One very unpleasant evidence of this is the frequency with which wife-beating is carried on by all classes. The Chinese, who adopt ten when they wish to give any idea of comparative numbers, declare that in six or seven families out of ten the husbands regularly beat their wives. Sixty or seventy per cent of the husbands treating their wives in this rough and brutal manner is a terrible commentary upon the home life of the Chinese, and yet no one, as far as my observation goes, ever expresses any condemnation of the custom. It seems to be considered as an inalienable right that has come down from the ancient past, before the civilization of the sages had begun to touch their forefathers with their humane teachings, and with the intense conservatism of the Chinese, the husbands continue to exercise it, whilst the great public looks on and takes no step to stop the barbarous custom. That the wives have never consented to this unwomanly and savage treatment is evident from the fact of the large numbers of suicides amongst them that occur annually in any given area that one may select at random. A village is startled with the report that a woman has thrown herself into a well. Some one happening to pass by at the moment observed the poor creature with flushed face and flaming eyes throw herself headlong into it. At once every one is mad with excitement. The women run shouting and screaming to each other, expressing their loud commiseration; the men move along with sphinx-like faces to see if help can be rendered, and the dogs tear about yelping and barking and having free fights with each other. The unfortunate woman is hauled out of the well with her long hair dishevelled and streaming with water, and with a look of terror on her face, as though death, when she came face to face with it, had filled her with an unspeakable horror. She is quite dead, and so amid noise and uproar and the wailing of her children, who have heard the terrible news, she is carried to her home. It seems that she had had a few words with her husband, and being high-spirited and independent, she had answered him in a way that had been hurtful to his dignity as a man, and seizing a heavy piece of wood, he had beaten her most unmercifully, without any thought as to where the blows fell. With her body bruised and with her heart breaking, and with her sense of womanhood utterly crushed out of her, she determined that she would hide her disgrace in the well, and in doing so would avenge herself most thoroughly on the man who had so injured her. Her husband in his desolate home, though he might feel no sorrow for the woman he had wronged, would be made to realize what a grievous mistake he had made when he found that he had to attend to the details of the home management that had hitherto been left to her care.