A missionary from a north China city wrote to the _Missionary Review
of the World_:
Recently some professional procurers going the rounds of the
cities of northern China buying girls for the brothels of
Shanghai stopt here in their diabolical quest. They negotiated
a sale with a mother living near us for her seventeen-year-old
daughter. As this daughter’s feet were not small enough to
command the sum desired, the mother arose at midnight while
the children were sleeping and proceeded to beat the feet of
the daughter in question to a pulp. The agonizing pain, the
heartrending screams were of no avail. The feet were bound into
a smaller compass by this process and a more advantageous sale
expedited.
(638)
* * * * *
Dr. William H. Leslie, for many years a missionary in the Kongo,
recently confirmed many of the stories of the atrocities that have
marked the rule of the Belgians in that country. This is what he says:
With my own eyes I have witnessed many of the most horrible
examples of cruelty practised upon the poor natives in that
country. I have seen natives with one hand cut off and I have
seen them with both cut off, and in many cases the poor victims
were children.
Dr. Leslie also said that much of the cruelty had been practised
in order to impress upon the blacks the necessity of their
bringing to market the rubber wanted by their persecutors, and
to emphasize the dire results that would follow their failure to
do so.
(639)