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Show When'PIg. Tails" Wereeommon I Most of the Chinease, in this country ; as well as in China, are cutting off their queues. The reason is that the queue i or "pig-tail" is a badge of subjection imposed on the Chinease by their Man- chu conquerors. In China it has been a I serious offense for a man to appear with : h;g pig-tail cut off, and the imperial j executioner was very apt to improve, j on the job by cutting the offender's head off also, During the present re- volution in China an executioner went along with every regiment of the im-! im-! perial army. He carried a sword as j long as he was high. It was assured j that all Chinamen who had cut off their queues were rebels, and this often waa enough to bring them instant death. The result was that many who had parted with their queues fastened false ones on again so as to deceive their enemies. But in many cases the poor victims had already sold their queues to the hair merchants, to be sent to America to make "rats" for the civilized ladies, and they had to suffer the penelty. On the other hand the revolutionary troops took revenge on the Manchus. The latter could be told by their big feet, as the habit of foot-binding has made the Chinese feet small, while the Manchus do not observe this practice. So every suspicious person with big feet who fell into the hand3 of the revolutionists was apt to be sent to join his ancestors by the shortest possible short cut. Foolish as the habit of wearing pig-tails appears to us now, we should not forget that it was once the fashion in Europe and this country to do the same thing. Pig-tails down to the waist were considered the last word in smart dressing about 1740," and wigs were common long after that. Nothing is too too foolish for fashion to adopt. |