CHINESE BABY TRAFFIC

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2137, 17 May 1889, Page 2

CHINESE BABY TRAFFIC

I took a ride on the river this afternoom Canton baa abont three hundred thousand Eeople who live on the water, and there is no usier oity io the world than this oity of boats. Crafts of all kinds, from the email steamer, the great Chinese junk and the river ' cargo-boats to the sampans and little tabs rowed by Bpoonlike paddles, move here and there or dart m and out through forests of masts. Whole families live on boats about twenty feet long and no wider than the aver* age city vestibule * Here children are born, grow, up and die. Marriagea take plaoe and the whole business and actions of life; go on. Little ohildren swarm over them, and tots, two years old, with queues hanging down tholr caoks, play about their decks. The boys h,ave little round barrels or drams, about •>' foot long, and six inches m diameter, tied bj Btringßto their baoks. and many girls of tb* same size have nothing. If the girl falls overboard it would be good fortune to th* poor family to get rid of the expenses oT keeping her, bnt the boy must have bit life-preserver; Poor girls are of no aoooanft m China, and infantiolde is still common; You oan buy a girl baby from one cent np to a dollar, and at the Jesuit ohildran'i asylum nea» Shanghai one of the sisters told, me that they bought hundreds of girls every year for less than a dollar apieoa. At Foo Ohow Mr Wingate, our Consul* told me of a poor woman who strangled her own baby m prder that she might adopt the babj of a neighbor to raise as a wife for her little son, and a missionary there told ta^pt a man who went around peddling ohildren^There is a foundling asylum here, wbioh upon the pay. ment of 20 oents by the mother,. wilr\take % girl baby to raise,, but these babies are sold v soon as they are muoh past the weaning! age. and they are bought m large number? bj brothel-keepers. The selling of girls for w#»B and oonoubines is common, and full- grown maidens bring 25d015. upwards. I spent a day sitting beside the Chinese Judge m th« mixed court m Shanghai, and among th* cases tried waa that of an old woman who\ wanted to prosecute a mandarin for breaking V iw oontraoi m the buying of her daughter. ? The girl was sold for thircy dollars, and th* W mandarin took her with him to Formosa! bat ~ did not pay the- mother. Babies are often bought here, their eyes put out, and they ara raised as blind beggars~Fraak Q. Carpentaria. Qwfott letter, w *