capital, where the myriads of citizens find hardly room to live or to breathe. In the southern parts of the empire the natives themselves, who might be supposed anxious to conceal the fact, bear ample testimony to its existence, and that in a proportion which it is fearful to contemplate; while the lightness with which they treat the murder of female infants, shews that it must have prevailed, in no ordinary degree, in order so far to blunt their sensibilities on the subject, as to lead them to contemplate the drowning of a daughter as far more excusable than the treading of a printed paper under foot. The extent of infanticide in the capital has been calculated by the number of infants thrown out every night, and gathered by the police in the morning, to be buried in one common hole, without the city. One writer informs us that ten or a dozen infants are picked up every morning, in Peking alone; hence the murders in that city must amount to several thousands annually.
Some writers and travellers have questioned the prevalence of infanticide in China, because they have never, in their intercourse with the Chinese, seen any instances of it. Thus, Ellis remarks, "that in passing along the populous rivers of China, through upwards of 1600 miles of country, they met with no proofs of its existence." De Guignes has been brought in also, as saying, "that in his route, through the whole extent of China, in travelling by water, he never saw an infant drowned; and, in travelling by land, although he had been early in the morning, in cities and in villages, and at all hours, on the highways, he never say an infant exposed or dead." But this negative kind of evidence is contradicted by the direct testimony of Messrs. Bridg-
