Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. II.pdf/43

 have now become parts of the sole. Grave doubts exist about the origin of this artistic deformity of golden lily feet;” some say it was a jealous husband, who, as already noticed, crippled his wife, that she might thus be more inclined to cultivate the pleasures of home. It is however related that his intentions were disappointed, for that the lady limped about upon her “golden lilies” and flirted abroad as before. The baneful practice is supposed to have come into fashion about the tenth century of our era. It is argued that it cannot have been of great antiquity, because Confucius and the early writers are silent on the subject. Tradition affirms that in 1122 B.C. an imperial lady had club feet, and that, in order to conceal her own defects from her lord, and keep him a stranger to the fair proportions of the feet of her maids, she ordered them to be bandaged. But, be the origin of the custom what it may, there can be no doubt, that it has been in vogue as a distinctive and peculiar institution among the Chinese for centuries past, and it is as much a mark of high breeding with their ladies, as vulture-claw nails are with their gentlemen. We despise so ridiculous a usage as this, but the following extract out of a native work will serve to show that the Chinese return us the compliment, and criticize us for deformities to which the inexorable requirements of fashion have given rise: “The Yin-keih-le, or English females before marriage, bind their waist, being desirous to look slender.”

The costume and general appearance of the men and women of Amoy are shown in Plates 40 and 41. The turbanned figure is an ordinary coolie, the type of the industrious labourer whose services are so highly rated in America and the other countries to which he emigrates. His habits of perseverance and economy gradually secure for him the reward of a modest competency, and if he resists the temptations of the opium pipe, and keeps aloof from the gaming tables, he will in a few years have amassed two or three hundred dollars, and with this he will embark as a farmer or a fisherman in his native land. Owing to the poverty of the people, in this part of Fukien, infanticide is still a common practice there, and it is of course the female children whom it is usual to sacrifice thus. In Amoy some of the wealthy Chinese do what they can to mitigate the evil by supporting a Foundling Hospital, where parents are paid a few cash, for bringing their children to be reared.