The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1897-04-15
A CHINESE REFORM.
Beginning of a Movement to Abol-
tsh Foot Binding.
Horrors of an Inhuman Practice
That Has Been Prevalent In
China for Centuries
The RefOrmer.

The RefOrmer.
The nineteenth century craze for the
emancipation of women has at last
found its way into the darkness of
China, and a reformation has been
started of vastly more Importance to
the woman of the Flowery Kingdom
than the bloomer question and other
like problems which have been vexing
her progressive sisters of the western
world
This new departure calls for the abo-
lftion of foot-binding, common among
all classes of Chinese women, from the
POOR creatures shaving In the rice
fields to the dainty bellies whose
fathers hold lucrative public offices.
Everything moves with tremendous
slowness in China, particularly innova-
tions, and the reformers expect that it
will take a century or more to make the
change complete.
The practice has existed for 20 cen
turtles and may have existed for 40 CEN
turies, and naturally it will be a diff
cult matter to root out. The greatest
problem to be overcome is the aversion
of Chinese men to marry women whose
feet are not squeezed into deformed OBJ
jects bearing little or no resemblance
10 the natural human foot.
As the one ambition of the Chinese
girl and of her parents is to marry they
willingly undergo the tortures of foot
binding to realize the matrimonial
state. A woman whose foot is any
where near the size nature intended is
an outcast so far as matrimony is con-
cerned. The men deem it a disgrace to
marry her, and an unmarried woman is
burden to herself and her relatives.
With these conditions to face the re-
formers are counting upon hard time
of it.
The binding process is the acme of
torture, as the pain is ineessant and eX
tends over period of many years. The
little Chinese girl usually enjoys the
full freedom of her feet until she is four
or five years old. She can run about like
other children and can rest the full
weight of her body upon her feet with
out suffering exquisite torture.
But all this is soon stopped, for it is a
/ custom, sanctioned by centuries, that a
woman's feet must not be more than
three inches in length BY the time
| girl is four or five years old her feet are
| already more than three inches long,
end then comes the torture.
Narrow strips of silk nine or ten feet
long are used by the fond parent to
crush the further growth. The silk is
drawn tightly over the instep and then
Carried over the four small toes and the
heel. The toes are drawn under the
foot and the pressure is SO great that
the sole is almost drawn into a semi
circle
The large toe is particularly difficult
to subdue, and separate bands of the
silk are drawn over the member and
carried under the heel. squeezing it
down with double pressure. Unyield-
ing shoes, made ironlike in strength,
are crowded upon the feet, and the
happy days of the little girl are over.
The shoes are removed at night, but
the bandages remain night and day.
For the first few months the child is
urable 20 move about except, upon her
hands and knees. The circulation of
the blood in the feet has been choked
and the pressure of the body and the
exercise of walking force the blood
through the strangled veins, causing
the most intense agony. This pain is
nothing, however, 10 that suffered when
it is necessary to change the bandages
every fortnight for fresh ones. The
sudden loosening of the bands allows
the blood to shoot into the benumbed
and deadened feet, and the pain is often
times SO exquisite that the child faints
away.
Even the girls who in later life must
perform the hardest kind of manual
labor have their feet crippled. The
spectacle of women working in the
fields on their hands and knees, be-
cause their deformed feet are unable to
support the weight of the body, has no
effect on parents of other children. And
the workers themselves bind the feet OF
their girls without the slightest twinge
CT conscience.
The leader of the reform movement is
highly educated native Of the city OF
Sniff, the chief town of the province
of Szechuan, one of the richest districts
of the empire. For many years he has
been employed in an official position in
Peking, and on his return home he found
his five-year-old daughter hobbline
about on crippled feet and crying from
the pain. He at once removed the band
ages and declared that he would never
consent to such torture of his children
or the children of his dependents.
This was the first of the reform
movement. He called upon the richest
and most influential men in the city and
the province, and succeeded in inducing
many of them to sign a. pledge calling
for the abolition of the foot-bindine
process. Each signer agreed to stop i
in his own family and among his de
pendents.
Royalty has not yet expressed it.
opinion on the subject, but it is be
Geved that the old dowager empress, {
far-seeing woman will use her inhu
ence in favor of the reform. Chicag,
Tribune
Just Swap, Maybe.