Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/68

46 and Gutzlaff, who have both met with instances of what neither Ellis nor De Guignes could trace or discover.

The fact that foundling hospitals are more easily filled in China than elsewhere, is corroborative of the little regard in which female infants are held. The more tender-hearted parents, rather than lay violent hands on their offspring, prefer giving them away; or if they can find no one to receive the charge, depositing them in some temple or monastery, where there is, at least, a chance of their being noticed and preserved. The Buddhists, in China, avail themselves of this circumstance, to fill their nunneries; while the Catholics, in that country, increase the number of their adherents, by rescuing the outcast daughters of the inhabitants, and bringing them up for wives to the native converts. Others, actuated by base motives, pick up the abandoned children, and rear them for the purpose of sordid gain, which they accomplish by selling them for domestic slaves, or training them up for wanton gratifications, or condemning them to beg through the streets, after having cruelly put out their eyes, to make them objects of charity.

It is not meant to be argued, that the Chinese murder, expose, or sell their female infants to prevent the country becoming overpeopled; or that the practice is so general as to have any material effect on the population. Whatever the motive be, it is altogether personal, and not patriotic; it is merely to save themselves pains and money, and not to benefit the country by decreasing the number of consumers. To whatever extent, also, the practice may prevail, it is not likely materially to affect the aggregate of the population.