[1] A consideration of the important crisis through which the Chinese Empire is passing at the close of the century, does not fall within the scope of a work like the present. All who are interested in that subject should not omit to read attentively Mr. Colquhoun's "China in Transformation," London and New York, 1898, embodying the matured convictions of an accomplished traveller, and an experienced Oriental administrator, with an exceptional first-hand acquaintance with China. [2] A Chinese woman for many years employed in the writer's family, remarked that for a long time after she was married she was never allowed to leave the narrow courtyard in her hamlet. The wife of a Tao-t'ai told a foreign lady that in her next existence she hoped to be born _a dog_, that she might go where she chose! [3] We have known occasional instances in which a betrothed girl was not required to attend the funeral of her future father-in-law or mother-in-law, a trying ordeal which she must be glad to escape. Sometimes when she does attend, she merely kneels to the coffin, but does not "lament," for usage is in this, as in other particulars, very capricious. [4] A Chinese woman whose parents are living, is constantly referred to not only as a "girl," but as an unmarried girl (_ku-niang_), although she may be herself the mother of half-a-dozen children. [5] See a small pamphlet on "The Status of Woman in China," by Dr. Ernst Faber, Shanghai, 1889, containing many illustrative classical citations. [6] For ample illustration of this subject see Dr. Ernst Faber's "The Famous Women of China," Shanghai, 1890, and "Typical Women of China," by the late Miss A. C. Safford, an abridged translation of a famous and authoritative Chinese work. [7] An extreme case of chronic misery from this cause is found in the Hsiên District of Chih-li, where there is a section wedged in between the high artificial banks of two rivers. Every year many villages are deluged as matter of course, and the houses have been repeatedly destroyed. No autumn crop can ever be raised here, but wheat is put in after the waters have subsided. In the winter one sees many of the houses with doors and windows plastered up, almost all the inhabitants having gone off in droves to beg a living where they can, returning the next spring to look after their wheat. This has become a regular practice even with families who own fifty or sixty acres of land, and who elsewhere would be called well off.