One of the Cruel Customs of the Chinese.
“The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.” Ps. 74: 20. BETROTHALS are made by the parents in China, sometimes when the children are quite young, and between parties who never see each other till the wedding day. It is quite contrary to established custom for the latter to speak to each other, even if they should meet, and it is considered still more indecorous if the girl should speak to any other young man. If the relatives of the fiancé bring an accusation against the betrothed girl, and there is the least shade of truth in it, she has her choice of deaths, and there the matter ends. A well-instructed Chinese young lady does her mother credit by choosing to starve. She is then locked up. At the end of seven days the door is opened and the body carried out, and buried without a coffin. Three instances of this kind have come under the knowledge of a missionary lady, one of which she mentions as follows: “When walking through the fields I often stopped and spoke to a young Chinese lady, who was a most beautiful girl. “Often I had spoken to the women of her mother’s house, telling of ‘Jesus and the resurrection.’ One evening, seeing a number of women in the gateway of the house, I walked down to them, intending to talk to them. They seemed to be preoccupied, and could not listen, so I bade them good evening and passed on. Just as I left the gate two men came out, bearing a figure wrapped in coarse matting. Supposing it was a goddess, I asked them where they were going. They either did not or would not hear me. I presently saw that it was not a goddess, but the dead body of a woman. I shall not soon forget the feeling with which I saw that the dainty red satin shoes were rubbed to tatters, whilst the soles were clean and scarcely walked upon. I spoke to the men again, but they quickened their pace, and in the gray of the evening disappeared with their burden in the direction of the sea-shore. I retraced my steps, wishing to know why an unconfined corpse was being carried from the rich man’s house. The women had all retired into the court-yard, but outside there sat a little girl I knew. She was weeping quietly, and wiping her eyes with the corner of her jacket. ‘Who is that, my dear, whom these men have just carried away?’ I asked. ‘It is my eldest sister,’ she said. ‘Then why have they taken her out in matting?’ said I. ‘Oh, do not tell them,’ she said, ‘and I will tell you all.’ We were good friends, that little Chinese maiden and myself. Then she went on to say how her sister, one time, when standing on the road, not far from the gate, got talking to a young Chinaman, and how she had often talked to him, and had been seen by the uncle of her betrothed speaking to this man a short distance from the house, so one night her father’s brother and the uncle of her betrothed came, and these two men, and her mother and aunt and the girl’s two brothers, gave her the choice of how she would die. ‘That night she was locked up in the mill-room, and I never saw her again,’ said the child, with a fresh burst of weeping. Well I knew the mill-room, without a window, only a small grating high up, just under the eaves, not a movable thing in the place, only the two huge mill-stones, and on one side a raised platform built of brick, that served as a bedstead. What a tale of agony those red shoes told! I could mention many things as truly horrible, but this will suffice.—Home and Abroad.