These were not quite three inches in length, and looked as if they were more suited for a doll's feet than for a full grown woman's.

Yes, here was the evidence of a barbarous custom which deprives a human being of one of nature's good gifts, so necessary to our comfort and happiness.
Think what you would be, if, through infirmity, you were not at liberty to go hither and thither at will like the young hart or gazelle! We grieve naturally if our children's feet are deformed or misshapen at birth, but what a crime it is to destroy the form and strength of the foot as God has made it! It is true that the Manchu women in China rejoice in the feet which the beneficent Creator has given them.

The Dowager Empress--of whom we have read so much of late, and who rules China with an iron rod, has feet like any other woman; but millions of her countrywomen have been robbed of nature's endowment through a foolish and wicked custom which has prevailed in China from time immemorial.

The feet are bound when the child is born, and they are never allowed to grow as God designed, as the flower expands into beauty from the bud.

Chinese women realise that it is foolish, that it is a deformity, but it is the "custom," and custom prevails.