The Chinese have the credit amongst most Englishmen of being a nation of Infanticides, and the impression is to be attributed to the stories which cursory visitors, and even observing travellers, are apt to bring home. These will tell, it may be, of “baby towers,” standing in the vicinity of most towns, and of suspicious little bundles noticed in pools and canals; of carts, which are said to go round for the purpose of collecting castaway children; of miniature coffins strewed about the fields, &c. Such things have no doubt intruded themselves upon the notice, but the observers have not taken the trouble, or, perhaps, from ignorance of the language, have not always found themselves able to inquire, how or why these remains came to be so disposed of. Had they done so, they would have learnt that the relics seen were by no means in every instance, or even nearly so, those of castaway or murdered infants, the Chinese being one of those people who do not consider it essential to give formal sepulture to a child under a certain age. The truth in this, as in most other cases, may be discovered to lie between the two extremes.