Page:The Chinese Boy and Girl.djvu/37



going to China, I could not but wonder, when I saw a Chinese or Japanese doll, why it was they made such unnatural looking things for babies to play with. On reaching the Orient the whole matter was explained by my first sight of a baby. The doll looks like the child!

Nothing in China is more common than babies. Nothing more helpless. Nothing more troublesome. Nothing more attractive. Nothing more interesting.

A Chinese baby is a round-faced little helpless human animal, whose eyes look like two black marbles over which the skin had been stretched, and a slit made on the bias. His nose is a little kopje in the centre of his face, above a yawning chasm which requires constant filling to insure the preservation of law and order. On his shaved head are left