Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/53

 her own words of the scene of which she and her friends were eye-witnesses. She says: 'We saw these small-footed creatures, coming up and going down the gang-planks of ships, and although the custom is now illegal, the majority of women here still have bound feet. All such women hobble as though the leg below the knee were wooden. Many cannot walk without steadying themselves by taking hold of something. The poorer women have been obliged to labour, feet or no feet, but they cannot do it in a normal way, and we often see them creeping on their knees or sitting down and hitching themselves along in an attempt to do their work. We have seen thousands of women at work in cigar and silk factories, all with bound and useless feet. But this is not the worst part of the story. Women with bound feet are obliged to walk on their heels, and this throws the body out of its true position, with the result that the pelvis becomes misshapen and motherhood rendered exceedingly difficult and perilous.'

Mrs Catt tells us that one effect of this cruel practice, and of the lack of proper physical exercise for which it is responsible, is to be seen in the uniformly smaller stature of the Chinese women when compared with the Chinese men.

One is given to understand that the education of the wealthier Chinese women has been