Another notice, however, makes the
degraded body rebels against the Sung. (Milne, p. 218.)
NOTE 7. - There is much about the exposure of children, and about Chinese
foundling hospitals, in the Lettres Edifiantes, especially in Recueil
xv. 83, seqq. It is there stated that frequently a person not in
circumstances to pay for a wife for his son, would visit the foundling
hospital to seek one. The childless rich also would sometimes get children
there to pass off as their own; adopted children being excluded from
certain valuable privileges.
Mr. Milne (Life in China), and again Mr. Medhurst (Foreigner in Far
Cathay), have discredited the great prevalence of infant exposure in
China; but since the last work was published, I have seen the translation
of a recent strong remonstrance against the practice by a Chinese writer,
which certainly implied that it was very prevalent in the writer's own
province. Unfortunately, I have lost the reference. [See Father G.
Palatre, L'Infanticide et l'Oeuvre de la Ste. Enfance en Chine, 1878.
- H.C.]
CHAPTER LXVI.
CONCERNING THE CITY OF COIGANJU.
Coiganju is, as I have told you already, a very large city standing at the
entrance to Manzi. The people are Idolaters and burn their dead, and are
subject to the Great Kaan.
