were overhasty and tried to lower themselves by bamboos and rattans. The god, angry at this, condemned them to slavery. The myth, therefore, accounts for a caste of slaves. Formerly also war captives and criminals who could not pay fines became slaves. Debts cause men to fall into pawnship. Extravagant living, and gambling, lead to this condition. If a man becomes pawn for a debt his whole household goes with him. All have to work very hard to try to satisfy a greedy master. The pawn is entitled to one tenth of the harvest, or of the gain by trade. Free men despise pawns.[719] Wilken[720] says of the Bataks that a slave, by diligence and thrift, can always buy himself. In addition to all the ill chances of gambling, extravagance, making love to another man's wife, etc., by which a man may become a debtor slave, customs exist which are traps for the unwary. Sago and rice are left in the woods, in some islands, until wanted. If a man passes the store, he is supposed to take away the spirit of the goods. If caught, he and all his family become slaves. If a man dies who was wont to fish at a certain place, the place becomes taboo to his ghost. Any one who fishes there becomes a slave to his family. Also, if a district is in mourning, any one who breaks the mourning customs is made a slave.[721] The education of the Chinese in ethical doctrines has made slavery amongst them slight and mild. It is attributed to poverty, which forces parents to sell their daughters.[722] The owners must provide female slaves with husbands, and the law forbids the separation of husband and wife, or of parents and little children.[723] It appears that slavery is forbidden by law, but is tolerated in the case where the parents are poor. Boys once enslaved continue in bondage and their children follow them, but there is no legal possession. Girls become free at marriage.[724] +281. Slavery in Asia.+ Slavery in Asia is of a kind which puts the slave largely at the mercy of his owner, but the mores have taught the slave owner to use his power with consideration. This is generally, not universally, true. Nivedita says[725] that "slavery in Asia, under the regime of great religious systems, has never meant what Europe and America have made of it.... It is a curious consequence of this humanity of custom [or rather, of the judgment in the mores as to the wisest course of conduct in a class of cases] that the word 'slave' cannot be made to sting the Asiatic consciousness as it does the European."