ABSTRACT
The distinction between the shape and size of the feet of women constitutes the caste of China, if there be anything which constitutes caste in this empire. The common people neither know nor care anything about the origin of the custom of compressing the feet of small girls. Few of the literary class seem to have any clear opinion in regard to its origin. The laws of the empire are silent on the subject of bandaging the feet of female children. Bandaging the feet is simply a custom; but it is a custom of prodigious power and popularity, as may be easily inferred from what has been said. In the farming districts in the neighbouring country, the family which has several girls born to it destroys all after one or two, unless some of their acquaintances desire them to bring up as future wives of their boys.
