As a matter of
reality, of course, there is no Press now, the all-seeing Board of
Censors having wisely determined that it was not stimulating to the
public welfare; but if such an institution was permitted to exist you
may rest genially assured that nothing could exceed the lenient
toleration which all in office would extend towards it." A similar
instance of malicious inaccuracy is widely spoken of regarding our
lesser ones. "Is it really a fact, Mr. Kong," exclaimed a maiden of
magnanimous condescension, to this person recently, "that we poor
women are despised in your country, and that among the working-classes
female children are even systematically abandoned as soon as they are
born?" Suffering my features to express amusement at this unending
calumny, I indicated my violent contempt towards the one who had first
uttered it. "So far from despising them," I continued, with
ingratiating gallantry, "we recognise that they are quite necessary
for the purposes of preparing our food, carrying weighty burdens, and
the like; and how grotesque an action would it be for poor but
affectionate parents to abandon one who in a few years' time could be
sold at a really remunerative profit, this, indeed, being the
principal means of sustenance in many frugal families."
On another occasion I had seated myself upon a wooden couch in one of
the open spaces about the outskirts of the city, when an aged man
chanced to pass by.
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