of the
empresses was born with deformed feet, and set the fashion, which soon
spread through the empire. The jealousy of the men and the idleness
and vanity of the women have served to continue the custom. Every
Chinese who can afford it will have at least one small-footed wife,
and she is maintained in the most perfect indolence. For a woman to
have a small foot is to show that she is of high birth and rich
family, and she would consider herself dishonored if her parents
failed to compress her feet.

[Illustration: THE FAVORITE.]

When remonstrated with about the practice, the Chinese retort by
calling attention to the compression of the waist as practiced in
Europe and America. "It is all a matter of taste," said a Chinese
merchant one day when addressed on the subject. "We like women with
small feet and you like them with small waists. What is the
difference?"

And what _is_ the difference?

The compression is begun when a girl is six years old, and is
accomplished with strong bandages. The great toe is pressed beneath
the others, and these are bent under, so that the foot takes the shape
of a closed fist. The bandages are drawn tighter every month, and in a
couple of years the foot has assumed the desired shape and ceased to
grow.

[Illustration: FEMALE FEET AND SHOE.]

Very often this compression creates diseases that are difficult to
heal; it is always impossible for the small-footed woman to walk
easily, and sometimes she cannot move without support. To have the
finger-nails very long is also a mark of aristocracy; sometimes the
ladies enclose their nails in silver cases, which are very convenient
for cleansing the ears of their owner or tearing out the eyes of
somebody else.

Walking along the great street of Pekin, one is sure to see a fair
number of gamblers and gambling houses. Gambling is a passion with the
Chinese, and they indulge it to a greater extent than any other people
in the world. It is a scourge in China, and the cause of a great deal
of the poverty and degradation that one sees there. There are various
games, like throwing dice, and drawing sticks from a pile, and there
is hardly a poor wretch of a laborer who will not risk the chance of
paying double for his dinner on the remote possibility of getting it
for nothing. The rich are addicted to the vice quite as much as the
poor, and sometimes they will lose their money, then their houses,
their lands, their wives, their children, and so