at all.  Since then she has lived with her father and mother-in-law, tending them and her late husband’s grandmother with the utmost care.  They love her dearly, and are thus in a great measure consoled for the loss of their son.  Long thorns serve her for hair-pins;[*] her dress is of cotton cloth; her food consists of bitter herbs.  Such privations she voluntarily accepts, and among her relatives there is not one but respects her.

“The truth of the above report having been ascertained, I would humbly recommend this virtuous lady, although the full time prescribed by law has not yet expired,[+] for some mark[:] of Your Majesty’s approbation.”  Rescript:—­Granted!

    [*] Instead of the elaborate gold and silver ornaments usually worn by
    Chinese women.

[+] A woman must be a widow before she is thirty years old, and remain so for thirty years before she is entitled to the above reward.  This is both to guard against a possible relapse from her former virtuous resolution, and to have some grounds for believing that she was prompted so to act more by a sense of right than by any ungallant neglect on the part of the other sex.

    [:] Generally a tablet or banner, inscribed with well-chosen words of
    praise.

The only strange part in this memorial is that the girl’s mother was not censured for trying to prevent her from acting the part of a virtuous wife and filial daughter-in-law.  It is also more than probable that her early attempts at suicide, rather than any subsequent household economy or dutiful behaviour, have secured for this lady the coveted mark of Imperial approbation.

Suicide, while in an unsound state of mind, is rare; insanity itself, whether temporary or permanent, being extremely uncommon in China.  Neither does the eye detect any of the vast asylums so numerous in England for the reception of lunatics, idiots, deaf-mutes, cripples, and the blind.  There are a few such institutions here and there, but not enough to constitute a national feature as with us.  They are only for the poorest of the poor, and are generally of more benefit to dishonest managers than to anybody else.  And yet in the streets of a Chinese town we see a far less number of “unfortunates” than among our own highly civilised communities.  Blindness is the most common of the above afflictions, so many losing their sight after an attack of small-pox.  But a Chinaman with a malformation of any kind is very seldom seen; and, as we have said before, lunacy appears to be almost unknown.  Such suicides as take place are usually well-premeditated acts, and are committed either out of revenge, or in obedience to the “despotism of custom.”  Statistics are impossible, and we offer our conclusions, founded upon observation alone, subject to whatever correction more scientific investigators may hereafter be enabled to produce.

TORTURE