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FOOT BINDING
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
and strictly enjoining upon all respectable people to refuse to marry into their families any girl with bound feet." In this way he hopes that in time the practice of footbind- ing will die out of itself without resorting to physical punishments and fines au ob- durate and benighted parents.
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(Daily Press, 26th September.) A fashion in China, as elsewhere, must die bard. Indeed in the Central Kingdom a fashion is apt to become crystallised into an unbreakable custom. The queue, design- ed by the first Manchu EMPEROR as a badge If this is the best course His Excelleucy of subjection to his dynasty, has become a CHOU Fu can propose it is evident that this habit which even an Imperial Decree would great and much-to-be-desired reform will be probably fail to abolish unless obedience a long time coming. An Imperial Decree, were exacted by a swift and terrible penalty. when not backed with the material might of The custom of foot-binding, though less the Government, is pretty sure to be dis- national and characteristic, is one that holds regarded. Probably no race has so little the female population in fetters of steel. respect for their rulers as the Chinese; The persuasions of friends, the advice of commands are obeyed only when they can officials, the commands of an Empress, have be enforced by the myrmidons of the law. alike proved powerless to enforce abolition No people probably take so many risks of of this cruel and barbarous practice. The punishment, the gambling instinct in the Society formed through the efforts of the Celestial extending to his defiance of the missionaries and others to influence public law. Unless therefore Her Majesty the opinion against the custom, succeeded at Empress DowAGER'S interest in this reform length in bringing the EMPRESS DOWAGER prompte her to go further than the timid over to their view, and Her Majesty went advice of the Governor of Shantung will so far as to issue a decree prohibiting foot- lend, it is not likely that it will make much binding, and setting forth the evils arising progress. The example of retaining the from the practice, much to the satisfaction female foot at its natural size, if generally of those persons who had engineered the set by the higher classes, might have some crusade against it. But even Her Majesty's effect in time, but it would be years hetore influence has not, it would seem, proved it could leaven the lump. There is no potent enough to stop a fashion that has reason why the EMPRESS Dowager should grown into a custom as inviolable as the not now again formally prohibit the practice, laws of the ancient Medes and Persians and then issue a further decree to the effect were said to be. So at least we are driven
that on account of the cruelty to children to conclude from a memorial recently pre-involved in the process of biuding the feet, sented to the Throne on the subject by His | and the fact that it constitutes them crip- Excellency CHOυ Fu, the Governor of Shantung.
ples for life, it cannot be permitted, and its infliction in future will be regarded as a crime against the State and therefore be punished condignly. Brought face to face with a rigid alternative, even Chinese ob- stinacy would have to give way, and in a very short time-a decade at the most-the small foot which now disfigures the vast majority of Chinese females would cease to be perpetuated.
MORE MISSIONARIES.
(Daily Press, 27th September.) The ordination of two more missionaries at S. John's Cathedral on Sunday morning is capable of suggesting more thoughts than it is perhaps expedient to utter. The fact that the Rev. PERCY JENKINS of Hongkong and the Rev. HERBERT BULLER RIDLER of Foochow have just publicly undertaken to be faithful ministers of JESUS CHRIST is not so uncommon an occurrence that it can
[October 3, 1904.
by the invariable serenity of his counten- ance, and the precision of his footsteps in that straight and narrow road which recks none of creature comforts or worldly gains, he demonstrates to the admiring heathen how much more blessed it is to give than receive. Self-sacrifice is his watchword, and the Chinese, seeing him descending to their own lowly level,, humbling himself even as the Master humbled Himself to wash the feet of the Disciples, cannot but believe that this faith he brings them is a living faith, that must still all murmurings incidental to the earthly pilgrimage. When be encoun- ters violent, wicked men as he must, seeing that neither the peaceful inaction of Lao Teze nor the self-restraint of CONFUCIUS has had power to bind all-he will still hold fast to the truth that is in him, and return good for evil, and blessings for revilings. The Shanghai Mercury last week says that the friction between Catholics aud Protest- ants in Hupeh is causing great trouble, but that again must be a mischievous mistake. Christians, whatever their particular creed, even if they did not recognise the evil effects of such an example upon such Chinese as are halting between two (or more) opinions, would never be guilty of making trouble. It has been said that Christianity brings not peace, but the sword; but that menus only the sword of faith with which to com- bat sin. Or it may have been a figurative way of telling the early Christiaus that the sword would fall upon them for their faith's sake, and that they were not to mind, for the sword could hurt only their physical body, and never their spiritual body. These missionaries would never give a moment's thought to possible physical sufferings, and they would certainly not dream of resenting it. Chris- tianity is "passive resistance in the highest, and to its follower death is not loss, but gain. Has not a certain missionary body recently, while collecting subscriptions for a Martyrs' Memorial, thanked God that
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many missionaries and women and children were privileged to die for the cause? Truly, it is a great vow that these two men have taken, and we marvel greatly that their heroism (as we regard it) has not been the occasion of a greater noise. Those erring men who see in such efforts the directest threatenment of the integrity of China should ponder the self-abnegation involved in leaving all that worldlings treasure to follow the rewardless and thorny path of duty.
THE PREMIER AS
PHILOSOPHER.
In the course of his memorial the Gover. nor of Shantung complains that notwith- standing the issue of the Empress's strict commands forbidding the practice of foot binding, he finds that only about one in
families in his every ten
province have obeyed the Imperial injunction. They give as their excuse for this dis- obedience their fear that if their female children are allowed to have natural-sized feet it would be impossible to get them married. The memorialist goes on to ex- press the opinion that the majority of the upper classes recoguise the folly and cruelty of binding their children's feet, and obey the Imperial Edict on the matter; it is among the lower and less educated classes that resistance to the Empress's commands is encountered. These people cling tenaci- ously to "olo custom," and while the terms of the Edict remain as they are there seems little likelihood of obedience being secured. occasion remark. It is possibly because It seems that the EMPRESS DOWAGER, such vows are so common that their great knowing the bent of the official mind, was significance is apt to be lost sight of. These afraid if power were given to the officials gentlemen have, if we do not misread the to compel parents to desist from the practice Book that is their chief guide and counsel
(Daily Press, 28th September.) of foot-binding it might lead to a new source for the fulfilment of their pledges, promised
Those who do not admire the British of wrong and oppression, as it probably to abstain from laying up for themselves Premier's ability as a statesman have a would by the yamên underlings promptly treasures on earth. The missionary above disrespectful way of referring to his philoso- making it an excuse for squeezing. Ac- all men is supposed to approximate most phical bent as something unmeet in a man cordingly the Edict specially prohibited nearly to the character of the first Disciples upon whom rests responsibility for great officials from interfering in the matter, who went out into the highways and by-practical affairs. Rightly regarded, how- leaving it to the good feeling of the parents ways to invite guests to the table of the and their natural affection for their offspring Lord. We can only suppose that the to induce them to abandon a practice con- recent statement in the North-China Daily demned by the Empress and by common
News, to the effect that certain missionaries sense. His Excellency CHOU FU, while fleeing from native violence in South stating that this should be sufficient to en- China had been busily amassing pro- sure discontinuance of a pernicious custom,perty, was a misrepresentation, made either is obliged to admit that it has not proved so, and proceeds to consider what can be done to prevent the Imperial commands in the matter becoming a dead letter. He is evident- ly afraid to recommend anything of a drastic or even a decided character, for after all his cogitation he can only evolve the following suggestion, viz., that "another decree be issued by Her Majesty again exhorting parents to refrain from the cruel practice,
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in malice or mistake. For the missionary takes no thought for things of the earth, earthy. He meddles never with politics, but (in China) busies himself pointing out to the Chinese the deadly peril in which they stand, in regard to all that matters, when they continue hearkeuing to the false doctrines of the native priests. He shows to the benighted heathen, moreover, a blessed way of escape from the wrath to come; and
ever, there is surely something to be admired in the man who can leave Downing Street, where he has been preoccupied with the political interests of a great nation, to travel down to Cambridge to ad Iress a body like the British Association on such a subject as
Reflections suggested by the New Theory of Matter." We are not in a position to state that Mr. BALFOUR literally went direct from one place to the other; but it is figuratively correct to express in that way the remarkable transition from one phas of th nking to another, diametrically opposa·I as those phases are. It is indeed: a far cry from the theory of the physical universe to the theory of contraband; and in these stirring times we need an example like that