Torture At Harvard University

A report has come to us froni the city of Cambridge, wbiuh we trust is untrue, that the Chinese instructor at Harvard College - a dignitary who dresses in silk and is the author oía volume of poems on whicli no American critic has beeu able to pass an adverse judgment, sinee there is no western scbolar who can interpret its teachest hieroglyphics - is subjecting his Hule daughter to the foot-bindine procesa, a fearful torture in itself, and resulting in making the child a cri]ple for lite. Ve have been told that the screams of the poor child have been heard by the neighbors. The opcration has been often described. Bandayes ten feet long and two feet wide are laid on the inside of the iustep and car ried over the fbur small toes and around the heel, drawing the two extremeties nearer each other, buiging the instop, and making a deep hollow in the sole undertitv.it h. Once a month or oftener the bandage is removed and the feet are soaked and kneaded. Pulverizud alum is put on to prevent the sloughing and putrescence whiou ofleu ooour. Someiimes a toe or more drops off. The pain, which is intense, continúes about a year, then gradually diinim.-hcs.and by the end of the second ycar the feet are dead and painless. During the first twelvemonths tha poor girl sleepn only on her back, lying crosswise the bed, with her feet hanging down over the side, bo that the edge of the bedstead presses on the teadons and nerves behind the knees in suoh a way as to dull the pain somewhat. There she swings her feet and moans, and even in the coldest weather cannot wrap herself in a coverlet, because every return of warmth toner liuib.sincreases theaching. The ensation is said to be like that of puncturing the joints with ncedles. While the binding is contitiucd, as ever after, tbe feet are useless for purposes of locomotion. With dcad feet, only two inches long, the woman tlms " beautiSed" is a wretcbed cripple. Aa wo have said, it is reported tli;it the learncd instructor above raentioned is tbus treating his dauhter. lie has reuiarked, wo are informed, that were he to live periuanently in the United Status, he should not bind her feet, but he ezpuots to return to China in a year or two, and were she then to have natural feet her social prospect would be ruined. This may be true, but for the present he is living in Massachuíetts, and iinder Massauhusetts laws, and thosc laws should be evoked to protect the wretohed victim of Oriental folly.