26 
the health. At first sight it would appear too absurd and too pre- 
sumptuous for anyone to attempt to improve the handiwork of God, 
and to alter the form he has decreed to his masterpiece—man. But 
alas! ‘‘foolsstepin where angels fear to tread,” and ‘“‘man, vain man, 
dressed in a little brief authority, plays such fantastic tricks before 
high Heaven as make the angels weep to see.’ Not only are 
dogs’ ears cropped and their noses broken, horses’ tails docked and 
their manes and ears cut short, but even the human form 
divine is not left in its native majesty. But heads are flattened 
or distorted, feet crippled, waists compressed, noses and ears 
pierced, skin tattoed and coloured, and the hair shaved off or 
tortured into every conceivable deformity, in deference to the blind 
idol, the relentless Juggernaut of fashion. Not only is fashion 
followed with a fatuous blindness by ignorant savages, but nations 
boasting the highest civilisation and culture obey its senseless 
dictates with a like slavish obedience. The most striking charac- 
teristic of the human race, as distinguished from the lower animals. 
is the erect position and rapid progression in that posture, and it 
would seem impussible that any people should be so senseless as to 
interfere with the graceful attributes of walking and running. Yet 
what do we see? Not only does every civilised nation compress 
and distort the foot so as to injure itseriously as an organ of locomo- 
tion, but the Chinese, who boast a civilisation far older than our 
own, carry this absurd fashion to such a pernicious extent as 
practically to deprive their ladies of the power of walking. The 
object of ambition with a Chinese lady is to possess a foot only 23 
inches long, and this poor distorted member they call the ‘‘ Golden 
Lily.” The torture a child has to undergo to procure this seem- 
ingly small foot is something fearful to contemplate, and yet loving 
mothers have cheerfully inflicted it on their tender babes for thou- 
sands of years, in deference to a senseless custom. Of course this 
small foot is confined to the upper classes, for it renders a woman 
utterly incapable of earning her own living, which is doubtless one 
reason why it is held in such high esteem. It is, however, 
needless to say it is copied as far as practicable by all 
classes of women in China. When the child is only three 
or four years old the torture begins. The tender little foot is 
freely sprinkled with alum and aromatic gums, and tightly ban- 
daged with a linen bandage about 13 in. broad, in such a way as 
to compress the toes and arch them inwards on to the sole of the 
foot, while the big toe is forcibly bent downwards. After a month 
or so the feet are soaked in hot water and the bandages taken off, 
when there is always more or less ulceration, and sometimes one 
or two of the toes have mortified and dropped off, which is con- 
sidered a great triumph, as it permanently reduces the size of the 
