Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-06-09
Foot Binding Is at Last
Going Out of Style and
Bibles Are Being Used
to Make Shoes.
to Make Shoes,

and missionaries have all united to break
up the custom. The girls of mission schools
are always required to unbind their feet;
the chief reason why older Christian women
do not always do SO is because the pain
suffered from unbinding would be greater
than the Inconvenience of the small feet.
Peasant women usually big-footed; so
also IS the empress dowager and all other
Manchu women. The Manchus never fol-
lowed the practice of binding feet.
So substantial has been the progress
made in this reform that the Anti-Foot
Binding Society. vigorously led by Mrs A.
Little and served by many European la
dies recently closed out its affairs, after
ten years Of active campaigning. The fight
for big feet Is now so far won that its fur
Their prosecution is left to Chinese them
selves. 10,
Everybody knows that Chinese smoke
opium; strangers to this land do not real
lie to what an extent 1t has permeated the
national fabric so that 1t has debilitated
the physical strength Of China and Slapped
the moral fiber of its countless victims.
To an even greater extent than strong
drink opium units it's user for usefulness.
For years the missionaries have hammered
away at this seemingly hopeless subject,
Rev. DR.. H. c. DuBose of Soochow being
the most tireless and dauntless opponent of
opium in the empire.
At last the lethargic nation has been
stirred. The Chinese themselves have be-
come concerned at the spectacle of their
public men made inefficient by opium and
their newly educated youth rendered power
less by the drug. In an inspection of the
great opium smoking resorts at Shanghai
there are 21,0OO in that city alone) 1 was
impressed by the fact that it was the
young, the prosperous and the educated
who furnished the patronage; the DID, the
poor, the wrecked were smoking in mis-
cradle novels in obscure streets where
few cash would suffice to satisfy their crav-
ingS.
Now China is treating with England to
secure a cessation of the importation OF
the drug into the empire; and England,
moved by a militant sentiment at home
against this dsgraceful situation, is lend
ing listening ear to China's plea. For Its
own people the Chinese government has
issued an astonishing anti-opium edct,
which is already being put into effect. The
edict declares lit rouses our deep indigna-
ton even to speak of the matter. The
court is now ardently determined to make
China powerful and it is incumbent on US
to urge the people on to reformation in this
respect, that they may realize the evil,
pluck this deepReated cancer, and follow
the ways of health and harmony.
I'VE therefore decree that within the
limit of ten years this harmful foreign
muck be fully and entirely cleansed away,
and we command the council of state affairs
to consider means for the strict prohibition
both of opium smoking and of poppy-grow
ing in China itself and report their DELHI
erations to US for approval"
In all this progress the missionaries nave
borne a foremost, though often unrecog-
nized, part. So. too in eleemosynary insti-
tutions the missions have pioneered the
way for the new China to care for its
In a n
for blind girls, an asylum for the insane,
home for the untainted children of lepers,
an orphan asylum and school for children
of various ages and conditions.
IT is fair to say that the missionary is a
! schoolmaster of civilization to the Chi
neSe.