CHILDREN AND CHILD-LIFE

Before going to China, I could not but wonder, when I
saw a Chinese or Japanese doll, why it was they made such
unnatural looking things for babies to play with. On reaching
the Orient the whole matter was explained by my first
sight of a baby. The doll looks like the child!

Nothing in China is more common than babies. Nothing
more helpless. Nothing more troublesome. Nothing more
attractive. Nothing more interesting.

A Chinese baby is a round-faced little helpless human
animal, whose eyes look like two black marbles over which
the skin had been stretched, and a slit made on the bias.
His nose is a little kopje in the centre of his face, above a
yawning chasm which requires constant filling to insure the
preservation of law and order. On his shaved head are left
small tufts of hair in various localities, which give him the
appearance of the plain about Peking, on which the traveler
sees, here and there, a small clump of trees around a country
village, a home, or a cemetery; the remainder of the country
being bare. These tufts are usually on the "soft spot," in the
back of his neck, over his ears, or in a braid or a ring on the
side of his head.

The amount of joy brought to a home by the birth of a child
depends upon several important considerations, chief among which