Mention has been made of eunuchs, a class which seems to have originated with the law's severity rather than from a callous desire of the rich to secure a craven and helpless medium and means for pandering to and enjoying the pleasures of the harem without fear of sexual intrigue. Criminals whose feet were cut off were usually employed as park-keepers simply because there could be no inclination on their part to gad about and chase the game. Those who lost their noses were employed as isolated frontier pickets, where no boys could jeer at them, and where they could better survive their misfortune in quiet resignation. Those branded in the face were made gate-keepers, so that their livelihood was perpetually marked out for them. It is sufficiently obvious why the castrated were specially charged with the duty of serving females in a menial capacity. One name for eunuch is "cleanse man," and it is explained by a very old commentator that the duty of these functionaries was to sweep and cleanse the court; but it is perhaps as likely that the original idea was really "purified man," or man deprived of incentive to certain evils. It is often said disparagingly of the Chou dynasty that they introduced the effeminate Persian custom of keeping eunuchs; but the Chou family, which was in full career before Zoroaster existed, is perhaps entitled to a much greater antiquity in civilization than Persia--Cyrus himself was a contemporary of Lao- tsz and Confucius--and probably the castrated were only utilized as menials because they already were eunuchs by law, and were not made eunuchs against the spirit of natural law simply in order that their services as menials should be conveniently rendered.