WANG-YEH-FU AND NING-SHA 1245 
in China. When a Chinese woman walks, she balances 
the weight of her body on her big toe, which is driven 
right into the point of the shoe, and upon the upper sides 
of her toes turned in underneath her foot, whilst her heel 
is a long way off the ground. It is impossible to form the 
faintest conception of the torture which such a monstrous 
fashion occasions. In some cases for years after the 
completion of the operation the poor girl is unable to leave 
her bed, whilst during the night the unhappy victims moan 
and weejj with pain, which becomes ten times worse every 
time they move. More than that, the nails very often 
grow right into the flesh ; no wonder then the gait of 
a Chinese lady is the exact reverse of graceful. She 
waddles like a duck, or rather like a barefooted person 
walking over pins or stinging- nettles. In consequence 
of the excessively small amount of exercise they take, the 
limbs of the Chinese women grow as thin as rods. And 
all this torture, all this indescribable suffering, simply to 
get married ! 
There is another custom which is far more widely spread 
amongst the Chinese than is commonly believed, that is 
the exposure of newly-born Infants by their parents, when 
they consider their means will not allow them to rear them. 
The tiny creatures are usually left in some corner outside 
the town-wall, where they are devoured by dogs or swine, 
though It is true they are sometimes drowned. This 
cruel practice Is all the more astonishing, seeing that the 
Chinese generally treat their children with the most touch- 
ing tenderness as soon as they are able to walk and talk. 
Previous to that stage they are looked upon as animals 
that possess no soul ; and if they die, they are not 
buried in a coffin, but simply put In the ground rolled 
up in grass. 
The missionaries at another Swedish mission-station, 
which I subsequently visited, were once able to save 
a newly- born infant immediately after it had been 
deposited In the moat outside the wall. There lay the 
tiny creature, crying bitterly. The missionaries picked 
it up, nursed it, and took care of it, and in the course 
