A CHINESE MOTHER WITH HER TWO CHILDREN 

 Note the bound feet of the woman. The practice of binding the feet of girl children is probably declining in the 

 coast provinces, but in Yunnan it is still almost universal. Little girls less than eight or nine years old play happily in 

 the streets, but as they grow older, they sit on the doorsteps, their faces twisted in pain, holding their tortured feet. In 

 Yunnan not even the women of the coolie class are exempt, and one sees them hobbling about in the fields, barely able 

 to walk on their peglike feet 

 528 



