"This will account in part for the barbarous custom of infanticide which
prevails to so lamentable an extent among these heathen. Only female
infants are destroyed. While the parents are living the son may be of
pecuniary advantage to them, and after their death, he can attend to the
rites of their souls, and even after his death, through him the parents may
have descendants to perform the ancestral rites. A daughter on the
contrary, it is supposed, will only prove a burden in a pecuniary point of
view, and after she is married she is reckoned to the family of her
husband. Her children, also, except her husband otherwise order, are only
expected to attend to the spirits of their paternal ancestors."
"Some have denied the existence of the practice of infanticide among the
Chinese, or, they have asserted that if it does exist, the practice of it
is very unusual. Every village which we visit in this region gives
evidence that such persons are not acquainted with this part of the empire.
A few days ago a company of us visited the village of Kokia. It is
situated on the northern extremity of Amoy Island, and contains, perhaps,
two thousand inhabitants. After walking through the village we sat down
for a short time under the shade of a large banyan tree. A large concourse
of people soon gathered around us to see the foreigners and hear what they
had to say. In this crowd we found by counting nearly a hundred boys, and
but two or three girls. Also when walking through the village very few
girls were to be seen. The custom of binding the feet of the girls, which
greatly affects their power of locomotion, would account for more boys
being seen than girls, but will not account for the disparity noticed. We
therefore inquired the cause of this disparity. They answered with
laughter that female children are killed. The same question has been asked
again and again at the various villages we have visited and the same answer
obtained. This answer is given freely and apparently without any idea that
the practice is wicked, until they are taught so by us. The result of this
one practice on the morals of the people may readily be imagined. It
accustoms the mind to acts of cruelty and it prepares the way for impurity
and wickedness in forms that are never dreamed of in Christian countries."
In this connection an extract from Dr. David Abeel's[*] diary may be of
value.
[Footnote *: David Abeel was the founder of the American Reformed Mission
at Amoy in 1842.]
"Today had a conversation with one of the merchants who come to Kolongsu
for trade, on the subject of female infanticide. Assuming a countenance of
as much indifference as possible, I asked him how many of his own children
he had destroyed: he instantly replied, 'Two.' I asked him whether he had
spared any. He said, 'One I have saved.' I then inquired how many
brothers he had. 'Eight,' was the answer. I asked him how many children
his eldest brother had destroyed. 'Five or six.' I inquired of the
second, third and all the rest; some had killed four or five, some two or
three, and others had none to destroy. I then asked how many girls were
left among them all. 'Three,' was the answer. And how many do you think
have been strangled at birth? 'Probably from twelve to seventeen.' I
wished to know the standing and employment of his brothers. One, he said,
had attained a literary degree at the public examinations; the second was a
teacher; one was a sailor; and the rest were petty merchants like himself.
Thus, it was evidently not necessity but a cold inhuman calculation of the
gains and losses of keeping them, which must have led these men to take the
lives of their own offspring.
"Mr. Boone's teacher's sister with her own hand destroyed her first three
children successively. The fourth was also a girl, but the mother was
afraid to lay violent hands on it, believing it to be one of the previous
ones reappearing in a new body."
"The names of the five districts in the Chinchew prefecture are Tong-an,
An-khoe, Chin-kiang, Hui-an and Lam-an. Amoy is situated in the Chin-chew
prefect.
"From a comparison with many other parts of the country, there is reason to
believe that a greater number of children are destroyed at birth in the
Tong-an district than in any other of this department, probably more than
in any other of this department, probably more than in any other part of
the province of equal extent and populousness. In the Tong-an district I
have inquired of persons from forty different towns and villages. The
number destroyed varies exceedingly in different places, the extremes
extending from seventy and eighty percent to ten percent. The average
proportion destroyed in all these places amounting to nearly four-tenths or
exactly thirty-nine percent.
"In seventeen of these forty towns and villages, my informants declare that
one-half or more are deprived of existence at birth.
"From the inhabitants of six places in Chin-kiang, and of four places in
Hui-an, if I am correctly informed, the victims of infanticide do not
exceed sixteen percent.
"In the seven districts of the Chiang-chiu prefecture the number is rather
more than one-fourth or less than three-tenths.
"There is reason to fear that scarcely less than twenty-five percent are
suffocated almost at the first breath."
It is altogether probable that this vice is just as prevalent now. The
scarcity of girls in nearly all the towns and villages and the exorbitant
rates demanded for marriageable daughters in some districts, only render
sad confirmation to what Drs. Abeel and Talmage wrote two score and more
years ago.