And back of these Flash-lights Feminine; is the black page of the history of womankind in all the Far East; with footbinding still rampant over nine-tenths of China; baby-killing, baby-selling, and baby-slavery which I saw with my own eyes time and time again; with slavery of womankind, from Japan down to Ceylon the regular thing. But there is still hope in the woman-heart of the Far East; and the hope is the American woman and her religion. That and that alone will break down prejudices, break off shackles, and tear to bits the traditions of the past.
* * * * * *
"The women suffer! Yes, the women always suffer!" said a big fellow to me up in the northern part of Luzon in the Philippines one evening.
"What do you mean?" I asked him, scenting a story.
Then the man told me of a cholera epidemic that he had passed through; of how he had tried to care for the sick, even though he was not a physician; told me of their poor superstitious methods of driving away the "evil spirits."
He told of how he had gone into homes where he found seven inmates dead and four dying; of how he tried to care for them with nothing medicinal at hand.
Then he told me of how the poor people went down to a dirty inland river and had killed a hog, taken its heart; killed a dog, taken its heart; and then after putting them on a little raft, floated them off down the river to drive the cholera away. Then he told me of how the natives had, in their desperation, tied tight bands about their ankles to keep the evil spirits from coming up out of the earth into their bodies.
"But what do you yourself do about a doctor. You say that you are 400 miles from a doctor, even here. What about your children, when they take sick?" I asked him, and then was sorry that I had asked the question because of a terribly hurt and unutterably sorrowful look in his eyes.
"Mother and I don't like to talk about that or to think about it!" he said simply, and I knew that I had torn open an old wound which was just over his heart.
His voice broke as he spoke, and he looked at the woman who was his brave helpmate and said again: "Mother and I don't like to think about that!" The tears ran down over his cheeks and "Mother's" too, and mine also.