182 ON MARRIAGE AND INFANTICIDE IN CHINA. 



now, at 25 years of age, calmly looking forward to tlie distant futurp, 

 and trying to make provision for it. He is all " prudence," " fore- 

 thought," and " discretion." He has eighty dollars in hand ; shall 

 he marry ? He is not in love — he never expects to be in love — but 

 he is anxious to make such an investment of his eighty dollars as will 

 produce the best results thirty or forty years hence. He is as cool as 

 possible — willing to listen to reason, and to take good advice. In 

 Europe he would be advised to deposit his money in a Savings' Bank, 

 and add to it from time to time as he had opportunity, with the assu- 

 rance that he would thus secure the means of comfortable subsistence 

 in old age. But in China there is no safe investment for money, 

 where it will be secured from official rapacity or private fraud. The 

 only mode of securing himself from want in his later years, that he 

 can devise, is to buy a wife and rear sons. The security is not per- 

 fect, but he knows no better plan. Who can show a mode of invest- 

 ment more likely to secure the desired end ? And yet imagine the 

 horror with which the professor at Haileybury regards this mad 

 scheme. " To have three boys grow up you must have three girls 

 also. You propose then to rear six children to adult age, and you are 

 one of fifty millions of young men in the country. You expect then 

 to add three hundred millions to an already redundant population. 

 And the next generation ; what will become of it ? And what will 

 become of the empire ? How are you all to be fed ? And yet what 

 better can you do ? Y'ou are right in providing against want in old 

 age." 



Suppose that while the matter was under consideration, and the 

 case looking more and more hopeless, a clever physician should ap- 

 proach and whisper in the professor's ear to this effect : " Sir, I have 

 a remedy for this difficulty. This man wishes to have three sons to 

 work for him when he is old. Now, I have discovered a way by 

 which the sexes may be produced at will. In having three sons he 

 need not have three daughters, as you suppose. I will tell him how 

 he may have three sons and only one daughter." The professor is 

 delighted with this new plan. " This is just what we want. If you 

 can manage to keep down the number of women, the work is done ; 

 there can be no redundant population. Let each family have only 

 one daughter, and it can be succeeded by only one family through all 

 generations." 



Now, the Chinese have adopted a plan which secures to them the 

 identical result proposed by this imaginary physician. They have 



