n not wishing to be self-depreciative, is to call her
his "Thousand ounces of gold."

The names given to boys are quite as humiliating or as elevating as
those given to girls. He may be Number One, Two or Three, Pig, Dog or
Flea, or he may be like Wu T'ing Fang a "Fragrant Palace," or like Li
Hung Chang, an "Illustrious Bird" or "Learned Treatise."

During the summer-time in North China the child goes almost if not
completely naked. Until it is five years old, its wardrobe consists
largely of a chest-protector and a pair of shoes. In the winter-time
its trousers are quilted, with feet attached, its coat made in the same
way, and it is anything but "clean and sweet." The odor is not unlike
that of an up-stairs back room in a narrow alley at Five Points, in
which dwell a whole family of emigrants.

When the Chinese child is ill he does not have the same kind of
hospital accommodations, nursing and medical skill at his command as do
we in the West. His bed is brick, his pillow stuffed with bran or
grass-seed, he has no sheets, his food is coarse and ill-adapted to a
sick child's stomach. While his nurse may be kind, gentle and loving
she is not always skillful, and as for the ability of his physician let
the following child's song tell us:

My wife's little daughter once fell very ill,
And we called for a doctor to give her a pill.
He wrote a prescription which now we will give her,
In which he has ordered a mosquito's liver.
And then in addition the heart of a flea,
And half pound of fly-wings to make her some tea.

When the child begins to walk and talk it begins to be interesting. Its
father has a little push cart made by which it learns to walk, and the
nurse goes about the court with it repeating ba ba, ma ma, (notice that
these words for papa and mama are practically the same in Chinese as in
English, the b being substituted for p), and all the various words
which mean elder brother, younger brother, elder and younger sisters,
uncles, aunts, grandfathers, grandmothers, and cousins and all the
various relatives which may be found in its family, village or home.

It is not an easy matter to learn the names of one's relatives in
China, as there is a separate name for each showing whether the person
whom we call uncle is father or mother's elder or younger brother or
the husband of their elder or younger sister. When it comes to learning
the names of all one's cousins it is quite a difficult affair.