St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-07-26
cu1rA,s EMANC1PATED FEET.
ra,c+ I.sued by the Emperor
Against the Barbnrous
of FoOtbindinE.

.c,;uxt the Barbarou. Practice
of Footbinding.
An imperial edict published IN inc
pekin Gazette on February says:
"The Chinese women for the ii.os'
nart have followed for long tlme
the custom of 5ootbinding, which Is
an iniury to the good order OF crea-
tion. Hereafter let the officials anu
gentry all exert themselves gently to
persuade and lead the people anu
cause them all to understand, IN the
hope that this old custom may NC
gradually abolished"
The reigning dynasty in China mas
for centuries been Manchu. and the
Manchus have been addicted to the
practice of footbinding. The EN-
press dowager, therefore, in giving
her influence to reform in this re-
spect. is not treading on the toes OF
any of her own people, says the new
York Sun.
1t is appalling to think that hun
dreds of thousands OF women IN
China are crippled for life by the
practice of footbinding. This Gus
tom does not prevail among the low
er classes. Poor girls need to work
for living and their efficiency would
be almost destroyed if they were
compelled to hobble through life on
mere stumps of feet. 1t is the
wealthy and the well-to-do who sub
ject their daughters to this terrlole
mutilation, and the reason for 1t IS
that the Chinese are very jealous OF
their women and very fearful that
they will go astray.
The Chinese missionary, A. II.
Smith. wrote awhile ago that as soon
as a Chinese girl becomes of mar
riageable age she is proverbially
commodity as dangerous as SNUG
gled salt" When once she is be-
trothed she is kept far more seclud-
ed than ever before. The smallest
and most innocent circumstance IS
sufficient to start vicious and malevo-
lent gossip and it is social axiom
that scandals cluster about widows
door.
According to all accounts the evil
of foot compression in China is miti-
gated to some extent by the fact that
that little, or no pain is ASSOCIATED!
with the process by which the de-
formity is caused. The feet are
bound when the baby is only few
days old.
The bones are extremely soft, the
little feet are scarcely more than a
mass of pulp and compression SIM
ply arrests development. 1t certain
ly causes some discomfort; but ply
sicians say that acute pain is not i'll
volved in the process.
The Pekin government has also de-
clared itself in favor of another re-
markable innovation. For ages there
has been no fntermarriage between
the Manchu and the Chinese people.
The hundreds of millions of Chinese
have permitted themselves to be gov
erned by the Manchus, though =
sharp line of demarcation has sep
arated them into two distinct peo-
pies.
The imperial edict goes on to ex-
plain that the original reason why
intermarriage between the Manchus
and the Chinese was prohibited when
the Manchu dynasty came into power
was that the customs and speech of
the two peoples were considerably
unlike and therefore it was thought
best to keep them distinct.
''Now, however," says the edict.
"customs and beliefs are alike, and
more than 200 years have passed, we
ought to defer to the general feeling
and remove the prohibition. We.
therefore, command that Manchus
and Chinese, whether officials or peo-
pie, be allowed to intermarry. Let
there be no bigoted adherence to
old custom"
The edict, however, makes it clear
too far-reaching reforms.
cat the times for selecting girls
for palace attendants" continues the
edict, the Manchus must still be-
chosen. There must not be any Sc
lection of Chinese, lest we fall into
the corrupt practices of the former
Ming dynasty. We, therefore, make
this restriction out of Difference to
the feelings of the Chinese people,"
The emperor's attendants will,
therefore, continue to be Manchus.
1t would be an innovation indeed IL
the palace grounds were permitted
to be overrun with Chinese.