s to her father's home.

It has been aptly said that there are no real homes in China and it is not
surprising that, ignored and despised for centuries, the Chinese woman
shows no ability to improve the squalor of her surroundings. She passes her
life in a dark, smoke-filled dwelling with broken furniture and a mud
floor, together with pigs, chickens and babies enjoying a limited sphere of
action under the tables and chairs, or in the tumble-down courtyard
without. Her work is actually never done and a Chinese bride, bright and
attractive at twenty, will be old and faded at thirty.

But without doubt the crowning evil which attends woman's condition in
China is foot binding, and nothing can be offered in extenuation of this
abominable custom. It is said to have originated one thousand years before
the Christian era and has persisted until the present day in spite of the
efforts directed against it. The Empress Dowager issued edicts strongly
advising its discontinuation, the "Natural Foot Society," which was formed
about fifteen years ago, has endeavored to educate public opinion, and the
missionaries refuse to admit girls so mutilated to their schools; but
nevertheless the reform has made little progress beyond the coast cities.
"Precedent" and the fear of not obtaining suitable husbands for their
daughters are responsible for the continuation of the evil, and it is
estimated that there are still about seventy-four millions of girls and
women who are crippled in this way.

The feet are bandaged between the ages of five and seven. The toes are bent
under the sole of the foot and after two or three years the heel and instep
are so forced together that a dollar can be placed in the cleft; gradually
also the lower limbs shrink away until only the bones remain.

The suffering of the children is intense. We often passed through streets
full of laughing boys and tiny girls where others, a few years older, were
sitting on the doorsteps or curbstones holding their tortured feet and
crying bitterly. In some instances out-houses are constructed a
considerable distance from the family dwelling where the girls must sleep
during their first crippled years in order that their moans may not disturb
the other members of the family. The child's only relief is to hang her
feet over the edge of the bed in order to stop the circulation and induce
numbness, or to seek oblivion from opium.

If the custom were a fad which affected only the