The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-09-17
CHINESE W0MEN ARE NOW PROUD
 OF LARGE FEET
Old Practice of Binding Feet is Rapidly Dying
 Out.
CSrecial Correzpondcnce.D


 Shanghai, Sept. 12.-The Christian women Of China have big feet-as feet in China 20.
 Furthermore they are proud of it and compare feet to see who has the largest, according to Rev. F. l.. Hawks president of the University of St Johns which is run at Shanghai by the Episcopal church and one of the most effective aids to educating the new China Co be found in all the con fines Of the new republic.
 The New Woman has appeared in China. She believes that she has an individuality. a personality, a soul, Just as indubitably ag has man. con- trary to tho teachings of Buddhism and other native religions. PoIygamy she has not yet conqucrcd-perhap many of them have no interest in the pertshing of that old custom-but those who have embraced Christian ity are fighting against that evil among the many others which have fottered and bound the women of China for untold Eenera tions. She has been the slave or the toy of man, her life one Ceaslcss round of obedi- cnCe. first to her father, then to her husband and finally, if widowed, to her son.
 The first lcaven that worked among the old slaveries, darlnesses, obedi- ences and enDtinesses of the lives of women in China was put there by the early Christian missionaries. That loaven has worked until now the dough, so to speak, of the new wo- manhood fin China Is overflowing the bowls of tradition and oppression.
 The practice of binding the feet of Chinese women so that they would be small enough to please the mascu- line eye was one of the hardest of old customs even to start eradiCatlng. The athletic exercises in which the Chinese girls at church schools must participate was the entering wedge here, for n girl with bound feet could not run. jump and leap. In 1895 the Natural Foot Society, of Tien Tsu Hui. was organized fin Shanghai by women of ten different nationaIities. The management of the affairs of that society are now en- tirely in the hands of the Chinese. Branches have been established at many centres and a monthly maga- zine devoted to the matter is pub lished.
 The women of new China are op- posed 10 the custom as are the young men who have received an onlight- ened education. They want wives who cen l1e helpmates to them, who can i- out with them as well as work with them. The time has come when in- stead of being proud of her golden lilies" as small, bound feet were called, the Chinese girl strives to con ceal the fact that her feet have been bound, by wearing large shoes and padding the extra space with cotton.
 One will sometimes see groups or Chinese women comparing their feet 10 see who can boast of the largest. This is particularly true of native wo- men who have become Christians or who have been educated in the Chris tian schools. They feel a new indepen- dence-an independence of body as well as of mind and soul and are proud that the old bodily shacl1le of lnainaed feet are gone.
 The reform, however, in spite of the fact that China has a law prohibit ing the binding of girls feet, has not reached further than the cities ana the higher classes. It has been caIcu- lated by the Picking correspondent of the London Times, after a long jour ney through the interior of China. that ninety-fivo per cent. of the wo- men still have mutilated feet. China's numbers arc so immense that 1t will dequire a long period for the leaven fully to leaven the whole lump.