THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN
From what you have read, you will think, perhaps, that Chinese children
have a merry life, but it is not always so. Little girls, who were
unwelcome to their families, used to be laid in the tiger’s track or
among woods to die. Some were choked immediately they were born, or
drowned in a bucket. In many cities of the Empire kind-hearted people
have provided places, where such little outcast waifs are nursed and
tended; for the practice of doing away with children was always against
the law of the land, although the popular proverb said, “Destroy a girl
and you hasten the birth of a boy.” Last year a Christian, after his
conscience had been awakened, confessed that years before, while still
a heathen, he had strangled a baby daughter, and put the little body
into the mud of one of his rice fields.
Of late years, in many parts of China, the practice of putting girl
babies to death has almost entirely ceased, partly, no doubt, because
girls are scarce, and their value has risen accordingly; in some places
as much as six hundred dollars being given by ordinary people for a
wife.
Then there are many things which bring trouble upon children and their
homes. When rain does not fall for several weeks, there is little
food for boys and girls to eat. So long as rivers and wells hold out,
the farmers, by working hard, can water their fields. When the streams
dry up, they dig holes in the sand of the river-beds and carry the
water, which collects in them, to keep the crops alive. All the family
in turns tread the water-wheel, which raises water out of such holes
or channels, tramp, tramp, they toil unceasingly until their skins
are burnt dark brown and the bones show through. If rain still does
not come, their labour is lost, the crops dry up and the poor little
children as well as their fathers, and mothers have no food to eat, so
that many of them die of hunger.
Sometimes there is too much rain: the rivers overflow, the grain is
spoilt in the fields, pigs, goats and cows are swept away. The water
rises. People climb on to the roofs of their houses, carrying clothes
and the few things they hope to save from the flood. They crouch on
the tiles, with their babies and little children, under the pitiless
rain. Kind people, whose houses, being on higher ground, have not been
deluged, go out in boats carrying food to them, for often they have
had nothing to eat for several days. The flood rises still higher,
in places it breaks the banks of great rivers, houses, temples, city
walls and whole villages are swept away by the swift brown water, and
thousands of men, women and children perish. Often, too, fires break
out in crowded villages and towns. The flames spout from the windows,
and showers of sparks fly into the sky when roofs fall in. If a wind
happens to be blowing, a whole street of shops and houses is burnt down
in no time. The people flee with their children and whatever they can
save from their homes. The poor little babies and boys and girls fare
badly indeed, when such trouble turns them out of doors. In parts of
China, plague comes every year and carries off hundreds of people,
leaving many little children with no one to care for them. In the
south of the Empire, too, the people are constantly having clan-fights
between families or villages; often fathers or brothers are killed, and
then there are lawsuits, which ruin many a family. All these causes
bring distress and suffering upon Chinese boys and girls, such as are
seldom met with in Western homes. But most of the trouble which falls
upon children in China to-day comes from poverty. Grinding poverty
leads to hunger and starvation. Often children must work as soon as
they can toddle. When they are two or three they must look after the
baby brother or sister, while the mother is away working in the fields.
The baby is strapped on the toddler’s back, and he or she must stagger
about with it for hours, however weary the little limbs may be. Or the
tiny boy or girl must go out with a small bamboo rake and fill a basket
with leaves and grass to burn. In the country, quite small children
must carry loads, and in the city baby workers toil at trades, till the
anxieties of life have made them look old and wrinkled before they are
ten years of age. One boy of ten used to work from morning till night
in Chinchew city making clay furnaces. He was stunted, and his face was
grey and pinched, but he helped his widowed mother to get a living.
When people are very poor, two neighbours will exchange baby girls very
soon after they are born, or a mother will sell her little baby girl
for two or three dollars to another woman. The baby is then brought up
by this foster-mother to be a little servant until old enough to many
her son, and so she gets a servant, and then a wife for her son very
cheap. But this custom leads to much misery and unhappiness for these
‘baby daughters-in-law,’ as they are called. They are usually treated
as the family drudges and never know any childhood or parents’ care;
they have to work hard, and too often live a loveless, sad life.
The saddest thing of all, is when small girls are sold to be slaves.
In places where food is dear and money is scarce, fathers and mothers
are driven to part with their children. In certain districts, towards
the end of the year, when debts have to be paid, they may be seen
carrying their little boys and girls slung in baskets to sell. A nurse
in the home of a foreign lady used to tell how she had had to let eight
children go in this way. Her husband was poor and when there was no
food to give them, she had to sell one of the children rather than see
them all starve together at home. One of the boys had been bought by
a rich family in the village, so she could see him sometimes, but of
course he was not her own little boy any more. When her husband died,
the poor woman had to let the remaining children go, one by one, for
she had no food to give them. The last little boy she gave to some
strolling players for thirty dollars, to be a little actor. When asked
how she could sell a child to such a terrible life as these little
actor-boys lead, the mother said, “Oh, after ten years he will be too
big to act, and then I shall get him back again, and he has promised to
be a good boy.” The child had his yearly holiday on New Year’s Day, and
his half-starved mother would save up enough cash to buy a chicken to
fatten for the occasion. When her boy came home she killed the chicken,
and she and he had a feast on their one happy day together.
Sometimes slave children are well and kindly treated, but in China, as
in other lands, slavery too surely leads to cruelty and suffering. The
notices of slave girls lost, stolen or strayed, posted up on the gates
of Chinese cities, shows that many of these little girls are unhappy in
their masters’ houses, and easily persuaded to run away. Sad cases are
brought to the hospitals, too, of slave children so wasted by neglect
and starvation that the poor things are little more than skeletons. An
old woman named Ch’uan Kua used to tell how her little girl, whom she
had sold into a Viceroy’s family, was unkindly treated. One day the
poor child did something to offend her mistress, and the angry lady
stabbed her to death, with one of her long hair-pins.
Another cause of unhappiness to the little ones is the practice of
opium smoking. When the father, or mother, or other wage-earner of the
home, smokes opium, there is little for the children to eat. In time,
some of the wretched slaves to opium sell house and land, furniture
and clothes, wife and children, in order to get money for the terrible
self-indulgence.
The following story gives some idea of what a little girl, named
Phœnix, had to suffer from a father who was an opium-eater. The story
is doubly interesting because it is told by herself.
“It would be very difficult to relate fully what I have passed through
from my childhood until the present. I will only tell some of the
principal events.
“When I was three years old my mother died. My grandfather cared for
me until I was six, and then he also left this world. I had no one
to care for me, and my father brought me to Amoy and sold me to Mrs
No-te, who lived near the Bamboo-tree-foot church. From that time I had
opportunities of hearing the Gospel, but could not go to school, as I
was kept busy with house-work. When I was fifteen the Lord received me
into His church, and I was baptised.”
[Illustration: PHŒNIX]
Phœnix does not mention that the woman who bought her broke the
agreement made with the child’s father, that she should in time become
the wife of her son. The father, a wretched opium sot, made this an
excuse for claiming the return of the girl, in order to sell her over
again for more money.
“When I was sixteen years old my father demanded me back, and at that
time my heart was very sorrowful. I was afraid he would not let me go
to church. I took this trouble to the Lord, and Our Lord truly heard
the prayer of His child. He also gave me the desire of my heart and let
me go to the Girls’ Boarding-school, to study and know more about the
Bible. If it had not been for this, I would have been like a person
blind. It was arranged through the earnestness and love of my pastor,
who told my father that I belonged to the church, and that he must
certainly put me to school. This he did and let me be in school for
about one year, and then he came for me and I had to go with him, and I
was very sad.
“My father soon took me to Tung An, and all the time I was there I
could only manage to go to church once....
“Someone told my father that I had been to church and he was very
angry, and told me to take salt and salt down my heart, to make dead
my heart. He said he certainly would not let me go to church, and told
others that they must not let me go. He also said that if I had any
communication with the lady missionary he would throw me down stairs
and kill me. But the Lord was always with me and delivered me out of
the mouth of the lion.
“Afterwards my father brought me to Amoy to my uncle’s house.
Two-thirds of the family are vegetarians, and early and late they
burn incense and candles to the idols. My heart was miserable in the
extreme.
“My father tried to sell me to be the second wife of a rich man, who
was willing to give nearly three hundred dollars for me. He said:
“‘Your old friend, the Bible-woman and the Christians will do nothing
for you, you might as well make up your mind to it. The Bible-woman
says there is no use trying to do anything more for you, that no
Christian will marry you now.’
“I felt that he was telling me a lie, but I could not know if the
Bible-woman, who had always been so good to me, had really said that or
not, and I was very unhappy. My father kept urging me to agree to being
sold to the rich heathen man, so that he might have the money to use.
He was very angry with me because I was so strongly opposed. I said, ‘I
have made a covenant with the Lord, which I cannot break, I am His.’
“One day a sister of a Christian came to speak to my uncle, and someone
said to me, ‘That person is a follower of the Gospel like you and
lives at Bamboo-tree-foot.’ I said, ‘Is that true?’ After this I found
that she knew one of my classmates, who lives at Bamboo-tree-foot,
and through her I secretly sent a letter to my classmate, asking her
to tell the pastor’s wife where I was. The letter was delayed several
days, and before it was delivered one day I saw three Christians
passing the house with Bibles in their hands, on their way to church,
and so I knew that it was Sunday--I had lost count of Sundays--and I
called to them. My father was out, or I should not have dared to speak
to them. They were pleased to find me. They told the Bible-woman, and
through them and my letter in a week’s time the pastor’s wife and the
Bible-woman both came to see me. I found out that what my father had
said about the Bible-woman was not true, and they both comforted my
heart.
“After this, I dreamed I had fallen into a ditch up to my neck, and
someone pulled me out; that I went to school again, and was writing on
my slate, and I thought: This means that God is going to open the way
for me. In six more days, beyond all my hopes, God’s great goodness
was manifested, and I truly jumped for joy, when I was told that my
father’s consent was gained, and Miss ---- had redeemed me for two
hundred dollars, and that I was to go back again to school.
“In two days the pastor came for me and brought me to school. This
truly manifests the love of God for sinful me, and also the love of
Miss ---- in that she gave money to save me. During the time of trial
the Lord always helped me, and now He has brought me to this place,
free from all fear. Love like this is truly great.”
Phœnix has since become engaged to a young theological student and will
probably be married within a year.