22nd Sept. Ir is nearly two years since we drew attention to the Report of the Tien Hui or Natural Foot Society, and endeavoured to show what admirable work it had done on a very limited expenditure of money, but a generous devotion of time and energy. We pointed out that while there were too many who thought that foreigners
impression, however good their in-could not hope to make any serious tentions, on a practice that has been in vogue some twelve hundred years among the most conservative people in the world, yet energy and convietion, rising superior to discouragements, had succeeded as they always will, and a really surprising success had been achieved in the direction of a reform that must, under the most favourable circumstances, be the work of years. It was remarkably exhilarating to the foreign reformers to find the Chinese, interference with whose habits had been deprecated by many, welcoming the efiur.s of the Tien Tsu Hui. Early in December 1897 we published in these columns a translation of a long ode against foot-binding printed with diagrams at Changsha, Hunan, the province which is traditionally the one where foreigners and their works are most suspected and hated. The Society's Report mentioned two years ago that Chinese literati are writing anti-foot-binding tracts, a Chinese Viceroy is oiroulating one with a preface of his own; a descendant of Confucius is collecting and distributing our publications; the leading Chinese periodical is' advocating our cause an influential Chinese Anti-Footbinding Society is established in Shanghai; and, best of all, Chinese ladies of distinction are coming forward to found a school for girls of the upper classes, the first' rule of which is that all who enter it must be unbound." Nothing, we said, is more noticeable in the Report than the letter of Kung Hui-chung, one- of the lineal desfendants of Confucius: "I have always had my unquiet thoughts about foot-binding and felt pity for the many sufferers. Yet I could not venture to: say it publicly. Now there are happily certain benevolent gentlemen and virtuous daughters of ability, wise daughters from foreign lands, who have initiated a truly noble enterprise. They have addressed our' women in animated exhortations, and founded a Society for the prohibition of foot-binding. 'They aim' at: extin-gushing a pernicious custoti."
The timidity which characterises the Chinese, and stands in the way of their inaugurating: numberless re~ forms whose value they recognise in their hearts, is' expressed in' Mr. Kung's words: "I could not venture to say it publicly.". He represents his people' too when he welcomes the lett given' by foreigners, and: this shows the mistake the foreign Gallios make when they deprecate interference with Chinese customs. They are especially in the wrong when they deprecate interference in the matter of foot-binding, as it is not, as China goes, an ancient custoni, having been unknown in' the time of Confucius and the other Sages, as it is still unknown among the Manchus. Writers at home talk of the "tottering lilies of fascination" of the Empresses of China and the ladies of the Imperial Court, while only natural feet are admitted into the palace. Those who would pass by on the other side when the Tien Tsu Hui_ invites their ce-operation cannot realise that foot-binding condemns millions of bright little girls to acute unnecessary suffering while they are still children, and to a condition of being actually crippled for the rest of their lives. There is no one even of those who seem most callous who would not burn to interfere if he could actually hear the cries of the children when they are being tortured to make their feet fashionable and the Society should not ask him in vain to assist in preventing the infliction of this torture on the most unoffending and most helpless section of humanity. "Mr. Chao," said the Society in its Report two years ago, "the Suifu graduate whose appeal has been the most largely. circulated of all our tracts, only wrote it when, just after reading some of our litera: ture, his heart was wrung by the wailing of his little daughter, whose feet were then beginning to be bound."
We hear it objected sometimes that the ladies who have taken up the cause of the children exaggerate the sufferings of the little girls; we may quote a few lines from the Hunan ode written by a Chinese for Chinese "The hardships that fall to women are counted by the myriad, But the worst of them all is the binding of feet.
Parental love indeed is strong in the breasts of fathers and mothers, But, alas! When it comes to binding their children's feet no mercy is shown!
They care not if their daughters are willing or not; They bend them to their will by whipping and by scolding.
The heavens are filled with the sounds of weeping when: the foot is bound:
The wretched girl calls upon mother and Heaven in vain for help.
The ears of the elders are deaf to a hundred supplications.
Nay, who does not possess that love for a helpless, puny girl?
The trouble is they fear that. none would care for ne with Nature's feet.
So with-hard-set-teeth and tightly-grasped fists She bears the pains of tighter and tighter bands upon her feet; The pains remain from break of day till sun doth set, While at night they drive refreshing sleep away.
The real trouble is that mothers are afraid that their daughters will not find husbands unless they have small feet. It is the young men of China, therefore, that have to be interested as well as the fathers and mothers, and they have to be persuaded to agree that they will not refuse a wife because she has natural feet. They do not want to see their own little sisters tortured; and it is satisfactory to know that they are realising the useless cruelty that is being perpetrated in the name of Fashion. The progress that is being made in this direction will, no doubt, be told us at the meeting that is to take place at the Municipal Board-room this afternoon, where the attendance, we hope, will show unmistakably the interest, that is taken in this good work of philanthropy by the foreign residents of Shanghai.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.