Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1880-04-09
Infanticide and Tight Shoes.

There are districts Of China where
infanticide preYails to an-incredlblc
extent murder, of female children
mainly. The higher estimate Of women
Is the product Of Christian teaching; !.
and, though women in China are com
Gparatvely tee from seclusion, and have
been regents Of the empire, and emil
snent for literary mplishments, and
although ason pays profo regard to
his mother, even the Emperor meeling
before her, yet the woman Is degpised,
and female life is cheap. When little
girls die, ale same chicken, = the China
man says; swhen the little boy die, too
bad = and, notwithstanding that the
travelling vaccinator charges . shilling
to vaccinate boy and only sixpence
for q girl, parents will rather let their
girls run the risk than pay the lower
fee. Women will confess to the num-
Der they have destroyed. An ay4h
where we staid had killed two. A man
will sometimes carry the child in. ia
basket along ksthe roads with perfect
unconcern, though his destination
is the nearest pond, and the babies
pond is sometimes q village institution,
and it is no uncommon thing to see
the bodies floating upon it's green,
Shiny surface" Parents have been asked
to take back q child that was exposed
-ta-die, and have absolutely declined.
There are districts where only seven
tenths of the female children are kept
alive. and others where, notwithstand-
ing the Immense emigration Of men,
there are not enough women to be
wives for the men that are left. OF
course q sin Ike this ceases In Chris.
tian congregation, but the reformation
is2not stayed there. for in many neigh
borhoods there is growing repugnance
to the practice, q weighing of it in quite
other scales, and what the protest Of
many of the best men in China failed to
do is being already silently done by the
influences that spread from the mission.
There is another practice far more uni
'versal, but which some suppose to be
connected with infanticide, the barbar-
GUS fashion of binding the feet, SO as to
render them not only useless, but dis
eased for girls thus treated are, of course,
useless burden to their parents If not
married. The Chinese themselves have
tried to deal with this habit. It is a
huge tyranny of: fashion, and cannot
even plead royalty in it's favor, the
present dynasty not binding the feet OF
their women; while one of the Emper-
ors even issued an Intellectual edict
against it, and would have issued an.
other weighted with heavy penalties, but
that his throne would have been over
! turned. The native churches are now
taking the matter in hand, and are here
and there forming "Anti-foot-bindine
Societies" and sometimes the matter is
discussed in the Church Synod. "Mr
z. can easily speak against it" said 8
native pastor, for he has no daughters
but I am not SO; it is in the hands o.
my wife, and I cannot prevent it," an6
that really touches the root of the mat
ter. It is for the native Christian
mothers to take action as they are do
ing, and neither to torture their daught
ers, nor, Gin selecting wives for om
sons, if the girl is intelligent and in
other respects suitable, should we rejec1
her because she has large feet" and the
custom of 1000 years, a custom stronger
than the throne, is already in some
Christian centers yielding co the infu
ence Of Christian principle.-Gooe
Wnr1Q