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 impossible 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 it seriously 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 2^ 

 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 1^ 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 teet 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 



