3 70 Voyage of the Novara. 



one case, where a Chinese motlier-in-law, irritated at the 

 birth of a female child, murdered it before its mother's eyes, 

 almost immediately after it had come into the world, and 

 this in a rather well-to-do family ! Young mothers often lay 

 their children down in the open field, or on the sea-beach, 

 watching anxiously if any one takes it away, or till a wave 

 mercifully sweeps it oif. One such infant, accidentally found 

 by some of the crew of the English frigate NanJcin^ and 

 tended with all the tender-heartedness of Jack when he finds 

 an object of compassion, is at present in the German Mission 

 House at Hong-kong, and was baptized in the cathedral by 

 the chaplain of the frigate, who gave her the name of 

 Victoria Nankin. Other mothers endeavour to choke the 

 new-born girl with moistened ashes, which, not unfrequently 

 with caressing hand, they lay upon the mouth of the 

 little unconscious innocent. Male children, on the other 

 hand, even such as are crippled or deformed, are very 

 seldom, indeed quite excej^tionally, exposed or put to death. 

 In proportion to the harsh treatment which the female off- 

 spring experience, is the pride and anxious carefulness which 

 wait on the male children. Indeed the Chinese are very 

 much in the habit of having several wives, simply because 

 by so doing they of course have a better chance of a 

 number of male offspring, and it very frequently happens 

 that the lawful wife of a Chinaman, if she has continued any 

 length of time childless, will even seek out and bring to her 

 husband a concubine by whom he may have heii"s, that is, 



