"The impossibility of coining the precious metals without alloy will no longer afford the foreigner a profit. This profit will go to our own Government, who will not be taking it from the people for nothing, but amply earning it by giving them a universal uniform medium of exchange. Its universality and uniformity will relieve the honourable merchant of the present uncertainty of exchange, and deprive the shifty speculator of his present inducement to gambling in time-bargains dependent on the rise and fall (mai k`ung).
"I began this essay by enumerating various evils which are sapping the wealth and power of China. How best to counteract these evils is a problem which our statesmen and politicians are now devoting their zealous endeavours to solve. The measures hitherto proposed involve, when compared with that which I have advocated, a larger expenditure at the outset, and do not seem to promise in any instance so speedy a return of benefit to the nation. A gold and silver coinage by the Imperial Government would, in all probability, in a very few years be conferring on every province of the empire advantages in comparison with which the initial inconveniences would hardly be worthy of attention. It is, of course, an essential condition of the success of the Mint that it should be organised in such a complete manner as to leave no contingency unprovided for, and thus to ensure its stability and permanence. I shall be happy if any of my humble remarks are worthy to contribute to such a result."
Chinese Agriculture—Fields of Opium Poppies in Flower.
Mr. Yang's essay seems already to have borne fruit, and nothing could more check the little peculations so rife in China as a proper coinage of the same value all through the country. Yet such is the innate disorder and corruption attendant upon all Government undertakings in China, that, without the supervision of the despised "foreigner," all such schemes must fail in gaining the confidence of the people, as they have notably failed hitherto. While we were in Chungking, the Viceroy there introduced dollars coined by the Viceroy of Hupeh; but as the local officials refused to take these dollars in payment of taxes except at a discount of 3 per cent., nominally for "shroffage," the people naturally refused them, and they are now no longer to be seen. The Chinese prefer the Mexican dollar, firstly, because they are familiar with it; secondly, because they can depend upon it. The statement in Mr. Yang's jejune essay that the Chinese give pure silver in exchange for foreign dollars containing 10 per cent. alloy is, of course, absurd. Copper cash form the real currency of the masses in China, and it is the fluctuations between this, the only current coinage, of late years shamefully debased, and silver (amounting in 1897 to 30 per cent.) that seriously disturbs the equanimity of "the honourable merchant." Unfortunately, so far each Viceroy seems to be setting up his own mint, irrespective of others. The idea of a Central Government, managing the customs, posts, coinage, or even the army and navy, is altogether alien to the Chinese mind.
CHAPTER VI.
FOOTBINDING.
Not a Mark of Rank.—Golden Lilies.—Hinds' Feet.—Bandages drawn tighter.—Breaking the Bones.—A Cleft in which to hide Half a Crown.—Mothers sleep with Sticks beside them.—How many die.—How many have all their Toes.—Feet drop off.—Pain till Death.—Typical Cases.—Eczema, Ulceration, Mortification.—General Health affected.
It is a popular error in England to suppose that binding the feet is a mark of rank in China. In the west of China women sit by the roadside begging with their feet bound. In the far north, where women do field-labour, they do it, poor things! kneeling on the heavy clay soil, because they cannot stand upon their poor mutilated feet. Another popular error in England is that the custom was introduced in order to prevent women from gadding about. Never in all the many conversations I have had with Chinese upon this subject have I heard this reason alleged or even hinted at, nor is it ever alluded to in any of the Chinese literature upon the subject. The popular idea in China is that P`an-fei, a favourite of the Emperor Ho-ti, of the Chi Dynasty, whose capital was Nanking, was so beautiful that golden lilies sprang out of the ground wherever she stepped; hence the name of "golden lilies" for the hideous goatlike feet Chinamen so strangely admire. Ho-ti is said to have so loved P`an-fei as to have had golden lotus flowers strewn on her path for her to walk on. But there is another tradition that T`an-ki, the wife of the last Emperor of the Shang Dynasty, who in despair burned himself in his palace with all his treasures in 1120 B.C.—that T`an-ki was the introducer of these strange feet. She seems to have been a semi-mythical character—a changeling, with "hinds' feet" covered with hair. So she wound bandages round them, and wore lovely little fairy shoes, and every one else tried to follow suit. But to come to later and somewhat more historic times, a King of the Sung Dynasty, A.D. 970, had a favourite wife Niao-niang, whom he used to like to see posing or dancing upon golden lotus flowers. And to make her feet look more lovely she used to tie strips of coloured satin round them, till they resembled a crescent moon or a bent bow; and thus the fashion began, some say.