steps, like a person on tiptoe. He defies any Chinaman to tell him there is not great pain and discomfort in footbinding. Chinese women were disinclined to confess pain. To do so would be pu hao i-su—indelicate. There is in a bound foot a space like that between the closed fingers and the ball of the thumb. This space does not touch the shoe, and is consequently soft and tender. Perspiration gathers there, and, unless kept extremely clean, eczema results, and finally ulceration and mortification. He had had several cases of double amputation. From the time the feet were bound until death, they caused pain and were liable to disease. Not only did these serious local troubles exist, but others occurred in the internal organs, and in many cases affected the offspring.

It would require a medical work to describe the various maladies more or less directly traceable to binding. Let it suffice here to point out that when a Chinese woman walks it is on her heel entirely, and to suggest that the consequent jar to the spine and the whole body is very likely the cause of the internal maladies of women, so general, if not universal, in those regions where binding is generally practised. Lady doctors have already observed that in certain parts of China where binding is universal, whatever disease a woman may come to the hospital for, she is always afflicted with some severe internal trouble; whereas in those parts where only a few bind, it is rare to find these same maladies.

CHAPTER VII.
ANTI-FOOTBINDING.

To turn to a cheerfuller subject.Although the Roman Catholics, the American Episcopal Church, and some other missionary bodies have in former days thought it wiser to conform to Chinese custom in the matter of binding, there have been other missionary bodies, that have for twenty years or more refused to countenance it.One or two examples of their methods of work will probably suffice.The Church Mission at Hangchow opened a school for girls in 1867, and in 1896 Mr. J.L.Stuart wrote:

"The Mission undertook from the first to feed and clothe and care for the girls for about ten years; and it was required that the feet of the girls should be unbound, and that they should not be compelled to marry against their own consent. The school opened with three scholars; but the number soon increased to a dozen, and then to twenty, and after a few years to thirty, and then to forty, and for five years it has had fifty pupils. After the first few years, no solicitations were ever made for pupils, and they were not taken under eight or ten years of age; but there have always been more applicants than can be accommodated. For ten years the pupils have furnished their own clothing and bedding, and a few have paid for their food. The superintendent of the school took the ground in the beginning that, as the Mission undertook to support and train the girls, it was not only a right but it was an obligation to require the girls to conform to rules that were considered right and proper as far as possible. The success of the school proves the wisdom of the stand taken at the time. The girls have a good yard in which to play, and no sprig of grass can make headway where their big feet go romping about, and their rosy cheeks and happy faces are in marked contrast to the average Chinese girl seen in the street and in their homes. As the girls grow up and are ready to leave the school, in almost every case they have been claimed by some Christian young man who is not ashamed of their big feet. In the course of the past twenty-eight years many pupils have been sent out from this school; but, so far as is known, none of them have ever attempted to rebind their daughters' feet."

A letter from Kalgan in the far north shows very quaintly the difficulties encountered by an American lady missionary, evidently an ardent anti-footbinder:

"Kalgan, China, September 24th

"Anti-footbinding seems to be very much entangled with match-making on my part. I perhaps wrote about a little girl who came from four days' distance here to school, and unbound her feet, because I was to help the young man selected to be her husband, if he took a wife with large feet. The engagement papers were not made out, because the family wanted more betrothal money than I cared to give. I did not limit the young man at all. He could give what additional sum he pleased; but I would not give more than twenty-four tiao, about two pounds ten shillings; and thought that a good deal for a little girl of fourteen. The young man did not have any money, and rather wanted a small-footed wife; but his elder brothers exhorted him, and he gave in: but no additional money is to be expected from him. The little girl herself admires her young man very much, and said if her father did not give her to Yü Ch`ien (the young man) she would jump into the well when she got home. I have just heard that the father is dead. He was an opium-smoker, and wanted to betroth the girl where they could get the most money; but the brothers said, 'Let our sister be happy, even if the money is less.' His death may bring on the engagement, as they wish the money for the funeral expenses, I suppose. Did you ever hear of Chinese who had enough money on hand for funeral expenses?

"One of our schoolboys, whose mother engaged him to a little girl eight years old, told his mother he wanted his bride's feet unbound, so she could enter our girls' school here.

"I took the schoolgirls out for a pleasure-trip yesterday. They went to the beautiful new Russian church and churchyard, prettily laid out with trees, flower-beds, and a chime of bells in the bell-tower. Afterwards we went to a temple in the city. One of the priests said, 'Why don't your girls bind their feet?' I said, 'Why don't you bind your feet?' 'I! I'm a man!'I didn't talk further, as there was an unpleasant crowd gathering to watch the girls.

"Mr. McKee, of Ta-tung Fu, Shansi, is exercised over the future of his schoolgirls. His wife has now the charge of a school of six girls. No girls with bound feet can enter. Mr. McKee says no boy in Ta-tung will engage himself to a large-footed girl, even if his parents are willing; and if they are willing, he or his big brother is not. I said, 'In Fenchou Fu, Shansi, there is a boys' school, and they can't get Christian girls enough for their brides.' But he said, 'No, Ta-tung has such a bad reputation for selling daughters, that no good family will let its daughters be married outside of the city or very near villages, for fear it will be said they have been sold.' The girls are young yet, and there is no immediate necessity for their marriage; so Mr. McKee trusts that Providence will provide bridegrooms when the time comes."

In April, 1895, I was happy enough to start the T`ien Tsu Hui, or Natural Feet Society. Up till then foreigners who were not missionaries had done but little, if anything, to prevent footbinding. It was, therefore, quite a joyful surprise to find that pretty well all the Shanghai ladies whom I asked were willing and eager to serve upon the committee. We began very timidly by republishing a poem written by a Chinese lady of Hangchow, sent down by Bishop Moule, and happily for us translated into English verse by Dr. Edkins, for one of our initial difficulties was that not one of us could read Chinese. We then ventured on another poem by another Chinese lady. After that we published a tract written in English by Pastor Kranz, sat upon and somewhat remodelled by the whole committee, then translated into Chinese for us by the Rev. Timothy Richard's Chinese writer. It is difficult for English people to understand what anguish of mind had been suffered by all the ladies on the committee, before we could decide into what sort of Chinese we would have our tract translated. There were so many alternatives before us. Should it be into the Shanghai dialect? and then, Should there be other translations into the dialects of the other parts? The women would then understand it. But, then, the women could not read. And were we appealing to the men or the women? And would not our tract be thought very low and vulgar in such common language? Should it be translated into ordinary mandarin? But would not the learned even then despise it? We knew of course—we all sat sadly weighted by the thought—that feet are the most risqué subject of conversation in China, and no subject more improper can be found there. And some of us felt as if we should blush before those impassive blue-gowned, long-tailed Boys, who stand behind our chairs and minister to our wants at tiffin and at dinner, when the latter knew that we—we, their mistresses—were responsible for a book upon footbinding, a book that any common man off the streets could read. In the end we took refuge in the dignified Wenli of the Chinese classics, confident that thus anti-footbinding would be brought with as great decorum as possible before the Chinese public, and that at least the literati must marvel at the beautiful style and learning of the foreign ladies, who, alas! could not read one character of the little booklet, whose type and red label we all examined so wistfully. We circulated our books as well as we could; we encouraged each other not to mind the burst of ridicule with which we were greeted by the twenty-years-in-China-and-not-know-a-word-of-the-language men. Our one French member was most comforting with her two quotations, "La moquerie provient souvent d'indigence d'esprit," and "La moquerie est l'esprit de ceux qui n'en ont point." But, to use the Chinese phrase, our hearts were very small indeed; for we knew the custom was so old, and the country so big. And what were we to fight against centuries and millions?

There was a drawing-room meeting held at Chungking, in the far west of Szechuan; and it was a most brilliant affair. The wealth of embroideries on the occasion was a thing to remember. One young lady could look neither to the right nor to the left, so bejewelled was she; indeed, altogether she was a masterpiece of art. But all the Chinese ladies laughed so gaily, and were so brilliant in their attire, that the few missionary ladies among them looked like sober moths caught in a flight of broidered butterflies. Every one came, and many brought friends; and all brought children, in their best clothes too, like the most beautiful dolls. At first, in the middle of the cakes and tea, the speeches seemed to bewilder the guests, who could not make out what they were meant to do, when their hostess actually stood up and addressed them through an interpreter. Then there was such eager desire to corroborate the statements: "On the north bank of the river near Nanking——" "Yes, yes!" exclaimed a lady from Nanking; "they don't bind there! And they are strong—very." Then, when the speaker went on to say that on the road to Chengtu there was a city where a large part of the population all intermarried, and did not bind their women's feet, being of Cantonese descent, Cantonese ladies nodded and smiled, and moved dainty little hands with impetuous movements, as if eager for interpreters in their turn to make themselves understood by the great, jolly Szechuan dames round them. And when the speaker further spoke of parts of Hunan where rich and poor alike did not bind, the two solitary representatives of Hupeh, the boastful, could bear it no more, but with quiet dignity rose, and said, in their soft Hupeh voices, "In Hupeh, too, there are parts where no woman binds—none." Next a missionary lady in fluent Chinese explained the circulation of the blood, and with an indiarubber pipe showed the effect of binding some part of it. There were no interruptions then. This seemed to the Chinese ladies practical, and it was quite striking to see how attentively they listened. This speech was afterwards a good deal commented on. A Chinese lady then related how she had been led to unbind, ceasing any longer to feel delight in the little feet that had once been such a pride to her. After which another English lady explained in the local dialect our one tract in the classic language, the rather difficult Wenli. The meeting was then thrown open, and at once the very smartest of the Chinese ladies present came forward to make a speech in her turn. All present were agreed that footbinding was of no use, but it could only be given up by degrees. Man man-ti (Little by little) was the watchword. Then, just as at an English meeting, a number of ladies went on to a dinner party. But the others stayed and talked. "Did you see my little girls listening?" said one mother. "They are thinking they will never have their feet bound again." And certainly the expression of the little girls had been eager in the extreme—poor little crippled creatures! with their faces all rouged to simulate the roses of healthy exercise.

But what did the men say?What they thought of the meeting we did not know; for as the husband of one of the ladies said next day rather crossly, "Oh, of course the women liked it!They don't want to bind their feet!"It seemed a step, however, to have got a Chinaman even to admit that.

At an anti-footbinding meeting another day, when those opposed to binding were asked to stand up, all the men present but six rose to their feet, and a merchant among the audience began a speech against binding. Some days afterwards a mandarin, calling, took up Pastor Kranz's pamphlet lying on the table, and said: "Ah, I have the larger copy of this book with pictures. No, I was not at the meeting the other day, but my people were. As to unbinding, the elder women can't; you see, their toes have dropped off. But my little girl of six is not having her feet bound any more. She screamed out so directly she laid her head upon her pillow, I could not bear to hear it. Besides, she got no sleep." He was a man of means, and made no reference as to any possible difficulty about marrying her.

It was a little later on that we got our first great push forward. One of the examiners at Peking lost his father, and being in mourning could not, in accordance with Chinese usage, continue to hold office, so returned to his home in the far west, and there found his little daughter of seven crying over her footbinding. Whilst on the way he had come across one of our tracts. First he had his child's feet unbound; then he thought, Could not he write something better on the subject—an appeal to his nation that would carry power? After many days of thought, he wrote what we commonly call the Suifu Appeal; for having signed it with his name and seal, and got five of his friends, leading men of the neighbourhood, to add their testimony and names, they proceeded to placard it over the walls of Suifu, against the examinations that were just coming off there, that all the young men might carry back the news of it to the different homes from which they came. No sooner did we get a copy of this pamphlet—which, curiously enough, was brought to me by Mr. Upcraft, then on his way down-river to be married to the very lady who had first told me of the missionaries' efforts against footbinding, and thus impelled me to try to do what a simple lay woman could—than we at once began to reprint and distribute this appeal to all the ten thousand students who were coming up for examination to Chungking. We were more lavish of our funds than they of Suifu, and tried to give each a copy to take home. Then came a letter from the Shanghai manager of the great China Merchants' Company, the one great commercial body of China, also semi-official, saying he heard that there was a wonderful tract in the west, and he would like a copy, that he might reprint it at his own expense, and send it to be circulated through his native province of Kwangtung.

About a year afterwards we heard that the Pu Tsan Tsu Hui (No Bind Feet Society) had been formed at Canton by Kang, the Modern Sage, the adviser of the youthful Emperor, who has lately had to fly for his life, and only done so in safety under an English man-of-war's protection; that ten thousand fathers of families had thereby pledged themselves not to bind their little girls' feet, nor to marry their sons to bound-foot girls; that they had opened offices in Shanghai, and were memorialising Viceroys and high officials on the subject. We had ourselves memorialised the Emperor in characters of gold on white satin enclosed in a beautiful silver casket; but although the American Minister, the doyen of the Diplomatic Corps, had done his best for us, we had never been officially informed of our beautiful memorial, signed by our President on behalf of nearly every European lady residing in the East, even getting into the young Emperor's hands, the Tsung-li Yamen preferring to keep it on their own shelves. This had discouraged us from going on to memorialise Viceroys, as we had originally intended. But now, to our delight, we heard of the Viceroys responding to the Chinese society. Chang-chih-tung, the one incorruptible Viceroy of Hupeh and Hunan, in that beautiful literary Chinese, in which he is unrivalled condemned footbinding, and we immediately proceeded to placard the cities of his two provinces with his condemnation; whilst the Governor of Hunan, since degraded by the Empress-Dowager, dared to go a step farther, and forbade binding. The Viceroy of Nanking struck his breast; then lifted up his hands to heaven, and said it was a good work, and he too would give a writing. But he died shortly afterwards. The Viceroy of Chihli admonished all his subordinate officials to discourage binding, each in their separate districts.

Meanwhile, another most unexpected adherent had come forward.Duke Kung Hui-chung, one of the lineal descendants of Confucius, wrote: "I have always had my unquiet thoughts about footbinding, and felt pity for the many sufferers.Yet I could not venture to say so publicly.Now there are happily certain benevolent gentlemen and virtuous daughters of ability, wise daughters from foreign lands, who have initiated a truly noble enterprise.They have addressed our women in animated exhortations, and founded a society for the prohibition of footbinding.They aim at extinguishing a pernicious custom."And he applied for copies of all our tracts that he might compile a book out of the best ones and circulate it.

We were naturally immensely pleased by his phrase "wise daughters from foreign lands," and began to forget that any one had ever laughed at us, as Chinese ladies now came forward to start a school for girls of the upper classes, the first rule of which is that all who enter it must mutually exhort one another to unbind their feet. Shanghai ladies held drawing-room meetings, where they heard from Chinese ladies themselves how they were never free from pain, admired their elegant raiment, and shuddered over the size of their feet; whilst a meeting was held at one of the principal silk factories, when about a thousand Chinese women were addressed by European and Chinese ladies on the subject.

As showing the Chinese view of the matter, it may interest some to read a rough sketch of the famous Suifu Appeal, that has had such an awakening influence over China.It is not at all what English people would write; but there is no doubt that it does appeal to the hearts of Chinese.

Recalling the anti-footbinding edict of the Emperor Shun Chih (1644-1662), the immediate predecessor of Kang Hsi—an edict too much ignored—and pronouncing footbinding actually illegal, Mr. Chou begins without any preliminary flourish with the statement that "No crime is more criminal than disobedience to the Emperor, no pain more injurious than the breaking of the bones and sinews. Even the most stupid man knows this." He dilates upon the wickedness of disobeying the Emperor Shun Chih's edict, and disregarding the precepts of Confucius, who taught that men should respect and not injure their own bodies. "But now," he says, "they have their young daughters' feet bound tightly till they bleed, and the bones and sinews are broken.... Manchus and Mongols and Chinese bannermen do not bind their women's feet, upper and lower classes alike.... The provinces of Chihli, Kwangtung, and Kwangsi, after the Taiping rebellion was suppressed, acknowledged footbinding was wrong, and the half of them abandoned the practice. In Szechuan Province, in the cities of Pengchou and Peng-chi-hien, Hung-ya, and Sa-chang, there are some wise men who have changed this fashion of small feet into natural feet. Let other places do the same."

Then Mr. Chou refers to the countries beyond the seas—England, France, Germany, America, etc. The women there are free from the pains of footbinding. Only the Chinese voluntarily incur suffering and injury; parents neglect teaching their daughters the five womanly virtues; and teach them instead a bad custom, spoiling their feet. He next points out that "distinctions of rank are not indicated by the feet. Moreover, the laws of the empire ordain the punishment of the wicked by cutting in pieces, beheading, and strangling; but there is nothing about binding of the feet: the laws are too merciful for that. When in a fight or quarrel people's limbs are injured, there is an appointed punishment. But people have their young daughters' feet broken on purpose, not heeding their cries and pain. And yet parents are said to love their daughters. For what crime are these tender children punished? Their parents cannot say. It makes the daughters cry day and night, aching with pain. It is a hundred times as bad a punishment as robbers get. If a man is beaten in the yamen, he can get over it in a fortnight.But if a girl's feet are bound, she suffers from it all her life long, and her feet can never regain their natural shape."

Mr. Chou has no patience with fathers who torture their little daughters because their ancestors did it."I do not think much," he says, "of such respect for ancestors."Then he goes to the practical side of the question, and shows how, if robbers come or a fire breaks out, the men of the family have to leave the women behind (as they actually do) to commit suicide, or suffer a still worse fate.Whereas, if the women had natural feet, they could defend themselves, or escape, as well as the men.Men should not despise girls with natural feet."In times of calamity the noble and rich are the first to suffer, because their women, brought up in ease and luxury, cannot escape.If any accident suddenly occurs, they can but sit and await death; whilst those with unbound feet can carry heavy things or use weapons, and need not fear being left behind or killed.They can even be trained in military exercises, so as to defend themselves against attack, and thus enjoy security.This is the happy course."

It is a man's business, Mr. Chou says he hears foolish people say, to defend women; but from ancient times to the present day even high officials have not always succeeded in defending their wives. And the inability of the women to escape leads to the death of the men who stay to defend them, and so the family perishes. "I hope people will be wise and intelligent, and give up this stupidity."

"The present is no time of peace.Foreign women have natural feet; they are daring, and can defend themselves; whilst Chinese women have bound feet, and are too weak even to bear the weight of their own clothes.They think it looks nice; but in reality it does not look nice, and weakens their bodies, often causing their death.I am a student, a man of no use in the world; but I must try to do people some good, and I may be of some use by writing this.The people in Szechuan Province are numerous and crowded together, and there are many idlers and bad characters.Many unforeseen things may arise.Am I right or wrong?"

Many people ask whether it is possible for women to unbind. It is not only possible, but many women have done so, and can not only walk now, but declare they are free from suffering. It is, however, obvious that their feet cannot regain their natural shape; and probably it is even in some cases impossible to dispense with the bandages. In all cases unbinding is a painful process, requiring much care. Cotton-wool has to be pushed under the toes; massage is generally resorted to; and not uncommonly the woman has to lie in bed for some days. But I have seen many women who have unbound at forty, and one even at sixty. All those I have seen have done so under direct Christian influence; but I have heard of large groups of Chinese women unbinding quite apart from all foreign influence. And so, with Chinese literati writing anti-footbinding tracts; a Chinese Viceroy circulating one with a preface of his own; a descendant of Confucius collating and distributing our publications; the leading Chinese periodical advocating our cause; an influential Chinese Anti-footbinding Society established in Shanghai; and, best of all, Chinese ladies of distinction coming forward to found a school for girls of the upper classes,—it seems almost as if we had already set the women of China on their feet again. But with this reaction set in at Peking, it may be that the hardest and fiercest part of the fight is yet to come, and that Chinese women may yet need more help from us before the custom of a thousand years is for all time done away, and "golden lily" shoes only to be found in the shape of Liberty pincushions.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE POSITION OF WOMEN.

A man once quaintly said to me, "Whenever I want to know what men really are, I consider what they have made of their women." We may also learn something by considering what men say they admire in women. And for this purpose a few extracts from the Peking Gazette, the oldest newspaper in the world, and to this day the official organ of China, will go farther than a hundred pages of hearsays.Let us consider three cases from one year only.

"May 2nd, 1891.—The Viceroy at Canton submits an application which he has received from the elders and gentry of the district of Shun-teh, asking permission to erect a memorial arch to an old lady who has seen seven generations of her family, and is at present living under the same roof with four generations of her descendants. The lady, whose maiden name was Lin, is the mother of the distinguished General Fang Yao, and is in her eighty-second year. She has six sons, forty grandsons, one hundred and twenty-one great-grandsons, and two great-great-grandsons. Her life has been one of singular purity and simplicity, fully entitling her to the honour bestowed by law upon aged people of distinction. —Referred to the consideration of the Board of Rites."

"February 6th, 1891.—Li Hung-chang submits a case of filial piety which was brought to his notice by Wu Fu-lun. An assistant deputy magistrate on the Chihli expectant list had a daughter renowned for her docile disposition and her filial piety. In the summer of the present year her father was deputed to look after some work in connection with the river embankments. While he was away, his wife became dangerously ill, and was most tenderly nursed by her daughter, who went the length of cutting off a piece of her flesh to make soup for the invalid, and who offered to give up her own life should that of her mother's be spared. When her elder brother proposed to go and inform the father of the dangerous state of his wife's health, she prevented his doing so by pointing out that her father had enough to do looking after his own work, and to add to his anxiety by conveying to him such news would serve but little purpose. Two days after P`eng-chu's return his wife died, and the daughter refused to take any food for several days. Seeing by so doing she was causing great grief to her father, she forced herself to take a little gruel. Some time after he was ordered away on river-work, and during his absence she again refused to take any nourishment. While away he was taken ill, and asked for leave to return home. On his arrival he was met by his daughter, who informed him that she dared not die without first telling him, but that now he had come back she wished to state that it was her intention to go and wait on her mother in the shades below. In spite of all entreaties she then resolutely abstained from all food, and died some days after. Memorialist agrees in thinking that it would be a thousand pities to pass over such a remarkable instance of filial devotion without remark, and would ask that the Board be directed to make out a scroll to her memory. —Request granted.Let the Board of Rites take note."

It will be noted, in both these cases, it is rather what may be called the domestic virtues that have won attention. General Fang Yao's mother is honoured for her numerous offspring, as also for the singular purity and simplicity of her life; Wei P`eng-chu's daughter for her devotion to her mother. But the next case is of quite a different character, and shows once more how China is always the land of the unexpected. In advanced America, have women ever yet received decorations for heroism in war? Whilst here, in old-fashioned China, in the Peking Gazette, we read:

"January 23rd, 1891.—In 1858 Liuchou, a city in Kwangsi, fell into the hands of rebels. A great number of its inhabitants died in its defence, or, preferring death to dishonour, committed suicide rather than submit to their conquerors. Nor did the men alone show forth their bravery in this respect; their example was largely followed by the women. When the city was recaptured, orders were issued that a list should be prepared of all those who had suffered, in order that some steps might be taken to commemorate their self-sacrifice. At the time when these orders were issued, every one's attention was concentrated on suppressing the rebellion, and it was not easy to give effect thereto. When peace was restored, instructions, however, were again given that inquiries should be made from time to time as originally directed. Ma Pi-yao, the Governor of Kwangsi, accordingly submits a list drawn up by the Mah`ing District Magistrate of the names of thirty-four women who died in those troublesome times, and thus preserved their honour. Memorialist thinks that the memory of these women is worthy of all honour, and would suggest that the Board be instructed to prepare a posthumous testimonial of merit commemorative of their action. Thus will their pure souls be set at rest, and others be encouraged to follow in their footsteps. —Request granted.Let the Board of Rites take note."

It will be observed that several years had been allowed to elapse before these thirty-four women received official honour.Yet is it not the case that in most other countries they would have remained unnoticed to all time?The wording is also noteworthy: "a posthumous testimonial of merit commemorative of their action" is to be prepared."Thus will their pure souls be set at rest, and others be encouraged to follow in their footsteps."

It is the custom of most men to write of the mock modesty of the women of China. They may have very good reasons for doing so of which I know nothing. With regard to women, as with regard to everything else in China, I can but write of them as I have found them. To establish the truth of any fact or any series of facts needs an amount of research and study I have not been able to give; nor does this book aim at being a storehouse of learning and a book of reference for all time, but rather at giving a picture, for those who know nothing of them, of a people among whom I have at least lived on somewhat intimate terms for the last eleven years. At the same time, in writing about Chinese women I am burdened by the reflection that possibly I am in some ways better able to express an opinion about the men, and men about the women. To tell what I can, however: doubtless Chinese ladies' speak of many subjects with the freedom of the days of Queen Elizabeth; but how women can be called mock modest who always remain fully clad in such damp heat as leads men to strip to the waist in all their shops, as also at their dinner parties, when summer is at its height, I cannot understand. The amount of suffering from heat that must be undergone by women in consequence of their observance of decorum seems not at all to have been sufficiently appreciated. I have never yet seen a Chinese woman insufficiently clad, nor committing any act that could possibly be considered indecent. The whole behaviour of Chinese ladies would lead me to suppose that they would shrink from anything of the kind. It is not in accordance with their etiquette that they should talk to men—not their own relations; yet whenever I have seen them brought into intercourse with foreign men, or even Chinese men, on matters of business, I have been struck by both their ease of manner and their quiet dignity. It is true they are rather given to rising to address a man, as if he were a superior being; but, further than that, they in nowise convey the impression that they are accustomed to consider themselves as at the service or pleasure of men. It must be understood I am here simply writing of the ladies, with whom I have held friendly intercourse, not of poor peasant-women, nor of those whose society European men in treaty ports most frequent. Although for these last I must add that, however immodest their conduct may be, their manners and behaviour have none of that repulsive disregard of decency, that makes it to a woman so painful to hold intercourse with those acting in a similar manner in London, New York, or, worse still, Paris. It is not unnatural that this should be so. The women leading a vicious life in China have for the most part been sold into slavery in their childhood, their families not having enough rice to feed them; and it is from no bad inclinations of their own that they are found in the houses where foreign or Chinese men find them. Doubtless there are in China, as in other countries, women who prefer vice to virtue; but if I am any judge of expressions or manners, these last must be rarer in China than in any other country with which I am acquainted.

At a ladies' dinner party, the conversation turning upon a new Governor, who had just arrived with several concubines, I found all the ladies at table expressing a horror at the idea of being, or letting any one of their relations become, the number two of any man; whilst my hostess explained to me that concubines were, as a rule, women of lower birth, or sprung from families fallen into indigence. But what struck me most was that there was no tittering, nor appearance of innuendo, whilst discussing the subject, which simply came forward, because none of the ladies saw how they could interchange visits with the ladies of the new Governor; and they also thought an official of such habits of life was not likely to administer the district well. The coarseness and directness of Chinese women often shock European ladies very much. But whilst glad that we have ourselves so far improved in this respect, I have never felt sure that the fine ladies of Queen Elizabeth's time were not more modest really than the fine ladies of Queen Victoria's.

It is certainly true that all we European ladies who go up-country in China have to alter our wardrobes very considerably, if we mean to be on friendly terms with Chinese ladies; whilst the wife of a French Consul had to replace in its case an old master she had brought out to China, such an outrage upon decency was it considered. The German wife of a Commissioner of Customs, regardless of its effects upon her husband's official visitors, amused herself by decorating her hall with life-size pictures of nude female figures. She was rewarded by her man-servant always pointing them out to visitors, when she was out, as the pictures of herself and her various friends. Without entering upon the vexed question as to the decency of the undraped, it can be imagined that no pictures of the kind exist in a country where no woman ever bares any part of her person in society. And far from this indicating mock modesty, it appears to me the natural outcome of a classic literature, every passage of which might be put into the hands of the traditional young girl. When it is further considered that, unlike the images of the two adjacent countries of India and Tibet, the images of China are quite untainted by any suggestion of impropriety, I think I have some grounds for saying that, at all events, virtue is sufficiently in the ascendant in China for vice to pay it the compliment of hypocrisy, if no more. And has any nation yet got farther than this?

It is, of course, well known that as a Chinaman gets richer he buys more concubines.These do not take rank as his wife, and the whole proceeding is considered rather as a concession to weakness than as a practice to be admired.He is, however, careful to get them from as respectable families as he can.A Chinaman also takes a concubine into his house for life; he has no idea of enjoying the few fleeting years of her youth and prettiness, and then setting her adrift with a little sum of money.She becomes from the moment she enters his household as much a charge to him as his wife is, and her children are just as much his lawful children as his wife's are.At the same time, concessions to weakness are said to open the floodgates to yet greater evils; and it may be so in China.

At a dinner party I was asking after the pretty, bright little daughter of my host, who in company with another pretty doll of a girl and an infant prodigy of a younger brother had paid me a visit the year before, when a lady beside me, putting up a warning hand across her lips, just after the fashion of a regular fine lady of Europe, spoke in easy accents from behind it: "Best ask no questions. They are by another woman. His wife has but this one daughter that you see." The speech and the manner of it seemed to give me a new insight into Chinese life. The year before the other woman had been living in his house, his wife had herself brought the infant prodigy often to see me. The little girls had come more than once. Now a time of financial crisis had passed over the city, he had established his number two with her children in a little shop near by, and the subject was not to be mentioned in the hearing of his wife and daughter. Further inquiry revealed that he had done a thing outrageous, not to be spoken of except in a whisper. Under stress of poverty he had sent another concubine into a convent to be a nun. This was atrocious, for by all Chinese rules she was a member of his family, for whom he was bound to provide for the rest of her days.

What is the position of women when they are married? It is so hard to describe this in any country. And the difficulty is increased in China, because we are so prone to connect the idea of marriage with love and love-making. There is nominally none in China, where as a rule the young man does not see his bride until she is his wife. She then becomes the household drudge, wears poor clothing in comparison with the daughters of the house, and is the servant of her mother-in-law. Often and often have I wished that it was not so, and that in going to a house I could talk with the wistful young daughters-in-law, who glance at me from under their eyelids, and look as if they would be so receptive of new ideas, being, like most ill-used people, quite ready for a revolt of some sort. But it is the elder lady who does the honours, entertains the guests, and regulates the household. And who more set in her ideas than a grandmother of many grandchildren?

There is one Chinese family that has for many years shown us kindliness. We have assisted at its weddings and its funerals, and its young men have spent long hours of the days, when they had nothing else to do, at our house. One day the ladies announced they were coming. And they came; but, alas! as is usual, in such numbers, and with so many women attendants, it was difficult to find chairs enough for all, much more conversation. How merry they were, as they looked about at all our foreign things, all new to them! But their especial delight was our battledore and shuttlecocks. They had been accustomed to use the heels of their crippled feet for battledores, and were not easily tired of playing in our pleasanter fashion. It was one of these girls who afterwards at a dinner party consented to show me her foot. For a year after that she was busy with preparations for her trousseau, all apparently made at home under her own supervision; and, to my great regret, I have seen nothing of her since her marriage. We were away for a time, and since then she has had a child. A Chinese lady never goes about whilst expecting, nor whilst her child is very young—at least, those I know do not. Curiously enough, for a month after child-birth Chinese coolies object to even carrying a woman in a sedan-chair. There are in China many curious traces of the same idea, that led to the service for the churching of women. There is some objection to women sleeping upstairs in a house frequented by men; and when a woman in our house was put to sleep in a room that happened to be over the entrance, some Chinese considered it very damaging to my husband's business. In China a husband and wife very rarely go out or travel together. On one occasion, as I relate elsewhere, an old-fashioned inn actually refused to receive us on that ground, and we were nearly benighted before arriving at another village, where our servant had the assurance to pass me off as a man.

It must not, however, be assumed from all this that Chinese women take no part in affairs.A Governor's wife is always supposed to be the keeper of his official seal, and is therefore never expected to go out and pay visits.When my husband was obliged to go to Shanghai on business, it was his Chinese employés who immediately suggested that I should keep the keys of the safe, and supervise the accounts in his absence, this being what they said the wife of a Chinese man of business would undertake.Nor is it unusual, my husband says, for a business man to say to him, "I must go home and consult my wife before concluding this bargain."When we first arrived in Chungking, the wife of a formerly very wealthy merchant came at once to see me, begging that some place might be found in my husband's business for her husband, who had unfortunately become impoverished.I promised to mention the matter; but as she proceeded to enter into details, and my knowledge of Chinese was even less then than it is now, I called for our cook to interpret, and to my amusement presently heard him say, "I don't know why you trouble my mistress about all this.Foreign ladies are not like our ladies; they don't understand anything about business, and take no part in their husbands' affairs."This he said in a tone as if explaining that we were ignorant, frivolous creatures; and it must be remembered that, like most Chinese who go into foreign employ, he had been uniformly in service with foreigners since his earliest years.

When a young man in my husband's business was taking to dissipated courses, it was his mother who came off in her sedan-chair into the country to interview my husband. And very definitely she knew what she wanted,—that her son should be given employment at a distance, and thus separated from the many undesirable acquaintances he had formed. She begged my husband also to give him a talking to, and told him exactly what she thought he had better say; then, having laid her point of view very clearly before him, begged that her visit might be kept a secret from her son, and so departed. I must add that, for all her being a lady, she went on her knees to my husband on arrival, and tried to do so again on going. But in conversation with him she was anything but on her knees.

Except among the poorest of the poor, who do field-work or carry water, the women of China do little beyond suckling children and making shoes, except in the treaty ports, where now large numbers of them are employed in the factories lately started. They smoke and gossip, give and go to dinner parties, and one of their great delights is to go on pilgrimages to distant shrines. It is sometimes stipulated before marriage that a woman shall go on so many pilgrimages during the year. Even when nuns invite ladies to come and enjoy themselves with them, it means drinking wine, smoking, and playing cards; and not uncommonly, in the west of China at all events, smoking includes opium-smoking. The ladies who are regular opium-smokers sit up late at night, and do not get up till five or six in the evening. They mostly have bad health, and generally say they have taken to opium-smoking because of it. Whatever effect opium may have upon men, the various ladies I have seen at ladies' dinners generally return from the opium-couch with their eyes very bright, their cheeks very red, and talking a great deal of nonsense very excitedly. But afterwards they look yellow and unhealthy, mostly with sunken cheeks. They seem no more ashamed of it than ladies are of taking wine in England. But those who do not smoke seem to think it a rather disgraceful proceeding. A lady will draw herself up, and say, "None of the members of my family smoke opium—not one." But at a good many dinner parties the opium-couch is prepared with all its elegant accessories. And at the only Chinese country house, at which I have stayed, the ladies' one idea was to ask me into their bedrooms to smoke opium. Naturally, my acquaintance is rather with Szechuan ladies. Cantonese seem altogether different. And I gather that there must be a much more cultured set in some parts of China, judging from the ladies engaged in starting the High School for Girls in Shanghai. Of those I know in the west, only one young girl could read and write. She was talked of with admiration by young men, who asked if I knew her, and if she were not awfully clever.

Foreign men often get the idea that women rule the roost in China, because when they want to buy a house or bit of land the sale is often delayed owing to some old woman of the family not agreeing to it. And the scolding tongue of an old woman has before now proved too much for a British Consul to withstand. But it must be remembered what a dull, mulish obstinacy is that of the Chinese man, and that somehow or other the Chinese woman has to get on with him. At Ichang, in one street at least, the men were said to be constantly beating their wives; and I recollect once seeing a woman, who, after a storm of invective against her husband, threw herself down on the road there and kicked and screamed. She was very red, as if she had been drinking too much wine; and I still remember the sheepish air of the man, as he stood and watched her kicking. He certainly did not attempt to lay a hand upon her whilst we were by. But during all the years I have been in China this is the only case of the kind I have seen. In a Chinese city one does not at night hear the cries of women as one too often does in London. And on the whole it would appear as if husbands and wives got on very well together, if without very much affection. A woman who kills her husband is still condemned to death by the lingering process, namely, to being sliced to death; but though this shows the horror entertained of so dastardly a deed, yet in reality, even for such a crime as this, she is put to death first and cut in pieces afterwards.

Meng Kuang is one of the typical women of China. Contrary to the usual custom, she seems to have chosen her own husband, and went to his house dressed in all the splendour of a Chinese bride. For seven days he did not speak to her, nor answer one of her questions. At last he told her he did not like silks of various colours, nor a painted face, nor blackened eyebrows. At once she transformed herself into a plainly dressed, hard-working wife; she became noted for her virtues; and her name is on the lips of all the people of China, somewhat after the fashion of the patient Griselda of old.

A prettier story is told of the wife of the Emperor Yuan-ti in the Han Dynasty (about the third century A.D.).The Emperor was inspecting a collection of wild animals, tigers and others, when a bear broke loose.Climbing up the railing of the enclosed space, he was getting to the top, and all the other women were running away, when Chao I.advanced as if to meet the bear, standing fearlessly in front of him with a determined air.The guards happily killed the bear, before he could attack her; but the Emperor turned to Chao I., and asked her how it was she was not afraid.Her reply is beautiful: "Wild animals are generally content with one victim.I advanced to place myself as a shield for you."For this she was greatly honoured in her lifetime, and has ever since been held up as an example of womanly courage and devotion.

It only remains to add that whilst a roomful of Chinese ladies presents a very pretty appearance, from the exquisite gradations of colour of their embroidered skirts and jackets, the brilliancy of their head ornaments, and their rouge, yet, taken individually, probably no other nation is so deficient in charm. Their idea is that is it indecorous to show the figure; therefore only their deformed feet, cased, it is true, in beautifully embroidered little shoes, and their faces, are seen; even the hands, which are small and very elegantly shaped, with taper fingers and filbert nails, are concealed in their large sleeves. Their faces at parties are often so rouged as to look like masks, their lips coloured, their eyebrows darkened, and their hair so anointed as to give a shining, semi-metallic setting to the face. Their skirts are very prettily made, in a succession of tiny pleats longitudinally down the skirt, and only loosely fastened together over the hips, so as to feather round the feet when they move in the balancing way that Chinese poets liken to the waving of the willow. Their outer jackets in winter, often of plum-colour satin, with gold-embroidered sleeves, are rather like old-fashioned spencers and unobjectionable; but the under-jackets—at a party a lady often wears three—are of an ugly cut, especially in the back, where they are made so as to stick out instead of hanging flat over the shoulders. And when the ladies divest themselves of their skirts—you always ask a Chinese lady to lay aside her skirt, as in England you ask her to lay aside her cloak—any dress more ugly could hardly be imagined than the long, sloppy-looking under-jacket over rather full, straight-cut trousers, possibly of red satin, gorgeously embroidered with life-size butterflies. There is no single feature in the face that we could call pretty, and in accordance with etiquette the face is entirely devoid of expression. I have never been able to find anything pretty about a Chinese woman except her hands and arms, both of which are very prettily modelled. Doubtless her feet and legs would be too, if let alone. Now her poor legs are like two sticks.

Although often what one must call very well bred, there is nothing pretty or taking about Chinese ladies' manners. But whether in spite or because of this want of charm, the women of China give me the idea that, if once set upon their feet again, they will become a great power in the land—not witching men's hearts away, but guiding them in childhood in the way in which they should go, and in after-years pre-eminently calculated to be companions, counsellors, and friends. Confucius and Mencius are both said to have had remarkable mothers; and it is at least noteworthy that, since the Chinese have taken to mutilating the feet of their women, there has not been one man whom they reckon great born among them: so true it is that any injury to the women of a nation always reacts upon the men with redoubled force.

CHAPTER IX.
BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES.

In China a bride usually rides in a richly embroidered red sedan-chair, decorated with flowers, and hired for the occasion. Not long ago in Canton city a man hired a chair to carry his bride to his homestead in the suburbs. The distance was great, and the hour late. When the four chair-coolies and the lantern-bearers arrived at their destination, the chair containing the bride was deposited outside the doorway to wait the auspicious hour selected for opening the door to admit the bride, and the coolies adjourned to an opium-den; and as they had travelled a long way and were tired, they soon fell asleep. How long they dozed they knew not; but on awakening, they returned, and found the bridal chair outside the doorway. They came to the not unnatural conclusion that the bride had already entered the household, and that the chair was left there for them to take back to the city. Since they had all received their pay in advance, they did not stop to make further inquiries, but hurried home with the chair, put it in a loft, and, rolling themselves up in their beds, slept the sleep of the just. In the meantime the bridegroom heard the bridal party arrive, but had to wait the stroke of the auspicious hour before welcoming the bride. At last the candles were lit, incense-sticks were lighted, the new rice and viands for entertaining the bride were served, the parents-in-law put on their best suits, and so did the bridegroom, and with much pomp and ceremony the door was thrown wide open; but as far as the lantern's light would reach, lo! there was not a trace of the bridal chair, or bride, nor a single soul to be seen. Great was their consternation, and it became greater still as they concluded that bandits must have kidnapped the bride, and would hold her for ransom. The district officer was aroused, the case was reported to the village justice of the peace, and search parties were sent out in every direction. The bridegroom, though distracted, had sense enough to rush to the city and make inquiries of the chair-bearers. The coolies were dumbfounded, and explained what they had done. Together they climbed to the loft, opened the door of the chair, and found the demure-looking bride, long imprisoned and half-starved, but still appearing to her best advantage in her beautiful bridal gown. The bride appeared to have known that she was being carried backwards and forwards; but could not protest, because it is the custom for brides not to open their lips till the marriage ceremony is performed. Hence all the trouble.

This little story, taken almost verbatim from a Chinese newspaper, shows how far a bride's silence is carried.During all the days of reception after the wedding she is supposed to stand up to receive each incoming guest, who may make what remarks he pleases, even of the most personal nature, but never a word may she say; whilst attendant maids pull back her skirts to show how small her feet are, etc.

At one wedding I saw the poor bride grow so painfully crimson under the comments of a very young man, that I took for granted he must be some rude younger brother, and without thinking said so, and found I had done quite the right thing; for the youth—who was no relation at all—incontinently fled, feeling he had over-stepped the bounds of propriety. Besides not speaking, the bride is supposed not to eat. At the only wedding-feast I have attended—I have been to several receptions—the unfortunate bride and bridegroom had to kneel and touch the ground with their foreheads so often, that even if well nourished one wondered how they could live through it. The bride had to serve all the ladies with wine, the bridegroom to go round the men's tables and do likewise. When the size of the bride's feet is further considered, and the weight of the jewellery in her hair, one wonders a little in what frame of mind the poor bride ultimately approaches her groom. It must certainly be in an absolutely exhausted condition of body.

An amusing matrimonial incident may be worth repeating here. A young fellow was to be married on a certain lucky date; but his business having taken him away just before the event, he found it impossible to get back in time. He wrote to his parents, begging them to get the ceremony postponed. To this suggestion many objections were raised by relatives and friends and invited guests, and a strong despatch was forthwith prepared, peremptorily commanding his attendance on the original date. Again the bridegroom pleaded business, and said that he really could not come, whereupon the incensed father straightway took his departure for regions unknown, leaving the mother to do as she liked in the matter. The latter was a woman of original ideas, and, finding herself thus left alone, resolved, for the honour of the family, to resort to strategy. Giving out that the bridegroom had actually returned, but would not be visible until the day of the marriage, she cleverly dressed in male attire a buxom daughter, who is said to have been at all times very like her brother, and made her act the part of happy man throughout the ceremonial. When the latter was finished and the deception was disclosed or discovered, the hymeneal party is said to have broken up in fits of laughter, and in praise of the mother whose genius had evolved so satisfactory a method of overcoming a serious domestic difficulty. The proxy marriage will, it is said, hold good, and, nolens volens, the son is now regarded by his family and friends as a married man.

When one of our many cooks once wanted a wife, he discussed the matter in very businesslike style with my husband. "I can get a wife in Szechuan for ten dollars," he said. "But, then, I can know nothing about her family and habits, as I could if I took a wife from Hupeh"—his own province. "It is true there I should have to pay more. But here all the women drink wine and smoke, and many of them smoke opium. And you never can know the truth beforehand. Now, if I find after marriage that the woman I have chosen smokes opium, there will be my ten dollars gone, and nothing to show for them. I shall wait till I can go home to my own province. Aren't you going that way soon, master? Promise you will take me when you do." However, after all these wise sayings, he was over-persuaded by the account he heard of some woman, married her, and was, I think, very fortunate in her, but that the poor creature died of some painful internal disease two years afterwards.

Our water-coolie made such a fuss over his wedding, gave such a feast, invited so many guests, and borrowed so much money to defray expenses, that I do not see how it is possible in all the course of his life for him to get out of debt again; for though he had made an elaborate calculation that each wedding guest would give a present worth more than his share of the feast would cost, and that he himself would thus really make money by it, he found himself disappointed.It is curious as, perhaps, indicating the mortality among the women of China that all our servants, with the exception of one who has left our service, have lost their wives at least once during the twelve years I have been in China; and not one of the wives can have been over forty.

The men seemed proud of their wives, and good to them according to their ideas; but it certainly was extraordinary how little they seemed to feel their loss when they died. Yet I suppose they care sometimes. Whenever we visit in Chinese houses, my husband generally tries to rejoin me when he can, knowing that my knowledge of Chinese cannot carry me very far, and that consequently my intercourse with the ladies of the house is apt to become rather fatiguing to both parties after a time. On one occasion I was surprised to see him come in so very soon, and with two young men. One of the young fellows said to me in a good-humoured way, "We want him to enjoy himself, and we notice he is never so happy as when he is with you. Oh, yes! we have husbands like that too." One of the governors of Chungking was said, indeed, to be so fond of his wife as to order naval reviews on the river for her amusement. He built a specially pretty pavilion in the highest part of the city for her to have dinner parties there, and possibly it may have been partly grief over her loss—she died of the fright caused by a very great fire that all but burnt their official residence—that made him afterwards go out of his mind for a time. Another Chinese official, ordered to take up high office in Tibet, was so determined his wife should accompany him, that, as the Tibetans will not allow Chinese women to pass a barrier a few miles beyond Tachienlu for fear of the Chinese settling down and overrunning the country, he had her dressed as a man and carried in a sedan-chair, which she never got out of. So it seems some Chinese husbands value their wives beyond the price they pay for them. But with our servants that last seemed to be all they thought of. And yet I still hear the soft caressing tones in which our head servant's wife used always to address him. She was a very plain woman, but so quiet, and made so little demands for herself, wanting always apparently only to be serviceable, that as her husband rose in social position and wealth it always touched me to see the way in which this honest, homely creature would look round on the fine ladies she was brought in contact with, and who at first tried to put her down, but were always in the end won over by her perfectly unassuming manners.

Another woman's husband was a man of violent temper, who insisted upon her working very hard; and the result was continual bickering between the couple, which frequently led to the interchange of blows and bad language. The wife appealed on several occasions to her mother's people for protection; but after trying to comfort her, they always sent her back to her husband. About a month after the marriage the husband ordered his wife one day to go and cut firewood on the hills; but not having been accustomed to carry burdens, she declined to go, and received in consequence a severe beating. A little later she was again beaten and abused by her husband for not washing his clothes clean enough. About the same time she made use of a sum of 400 cash (not quite a shilling) belonging to her husband; and when he discovered the fact, he gave her a sound thrashing with a stick, and vowed that he would repeat the treatment on the following day if she did not produce the money. A month passed, during which continued squabbling occurred between the man and his wife, the latter having frequently to go without food, and being threatened with a divorce for her bad behaviour. At last the woman, exasperated by the treatment she was receiving and dreading the disgrace of a divorce, determined to make away with her husband. A year before, while still unmarried, she had accompanied an old woman in the village on a herb-gathering expedition on the hills, and remembered her companion pointing out to her a poisonous plant, which, if eaten, cut asunder the intestines and caused sudden death. Having gone on several occasions to gather firewood, she kept careful watch for this particular plant, and succeeded in collecting a handful, which she hid away until she could find a favourable moment for making use of it. At last she found her opportunity one day when her father-in-law, her husband's brothers, and her sister-in-law all happened to be from home, and only she and her husband were left in charge of the house. Shortly after noon she began to prepare the evening meal, and poured over the vegetables the infusion obtained by boiling the poisonous plant. She handed his supper to her husband, left their portion for the remainder of the family, and then went out on the excuse of having to make some purchases. The father and his three sons returned shortly afterwards; and being hungry after their day's work, they all partook heartily of the poisoned food. Symptoms of poisoning very soon followed, and the whole family was found by a neighbour lying on the floor in a state of great agony. Two of them were saved by means of emetics; but the father, the woman's husband, and a brother of the latter all died the same night. The woman was found, and handed over to the authorities, who, after a protracted trial, in which she declared her innocence, found her guilty of the murder. She was condemned to death by the lingering process on two different counts, and would, as the law provides, receive some additional slashes of the knife at the time of the execution. All the poisonous herbs in the district were ordered to be removed, so as to prevent the repetition of such a crime in future. When a parricide occurred in ancient times, the authorities used to order that the whole city, where such a hideous crime had been committed, should be razed to the ground; and on the Yangtse the traveller sees the ancient site of the city of Chungchow on an island without now a house upon it, because of such a crime, the city having by order been moved to the river-bank, where it now stands among its groves of waving bamboos.