THE FRENCH MISSION. 287 



the horrible vice of exposing and abandoning their 

 offspring, which is carried out to an alarming extent. 

 The females in China are considered of little value ; 

 hence, only one-tenth of the children picked up along 

 the city wall by the French Catholic Mission belong to 

 the male sex. That admirable institution, headed by 

 a bishop who is paid the munificent sum of 1,200 

 francs per annum (!) consists of two orphanages, — one 

 for boys, brought up, taught, and started in life by the 

 priests ; the other for girls and infants, in charge of 

 four French and fifteen Chinese (converted) sisters of 

 charity. The cost of each establishment is only £600 

 a year. 



The Mission has been erected on the very spot 

 where the cruel Governor Yeh, who was captured in 

 1857, after the storming of Canton by the Allies, used 

 to hold his court, the land having been granted for the 

 purpose by the Government, and a large cathedral has 

 since been built upon it. To convey an idea of the ex- 

 tent to which infanticide is carried on, I need only 

 mention that on an average the Mission picks up be- 

 tween 4,000 and 5,000 babies annually, many of them 

 found dead, others in a dying condition from neglect 

 and exposure. Such inhuman cruelty seems hardly 

 credible, especially in a people who treat their dead 

 relations with the most tender veneration. The bishop 



