Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them

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."

"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?