292 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



by who may want her services. Toward night she may he seen hohhliug home, with her stock in 

 trade, on her disgusting stumps, of which she is seemingly very proud. 



All the Chinese women, in fact, pride themselves very much on their goat-like hoofs, and have 

 the greatest possible contempt for a natural foot. Little girls are said to importune their mothers 

 with tears in their eyes to compress their feet, as promising them a higher position in society, 

 although females of the lower orders are frequently observed with the aristocratic hoof, but these 

 are those who have, possibly, seen better days. It is difficult for strangers to get a sight of these 

 singular deformities, as the Chinese women manifest the greatest reluctance to show them ; but 

 Dr. Parker prevailed upon a girl of thirteen, who was a patient in his hospital, to unbandage in 

 the presence of her mother, in order to satisfy the curiosity of the Commodore, who had quite 

 enough in one glance of that shapeless stump, which appeared more like a specimen of bad surgery, 

 such as Dr. Parker would have been doubtless ashamed of, than, as the Chinese considered it, 

 an elegance of fashion. 



These horrid hoofs are very carefully looked after by the Chinese women, and are swathed in 

 gay bandages of all colors, and shod with a high heeled shoe, richly worked and adorned. 



A fashionable ladies' dressmaker in China, where all these indispensible servitors of fashion are 

 males, is always greatly in demand among the foreign ladies, and it is as necessary to bespeak 

 his services in time at Canton and Macao as it is those of a Miss Lawson in New York. 

 These man-milliners generally require what they call a muster, or pattern, which they, 

 with the usual Cliinese imitative skill, reproduce exactly, whether of London, Paris or New 

 York fashion, and adapt it to any form or size. It was by no means an agreeable sight, on 

 passing one of the dark and dirty tailor shops at Macao, to behold the greasy and half naked 

 Chinaman, late at night, busily plying his dirty tingers about a splendid female dress, destined 

 to drape the graceful form of some beautiful woman at the coming ball or dinner j^arty. These 

 male dressmakers are held in such estimation by those resident in China, that some few European 

 and American ladies have been known, on leaving the country, to carry away a China man- 

 -milliner with them. 



The ordinary compensation for all operatives in Canton, who find their food, varies from twelve 

 to twenty cents a day. Farm hands, when fed, receive six cents for twelve hours work, being 

 at the rate of a farthing an hour. The day laborers, chair bearers, and porters, if not hired by 

 the job, are paid from twenty to twenty-five cents. Boatmen's wages are from one and a half to 

 two and a quarter dollars per month, when found, which latter condition generally includes 

 food, not only for themselves, but for their wives and children, who live with them in .the boat. 



Porters, and those of other crafts in Canton, form themselves into guilds, and appoint leaders, 

 or headmen, who contract for labor of various sorts. This system of organization is not 

 confined to those who work, but extends to those who beg. The beggars, like the gipsies, have 

 their kings, who assign to their ragged subjects their particular offices of vagabondage and their 

 respective fields of operation ; and what is singular, the laws of China secure to these rogues 

 certain rights and privileges. These laws give to them the right of approaching and knocking 

 at the door of any domicile, or to enter the shops, and there to strike together a coupile of sticks 

 similar to those used by the watchmen employed by families to guard their premises against 

 thieves ; these sticks produce a disagreeable sound, and, however long the beggars keep up this 

 annoyance, they cannot be legally ejected until they are paid the usual gratuity, which is the 

 smallest coin in use, termed a cash, and which in value is about the twelfth of a cent ; when 



