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. During these early years she was as fond of the
puppet plays, trained mice shows, bear shows, and "Punch and
Judy" as she was in later years of the theatrical performances
with which she entertained her visitors at the palace. She was
compelled to run errands for her mother, going to the shops, as
occasion required, for the daily supply of oils, onions, garlic,
and other vegetables that constituted the larger portion of their
food. I found out also that there is not the slightest foundation
for the story that in her childhood she was sold as a slave and
taken to the south of China.
The outdoor life she led, the games she played, and the work she
was forced to do in the absence of household servants, gave to
the little girl a well-developed body, a strong constitution and
a fund of experience and information which can be obtained in no
other way. She was one of the great middle class. She knew the
troubles and trials of the poor. She had felt the pangs of
hunger. She could sympathize with the millions of ambitious girls
struggling to be freed from the trammels of ignorance and the
age-old customs of the past--a combat which was the more real
because it must be carried on in silence. And who can say that it
was not the struggles and privations of her own childhood which
led to the wish in her last years that "the girls of my empire
may be educated"?
When little Miss Chao had reached the age of fourteen or fifteen
she was taken by her parents to an office in the northern part of
the imperial city of Peking where her name, age, personal
appearance, and estimated degree of intelligence and potential
ability were registered, as is done in the case of all the
daughters of the Manchu people
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