Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-03-15
CRUSHED FEET OF CHINESE.
BarbarOus Suffering Inflicted Upon a Sensi-
tive Part of the IL

BarbarOus Suffering Inflicted Upon a Sensi-
tive Part of the Human Body.
An English paper quotes from writ
er in the Japan Mail who appears to
have special knowledge of the we'll
known Chinese custom of COMPRISING
the feet of female children of the bet
ter classes in China. He hopes that
few of his readers have been so unfortu-
nate as to see the naked foot of an
orthodox Chinese lady. But many have
looked at photographs of this terribly
twisted and distorted member, and the
sight must have suggested thoughts of
barbarous suffering inflicted on par
ticularly sensitive part of the human
body.
Year by year hundreds Of thousands
OF little girls throughout the wide en-
pire of China are subjected to ruth
less process which brushes the bones
and wrenches the sinews of
their tender feet, until at last
a revolving deformity is pro-
duced and the foot, crumpled
into shocking monstrosity, becomes
almost valueless as means of locomo-
ton. The wretched girl energies from
lated cripple, condemned to hobble
through life on feet which preserve no
semblance of natures beautiful mechan-
ism. having become hideous as they are
useless.
AT intervals the missionary cries out,
the traveller writes, and the charitable
agitate, but the poor little children
never benefit. For them there remains
always the same ruthless bending of
bones, the same agonizing application
OF tight ligatures, tn same long
months of bitter pain and unavailing
tears. Perhaps, he suggests it is to
this singular contrast between general
refinement and cultivation of the Chi
nese, on the one hand, and this callous
cruelty on the other, that we must at
tribute the periodical appearance of the
appalling custom.
Some people say that though the foot
is ultimately deformed, though the
woman is indeed condemned to be lit
tie better than cripple, yet the proc
ess is not so painful after all. The
bones are soft, they say,in early youth;
the sinews supple. Twisting. crushing.
and wrenching are operations that NAV
be performed without much suffering
on baby feet. whereas adults would be
maddened by the torture. To this the
writer replies:
Let no one talk of the yielding
character of young bones or the plia-
bility of baby sinews. We have list
ened with our own ears to cries of
little girl undergoing the torturing
PROCESS Such agonizing walls never
before. fell on our ears. They were the
shrieks of child absolutely wild with
suffering. When the ligatures were
loosened and the shocking succession
of breathless screams ended in long
drawn walls of exhaustion and misery,
the listener turned almost sick with
horror and sympathy. Yet o mother
was the deliberate torturer of the poor
baby, and a father callously listened to
it's heartbroken cries,
Think that this feudish barbarity
is practiced daily and hourly through
out the length and breadth of a land
containing three hundred million in
habitants Not alone are the tender
bodies of the poor little girls ruthlessly
racked and tortured, but the purest
sentiment of humanity-the love of
parents for their children is perpetu-
ally outraged. Such unnatural cruelty
could be tolerated only in the presence
of the worst kind of decentralization
How much can survive of the moral
beauty Of the Paternal relation when
fathers and mothers, in Difference to
mere freak of fashion, consent to inflict
on their daughters, day by day, torture
that well-nigh meddens the baby brain
and wrings shrieks sof excruciating
agony from the little lips? This is one
of those facts that. make US marvel
when we hear great destiny predicted
for the Chinese nation. Chicago Trib-
une.
Curious Death Customs of EiJi.
T.a Fijians believe that IN case a
marriageable youth or maiden dies
without having gone through with the
elaborate nuptial modifying ceremony
of the islands his or her soul is doomed
to wander about forever in an inter
mediate region between heaven and
hell. When anyone dies, man, woman
or child, whales tooth is placed in the
hand of the corpse, the missile to be
thrown at the tree which stands as a
guide post to point ont the road that
leads to Heaven and the one that leads
to hell