Chapter XV: A Page From the Story of Protestant (6)

Just inside the door she was joined by the groom in a well fitting Tuxedo, but looking about as ill at ease as a man can. Keeping a good elbow’s distance apart, the bridal couple, followed, not preceded, by the flower girls and after them the groom’s relatives, walked across the court and on into the reception hall, where a girl was vigorously pounding out Mendelssohn’s Wedding March on a clanging piano. They stopped a few feet in front of an oblong table behind which stood the three men who had preceded the groom to the house. The bride and groom bowed low to each of the three dignitaries, beginning with the one in the centre, who was the little man in foreign clothes. This gentleman picked up a document written over with Chinese characters, and holding it in his two hands, read from it in a loud voice. After that he handed a ring to the groom, who placed it on the third finger of the left hand of the bride, over her cotton glove. This act was accompanied by formal bows from one party to the other. The bride then received a ring from her chaperon and timidly slipped it on the left hand little finger of the groom. More bowing ensued. At this juncture some little girls came forward, and facing the bride and groom, sang very sweetly, in English, “Jesus Bids us Shine,” a feature of the ceremony introduced by a Chinese Christian friend with the consent of the non-Christian families. At the conclusion of this number, bowing became the order of the programme. It took the place of the friendly congratulations offered to bridal couples in the West The bride and groom first saluted each other, then the gentlemen who officiated, afterward the parents of the groom, kneeling before them with their heads to the floor, in token of filial respect, and lastly the brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends generally. Each group was saluted three times, and bowed three times in return. Those older and higher in rank stood above the couple, but in the case of children the order was reversed. The last to be greeted was an aunt of the bride, the only member of her household that custom allowed to be present. This ceremony was very formal and occupied considerable time. While it lasted the chaperon was kept busy, since it was her duty to turn the bride around, and push her head forward at the proper time to bow.

When all was at last over, strains from Mendelssohn were again struck up, the bride attempted to slip her hand in her husband’s arm, which in his embarrassment he allowed to hang limply by his side, and surrounded by a chattering, pushing crowd, the bridal pair ascended the uncarpeted stairs, soiled with the dust from many feet, and found their way to the bridal chamber. As the newly married always do, they sat for several minutes together on the edge of the bed, then the bridegroom made his escape to the rooms below, where, constraint cast aside, he entered heartily into the enjoyment of the hour. But no such good fortune awaited the bride. Her ordeal had just begun. She rose to her feet while her girl friends pressed close about her for the usual bantering. “Aren’t you stupid!” “What a hideous gown!” “How ridiculously you behave!” “Whoever saw such an ugly bride!” During this tirade not a muscle of the bride’s face quivered, and the lowered eyes were never once raised. But perspiration stood in beads on her forehead and the soft round cheeks were flushed and feverish, for the thoughtless, teasing crowd shut out the air, and besides, not a morsel of food or a drop of liquid had passed her lips that day.

Seven o’clock brought a respite, for at that hour the wedding feast was declared ready, and the bride escorted by her chaperon returned to the reception hall where the tables were spread. One table was reserved especially for her, and there she was placed in solitary state facing the entire roomful of guests. Not so the groom, who occupied a side table in the midst of a group of friends. The bride’s wedding veil had been removed, but the helmet remained, having assumed meanwhile a somewhat tipsy air, as if the head underneath was too weary to hold it steady or in the merry-making it had been jarred out of its equilibrium. But no hand offered to adjust it, and least of all could the girl herself do so. She sat immovable, her eyes downcast, her face as impassive as a Buddha’s. Dish after dish of tempting Chinese food was put before her, to be taken away untouched. While others all over the room were eating and chattering happily, she continued mute and alone. A break came when the wine was served. Lifting one of the little silver wine cups in both hands the groom passed it to the chief guest, who received it in his two hands, and after taking a sip returned the cup to the groom. He presented it likewise to each of the principal guests, and last of all to his bride amid an outburst of merriment from the interested spectators. It was then the bride’s turn. Whatever may have been her inner feelings, she betrayed no sign of emotion as she stepped calmly from one to another with the cup and ended by placing it in the hands of the groom, while the guests cheered and laughed uproariously.

With this ceremony the feast broke up but not the wedding festivities. They continued unabated till early morning. During the evening, four of the bride’s brothers came in, but they did not seek her out. The men, including the groom, stayed below to carouse and gamble. Upstairs the young friends of the bride gathered around her once more and prepared for a wild frolic. First, according to custom, they demanded a gift, whereupon one of her woman servants distributed boxes of Chinese confections among them, prepared for this purpose. After that she was put through a series of ridiculous performances for the amusement of her persecutors, such as crawling, hopping, skipping, crowing. When at last dawn streaked the sky and the house lights went out with the departing guests, is it a wonder that the exhausted little bride of eighteen sank down on the nearest couch and cried herself to sleep?

XII

FOREIGN PHILANTHROPIES

A bishop visiting in Shanghai said he should sometime like to write a book on the “cries” of China. It would make interesting reading. The cries are many and diverse. Most coolies, for example, whether on land or water, work to the accompaniment of a rhythmical chant, and though the poor fellows, carrying heavy burdens, fairly gasp in their effort to continue the vocal exercise while under the strain of physical exertion, they seem unable to proceed without it.

In the early days, when foreigners first settled in Shanghai, it is related that house servants, as they carried food to and from the table, indulged in the usual monotonous sing-song till the distracted diners peremptorily put a stop to the habit.

But of all the cries known to China, the most pitiful is the cry of the children, the sharp insistent wail of suffering childhood that ascends night and day all over this great land. Had Mrs. Browning visited the Far East she would surely have been impelled to pen another noble poem on the “Cry of the Children” whose pathos would have pierced the heart of the world. Many people believe slavery in China is a thing of the past, as a multitude imagine foot-binding is no longer practised. It is true that edicts from time to time have gone forth abolishing slavery, but they have not been enforced and old customs die hard. The most that can be said is that this hydra-headed monster no longer stalks abroad as openly and unchallenged as formerly, though that the evil exists no one who knows conditions can for a moment deny.

Out from the centre of the noisy city, where the fields are green and the air pure and fresh, stands a substantial red brick building. The presiding genius is a sweet-faced, motherly woman in the garb of a Protestant Episcopal deaconess. “Is this the Slave Girls’ Refuge?” asks the visitor. “It is the Children’s Refuge.” Then, with a deprecatory smile, “We are leaving the word ‘slave’ out now because we want to do all we can to help the children forget their sad past.” The house is plain, not a dollar wasted on ornamentation, and filled to overflowing. Built to accommodate seventy-five, last year a hundred and fifty-six were crowded into it. Little cots line the upper verandas, and the superintendent’s bedroom is turned into a day nursery for the smallest tots. “You surely ought to have one spot you could call your very own,” exclaims the half indignant visitor. “I should find it restful and pleasant, but with my big family I can’t manage it,” and the ever ready smile again illumines the kind face.

This work, which is undenominational, was started by a band of Christian women after the upheaval of 1900, although the present building was not occupied till ten years later. Now, in so short a time, it has been outgrown, and the need for an addition is imperative. The children range in age from three to twenty, for some have been in the Home a long time and developed into useful assistants. Most of the little ones are rescued by the police, who take them to the Municipal Mixed Court, and from there they are turned over to the Refuge. And what eventually becomes of these waifs? A few are returned to parents from whom they have been stolen, others are adopted by families or mission schools, while a large number die, too weakened because of ill treatment to resist disease. Occasionally there is a simple wedding at the Refuge and a girl goes out from it to a home of her own. Shanghai is a great slave market. Children are sent and brought here from all over China, kidnappers having a large hand in the shameful trade. Parents frequently sell their own offspring, for there are many mouths to feed and rice is often very, very scarce. Only girls are slaves. They become the property, body, mind, and soul, of their owners, who may do with them as they like. Their pitiful little life stories are almost too harrowing to repeat. A baby of five had its flesh pinched with red-hot irons, another of six was tied to a post for days without food, having had hot needles run under her nails. One was three times buried alive. A mite three years old, nearly dead from neglect and starvation, weighed only ten pounds when brought to the Refuge. A doctor counted on the body of a bleeding child two hundred and forty cuts, burns, and bruises. One was brought in with an arm twisted out of shape and an eyelid nearly torn away. A little slave, after repeated beatings that almost crushed the life out of her, was thrown by her mistress on an ash-heap to die. When rescued and sent to the Refuge her mind seemed clouded. She took scarcely any notice of her surroundings, but if any one approached her the poor child shrieked in terror. “You are going to kill me! I know you are going to kill me!” “A few weeks later,” said the superintendent, tears filling her eyes as she told the story, “the little thing was following me around everywhere, repeating softly to herself, ‘Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me.’” How the superintendent with her great warm heart mothers her flock! The more marred, feeble, and wretched they are the more her love surrounds them. And it is most wonderful how these little bruised, neglected plants, blossom out under her tender care. Until recently she was the only foreigner in charge of the work. While so many others flit away in the fierce heat of summer for a breath of cool air, this faithful worker remains, season after season, at her post. “I can not leave the children,” she will urge. But she asks no one’s commiseration, for a happier heart is not to be found in China.

There is a shelter called “The Home for Waifs and Strays” at quite the opposite side of Shanghai. It gathers in a somewhat different class of children, not many slaves, but outcasts, down to new-born infants picked up on the street by the police. Many of the children are mentally deficient and some suffer from incurable diseases. A devoted Christian woman is at the head of the Home, which receives its support from the Municipal Council, by whom the work was inaugurated several years ago.

A new building has just been completed close to the Children’s Refuge, which so long stood entirely alone in the midst of cultivated fields. It is the home of the School for Blind Boys. No charity is more appealing in a country where diseased eyes, leading to partial or total blindness, are so fearfully common. The school opened its doors only three years ago in a rented house, yet the mental development of the boys has been most remarkable. There is certain to arise soon an insistent demand for blind teachers for the blind, and the purpose of the school is to give their boys a general education which will qualify them for that work. It also has a growing industrial department, and the Blind School, like the Children’s Refuge, is in part supported by the sale of its products. The plan is later to establish on the same site a similar school for girls.

One of the best known institutions in Shanghai is the Door of Hope. As the name implies it is intended to succor girls bound by a slavery the most cruel of all. No other city in the country contains as many brothels as Shanghai. It is often called the Sodom of China, and is known to many of the native Christians away from the coast only as the Far Country of the Prodigal Son. Sadly enough, the presence of degenerate foreigners is largely responsible for the sin laid at the gates of the gay metropolis.

It is safe to say that the majority of Chinese girls found in houses of ill-fame are there through no fault of their own. Kidnappers dispose in this way of many of the children they have stolen. Often parents, particularly in famine times, sell their little daughters, choosing in their ignorance such a fate for them rather than to see them die of starvation.

The “Receiving Home” is in an alley-way just off Nanking Road, which is the Piccadilly of Shanghai. Several years ago a few philanthropic and influential Chinese gentlemen succeeded in securing from the International Municipality the passage of a law whereby a notice was placed in each brothel telling of the Receiving Home and how to reach it. Another law was passed at the same time prohibiting brothels from accepting girls under fourteen. Both of these statutes have gradually been allowed to become dead letters, and little or no attention is now paid to them. A rescued girl stays in the Receiving Home only over night, or until her case is brought up in the Mixed Court and she is committed to the Door of Hope. This building is in the outskirts of the city, far removed from the crowded, dangerous district with which the girls have grown too familiar. For obvious reasons, although all are under the same roof, it has been found wise to separate the first-year girls from those of the second year. This charity is supported by grants from the Municipal Council together with voluntary gifts and the sale of industrial work. The Door of Hope dolls are famed far and wide. The little wooden heads, beautifully carved, are the only parts of the dolls not made by the girls. Shanghai firms gladly donate in abundance bright-coloured scraps of silk, satin, and cotton cloth. The dolls are dressed to represent all grades and classes of society, and a set, consisting of sixteen, is of real value educationally.

The first-year girls spend the morning in study and the afternoon in work. They begin by learning to make their own clothes, cloth shoes and all, then when the tailor’s trade has been thoroughly mastered, they are set to dressing dolls. For this work a slight compensation is given which acts as a spur and encouragement. The second-year girls are busy all day at their embroidery frames with a little schooling in the evening. They receive regular pay and are expected in the main to clothe themselves. The embroidery is exquisitely fine and dainty and there is a constant call for it, both in and out of Shanghai, especially from prospective brides and mothers. In the long, cheerful work-room, lined on both sides with windows, the sixty or more girls of the second year gather each morning at eight o’clock for prayers. Half an hour later, the embroidery frames are laid out on small tables, and materials unrolled to the accompaniment of happy chatter. When all is in readiness to begin, a sudden hush falls on the room, as some one points to the text for the day on a Scripture calendar hanging on the wall. This is repeated in concert, followed by a brief prayer from one of the girls. It is a sweet custom and seems to give just the right start to the day. The calendar is compiled annually by a Chinese woman living in Shanghai.

It is not necessary to ask if the girls are happy. Their bright, contented faces show that. Few are inherently bad. Only once in a long while some one tires of the quiet routine and revolts or runs away. But it is natural that they should crave change and the sight of a face from the outside world is eagerly welcomed. Noticing this, a foreign lady living in the neighbourhood once asked the girls in relays to her home for afternoon tea. The day the first-year girls were present, one of them, pointing to the piano, turned to the missionary in charge with the question, “What is that black box?” It was explained to her that it was a musical instrument, and when later it was played upon, the delight of the girls was unbounded. An American visitor was so touched by the incident that she secured for the Door of Hope the gift of a splendid victrola which, being a thing of beauty, is likewise sure to prove a joy forever.

Most of those who enter the Door of Hope, after a few months or a year, become earnest Christians, and sooner or later are married to Christian men. In China it is considered no disgrace to marry a fallen girl, provided she has changed her way of living. One girl who was recently married to a minister made such a favourable impression on her husband’s friend that he went to the Home begging that he be given a wife just like her. “But how are these poor girls for whom often a very large sum of money has been paid, rescued from their owners?” asks the puzzled caller. Ah, it is here that a ray of light streams through the darkness. There is a law in China, yes, and a very old law too, that no woman can be made to lead a life of shame against her will. If she has a chance to express herself in court, she may choose the better way, and no one is allowed to oppose her. The difficulty is to escape from bondage and secure the chance to voice a protest. Besides, many are too young to speak for themselves, like the baby of three, who the other day was carried to a brothel in the arms of her own father and offered for sale. The keepers prefer to buy very young children, as they cost little and can be used as singing girls during their early years.

Five miles out from Shanghai, in a pleasant farming district, is the children’s branch of the Door of Hope. In this beautiful protected spot, a hundred and sixty little ones, snatched from the horrible pit in which they had been thrown, live happily together. With the blessed forgetfulness of childhood, the past soon fades into indistinctness, till it is well-nigh effaced from their memory. The cottage system is in vogue, and the big family is divided up into groups of about twenty. Each cottage has its house-mother, one of the older, trusted girls from the City Home, and all are under the care of two devoted foreigners. The hours are filled with house-work, studies, simple industries, gardening, play. If a girl shows special aptitude, she is sent in time to a mission school, where the curriculum is broader and better adapted to her largest development. As soon as the children are old enough, they are trained in evangelistic work, such as teaching in Ragged Sunday-Schools and holding village prayer meetings. Practically every one ripens into a genuine little Christian.

Two of the most striking philanthropies in Shanghai are conducted by the Roman Catholics. If there is a class of society that draws on one’s sympathies even more than friendless children, it is friendless old people, since their capacity for conscious suffering is greater. A most admirable characteristic of the Chinese is their usually kind treatment of the aged. Filial piety shines its brightest in poverty stricken homes, where real sacrifice is required to provide for the parents, who are often much better able to care for themselves than their children are for them. But very many are left alone in the world without food or shelter, or money to buy a coffin in which they would so gladly lie down and die.

The Catholic Home for indigent old people is popularly known by the name given to the Sisters of Charity in charge of it, “The Little Sisters of the Poor.” The capacious three-story building shelters a hundred and fifty old men and as many old women, which is all it will hold. But as fast as any die others are ready to take their places, for there is always a long waiting list. The only conditions of admission to the Home are that the applicant must be over sixty and wholly without means of support. Most of those taken in are seventy or more. One might easily imagine that a place like this, which gathers under its roof so many old people, whose lives for the most part have been spent in the midst of poverty and filth, and with never an idea of cleanly habits, would be anything but inviting. Yet it is a sort of Eden, not a speck of dirt on the well-scrubbed floors, not a bad or even a close smell in the big airy rooms, not a spot on the white bed curtains and pretty patch-work coverlids made by the old people from the scraps sent in from the shops. And as for the inmates enjoying themselves, why the faces of the dear old souls fairly radiate happiness! They are allowed tobacco and plenty of tea and chatter like magpies over their pipes and cups. In order not to make life under the new conditions terrifying for them, a weekly bath is not insisted on, but clean, neatly mended garments are donned every Sunday morning. When sick, the simple-minded folk are attended by old-fashioned Chinese medicine men, instead of foreign trained doctors whose new-fangled ways the patients would spurn. All who are able to work have regular duties, spinning, laundering, tailoring, nursing. The women’s quarters are on one side of the building, and the men’s on the other, with the chapel between them. “Yes,” says the Sister Superior, stopping a moment as she passes in front of the altar to kneel and make the sign of the Cross, “the chapel is in the centre, so you see it is God who divides and God who unites us.” Several of the Sisters are Chinese, and one round-faced novitiate works in the kitchen, where the shining brass and copper vessels call to mind “Father Lawrence” and his immaculate domain. No Chinese girl can enter as an “aspirant” to the privileges of sisterhood, unless she belongs to the third generation of Christians.

Shanghai’s great show-place is the Catholic institution at Siccawei, a suburban village named after the Jesuit missionaries’ patron saint. No one coming to the city willingly leaves without seeing it, certainly not if the visitor is a woman. For the laces and embroideries made under the direction of the French Sisters are the very quintessence of artistic loveliness, and the salesroom is seldom empty.

More than fifty years ago, at the close of the T’aiping Rebellion, the Jesuits, after many persecutions and vicissitudes, returned to Shanghai, from whence they had fled, and settled at Siccawei. There they began a small work, which has steadily grown till it has reached almost gigantic proportions. Clustered about the Cathedral, glaringly modern and capacious, whose tall spires are a landmark in all the country round, are the old church, a men’s college and theological seminary, observatory, museum, orphanages, schools, and industrial plants. The women’s and girls’ buildings are on one side of a tidal creek, and those of the men and boys on the other. Asked some question by a stranger about the boys’ work, the Sister addressed replied in a tone of finality, “I can’t tell you. I know no more about what is going on over there than you do.” Each Sister is assigned her own duties for which she is responsible, and gives herself to them exclusively. There are fifty Sisters, more than two-thirds of whom are Chinese. The spirituelle expression seen sometimes on the faces of these Chinese recluses, is most remarkable. The foreign Sisters are all French. No one can doubt their devotion. They take no vacation; they never go home on furlough. Several have been at their posts over forty years.

It is a large household the Sisters have under their care, averaging in number seventeen hundred, but the work is so divided and runs with such systematic regularity that there is no suggestion of friction or confusion. First in order come the foundlings. Each day, tiny, new-born babes are brought into the Home, or often left at the gate in the darkness of the night. None are turned away. They are washed, dressed, laid in clean little cribs, and as soon as possible baptised with a Christian name in the chapel on the premises. Many are so frail when they enter, that a few brief hours or days end their troubled existence. Next are the day-schools of various grades for Catholic children, the large orphanage, and the boarding-school for non-Christian or pagan children, as the Sisters call them, with playground, dormitories, dining and school rooms entirely separate from the others. In a secluded corner of the grounds live the sixty unfortunates, who are either blind, crippled, or mentally deficient. Their chief occupation is spinning cotton by the aid of crude spinning wheels, something the dullest are found capable of learning to do.

But it is through its industrial department that Siccawei is best known to the general public. Hundreds of women are employed in making lace and embroidery, most of them having been reared in the Home, and married from it to Catholic husbands whose earning capacity is insufficient for the family needs. A day nursery and school is maintained for the babies and young children of the employees. The work rooms are of enormous size and well lighted. In the centre of each one, on a raised platform, sits a Sister, overlooking the women. The proceeds from the sale of work are very large.

The industrial plant for the men and boys, on the other side of the creek, is even more elaborate. It includes many departments, wood-carving, carpentry, shoemaking, work in iron and brass, glass-blowing, painting in oils and water colours, and a printing establishment. The genial Father in charge of the wood-carving and carpentering, is in his line a genius. Some of the work turned out under his supervision is wonderfully beautiful, and ranks among the finest specimens of Chinese art sent to the Panama Exposition. The youngest apprentices, lads of ten or twelve, begin their industrial training by making little coffins for the foundlings across the way. “Yes,” Father B. is in the habit of remarking, pointing to the boys with a smile, “they start in life where others leave off.” The Siccawei Mission is self-perpetuating within the limits of its own constituency. Growth comes through the ever inflowing stream of helpless humanity. But no effort is put forth, either by the missionaries or Chinese communicants, to reach the unevangelized masses. Formerly this work was subsidized from France, but it now depends for support wholly on the sale of its industries and voluntary contributions.

All Shanghai philanthropies from time to time receive liberal donations from the Chinese themselves, many of whom understand and genuinely appreciate what is being done for their people. The recent founding of the Society of Organized Charities (Protestant) has aided greatly in carrying on systematic work in behalf of the deserving poor.

XIII

CHINESE SUCCESSES IN SOCIAL SERVICE

Several years ago a company of lepers numbering about forty, living in one of the southern provinces of China, were driven from their miserable shacks and burned alive. When the official by whose order the atrocious deed was committed was called to account for it, he excused himself by saying that since the lepers were public nuisances, mere cumberers of the ground, he decided that the sooner they were out of the way the better. Such was his idea of social service and he represents a class in China who regard calamities like famine, flood, and pestilence as heaven-sent blessings to relieve the land of its superfluous population. But to the educated youth, touched by the spirit of a common brotherhood, and to the better elements of an earlier generation the incident just related is as abhorrent as it can possibly be to a Westerner.

Philanthropy of a certain kind is not new in China. Almsgiving for the sake of winning and storing up merit is centuries old. But galling poverty, the fierce struggle for existence, strange customs and superstitions, have all contributed to deaden the sensibilities and quench the naturally kind impulses of the heart. For example, to care for a man lying sick by the roadside means to the rank and file that the Good Samaritan brings down on his own head the ill-luck that followed the poor unfortunate, and to carry him into his house to die involves not only the obligation of paying for his coffin and burial, no small matter in China, but of answering to his relatives, if he has any, for his decease. Not long ago in the Chinese City a humble dwelling-house took fire and quickly burned to the ground. The family barely escaped with their lives, a mother with a new-born baby, and a troop of older children, one of them sick. The father was away, presumably at work. A missionary passing through the narrow street saw the poor things huddled together in a forlorn little group and her heart was stirred with pity. “Why don’t some of you take them home?” she asked of the crowd looking on. “Her husband is coming, we must wait for him,” they answered. An hour or two later, on returning, the lady found the family in the same spot, the woman weak and weary, pressing her infant to her breast. A cold rain was falling. “If you don’t give these people shelter I shall take them home with me,” she exclaimed indignantly to a bystander. “The husband will be here soon, we dare not interfere,” he said in tones of sharp decision. The next morning, unbelievable as it seems, the woman and her children were still on the street, unsheltered and uncared for. At once they were hurried to the mission hospital and tenderly nursed. Then, and not till then, did the real truth in the case come out. Had any one befriended these outcasts, the evil spirit that caused the destruction of their house, would in anger have entered the home of their benefactor and wrought disaster. Hence the only safe course, since they had incurred the displeasure of the gods, was to let them severely alone. Yet to offset this circumstance is the sweet story, and by no means an isolated case, of the old Chinese grandmother, who when a little foreign babe was rescued from drowning, but chilled to the marrow and ready to die, quickly opened her padded coat, and pressed it to her warm bosom, till it revived, thus saving its life.

The recent revolution ushered in many innovations, but nothing that is destined to result in larger good to China than the practice of social service as understood in the West. The idea has met with a quick and enthusiastic response by the Chinese, Christians, and non-Christians alike, and is already yielding notable results in many places. “Why should we not do for ourselves what foreigners have so long been doing for us?” the leaders are asking one another, and hospitals, orphanages, model prisons, refuges, industrial plants, are rising up here, there, and yonder, till it is scarcely possible to open a newspaper without reading of some new project afloat. In progressive Shanghai social service is fast becoming a slogan. An unusual opportunity is afforded here of contrasting the old style of philanthropy with the new, and the study is valuable as well as interesting.

The local Charitable Society that antedates all others has its headquarters, known as The Hall of United Benevolence, in the Chinese City. Its exact age is difficult to determine as no one seems to know. Some say it has as many as three hundred years to its credit. A managing board of ten men, with offices in a Chinese house of spacious dimensions, does the business of the Society, which is very wealthy, owning large tracts of public land. Its chief work is to donate lots to philanthropic institutions, furnish coffins to paupers, subsidize various existing charities, and dispense free of charge Chinese medicines. This Association is held in the highest regard by all classes of Chinese, and may be called the fountain-head from which most of the existing charities have sprung.

One of the older philanthropies, started more than fifty years ago, is the Home for Widows in the Chinese City. It receives widows without money or relatives to support them, who have determined not to re-marry, a most praiseworthy resolve according to Chinese standards. The house-mother, an old woman of seventy, delights to tell that she has been an inmate of the Home for forty years, and certainly the bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked dame is as good an advertisement as the place could have. Widows with young children are allowed to keep their little ones with them till the girls are betrothed and the boys able to go out to work. In the meantime they are sent to day-schools in the city. A family of three hundred is crowded into the rambling old house, the gift of a former governor, which consists of a series of small courts shut in by low two-story buildings. Each woman has her own little room, or perhaps more than one if her family is large. The premises are fairly neat, but what troops of children swarm around, noisy and undisciplined, and as a Chinese caller once pointedly remarked, “How the women must quarrel!” Their salvation evidently lies in their industrial work, for while food and shelter are given them, the able-bodied are expected to provide their own and their children’s clothes. So they spend their days making articles which are sold and yield a slight revenue, chiefly Chinese shoes, idol money, and clothing.

The Widows’ Home, despite its limitations, commands a degree of genuine respect, but not so the two Foundlings’ Homes that awaken only pity and almost fierce resentment. They are meant to do good, yet alas, what a travesty on the real thing! The institution inside of the Chinese City is the oldest philanthropy in Shanghai and dates back to 1710. From the Hall of United Benevolence that fosters it an occasional report goes forth telling about this work. The reports are written in the usual florid Chinese style, and after describing at length the virtuous motives of the founders and supporters, give the rules governing the organization. For instance the age of each child is registered, a note made of its appearance and condition, also “of the lines and fashion of its fingers, five senses and four limbs.” Wet nurses are made to draw lots for the babies in order to avoid partiality. Close to the street entrance is a perforated drawer in which the foundling is to be left. The one who brings the baby must rap on the door with a stick that hangs beside the drawer to announce its arrival. These and many more minute directions are recorded with painstaking elaboration.

They read well, but what are the facts? It requires considerable tact and insistence for a visitor to gain access to the inner rooms of the Home, where the real life of the babies is dragged out. Two or three of the well-favoured will be brought in the arms of nurses to an outer court, but when permission is asked to go inside there is evident reluctance and many excuses are offered. Sometimes the only sure open sesame is the official card of the City Magistrate. Apparently no cruelty is practiced, but it is the gross ignorance and negligence of the caretakers that makes so pitiable the brief life of the babies, for most of them die after a few weeks or months. Each wet nurse is given the charge of two foundlings. The nurses may remain at the Home or if they prefer take the little ones to their own home, in which case they receive somewhat larger pay. If a sufficient number of wet nurses can not be secured, the foundlings, irrespective of age, whether a few days or several months old, are fed on rice water sweetened with coarse brown sugar. Scarcely any reach the Home in a normal condition. Diseased, weak, bruised, one coming with a terrible gash in its neck given with intent to kill, the death-knell of the puny things is generally sounded before birth. The rooms where they are kept are small, and as a rule almost devoid of light and air. In one of the Homes even through the heat of a Shanghai summer the babies not only sleep in stifling rooms but on beds surrounded by closely-woven cloth curtains. In the other Home they lie the long day through in bamboo cribs, their little bodies eaten with flies and poisoned with mosquitoes. The chorus of feeble wails that constantly arises pierces the visitor’s heart, as does the sight of the tiny skeleton-like limbs. With scarcely an exception the fifty babies in each of the Homes, and the far larger number that are put out to nurse, are girls. Just one thought comes as a slight comfort, that wretched as is the condition of the children they are certainly quite as well, or even perhaps better off, than they would be in their own homes. No wonder physicians in China say the mortality among children reaches as high as seventy or eighty per cent.

In happy contrast to these Homes, is the Hospice of St. Joseph, which has gathered into its safe shelter nearly eleven hundred of Shanghai’s sick and poverty-stricken Chinese. But the story is too good not to be told from the beginning. Four years ago two Christian men, members of the Catholic Church, determined to found a philanthropic institution. One holds several highly responsible offices in the Chinese Municipality. The other is a successful business man. Many of the tramcars in the International Settlement, and all of those under Chinese control, were turned out from his foundry. His snug steamers ply the waters of the upper Yangtse as far as Chungking, conquerors at last, after many futile efforts, over the difficulties presented by the dangerous rapids. He subscribes for American journals on mechanics which he studies diligently through an interpreter, and after absorbing ideas gleaned from them, invents and adapts machinery for use in China. It is his desire to see Chinese farmers follow improved methods of agriculture, and to encourage them he occasionally presents a village with a modern threshing machine made in his foundry. His Sundays are frequently spent in evangelistic work in the country, and busy man that he is, he makes it a practice as often as possible to leave his work and go to the Arsenal to pray with condemned prisoners before they die. Recently the President honoured him with a medal rarely bestowed, and all who know him, Protestant and Catholic alike, pronounce him a “rare character.”

The land for the Hospice was donated by the Charitable Society of the Hall of United Benevolences, and the Chinese Municipality gave bricks (those bricks seem to multiply miraculously!) from the old city wall for building material. The colony includes a men’s hospital, a women’s hospital, a home for boys, a refuge for girls, an asylum for the blind, a chapel, dispensaries, kitchens, quarters for the insane, for opium patients, and prisoners from the jail in the Chinese City. These buildings are already completed and others are projected. While the two founders direct the business affairs of the institution, they have given the care of it to twelve Sisters of Charity, four of whom are Europeans and the rest Chinese.

The upkeep of such a great establishment, under the conditions that exist in China, is no small matter, but the next to impossible has been achieved and the management is well-nigh beyond criticism. The long, light airy wards, with every cot filled, are visited each morning by a foreign-trained Chinese physician, who donates his services. On the second floor of the men’s hospital is a beautiful white-tiled operating room, with all the latest equipment. There are industries, indoors or out, for those able to work. Children study half a day. Incurables and old people without support are kept on for life, but the strong and middle-aged are sent away from the institution as soon as they are well to make room for others. It is a joy in this land, where the insane have been so long neglected and maltreated, to find a retreat prepared for them where they receive the kindest consideration. The consequence is that many after a few months go home cured. Every cement-lined cell is protected in front by iron bars, so that the door can be left wide open, admitting light and air. A door at the back of each cell opens into a narrow corridor which leads to bathrooms with large earthen tubs and running water. Several of the cells are neatly padded to accommodate violent patients. This place and the prisoners’ wards next to it, as clean and wholesome as heart could wish, are in charge of a Christian young man of tried character.

In addition to the Hospice, its two large-hearted founders have built, on a much frequented street, a three-story Evangelistic Hall. Said the elder one, “We want it to be a place where any passerby and especially strangers in the city, can stop a while and discuss the Christian doctrine.” There is a day school for boys in connection with it.

Out in the neighbourhood of the old pagoda, set in the midst of blooming peach orchards, is a large orphanage for both boys and girls. This also is a Christian institution, but Protestant, and was started eleven years ago by a group of men, several of whom had studied in mission schools. The boys and girls are in separate though connecting compounds, and a happier, merrier lot of young folks it would be hard to find. Much is made of Bible Study, and industrial work among the boys is strongly emphasized. The sale of their rattan furniture, painted scrolls, cloth and hot-house flowers, especially at the time of their annual chrysanthemum show, goes a long way toward meeting the current expenses of the work.

On the same road as the orphanage, but nearer town, is “The Shanghai Home for Poor Children.” This is not Christian, but it is one of the most interesting and best conducted institutions in the city. A few influential business men are its promoters, Chinese with high ideals and broad vision. There are in the Home about twenty girls and a hundred boys, many of them waifs picked up on the streets by the directors themselves. A peculiarity of this institution is that the children do not use beds but sleep on the floor in great breezy dormitories where there can be no question of well-inflated lungs. The school has a famous orchestra, and a picture that catches the eye at once, on the wall of the reception room, represents the band members, girls as well as boys, sitting with their instruments in their hands on the platform in the main hall. This Home is characterized by two unique features, one, that the old-time Chinese boxing and fencing are taught in the fine out-of-doors gymnasium, and the other, the prominence given to agriculture and horticulture as school branches. Indeed this seems to be the only school in Shanghai where agriculture is a study, with opportunity for practical work in the ample grounds around the institution. In connection with this charity it is worth recording that of the ten members on the Board of Directors five are women. However, they have not advanced quite far enough to join with the men in committee meetings but hold separate sessions. Or possibly it is the men, poor benighted creatures, who are to blame!

It is impossible to lay too much emphasis on the value of industrial schools, and social service can be turned into no more beneficent channels than in starting and maintaining such schools. Until very recently industrial training was wholly neglected in China. Even now, if a Chinese educator is asked, “Are there any industrial schools in Shanghai?” he will answer, “None,” and yet there are at least two and one more soon to be opened. But these, it seems, are not classed as schools, since they admit only poor boys unable to pay tuition, and because the study of books is made secondary. The best industrial school was opened four years ago. Work is carried on in a single large building that is not divided into rooms, but from whose centre apartments branch off in different directions like the spokes of a wheel, all well supplied with windows, thus insuring plenty of fresh air and good ventilation even in the hottest weather. “How many boys have you?” was asked of the head teacher. “One hundred, and I wish I had room for five hundred!” came the reply with surprising earnestness. The boys range in age from very little fellows to lads of sixteen and eighteen. There are industries enough to suit the bent of each one. They include carpet-weaving, wicker work, soap-making, pottery, portrait painting, the manufacture of kindergarten toys, clothing made on sewing machines, and stockings on knitting machines. The boys work during the day and study in the evening. Their pride is in their brass band and they earn quite a bit of money for the school by playing at weddings and funerals. The third of an acre covered by the school plant was originally a cemetery, and how characteristic it is of China, that in order to secure the land one hundred and thirty-nine graves had to be removed!

One of the commonest crimes in Shanghai is kidnapping. Chinese children, if they are healthy and attractive, need to be carefully guarded. Most of the kidnappers are women, and the nefarious business is so lucrative that a large number are engaged in it. Kidnappers grow bold as well as wily, picking up children at play on the street, or off on errands, and even beguiling or snatching them away from their very doors. Both boys and girls are stolen, though boys are greater prizes, being always in demand as apprentices and adopted sons in families that have not been blessed with an heir, for the master of a house who has no son to burn incense before his ancestral tablet after his death, and to worship at his grave, is of all men most miserable. Still, pretty little girls are always easily disposed of, either in brothels or in private homes as slaves or future daughters-in-law.

Several years ago about thirty public-spirited Chinese gentlemen in Shanghai formed themselves into an Anti-Kidnapping Society and set to work in earnest to combat this evil. They hired skilled Chinese detectives to meet out-going and in-coming coast and river steamers and arrest all suspicious characters. Cunning as the kidnappers are, again and again they prove no match for the quickwitted detectives, who succeed in rescuing many children. The poor little victims are frequently concealed in baskets of clothing, or hidden away in boxes that ostensibly contain fruit or merchandise. Sometimes two or three will be found crouching together in a single box with only the tiniest holes for admitting air. The very young children are usually drugged, and older ones frightened into silence by the most terrible threats. Five miles out from Shanghai, convenient to the railroad yet in the midst of open country, has stood for years a large Buddhist temple. At the time of the revolution, when so many of the temples in China were abandoned, and put to other uses, this one was leased by the Anti-Kidnapping Society as a Home for rescued children. Stripped of its idols and incense burners, the smoke-blackened walls white-washed, the priests ejected, the old place that so long echoed the mumbled prayers of heathen devotees now resounds with the happy voices of between two and three hundred children. The girls, who are considerably in the minority, occupy the courts in the rear, large and pleasant however, and the boys those in front. The Worship Hall of the temple has been converted into a school and assembly room for the boys. Every day in the Chinese newspapers of Shanghai the Home is advertised, with a description and photographs of the children most recently rescued. In this way hundreds have been identified by their parents and returned to them. Unclaimed children are kept in the Home, being taught some kind of industrial work until they are able to go out and care for themselves. Ethics is a branch of the school curriculum, but the children are at liberty to accept whatever religious belief they will.

The Chinese gentry in Shanghai maintain several free dispensaries. The largest of these, fronting on a crowded street, has in Chinese characters over one door the motto, “Loving to Save,” and above another “Heaven Bestows Perfect Happiness.” This charity is said to be half a century old and the building itself bears evidence of having endured that long. Every second day the dispensary is open, when patients by the hundred visit it. The dozen or so Chinese trained doctors in attendance are divided into two classes, those treating internal diseases and the others dealing with external troubles. They are separated like sheep from goats, sitting each at his own table, under covered corridors on opposite sides of a court. In the rear of the dispensary is a large workshop where coffins are made and given to the poor.