JUST imagine the foot of a full grown lady but five inches in length! Yet even this is large, and in highly aristocratic families four inches is the standard.

This queer custom of compressing the feet of Chinese girls is of very ancient date, and in our day is almost universal—only nuns, slaves, boat-women, and others who are obliged to perform out-door drudgery, being exempt. As to the origin of the custom, the Chinese themselves are not agreed. Many suppose that it is a fashion intended to draw a line between the higher and lower classes. Others say that its object was to keep ladies within doors, where they would not be subjected, like common market or boat-women, to the gaze of the other sex; and some boldly declare that to cripple them was known to be the only way by which women could be kept at home, and rendered of use working for their husbands or fathers, instead of spending their time in gadding and gossip. Some of the most reliable native historians state that the custom began during the reign of Take, somewhere about the year 1123, with a whim of the last Empress of the Shang dynasty.

The time for putting on the first bandages varies in different families. In some, the process is commenced when the baby is only a few weeks old, others defer the ceremony for a year or two but all begin before the little one has reached the age of four years.

No iron or wooden shoe is used, as some travelers have stated; but a strip of cotton cloth, some three inches wide, and about six feet long, is wound around the toes, over the instep, and then behind the heel, after which it is brought back again over the foot and drawn so tightly around the toes as to press them into a point—all except the first and second having been previously doubled under the sole.

These bandages are never removed, except for purposes of cleanliness, perhaps once a month; and they are replaced as quickly as possible, each time being drawn tighter, until the instep bends into a bow and the ball of the foot is forced against the heel.

The stockings are made of white cotton or silk. The dainty little shoes are of silk, richly embroidered and often beautifully adorned with tiny pearls or rubies. The soles are of white satin, quilted, and stiffened with a lining of pasteboard. The heels are very high and pointed, and the white satin that entirely covers them, as well as the upturned toes, presents a pretty contrast to the blue or crimson silk uppers.

White satin seems to us an odd material for shoe soles; but they are intended only for carpeted floors.

When one of these tiny satin-soled slippers is cast off as “worn out,” it has probably never for a single time come in contact with terra firma; and probably the wearer, when robed in the white slippers for her last sleep, has not from her infancy had one gleeful romp out-doors.

This compression produces, during all the years of childhood, the most excruciating pain, followed at length by a sort of numbness. I never saw one of these compressed feet entirely without covering, but I saw enough when the outer bandages had been removed to excite both pity and disgust; and a lady who had seen the bare foot of one of their greatest belles told me that she had never even conceived of a spectacle so shockingly revolting as this tiny foot when divested of all that could hide its deformity. Although the young lady was full grown, the sole of her foot was but three and three-quarters inches in length. The great toe formed a point that was bent upwards and backwards, while the heel, of natural size, seemed by contrast disproportionately large.

Chinese ladies of rank are seldom seen abroad unless in closely curtained Sedan-chairs; but we used occasionally to meet those of the middle class making short excursions in the immediate vicinity of their homes. Their attempts at walking were pitiable in the extreme, as they hobbled along, leaning on an umbrella, or the shoulder of a servant, for support, or with hands outstretched against the houses as they passed, endeavoring to keep their balance.