English: John Thomson: MY fair readers will gather from what has gone before that women's life in China is by no means an enviable lot. The monotony of creation with them is enlivened by none of the entertainments which ladies find indispensable in our own quarter of the globe. No balls, no concerts, conversaziones or picnics, no private theatricals, no— not even a lecture— save from a venerated husband's lips, who jealously keeps watch over their actions, and, with careful mistrustfulness, confines them within doors. It has been suggested that the custom of pinching their feet, now regarded as an essential element of female beauty in China, originated in the selfish jealousy of man. For as ladies could not be trusted to go about alone, it was considered necessary to make them cripples, so that they might never appear abroad without attendants to assist them. Be that