Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-12-16
MAKING LITTLE-FOOT GIRLS.
Expert Who Looks After the Feet of
Female Chinese.

From the New York Sun.
There are about dozen Chinese girls in
Los Angeles who are undergoing the pro-
cess of having their feet nodded into the.
least possible compass, and there are over
POO who are going through the same ex-
perience in their homes in San Francisco.
The most experienced and pest-known
footbinder in California is a woman of
over fifty years named Ming Jung.
She has calls for her services in every
fair-sized city on the Pacific coast from
San Diego to Victoria, and makes her
headquarters in San Francisco, where she
is employed over half the time.
Ming Jung is very rich. The assessors
in San Francisco say she has an income
of. fully $4,000 a year, and pays taxes
on over $4,000 worth of property. Her
own feet are two and half inches long
and a little more than sn inch wide, while
the ankles are enormous.
Miss Jung came down to Los Angeles
from San Francisco the other day to be-
gin the foot-binding process on several
infants and to inspect the progress of
similar work that she had started here
At the rude adobe home of Bo Sing,
Well-to-do merchant in the Chinatown
of Los Angeles, the neighbors and friends
of the parents, to the number of sixty,
squeezed into two small rooms to witness
the great event of the 30 family.
The child was lifted on the lap of her
mother who held her hands and body
still, while another woman held her left
foot, leaving the right free for the foot
binder to work on.
Taking from her capacious pocket roll
of tape about half an inch in width. the
professional woman began her work. Two
or three turns We're taken around the ball
of the foot at the joint of the great toe,
and after this blight or fastening had been
fixed the tape was drawn close around the
l,nA1 u-nG n urD r q
forward toward the hollow of the foot be-
meath the inster.
The Reel securely fastened the tape was
carried forward to the toes, which We're
neatly tucked under close to the foot and
bound together and across the ends, eX
cept the general toe.
This accomplished, a piece of cloth of
peculiar texture without a particle of give
to it, was bound tightly about the seams,
being whipped over again and again and
fastened with heavy thread then the
other foot was treated in the same way
and the babe was ready for it's first pair
of shoes.
They were pointed slippers with solid
wooden soles and fitted the bandaged feet
so closely that they had to be put on with
some little force Over this shoe a red
bandage of webbing was wrapped.
During this seemingly painful process
the babe never shed tear. Beyond strug-
Cling little in protest against lying on Its
back so long, it appeared rather to enjoy
the binding.
Two sisters in the upstairs rooms of Vim
Chung's laundry, in Almeda street. We're
next taken in hand by the foot binders.
One of the girls was seven years Of age,
and had undergone the operation since she
was a few months old. The other was
year older.
When the hard. unyielding shoes had
been removed from the elder sisters feet
the bandages were found to be loose. The
feet had shriveled. Instead of growing
with the body they had become smaller,
until the shoes or coverings. almost as
small as those put on the babes feet, We're
found TO fit the feet Of the eight-year-old
girl.
No dainty little maid ever watched with
more concern and anxiety the piercing of
her ears or the fitting of a new dress than
did that Chinese child the applying of the
bandages that had made her cripple and
a fine lady for life.
The poorer Chinese, who are unable to
afford little-foot wives themselves. not in
frequently manage to make lttle-foot wo-
men out Of their daughters. born to them
by the natural-foot wives. 1t ;s a paying
investment, If the father lives long enough
to sell or marry off his daughters, and, If
he doesn't he has conferred mark of re-
spectability upon them.