T'ing Fang a "Fragrant Palace," or like Li Hung Chang, an
"Illustrious Bird" or "Learned Treatise."

During the summer-time in North China the child goes
almost if not completely naked. Until it is five years old,
its wardrobe consists largely of a chest-protector and a pair
of shoes. In the winter-time its trousers are quilted, with
feet attached, its coat made in the same way, and it is
anything but "clean and sweet." The odor is not unlike that
of an up-stairs back room in a narrow alley at Five Points,
in which dwell a whole family of emigrants.

When the Chinese child is ill he does not have the same
kind of hospital accommodations, nursing and medical skill
at his command as do we in the West. His bed is brick,
his pillow stuffed with bran or grass-seed, he has no sheets,
his food is coarse and ill-adapted to a sick child's stomach.
While his nurse may be kind, gentle and loving she is not
always skillful, and as for the ability of his physician let the
following child's song tell us:

My wife's little daughter once fell very ill,
And we called for a doctor to give her a pill.
He wrote a prescription which now we will give her,
In which he has ordered a mosquito's liver.
And then in addition the heart of a flea,
And half pound of fly-wings to make her some tea.


When the child begins to walk and talk it begins to be