Mar. 21.
That was a gruesome story tole: la our columns " few daya ago by our Kaifeng correspond-cut.. A tale of the daughter General Pang who was betrothed to the son of General Tang and who, when her betrothed died, insisted, against her father's wishes, on going to the home of her dead fiance's parents with her wedding _trous-sean. She went through thei wedding ceremony at the grave of her°dead bridegroom and turning home committed cide thnt she might be united in death with the man she had never met in life. Her father-in-law gave the dead bride a magnificent funeral amd is to ask the Government for permission to erect " memorial arch in memory of this filial daughter which Will, incidentally, reflect honour on his own family since this paragon of virtue died for love of his son: There is an, in apparently less authenticated, addition 46 the tale which states
went iniad when ho-heard of her that the father of the dead girl death, massacred sonic twenty. five of his servants, concubines, etc., and then took'his own life, is a typical Chinese story unfortunately, possibly trae. We can even unt the tragical insanity of the old father who was crazed when he heard that his daughter had sacrificed herself to the spirit of her betrothed and determined in his madness, that if she died to accompany' her lover, he would die to be with his daughter. Chinese opinion will applaud the action of the girl andi the permission to erect a memorial arch to her memory wil ikely be granted. These things re common enough; we have the widow's monament on the, Race Course which probably was erected to commemorate an act of dedication to perpetual widowhood on the part of some young woman, early bereaved of her husband. " These arches and the gorgeous funeral rites accorded to o young person. who immolates herself, as did the! young bride at Kaifeng, have an intoxicating effect on the tu. balanced minds of immature girls and lead to the perpetual tion of this perverted ideal of female virtue, as in India]
liar causes led to the practice of suttee long after it was prohibited by law. For a perverted ideal this undoubtedly is and its Practice is a disgrace to! public. opinion in China. It is, in fact, nothing more nor less than an atavistic throw-back to barbarism. Sinologues tell us there is abundant evidence that! in early times the Chinese, like many other uncivilized peoples, wore in the habit of burying the wives and retainers of @ chiettain in his grave. The historian Sze Ma-chien relates that a multitude was buried in the elaborate, concealed tomb of Tsin Shih Huangti, the buildér_of the Great Wail. In later days figures moulded in clay _wete substituted for: living victims and there is s remarkable collection of these figures, token from graves of the Han' and. Sung dynasties, in the museum Toronto. In Shanghai we are familiar with the paper effigies of prominent men. 'These are reminiscent of the barbarous practices of earlier times. now, happily, forbidden by enlightened_public opin Romour has it that in many' cases the young bride, a stranger in the home of her deceased husband's family; is coerced into making the sacrifice, which fulfils the double purpose' of ridding the house of an' yn-welcome inmate and reflecting] glory on her dead husband's clan. 'There is no suggestion that anything of this kind toox place in Kaifeng; but sinister stories are often' told of similar cases and the mad action of the dead girl's distracted father rather implies that he was] dubious of the bona fides.of his Aoughter's immolation. Be that as it may, it remains certain that something should be: done to discourage a practice which casts a slur of womanhood and presupposes that the chief reason for a woman's being that skin should minister to the wants of her destined mate.
women should be common in That monuments to virtuous China is o cause for congratula: tion, but these monuments should be set up only in worthy cause: To some woman who, like Florence Night-lo, has nursed the sick or the poor or contributed in some way to alleviate the misery or add to the happiness-of those less fortunate than herself.' A faithful wife and gentle mother—and China "is rich in such women—is infinitely more worthy of honour than a crackbrained girl who dies for a chimera, a gorgeous funeral and an' imposing tombstone. It would be a good thing if this ease could be taken up and representations made to the Government by Chinese women students or the Y.W.C.A. In-of permission being given to the family of the deceased! girl's father-in-law to erect monument in her memory they] should be held responsible for her death and, bo called upon to prove that they had no share in its instigation,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.