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CHINESE SKETCHES Herbert A.Giles
THE DEATH OF AN EMPEROR
His Imperial MajestyTsai-Shundeputed by Heaven to reign over all
within the four seasexpired on the evening of Tuesday the 13th
January 1875aged eighteen years and nine months. He was erroneously
known to foreigners as the Emperor T'ung Chih; but T'ung Chih was
merely the style of his reignadopted in order that the people should
not profane by vulgar utterance a name they are not even permitted to
write.[*] Until the new monarchthe late Emperor's cousinhad been
duly installedno word of what had taken place was breathed beyond
the walls of the palace; for dangerous thoughts might have arisen had
it been known that the State was drifting rudderlessa prey to the
wild waves of sedition and lawless outbreak. The accession of a child
to reign under the style of Kuang Hsu was proclaimed before it was
publicly made known that his predecessor had passed away.
[*] Either one or all of the characters composing an emperor's name
are altered by the addition or omission of certain component
parts; as iffor instancewe were to write an Alb/a/rt chain
merely because Alb/e/rt is the name of the heir-apparent.
Similarlya child will never utter or write its father's name;
and the names of Confucius and Mencius are forbidden to all alike.
Of the personal history of the ill-fated boy who has thus been
prematurely cut off just as he was entering upon manhood and the
actual government of four hundred million soulswe know next to
nothing. His accession as an infant to the dignities of a sensual
dissipated fatherattracted but little attention either in China or
elsewhere; and from that date up to the year 1872all we heard about
His Majesty wasthat he was making good progress in Manchuor had
hit the target three times out of ten shots at a distance of about
twenty-five yards. He was taught to ride on horsebackthough up to
the day of his death he never took part in any great hunting
expeditionssuch as were frequently indulged in by earlier emperors
of the present dynasty. He learnt to read and write Chinesethough
what progress he had made in the study of the Classics was of course
only known to his teachers. Painting may or may not have been an
Imperial hobby; but it is quite certain that the drama received more
perhaps than its full share of patronage. The ladies and eunuchs of
the palace are notoriously fond of whiling away much of their
monotonous existence in watching the grave antics of professional
tragedians and laughing at the broad jokes of the low-comedy manwith
his comic voice and funnily-painted face. Listening to the tunes
prescribed by the Book of Ceremoniesand dining in solemn solitary
grandeur off the eight[*] precious kinds of food set apart for the
sovereignhis late Majesty passed his boyhooduntil in 1872 he
married the fair A-lu-teand practically ascended the dragon throne
of his ancestors. Up to that time the Empresses-Dowagerhidden behind
a bamboo screenhad transacted business with the members of the Privy
Councilsigning all documents of State with the vermilion pencil for
and on behalf of the young Emperorbut probably without even going
through the formality of asking his assent. The marriage of the
Emperor of China seemed to wake people up from their normal apathyso
that for a few months European eyes were actually directed towards the
Flowery Landand the /Illustrated London News/with praiseworthy
zealsent out a special correspondentwhose valuable contributions
to that journal will be a record for ever. The ceremonyhoweverwas
hardly over before a bitter drop rose in the Imperial cup. Barbarians
from beyond the sea came forward to claim the right of personal
interview with the sovereign of all under Heaven. The story of the
first audience is still fresh in our memories; the trivial
difficulties introduced by obstructive statesmen at every stage of the
proceedingsquestions of etiquette and precedence raised at every
turnuntil finally the /kotow/ was triumphantly rejected and five
bows substituted in its stead. Every one saw the curt paragraph in the
/Peking Gazette/which notified that on such a day and at such an
hour the foreign envoys had been admitted to an interview with the
Emperor. We all laughed over the silly story so sedulously spread by
the Chinese to every corner of the Empirethat our Minister's knees
had knocked together from terror when Phaeton-like he had obtained his
dangerous request; that he fell down flat in the very presence
breaking all over into a profuse perspirationand that the haughty
prince who had acted as his conductor chid him for his want of course
bestowing upon him the contemptuous nickname of "chicken-feather."
[*] These are--bears' pawsdeers' tailducks' tonguestorpedos'
roecamels' humpsmonkeys' lipscarps' tailsand beef-marrow.
Subsequentlyin the spring of 1874the late Emperor made his great
pilgrimage to worship at the tombs of his ancestors. He had previous
to his marriage performed this filial duty oncebut the mausoleum
containing his father's bones was not then completedand the whole
thing was conducted in a privateunostentatious manner. But on the
last occasion great preparations were made and vast sums spent (on
paper)that nothing might be wanting to render the spectacle as
imposing as money could make it. Royalty was to be seen humbly
performing the same hallowed rites which are demanded of every child
and which can under no circumstances be delegated to any other person
as long as there is a son or a daughter living. The route along which
His Majesty was to proceed was lined with closely-packed crowds of
loyal subjectseager to set eyes for once in their lives upon a being
they are taught to regard as the incarnation of divinity; and when the
Sacred Person really burst upon their viewthe excitement was beyond
description. Young and oldwomen and childrenfell simultaneously
upon their kneesand tears and sobs mingled with the blessings
showered upon His Majesty by thousands of his simple-minded
affectionate people.
The next epoch in the life of this youthful monarch occurred a few
months ago. The Son of Heaven[*] had not availed himself of western
science to secure immunity from the most loathsome in the long
category of diseases. He had not been vaccinatedin spite of the
known prevalence of smallpox at Peking during the winter season. True
it is but a mild form of smallpox that is there common; but it is easy
to imagine what a powerless victim was found in the person of a young
prince enervated by perpetual cooping in the heart of a cityrarely
permitted to leave the palaceand then only in a sedan-chaircalled
out of his bed at three o'clock every morning summer or winterto
transact business that must have had few charms for a boyand
possessed of no other means of amusement than such as he could derive
from the society of his wife or concubines. Occasional bulletins
announced that the disease was progressing favourablyand latterly it
was signified that His Majesty was rapidly approaching a state of
convalescence. His deaththereforecame both suddenly and
unexpectedly; happilyat a time when China was unfettered by war or
rebellionand when all the energies of her statesmen could be
employed in averting either one catastrophe or the other. For one
hundred days the Court went into deep mourningwearing capes of white
fur with the hair outside over long white garments of various stuffs
lined also with white furbut of a lighter kind than that of the
capes. Mandarins of high rank use the skin of the white fox for the
latterbut the ordinary official is content with the curly fleece of
the snow-white Mongolian sheep. For one hundred days no male in the
Empire might have his head shavedand women were supposed to eschew
for the same period all those gaudy head ornaments of which they are
so inordinately fond. At the expiration of this time the Court
mourning was changed to blackwhich colouror at any rate something
sombrewill be worn till the close of the year.
[*] Such terms as "Brother of the Sun and Moon" are altogether
imaginaryand are quite unknown in China.
For twelve long months there may be no marrying or giving in marriage
that is among the official classes; the people are let off more
easilyone hundred days being fixed upon as their limit. For a whole
year it is illegal to renew the scrolls of red paper pasted on every
door-post and inscribed with cherished maxims from the sacred books;
except again for non-officialswhose penance is once more cut down to
one hundred days' duration. In these sad times the birth of a son--a
Chinaman's dearest wish on earth--elicits no congratulations from
thronging friends; no red eggs are sent to the lucky parentsand no
joyous feast is provided in return. Merrymaking of all kinds is
forbidden to all classes for the full term of one yearand the
familiar sound of the flute and the guitar is hushed in every
household and in every street.[*] The ordinary Chinese visiting-card--
a piece of red paper about six inches by threeinscribed with its
owner's name in large characters--changes to a dusky brown; and the
very lines on letter paperusually redare printed of a dingy blue.
Official seals are also universally stamped in blue instead of the
vermilion or mauve otherwise used according to the rank of the holder.
Red is absolutely tabooed; it is the emblem of mirth and joyand the
colour of every Chinese maiden's wedding dress. It is an insult to
write a letter to a friend or stranger on a piece of plain white paper
with black ink. Etiquette requires that the columns should be divided
by red lines; orif notthat a tiny slip of red paper be pasted on
in recognition of the form. For this reason it is that all stamps and
seals in China are /red/--to enable tradesmenofficialsand others
to use any kind of paperwhether it has already some red about it or
not; and every foreigner in China would do well to exact on all
occasions the same formalities from his employes as they would
consider a matter of duty towards one of their own countrymenhowever
low he might be in the social scale.
[*] Mencius. Book v.part ii.ch. 4.
Certain classes of the people will suffer from the observance of these
ceremonies far more severely than others. The peasant may not have his
head shaved for one hundred days--inconvenientno doubtfor himbut
mild as compared with the fate of thousands of barbers who for three
whole months will not know where to look to gain their daily rice. Yet
there is a large section of the community much worse off than the
barbersand this comprises everybody connected in any way with the
theatres. Their occupation is gone. For the space of one year neither
public nor private performance is permitted. During that time actors
are outcasts upon the face of the earthand have no regular means of
getting a livelihood. The lessees of theatres have most likely
feathered their own nests sufficiently well to enable them to last out
the prescribed term without serious inconvenience; but with usactors
are proverbially improvidentand even in frugal China they are no
exception to the rule.
Officials in the provincesbesides conforming to the above customs in
every detailare further obliged on receipt of the "sad announcement"
to mourn three times a-day for three days in a particular chapel
devoted to that purpose. There they are supposed to call to mind the
virtues of their late masterand more especially that act of grace
which elevated each to the position he enjoys. Actual tears are
expected as a slight return for the seal of office which has enabled
its possessor to grow rich at the expense too often of a poor and
struggling population. We fancyhoweverthat the mind of the mourner
is more frequently occupied with thinking how many friends he can
count among the Imperial censors than in dwelling upon the
transcendent bounty of the deceased Emperor.
We sympathise with the bereaved mother who has lost her only child and
the hope of China; but on the other hand if there is little room for
congratulationthere is still less for regret. The nation has been
deprived of its nominal heada vapid youth of nineteenwho was
content to lie /perdu/ in his harem without making an effort to do a
little governing on his own responsibility. During the ten years that
foreigners have resided within half a mile of his own apartments in
the palace at Pekinghe has either betrayed no curiosity to learn
anything at all about themor has been wanting in resolution to carry
out such a scheme as we can well imagine would have been devised by
some of his bolder and more vigorous ancestors. And now once more the
sceptre has passed into the hands of a child who will grow uplike
the late Emperoramid the intrigues of a Court composed of women and
eunuchsutterly unfit for anything like energetic government.
The splendid tomb which has been for the last twelve years in
preparation to receive the Imperial coffinbut whichaccording to
Chinese custommay not be completed until death has actually taken
placewill witness the last scene in the career of an unfortunate
young man who could never have been an object of envy even to the
meanest of his peopleand who has not left one single monument behind
him by which he will be remembered hereafter.
THE POSITION OF WOMEN
It isperhapstolerably safe to say that the position of women among
the Chinese is very generally misunderstood. In the squalid huts of
the poorthey are represented as ill-used drudgesdrawers of water
and grinders of cornearly to rise and late to bedtheir path
through the vale of tears uncheered by a single ray of happiness or
hopeand too often embittered by terrible pangs of starvation and
cold. This picture is unfortunately true in the main; at any rate
there is sufficient truth about it to account for the element of
sentimental fiction escaping unnoticedand thus it comes to be
regarded as an axiom that the Chinese woman is lowvery lowin the
scale of humanity and civilisation. The women of the poorer classes in
China have to work hard indeed for the bowl of rice and cabbage which
forms their daily foodbut not more so than women of their own
station in other countries where the necessaries of life are dearer
children more numerousand a drunken husband rather the rule than the
exception. Now the working classes in China are singularly sober;
opium is beyond their meansand few are addicted to the use of
Chinese wine. Both men and women smokeand enjoy their pipe of
tobacco in the intervals of work; but this seems to be almost their
only luxury. Hence it follows that every cash earned either by the man
or woman goes towards procuring food and clothes instead of enriching
the keepers of grog-shops; besides which the percentage of quarrels
and fights is thus very materially lessened. A great drag on the poor
in China is the family tieinvolving as it does not only the support
of aged parentsbut a supply of rice to unclesbrothersand cousins
of remote degrees of relationshipduring such time as these may be
out of work. Of course such a system cuts both waysas the time may
come when the said relatives supplyin their turnthe daily meal;
and the support of parents in a land where poor-rates are unknownhas
tended to place the present high premium on male offspring. Thus
though there is a great deal of poverty in Chinathere is very little
absolute destitutionand the few wretched outcasts one does see in
every Chinese townare almost invariably the once opulent victims of
the opium-pipe or the gaming-table. The relative number of human
beings who suffer from cold and hunger in China is far smaller than in
Englandand in this all-important respectthe women of the working
classes are far better off than their European sisters. Wife-beating
is unknownthough power of life and death isunder certain
circumstancesvested in the husband (Penal CodeS. 293); whileon
the other handa wife may be punished with a hundred blows for merely
striking her husbandwho is also entitled to a divorce (Penal Code
S. 315). The truth isthat these poor women areon the wholevery
well treated by their husbandswhom they not unfrequently rule with
as harsh a tongue as that of any western shrew.
In the fanciful houses of the richthe Chinese woman is regarded with
even more sympathy by foreigners generally than is accorded to her
humbler fellow-countrywoman. She is represented as a mere ornamentor
a soullesslistless machine--something on which the sensual eye of
her opium-smoking lord may rest with pleasure while she prepares the
fumes which will waft him to another hour or so of tipsy
forgetfulness. She knows nothingshe is taught nothingnever leaves
the housenever sees friendsor hears the news; she is
consequentlydevoid of the slightest intellectual effortand no more
a companion to her husband than the stone dog at his front gate. Now
although we do not profess much personal acquaintance with the
/gynecee/ of any wealthy Chinese establishmentwe think we have
gathered quite enough from reading and conversation to justify us in
regarding the Chinese lady from an entirely different point of view.
In novelsfor instancethe heroine is always highly
educated--composes finished versesand quotes from Confucius; and it
is only fair to suppose that such characters are not purely and wholly
ideal. Besidesmost young Chinese girlswhose parents are well off
are taught to readthough it is true that many content themselves
with being able to read and write a few hundred words. They all learn
and excel in embroidery; the little knick-knacks which hang at every
Chinaman's waist-band being almost always the work of his wife or
sister. Visiting between Chinese ladies is of everyday occurrenceand
on certain fete-days the temples are crowded to overflowing with
"golden lilies"[*] of all shapes and sizes. They give littledinner-
parties to their female relatives and friendsat which they talk
scandaland brew mischief to their hearts' content. The first wife
sometimes quarrels with the secondand between them they make the
house uncomfortably hot for the unfortunate husband. "Don't you
foreigners also dread the denizens of the inner apartments?" said a
hen-pecked Chinaman one day to us--and we think he was consoled to
hear that viragos are by no means confined to China. One of the
happiest moments a Chinese woman knowsis when the family circle
gathers round husbandbrotheror it may be sonand listens with
rapt attention and wondering credulity to a favourite chapter from the
"Dream of the Red Chamber." She believes it every wordand wanders
about these realms of fiction with as much confidence as was ever
placed by western child in the marvellous stories of the "Arabian
Nights."
[*] A poetical name for the small feet of Chinese women.
ETIQUETTE
If there is one thing more than anotherafter the possession of the
thirteen classicson which the Chinese specially pride themselvesit
is /politeness/. Even had their literature alone not sufficed to place
them far higher in the scale of mental cultivation than the unlettered
barbariana knowledge of those important forms and ceremonies which
regulate daily intercourse between man and manunknown of course to
inhabitants of the outside nationswould have amply justified the
graceful and polished Celestial in arrogating to himself the proud
position he now occupies with so much satisfaction to himself. A few
inquiring natives ask if foreigners have any notion at all of
etiquetteand are always surprised in proportion to their ignorance
to hear that our ideas of ceremony are fully as clumsy and complicated
as their own. It must be well understood that we speak chiefly of the
educated classesand not of "boys" and compradores who learn in a
very short time both to touch their caps and wipe their noses on their
masters' pocket-handkerchiefs. Our observations will be confined to
members of that vast body of men who pore day and night over the
"Doctrine of the Mean" and whose lips would scorn to utter the
language of birds.
And truly if national greatness may be gauged by the mien and carriage
of its peopleChina is without doubt entitled to a high place among
the children of men. An official in full costume is a most imposing
figureand carries himself with great dignity and self-possession
albeit he is some four or five inches shorter than an average
Englishman. In this respect he owes much to his long dresswhichby
the waywe hope in course of time to see modified; but more to a
close and patient study of an art now almost monopolised in Europe by
aspirants to the triumphs of the stage. There is not a single awkward
movement as the Chinese gentleman bows you into his houseor supplies
you from his own hand with the cup of tea so necessaryas we shall
showto the harmony of the meeting. Not until his guest is seated
will the host venture to take up his position on the right hand of the
former; and even if in the course of an excited conversationeither
should raise himselfhowever slightlyfrom a sitting postureit
will be the bounden duty of the other to do so too. No gentleman would
sit while his equal stood. Occasionallywhere it is not intended to
be over-respectful to a visitora servant will bring in the teaone
cup in each hand. Then standing before his master and guesthe will
cross his armsserving the latter who is at his right hand with his
left handhis master with the right. The object of this is to expose
the palm--in Chinesethe /heart/--of either hand to each recipient of
tea. It is a token of fidelity and respect. The tea itself is called
"guest tea" and /is not intended for drinking/. It has a moreuseful
mission than that of allaying thirst. Alas for the red-haired
barbarian who greedily drinks off his cupful before ten words have
been exchangedand confirms the unfavourable opinion his host already
entertains of the manners and customs of the West! And yet a little
trouble spent in learning the quaint ceremonies of the Chinese would
have gained him much esteem as an enlightened and tolerant man. For
while despising us outwardlythe Chinese know well enough that
inwardly we despise themand thus it comes to pass that a voluntary
concession on our part to any of their harmless prejudices is always
gratefully acknowledged. To return"guest tea" is provided to beused
as a signal by either party that the interview is at an end. A guest
no sooner raises the cup to his lips than a dozen voices shout to his
chair-coolies; sotoowhen the master of the house is prevented by
other engagements from playing any longer the part of host. Without
previous warning--unusual except among intimate acquaintances--this
tea should never be touched except as a sign of departure.
Strangers meeting may freely ask each other their namesprovinces
and even prospects; it is not so usual as is generally supposed to
inquire a person's age. It is always a compliment to an old manwho
is justly proud of his yearsand takes the curious form of "your
venerable teeth?" but middle-aged men do not as a rule care about the
question and their answers can rarely be depended upon. A man may be
asked the number and sex of his children; also if his father and
mother are still "in the hall" i.e.alive. His wifehowevershould
never be alluded to even in the most indirect manner. Friends meeting
either or both being in sedan-chairsstop their bearers at onceand
get out with all possible expedition; the same rule applies to
acquaintances meeting on horseback. Spectacles must always be removed
before addressing even the humblest individual--sheer ignorance of
which most important custom has oftenwe imagineled to rudeness
from natives towards foreignerswhere otherwise extreme courtesy
would have been shown. In such cases a foreigner must yieldor take
the chances of being snubbed; and where neither self-respect or
national dignity is compromisedwe recommend him by all means to
adopt the most conciliatory course. Chinese etiquette is a wide field
for the studentand one whichwe thinkwould well repay extensive
and methodical exploration.
ETIQUETTENO. II
The disadvantages of ignoring alike the language and customs of the
Chinese are daily and hourly exemplified in the unsatisfactory
relations which exist as a rule between master and servant. That the
latter almost invariably despise their foreign patronsand are only
tempted to serve under them by the remunerative nature of the
employmentis a fact too well known to be contradictedthough why
this should be so is a question which effectually puzzles many who are
conscious of treating their native dependants only with extreme
kindness and consideration. The answerhoweveris not difficult for
those who possess the merest insight into the workings of the Chinese
mind; for just as every inhabitant of the eighteen provinces believes
China to be the centre of civilisation and powerso does he infer
that his language and customs are the only ones worthy of attention
from native and barbarian alike. The very antagonism of the few
foreign manners and habits he is obliged by his position to cultivate
tend rather to confirm him in his own sense of superiority than
otherwise. For who but a barbarian would defile the banquet hour "when
the wine mantles in the cups" with a /white/ table-cloththe badge of
grief and death? How much more elegant the soft /red/ lacquer of the
"eight fairy" tablewith all its associations of the bridal hour!The
hosttooat the /head/ of his own boardsitting in what should be
the seat of the most honoured guestand putting the latter on his
/right/ instead of his left hand! Truly these red-haired barbarians
are the very scum of the earth.
By the time he has arrived at this conclusion our native domestic has
by a direct process of reasoning settled in his mind another important
pointnamelythat any practice of the civilities and ceremonies
which Chinese custom exacts from the servant to the masterwould be
entirely out of place in reference to the degraded being whom an
accidental command of dollars has invested with the titlethough
hardly with the rightsof a patron. Consequentlylittle acts of
gross rudenessunperceived of course by the foreignercharacterise
the everyday intercourse of master and servant in China. The house-boy
presents himself for ordersand even waits at tablein short clothes
--an insult no Chinaman would dare to offer to one of his own
countrymen. He meets his master with his tail tied round his headand
passes him in the street without touching his hatthat iswithout
standing still at the side of the street until his master has passed.
He lolls about and scratches his head when receiving instructions
instead of standing in a respectful attitude with his hands at his
side in a state of rest; enters a room with his shoes down at heelor
without socks; omits to rise at the approach of his mastermistress
or their friendsand commits numerous other petty breaches of decorum
which would ensure his instant dismissal from the house of a Chinese
gentleman. We ourselves take a pride in making our servants treat us
with the same degree of outward respect they would show towards native
mastersand we believe that by strictly adhering to this system we
succeed in gainingto some extenttheir esteem. Inasmuchhowever
as foreign susceptibilities are easily shocked on certain points
ignored by Chinamen of no matter what social standingwe have found
it necessary to introduce a special Billknown in our domestic circle
as the Expectoration Act. Now it is a trite observation that the
Chinese make capital soldiers if they are well commandedand what is
the head of a large business establishment but the commander-in-chief
of a small army? The efficiency of his force depends far more upon the
moral agencies brought to bear than upon any system of rewards and
punishments human ingenuity can devise; for Chinamenlike other
mortalslove to have their prejudices respectedand fear of shame
and dread of ridicule are as deeply ingrained in their natures as in
those of any nation under the sun. They have a horror of blowsnot so
much from the pain inflictedas from the sense of injury done to
something more elevated than their mere corporeal frames; and a friend
of ours once lost a good servant by merelyin a hasty fit/throwing
a sock at him/. We therefore think thatconsidering the vast extent
of the Chinese empire and its innumerable populationall of whom are
constructed mentally more or less on the same modeltheir language
and customs are deserving of more attention than is generally paid to
them by foreigners in China.
LITERATURE
It is an almost universally-received creed that behind the suicidal
prejudices and laughable superstitions of the Chinese there is a
mysterious fund of solid learning hidden away in the uttermost
recesses--far beyond the ken of occidentals--of that /terra
incognita/Chinese literature. Sinologues darkly hint at elaborate
treatises on the various sciencesimpartial histories and candid
biographieslaying at the same time extraordinary stress on the
extreme difficulty of the language in which they are writtenand
carefully mentioning the number (sometimes fabulous) of the volumes of
which each is composed. Henceprobablyit results that few students
venture to push their reading beyond novelsand remain during the
whole of their career in a state of darkness as to that literary
wealth of China which enthusiasts delight to compare with her
unexplored mines of metal and coal. Inasmuchhoweveras it is not
absolutely necessary to read a book from beginning to end to be able
to form a pretty correct judgment as to its valuesomany students
who are sufficiently advanced to read a novel with ease and without
the help of a teachermight readily gain an insight into a large
enough number of the most celebrated scientific or historical works to
enable them to comprehend the true worth of the whole of this vast
literature. For vast it undoubtedly isthough our own humble efforts
to appraise it justlyin comparison of course with the other
literatures of the worldbrought upon us in the first hours of
discovery that some years of assiduous toil had been positively thrown
away. Sir W. Hamiltonif we recollect rightlysaid that by so many
more languages as a man knowsby so many more times is he a man--an
apophthegm of but a shallow kind if all he meant to convey was that an
Englishman who can speak French is also a Frenchman by virtue of his
knowledge of the colloquial. The opening up of new fields of thought
through the medium of a new literatureis a result more worthy the
effort of acquiring a foreign language than sparkling in a /salon/
with the purest imaginable accent; and herein Sir W. Hamilton counted
without Chinese. The greater portion of the "Classics" cherished
tomes to which China thinks even now she owes her intellectual
supremacy over the rest of the worldis open through Dr Legge's
translation to all Englishmenand those who run may readweighing it
in the balance and determining its status among the ethical systems
either of the past or present. Had we found as much that is solid in
other departments of Chinese literatureas there is mixed up with the
occasional nonsense and obscurity of the Four Booksour protest would
have taken a milder form; as it iswe think it right to condemn any
and all random assertions which tend to strengthen in the minds of
those who have no opportunity of judgingthe belief that China is
possessed of a vast and valuable literaturein whichfor aught any
one knows to the contrarythere may lie buried gems of purest ray
serene. Can it be supposed thatif truenothing of all this has yet
been brought to light? There have beenand are nowforeigners
possessing a much wider knowledge of Chinese literature than many
natives of educationbutstrange to saysuch translations as have
hitherto been given to the world have been chiefly confined to plays
and novels! We hold that all those whom tastes or circumstances have
led to acquire a knowledge of the Chinese language have a great duty
to performand this is to contribute each something to the scanty
quota of translations from Chinese now existing. Let us see what the
poetshistoriansand especially the scientific men of China have
produced to justify so many in speaking as they have doneand still
do speakof her bulky literature. Manywe thinkwill be deterred by
the grave nonsense or childish superstitions which they dare not
submit to foreign judges as the result of their labours in this
fantastic field; but to withhold such is to leave the public where it
was beforeat the mercy of unscrupulous or crazed enthusiasts.
We were led into this train of thought by an article in the /North
China Daily News/ of 10th July 1874in which the writer speaks of
China as "a luxuriant mental oasis amidst the sterility of Eastern
Asia" and "possessing a literature in vastness and antiquarianvalue
surpassed by no other." He goes on to say that the translations
hitherto made "have conveyed to us a faint notion of the compass
varietysolidityand linguistic beauties of that literature." Such
statements as these admitunfortunatelyof rhetorical support
sufficient to convince outsiders that at any rate there are two sides
to the questiona conviction which could only be effectually
dispelled by placing before them a few thousand volumes translated
into Englishand chosen by the writer of the article himself.[*]
Whenhoweverour enthusiast deals with more realisable factsand
says that in China "there is no organised book tradenor publishers'
circularsnor Quaritch's Cataloguesnor any other catalogues whether
of old or new books for sale" we can assure him he knows nothing at
all about the matter; that there is now lying on our table a very
comprehensive list of new editions of standard works lately published
at a large book-shop in Wu-chang Fuwith the price of each work
attached; and that Mr Wyliein his "Notes on Chinese Literature"
devotes five entire pages to the enumeration of some thirty well-known
and voluminous catalogues of ancient and modern works.
[*] Baron Johannes von Gumpach. Died at Shanghai31st July 1875.
EDUCATIONAL LITERATURE
A ramble through a native town in China must often have discovered to
the observant foreigner small collections of second-hand books and
pamphlets displayed on some umbrella-shaded stallor arranged less
pretentiously on the door-step of a temple. If innocent of all claims
to a knowledge of the written languagehe may take them for cheap
editions of Confuciuswith which literary chair-coolies are wont to
solace their leisure hours; at the worstsome of these myriad novels
of which he has heard so muchand read--in translations--so little.
It possibly never enters our barbarian's head that many of these
itinerant book-sellers are vendors of educational worksmuch after
the style of Pinnock's Catechisms and other such guides to knowledge.
Buying a handful the other day for a few cash[*] we were much amused
at the nature of the subjects therein discussedand the manner in
which they were treated. The first we opened was on Ethnology and
Zoologyand gave an account of the wonderful types of men and beasts
which exist in far-off regions beyond the pale of China and
civilisation. There was the long-legged nationthe people of which
have legs three /chang/ (thirty feet) long to support bodies of no
more than ordinary sizefollowed by a short account of a cross-legged
racea term which explains itself. We are next told of a country
where all the inhabitants have a large round hole right through the
middle of their bodiesthe officials and wealthy citizens being
easily and comfortably carried /a la/ sedan chair by means of a strong
bamboo pole passed through it. Then there is the feathered or bird
nationthe pictures of which people remind us very much of Lapps and
Greenlanders. A few lines are devoted to a pygmy race of nine-inch
menalso to a people who walk with their bodies at an angle of 45
degrees. There is the one-armed nationand a three-headed nation
besides fish-bodied and bird-headed representatives of humanity; last
but not least we have a race of beings without heads at alltheir
moutheyesnose&c.occupying their chests and pit of the stomach!
"And of the cannibals that each other eat
The Anthropophagiand men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders."
The little work which contains the above valuable information was
published in 1783and has consequently been nearly one hundred years
before an enlightened and approving public.
[*] About 24 cash go to a penny.
Not to dwell upon the remaining portiondevoted to Zoologyand
containing wonderful specimens of various kinds of animals and birds
met with by travellers beyond the Four Seaswe would remark that the
geography of the worldnotwithstanding some very fair existing
treatisesis little studied by Chinese at the present day. More works
on topography have been written in Chinese than in probably any other
languagebut to say that even these are read is quite another matter.
Geographyproperly so calledis almost entirely neglectedand in a
rather extensive circle of literary acquaintancesit has never been
our fortune to meet with a single scholar acquainted with the useful
publications of Catholic or Protestant missionaries--the latter have
not contributed much--except perhaps the mutilated edition of
Verbiest's little handbook.
To describe one is to give a fair idea of all such native works for
the diffusion of knowledge. We found in our little parcel a complete
guide (save the mark!) to the /Fauna/ and /Flora/ of the Celestial
Empirebesides a treatise headed "Philosophy for the Young" inwhich
children are shown that to work for one's living is better than to be
idleand that the strength of three men is powerless against /Li/.
Now as /Li/ means "abstract right" and as it is an axiom ofChinese
philosophy that "right in the abstract" does existwe are gravely
informed that neither the moral or physical violence of any three men
acting in concert can hope to prevail against it. So much for the
state of education in China at the present daythe remedy for which
unwholesome condition will by no means readily be found. From time to
time a few scientific treatises are translated by ambitious members of
the missionary bodybut such only tend to swell the pastor's fame
amongst his own immediate flock: they do not advance civilisation one
single step. The very fact of their emanating from a missionary would
of itself be enough to deter the better class of Chinese from
purchasingor even accepting them as a gift.[*]
[*] "The principal priest . . . declined the gift of some Christian
books."--From /Glimpses of Travel in the Middle Kingdom/
published in the /Celestial Empire/ of July 3d1875.
DENTISTRY
Roaming in quest of novelty through that mine of marvelsa Chinese
citywe were a witness the other day of a strange but not uncommon
scene. We had halted in front of the stall of a street apothecary
surgeonand general practitionerand were turning over with our eyes
his stock of simplesdragons' teethtigers'-clawsand like drugs
used as ingredients in the native pharmacopoeiawhen along came a
manholding his hand up to his jawand apparently in great pain. He
sat down by the doctor and explained to him that he was suffering with
the toothacheto get rid of which he would like to have his tooth
removed. The doctor opened his patient's mouth and inspected the
aching tooth; then he took a small phial from his stock of medicines
and into the palm of his hand he shook a few scruples of a pink-
coloured powder. He next licked his finger and dipped it into the
powderand inserting this into the man's mouthrubbed it on the
aching tooth and gum. He repeated this three or four timesand then
concluded by turning the patient's head upside down; whento the no
small astonishment of many of the bystandersamong whom was
apparently the man himselfthe tooth dropped out and fell upon the
ground. The doctor then asked him if he had felt any painto which he
replied that he had notand the payment of a small fee brought the
/seance/ to a close. At our application the tooth was picked up and
very civilly exhibited to us by the owner himself; it was evidently
fresh from a human jawthough there had not been the slightest
effusion of blood from the man's mouth. The thought had naturally
suggested itself to us that the whole thing was a hoaxand that the
patient was an accomplice; but if sothe doctor was no novice at
sleight of handand the expression of astonishment on the other man's
face when he found his tooth gonewas as perfect a specimen of
histrionic emotion as it has ever been our lot to behold.
That night we had visions of a large establishment in Regent Street
with an enormous placard announcing "Painless Dentistry" over the
doorand crowds of dukes and duchesses mounting and descending our
stairs to have their teeth extracted by some mysterious process
imported from Chinaand known to ourselves alone. Next day we
proceeded to rummage through our Chinese medical library and see what
we could hunt up on the subject of dentistry. The result of this
search we generously offer to our readersthusperhapssacrificing
the chance of securing a colossal fortune.
In the "New Collection of Tried Prescriptions" a sort of domestic
medicine published for the use of families in cases of emergency when
no physician is at handwe find the following remarks:--
Method for Extracting Aching Teeth.
"A tooth ought not to be taken outfor by doing so the remaining
teeth will be loosened. If the pain is very acute and interferes
with eating or drinkingthen the tooth may be extracted;
otherwiseit should be left. Take a bream about ten ounces in
weightrip it open and insert 1/10 of an ounce of powdered
arsenic. Then sew up the body and hang it up in the wind where it
is not exposed to the sun or accessible to cats and rats. After
being thus hung for seven daysa kind of hoar-frost will have
formed upon the scales of the fish. Preserve thisusing for each
tooth about as much as covers one scale. When requiredspread it
on a piece of any kind of plasterpress it with the finger on to
the aching placeand let it stick there. Then let the patient
coughand the tooth will fall out of itself. This prescription
has been tested by Dr. Wang."
Another Method.
"Take a head of garlic and pound it up to a pulp. Mix it up
thoroughly with one or two candareens' weight of white dragon's
bonesand apply it to the suffering part. In a little while the
tooth will drop out."
It will be noticed that the above descriptions are neither without one
or other of two characteristics always to be found in the composition
of Chinese remedies. In the first recipethe ingredients are simple
enoughand all this is required is timeseven days being necessary
for its preparation. Nowas it is very unlikely that any one would
collect the "hoar-frost" deposit from the scales of a bream stuffed
with arsenicin anticipation of a future toothacheand as he would
probably have got well long before the expiration of the seven days if
he set to work to make his medicine only when the tooth began to ache
the genius of the physician and the efficacy of the recipe are alike
secure from attack. In the second casethe very existence of one of
the drugs mentioned isto say the leastapocryphal; and although
such can be purchased at the shops of native druggistsany complaint
on the part of a duped patient would be met by the simple answerthat
the white dragon's bones he bought could not possibly have been
genuine!
A few days after the above incidentwe returned to the dentist's
stalland asked him if he had any powder that would draw out a tooth
by mere application to the gum or to the tooth itself? He replied that
such a powder certainly existedand was commonly manufactured in all
parts of Chinabut that he himself was out of it at the moment. He
addedthat if we would call again on the 4th of the 4th moonbefore
12 o'clock in the dayhe should be in a position to satisfy our
demands.
In conclusionwe append a quotation from the /China Review/which
appeared in print after our own sketch was written:--
"Despite the oft-repeated assertion as to painlessor at least
easydentistry in Chinavery few people seem prepared to admit
that teeth are constantly extracted in the way described by (I
think) a former correspondent of the /Review/. He stated that a
white powder was rubbed on the gums of the patientafter which
the tooth was easily pulled from its socket; and this I can
substantiatenotinghoweverthat the action of the powder
(corrosive sublimate) is not quite so rapid as represented. A
short time since I witnessed an operation of this kind. The
operator rubbed the powder on the gum as describedbut then
directed the patient to wait a little. After perhaps ten minutes'
intervalhe again rubbed the gumand thenintroducing his thumb
into the mouthpressed heavily against the tooth (which was a
large molar). The man winced for a second as I heard the 'click'
of the separationbut almost before he could cry outthe dentist
gripped the tooth with his forefinger and thumband with very
little violence pulled it out. The gum bled considerablyand I
examined the tooth so as to satisfy myself that there was no
deception. It had an abscess at the root of the fangand was
undoubtedly what it professed to be. When the operation was over
the patient washed his mouth out with /cold/ waterpaid fifteen
cash and departed."
MEDICAL SCIENCE
In spite of the glowing reports issued annually from various foreign
hospitals for nativesand the undeniable goodthough desultory and
practically infinitesimalthat is being worked by these institutions
we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that western medical science is
not making more rapid strides than many other innovations in the great
struggle against Chinese prejudice and distrust. By far the majority
of our servants and those natives who come most in contact with
foreigners never dream of consulting a European doctor; or if they do
that is quite as much as can be saidfor we may pronounce it a fact
that they never take either his advice or his medicine. They still
prefer to appear with large dabs of green plaster stuck on either
templeand to drink loathsome concoctions of marvellous drugs
compounded according to eternal principles laid down many centuries
ago. In serious caseswhen they employ their own doctorsthey are
apt to markas Bacon saidthe hits but not the misses; and failure
of human skill is generally regarded as resulting from the
interposition of divine will. Directlyhowevera foreigner comes
upon the scene they forget at once that medicine is an uncertain
scienceand expect not only a sure but an almost instantaneous
recovery; andunfortunatelya single failure is quite enough to undo
the good of many months of successful practice. One Chinaman bitterly
complained to us of a foreign doctorand sweepingly denounced the
whole system of western treatmentbecause the practitioner alluded to
had failed to cure his motheraged eightyof a very severe paralytic
stroke. A certain percentage of natives are annually benefited by
advice and medicineboth of which are provided gratisand go home to
tell the news and exhibit themselves as living proofs of the /foreign
devils'/ skill; but in many instances their friends either believe
that magical arts have been brought to bearor that after all a
Chinese doctor would have treated the case with equal successand
accordingly the number of patients increases in a ratio very
disproportionate to the amount of good really effected. Besidesif
faith in European doctors was truly spreading to any great extentwe
should hear of wealthy Chinamen regularly calling them in and
contributing towards the income of those now in full practice at the
Treaty ports. It is absurd to point to isolated cases in a nation of
several hundred millionsand argue that progress is being made
because General This or Prefect That consented to have an abscess
lanced by a foreign surgeonand sent him a flowery letter of thanks
with a couple of Chinese hams after the operation. The Chinese as a
people laugh at our medical scienceandwe are bound to saywith
some show of justice on their side. They have a medical literature of
considerable extentand though we may condemn it wholesale as a
farrago of utter nonsenseit is not so to the Chinesewho fondly
regard their knowledge in this branch of science as one among many
precious heirlooms which has come down to them from times of the
remotest antiquity.
We alluded in the last Sketch to a work in eight small volumes called
"New Collection of Tried Prescriptions" a book which answers toour
"Domestic Medicine" and professes to supply well-authenticated
remedies for some of the most common ills that flesh is heir to. This
book gives a fair idea of the principles and practice of medical
science in China. It is divided into sections and subdivided into
chapters under such headings as the /eye/the /teeth/the /hand/
the /leg/&c. &c. We gave a specimen of the prescriptions herein
brought together in our late remarks upon the methods of extracting
teethbut it would be doing an injustice to the learning of its
author if we omitted to point out that in this book remedies are
providednot only for such simple complaints as chilblains or the
stomach-achebut for all kinds of serious complications arising from
the evil influence of demons or devils. One whole chapter is devoted
to "Extraordinary Diseases" and teaches anxious relatives to give
instant relief in cases of "the face swelling as big as a peck
measureand little men three feet long appearing in the eyes."
"Seeing one thing as if it were two" would hardly be classed by
London doctors as an extraordinary diseaseand is not altogether
unknown even amongst foreigners in China. "Seeing things upside down
after drinking wine" belongs in the same categoryand may be cited
in proof of a position take up by most observersnamelythat the
Chinese are a sober people. "Seeing kaleidoscopic views which turn to
beautiful women" "the flesh becoming hard as a stone and sounding
like a bell when tapped" "objecting to eat in company" andsuch
diseases have each a special prescription offered by the learned Dr
Wang with the utmost gravityand accepted in good faith by many a
confiding patient.
Chinamen look with suspicion on the sober treatment of the Westwhere
no joss-stick is burntand no paper money is offered on the altar of
some favourite P'u-sa; thoughif they knew the whole truththey
would discover that intercessory prayers for the recovery of sick
persons are considered by many of us to be of equal importance with
the administration of pills and draughts. Furtherlike our own
agricultural classesthey have no faith in medicine of any kind which
does not make its presence felt not only quickly but powerfully. This
last desire was amply fulfilled in the case of one poor coolie who
applied to an acquaintance of ours for some foreign medicine to cure a
sick headache and bilious attack from which he was suffering. Our
friend immediately bethought himself of a Seidlitz powder; but when
all was readythe acid in one wine-glass of water and the salt in
anotherthe devil entered into himand he gave them to his victim to
drink one after the other. The result was indescribablefor the
mixture /fizzed inside/and the unfortunate coolie passed such a
/mauvais quart d'heure/ as effectually to cure his experimenting
master from any further indulgence in practical jokes of so extremely
dangerous a nature.
MEDICAL SCIENCENO. II
Luxuriating in the "mental oasis" of Chinese literature in general
and the "New Collection of Tried Prescriptions" in particularwehave
been tempted to carry our researches still further in that last-
mentioned valuable work. It would have been sufficient to establish
the reputation of any European treatise on medical science had it
contained one such simple and efficacious method for extracting teeth
as we gave in our chapter on Dentistry; but Chinese readers are not so
easily satisfiedand it takes something more than mere remedies for
coughscoldslumbagoor the goutto ensure a man a foremost place
among the Galens of China. Even a chapter on "ExtraordinaryDiseases"
marvellous indeed in the eyes of the sceptical barbarianis not
enough for the hungry native mind; and nothing less than a whole
section of the most miraculous remedies and antidotesfor and against
all kinds of unheard-of diseases and poisonswould suffice to stamp
the author as a man of geniusand his work as the offspring of
successful toil in the fields of therapeutic science. Thus it comes
about that the author of the "New Collection of TriedPrescriptions"
gathers together at the close of his last volume such items of
experience in his professional career as he has not been able to
introduce into the body of his bookand from this chapter we purpose
to glean a few of the most striking passages.
To begin with: Mr Darwin will be delighted to hearif this should
ever meet his eyethat the growth of tails among mankind in China is
not limited to the appendage of hair which reposes gracefully on the
backand saturates with grease the outer garment of every high or low
born Celestial. Elongation of the spine isat any ratecommon enough
for Dr Wang to treat it as a disease and specify the remedywhich
consists in tying a piece of medicated thread tightly round itand
tightening the thread from time to time until the tail drops off. In
orderhoweverto guard against its growing againa course of
medicine has to be takenwhereby any little irregularities of the
/yin/ or female principle[*] may be correctedand the unpleasant
tendency at once and for ever checked.
[*] The symbol of the /yin/ and the /yang/or male and female
principleshas been used in the beading of the cover to this
volume. The dark half is the /yin/the other the /yang/.
We then come to elaborate directions for the extirpation of all kinds
of parasiteswhite antsmosquitoes&c.; but judging from the
plentiful supply of such pests in every part of Chinawe can only
conclude that the natives are apathetic as regards these triflesand
do not suffer the same inconvenience therefrom as the more delicately-
nurtured barbarian. The next heading would somewhat astonish us
accustomed as we are to the vagaries of Chinese book-makerswere it
not that the section upon which we are engaged is supposed to contain
"miscellaneous" prescriptionswhich may include anythingthoughit
is a somewhat abrupt transition for a grave medical work to pass from
the destruction of insects to a remedy against /fires/!
"Take three fowl's-eggsand write at the big end of each the word
/warm/at the small end the word /beautiful/. Then throw them singly
to the spot where the fire is burning brightestuttering all the time
'fooshefahrunfooshefahrun.' The fire will then go out." There are
several other methodsbut perhaps this one will be found to answer
the purpose.
Further on we find a most practicable way for pedestrians of
discovering the right direction to pursue at a cross road. "Carry with
you a live tortoiseand when you come to a cross road and do not know
which one to chooseput down the tortoise and follow it. Thus you
will not go wrong." For people who are afraid of seeing bogies at
nightthe following is recommended:--"With the middle finger of the
right hand trace on the palm of the left hand the words /I am a
devil/and close your hand up tight. You will then be able to travel
without fear." Sea-sickness may be prevented by drinking the drippings
from a bamboo punt-pole mixed with boiling wateror by inserting a
lump of burnt mortar from a stove into the hairwithout letting
anybody know it is there; also by writing the character /earth/ on the
palm of the hand previous to going on board ship. Ivory may be cleaned
to look like new by using the whey of bean-curdand rice may be
protected from weevils and maggots by inserting the shell of a crab in
the place where it is kept. The presence of bad air in wells may be
detected by letting a fowl's feather drop down; if it falls straight
the air is pure; if it circles round and roundpoisonous. Danger may
be averted by throwing in a quantity of hot vinegar before descending.
A fire may be kept alight from three to five days without additional
fuel by merely putting a walnut among the live ashes; and a method is
also given to make a candle burn many hours with hardly any
perceptible decrease in size.
We close Dr Wang's "New Collection of Tried Prescriptions" with
mingled feelings of admiration and regret: admirationnot indeed for
the genius of its authoror any new light which may have been let in
upon us during our study of this section of the "mental oasis" of
Chinese literaturebut for the indomitable energy and skill of those
who have helped to emancipate us from similar trammels of ignorance
and folly; regretthat a nation which carries within its core the
germs of a transcendent greatness should still remain sunk in the
lowest depths of superstitious gloom.
LOAN SOCIETIES
In a country where money is only obtainable at such an exorbitant rate
of interest as in Chinait is but natural that some attempt should be
made to obviate the necessity of appealing to a professional money-
lender. Three per cent. per month is the maximum rate permitted by
Chinese lawwhich cannot be regarded as excessive if the full risk of
the lender is taken into consideration. He has the security of one or
more "middlemen" generally shopkeepers whose solvency is
unimpeachable; but these gentlemen mayand often dorepudiate their
liability without deigning to explain either why or wherefore. His
course is then not so plain as it ought to be under a system of
government which has had some two thousand years to mature. Creditors
as well as debtors shun the painted portals of the magistrate's
yamen[*] as they would the gates of hell. Above them is traced the
same desperate legend that frightened the soul of Dante when he stood
before the entrance to the infernal regions. Truly there is no hope
for those who enter here. Both sides are /squeezed/ by the gate-keeper
--a very lucrative post in all yamens--before they are allowed to
present their petitions. It then becomes necessary for plaintiff and
defendant alike to go through the process of (in Peking slang) "making
a slit" i.e.making a present of money to the magistrate and his
subordinates proportionate to the interests involved. In many yamens
there is a regular scale of chargesanswering to our Table of Fees
but this is almost always exceeded in practice. The case is then
heard: occasionallyon its merits. We say occasionallybecause nine
times out of ten one of the parties bids privately for the benefit of
his honour's good opinions. Sometimes both suitors do thisand then
judgment is knocked down to the highest bidder. The loser departs
incontinently cursing the law and its myrmidons to the very top of his
bentand perhaps meditating an appeal to a higher courtfrom which
he is only deterred by prospects of further expense and repeated
failure. As to the successful litiganthe would go on his way
rejoicingbut that he has a duty to perform before which he is not a
free man. The "slit" he made on entering the yamen needs to be
repairedand on him devolves the necessity of "sewing it up." The
case is then at an endand the prophecy fulfilledwhich says:--
"The yamen doors are open wide
To those with /money/ on their side."
[*] Official and private residenceall in one.
Wiser and more determined creditors take the law into their own hands.
With a tea-pota pipeand a mattressthey proceed to the shop of
the recalcitrant debtor or security as circumstances may dictateand
there take up their abode until the amount is paid. If inability to
meet the debt has been pleadedthen this self-made bailiff will
insist on taking so much per cent. out of the daily receipts; if it is
a mere case of obstinacya desire to shirk a just responsibilitythe
place is made so hot for its owner that he is glad to get rid of his
visitor at any price whatever. Were manual violence resorted tothe
interference of the local officials would be absolutely necessary; and
in all cases where personal injuries are an elementtheir action is
not characterised by the same tyranny and corruption as where only
property is at stake. The chances are that the aggressor would come
off worst.
To protect themselveshoweverfrom such a prohibitive rate of usury
as that mentioned aboveChinese merchants are in the habit of
combining together and forming what are called Loan Societies for the
mutual benefit of all concerned. Such a society may be started in the
first instance by a deposit of so much per memberwhich sumin the
absence of a volunteeris handed over to a managerelected by a
throw of dicewhose business it is to lay out the money during the
ensuing month to the best possible advantage. Frequently one of the
membersbeing himself in want of fundswill undertake the job; and
hein common with all managersis held responsible for the safety of
the loan. At the end of the month there is a meeting at which the past
manager is bound to produce the entire sum entrusted to his charge
together with any profits that may have accrued meanwhile. Another
member volunteersor is elected managerand so the thing goes ona
running fund from which any member may borrowpaying interest at a
very low rate indeed. Dividends are never declaredand consequently
some of these clubs are enormously rich; but any member is at liberty
to withdraw whenever he likesand he takes with him his share of all
moneys in the hands of the Society at the moment of his retirement. To
outsidersthe market rate of interest is chargedor perhaps a trifle
lessbut loans are only made upon the very best securities.
GUILDS
In every large Chinese city are to be found several spacious buildings
which are generally reckoned among the sights of the placeand are
known by foreigners under the name of guilds. Globe-trotters visit
themand admire the maximum of gold-leaf crowded into the minimum of
spacetheir huge idolsand curious carving; of course passing over
those relics which the natives themselves prize most highlynamely
sketches and scrolls painted or written by the hand of some departed
celebrity. Foreign merchants regard them with a certain amount of awe
for they are often made to feel keenly enough the influence which
these institutions exert over every branch of trade. They come into
being in the following manner. If traders from any given province
muster in sufficient numbers at any of the great centres of commerce
they club together and form a guild. A general subscription is first
leviedland is boughtand the necessary building is erected.
Regulations are then drawn upand the tariff on goods is fixedfrom
which the institution is to derive its future revenue. For all the
staples of trade there are usually separate guildsmixed
establishments being comparatively rare. It is the business of the
members as a body to see that each individual contributes according to
the amount of merchandise which passes through his handsand the
books of suspected defaulters are often examined at a moment's notice
and without previous warning. The guild protects its constituents from
commercial frauds by threatening the accused with legal proceedings
which an individual plaintiff would never have dared to suggest; and
the threat is no vain one when a mandarinhowever tyrannical and
rapaciousfinds himself opposed by a body of united and resolute men.
On the other handthese guilds deal fairly enough with their own
membersand not only refuse to support a bad casebut insist on just
and equitable dealings with the outside world. To them are frequently
referred questions involving nice points of law or customand one of
the chief functions of a guild is that of a court of arbitration. In
addition to this they fix the market rates of all kinds of produce
and woe be to any one who dares to undersell or otherwise disobey the
injunctions of the guild. If recalcitranthe is expelled at once from
the fraternityand should his hour of need arrive he will find no
helping hand stretched out to save him from the clutches of the law.
But if he acknowledgesas he almost always doeshis breach of faith
he is punished according to the printed rules of the corporation. On a
large strip of red paper his name and address are writtenthe offence
of which he has been convictedand the fine which the guild has
determined to impose. This latter generally takes the form of a dinner
to all membersto be held on some appointed day and accompanied by a
theatrical entertainmentafter which the erring brother is admitted
as before to the enjoyment of those rights and privileges he would
otherwise infallibly have lost.
On certain occasionssuch as the birthday of a patron saintthe
guild spends large sums from the public purse in providing a banquet
for its members and hiring a theatrical troupewith their everlasting
tom-tomsto perform on the permanent stage to be found in every one
of these establishments. The Anhui men celebrate the birthday of Chu
Hsithe great commentatorwhose scholarship has won eternal honours
for his native province; Swatow men hold high festival in memory of
Han Wen-Kungwhose name is among the brightest on the page of Chinese
history. All day long the fun goes onand as soon as it begins to
grow dusk innumerable paper lanterns are hung in festoons over the
whole building. The crowd increasesfarce succeeds farce without a
moment's intervaland many a kettle of steaming wine warms up the
spectators to the proper pitch of enthusiasm and delight. Before
midnight the last song has been sunga considerable number of people
have quietly dispersed without accident of any kindand the courtyard
of the guild is once more deserted and still.
It is open to any trader to join the particular institution which
represents his own province or trade without being either proposed
secondedor balloted for. He is expected to make some present to the
resources of the guildin the shape of a new set of glass lanternsa
pair of valuable scrollssome new tableschairsor in fact anything
that may be needed for either use or ornament. Should he be in want of
moneya loan will generally be issued to him even on doubtful
security. Should he die in an impoverished conditiona coffin is
always providedthe expenses of burial undertakenand his wife and
children sent to their distant homewith money voted for that purpose
at a general meeting of the members. Were it not for the action of
these guilds in regard to firelife and property in Chinese cities
would be more in danger than is now the case. Each one has its own
fire-enginewhich is brought out at the first alarmno matter where
or whose the building attacked. If belonging to one of themselvesmen
are posted round the scene of the conflagration to prevent looting on
the part of the crowdand the efforts of the brigade are stimulated
by the reflection that their position and that of the present
sufferers may at any moment be reversed. Picked men are appointed to
perform the most important task of allthat of rescuing from the
flames relics more precious to a respectable Chinaman than all the
jade that K'un-kang has produced. For it often happens that an
obstructive geomancer will reject site after site for the interment of
some deceased relativeor perhaps that the day fixed upon as a lucky
one for the ceremony of burial may be several months after death.
Meanwhile a fire breaks out in the house where the body lies in its
massiveair-tight coffinand all is confusion and uproar. The first
thought is for the corpse; but who is to lift such a heavy weight and
carry it to a place of safety without the dreaded joltingalmost as
painful to the survivors as would be cremation itself? Such harrowing
thoughts are usually cut short by the entrance of six or eight sturdy
men from the nearest guildwhoarmed with the necessary ropes and
polesbear away the coffin through flame and smoke with the utmost
gentleness and care.
PAWNBROKERS
Few probably among our readers have had much experience on the subject
of the present sketch--a Chinese pawnshop. Indeedfor others than
students of the manners and customs of Chinathere is not much that
is attractive in these haunts of poverty and vice. The same mighty
miserywhich is to be seen in England passing in and out of
mysterious-looking doors distinguished by a swinging sign of three
golden ballsis not wanting to the pawnshop in Chinathough the act
of pledging personal property in order to raise money is regarded more
in the light of a business transaction than it is with usand less as
one which it is necessary to conceal from the eyes of the world at
large. Nothing is more common than for the owner of a large wardrobe
of furs to pawn them one and all at the beginning of summer and to
leave them there until the beginning of the next winter. The
pawnbrokers in their own interest take the greatest care of all
pledgeswhichif not redeemedwill become their own property
though they repudiate all claims for damage done while in their
possession; and the owner of the goods by payment of the interest
charged is released from all trouble and annoyance.
Pawnshops in China are divided into three classesone of which has
since the days of the T'ai-p'ings totally disappeared from all parts
over which the tide of rebellion passed. This is the /tien tang/
where property could be left for three years without forfeitand to
establish which it was necessary to obtain special authority from the
Board of Revenue in Peking. At present there are the /chih tang/ and
the /ssu ya/both common to all parts of Chinaand to these we shall
confine our remarks. The formerwhich may be considered as the
pawnshop properis a private institution as far as its business is
concernedbut licensed on payment of a small fee by the local
officialsand regulated in its workings by certain laws which emanate
from the Emperor himself. A limit of sixteen months is assigned
within which pledges must be redeemed or they become the property of
the pawnbroker; and the interest chargedformerly four per cent.is
now fixed at three per cent. /per month/. Before the license above-
mentioned can be obtainedsecurity must be provided for the existence
of sufficient capital to guard against a sudden or a fraudulent
collapse. For any article not forthcoming when the owner desires to
redeem itdouble the amount of the original loan is recoverable from
the pawnbroker. Should any owner of a pledge chance to lose his ticket
by theft or otherwisehe may proceed to the pawnshop with two
substantial securitiesand if he can recollect the numberdateand
amount of the transactionanother ticket is issued to him with which
he may recover his property at onceor at any time within the
original sixteen months. Pawn-tickets are not unseldom offered as
pledgesand are readily receivedas the loan is never more than half
the value of the deposit; and tickets thus obtained are often sold
either to a third person or perhaps to the pawnbroker who issued them
in the first instance. Formerlywhen the interest payable was four
per cent. per monthit was a standing rule that during the last three
months in every yeari.e.the winter seasonpledges might be
redeemed at a diminished rateso that poor people should have a
better chance of getting back their wadded clothes to protect them
from the inclemency of frost and cold. But since the rate of interest
has been reduced to three per cent. this custom has almost passed
away; its observance ishoweversometimes called for by a special
proclamation of the local magistrate when the necessaries of life are
unusually dearand the times generally are bad. The following is a
translation of a ticket issued by one of these shopswhich may often
be recognised in a Chinese city by the character for /pawn/ painted on
an enormous scale in some conspicuous position:--"In accordance with
instructions from the authoritiesinterest will be charged at the
rate of three per cent. [per month] for a period of sixteen monthsat
the expiration of which the pledgeif not redeemedwill become the
property of the pawnbrokerto be disposed of as he shall think fit.
All damages to the deposit arising from warthe operations of nature
insectsratsmildew&c.to be accepted by both sides as the will
of Heaven. Deposits will be returned on presentation of the proper
ticket without reference to the possession of it by the applicant."
Besides thisthe name and address of the pawnshopa number
description of the article pledgedamount lentand finally the date
are entered in their proper places upon the ticketwhich is stamped
as a precaution against forgery with the private stamp of the
pawnshop. Jewels are not received as pledgesand gold and silver only
under certain restrictions.
The other class is not recognised by the authoritiesand its very
existence is illegalthough of course winked at by a venial
executive. Shops of this kindwhich may be known by the character for
/keep/are very much frequented by the poor. A more liberal loan is
obtainable than at the licensed pawnbroker'sbut on the other hand
the rate of interest charged is very much more severe. Pledges are
only received for three monthsand on the ticket issued there is no
stipulation about damage to the deposit. No satisfaction is to be got
in case of fraud or injustice to either side: a magistrate would
refuse to hear a case either for or against one of these unlicensed
shops. They carry on their trade in daily fear of the rowdies who
infest every Chinese towngranting loans to these ruffians on
valueless articleswhich in many cases are returned without payment
either of interest or principalthereby securing themselves from the
disturbances which "bare poles" who have nothing to lose are ever
ready to create at a moment's noticeand which would infallibly hand
them over to the clutches of hungry and rapacious officials. The
counters over which all business is transacted are from six to eight
feet highstrongly madeand of such a nature that to scale them
would be a very difficult matterand to grab anything with the view
of making a bolt for the street utterly and entirely impossible. In a
Chinese citywhere there is no police force to look after the safety
of life and propertyand where everybody prefers to let a thief pass
rather than risk being called as a witness before the magistrateit
becomes necessary to guard against such contingencies as these. As
things are nowpawnshops may be considered the most flourishing
institutions in the country; and in these establishments many even of
the highest officials invest savings squeezed from the districts
entrusted to their paternal care.
POSTAL SERVICE
Many residents in China are profoundly ignorant of the existence of a
native postal service; and even the few who have heard of such an
institutionare not aware of the comparative safety and speed with
which even a valuable letter may be forwarded from one end of the
Empire to the other. Government despatches are conveyed to their
destinations by a staff of men specially employed for the purposeand
under the control of the Board of War in Peking. They ride from
station to station at a fair paceconsidering the sorryill-fed nags
upon which they are mounted; important documents being often carried
to great distancesat a rate of two hundred miles a-day. The people
howeverare not allowed to avail themselves of this means of
communicationbut the necessities of trade have driven them to
organise a system of their own.
In any Chinese town of any pretensions whateverthere are sure to be
several "letter offices" each monopolising one or more provincesto
and from which they make it their special business to convey letters
and small parcels. The safety of whatever is entrusted to their care
is guaranteedand its value made good if lost; at the same timethe
contents of all packets must be declared at the office where posted
so that a corresponding premium may be charged for their transmission.
The letter-carriers travel chiefly on footsometimes on donkeysto
be found on all the great highways of Chinaand which run with
unerring accuracy from one station to anotherunaccompanied by any
one except the hirer. There is little danger of the donkeys being
stolenunless carried off bodilyfor heaven and earth could no more
move them from their beaten track than the traveller whodesirous of
making two stages without haltingcould induce them to pass the door
of the station they have just arrived at. Carrying about eighty or
ninety pounds weight of mail matterthese men trudge along some five
miles an hour till they reach the extent of their tether; there they
hand over the bag to a fresh manwho starts offno matter at what
hour of the day or nightand regardless of good or bad weather alike
till he too has quitted himself of his responsibility by passing on
the bag to a third man. They make a point of never eating a full meal;
they eat themselvesas the Chinese saysix or seven tenths full
taking food as often as they feel at all hungryand thus preserve
themselves from getting broken-winded early in life. Recruited from
the strongest and healthiest of the working-classesit is above all
indispensable that the Chinese letter-carrier should not be afraid of
any ghostly enemysuch as bogies or devils. In this respect they must
be tried men before they are entrusted with a mail; for an ordinary
Chinaman is so instinctively afraid of night and darknessthat the
slightest rustle by the wayside would be enough to make him fling down
the bag and take to his heels as if all the spirits of darkness had
been loosed upon him at one and the same moment.
The scale of charges is very low. The cost of sending a letter from
Peking to Hankow--650 milesas the crow flies--being no more than
eight centsor four pence. About thirty per cent. of the postage is
always paid by the senderto secure the office against imposition and
loss; the balance is recoverable from the person to whom the letter is
addressed. These offices are largely used by merchants in the course
of tradeand bills of exchange are constantly being thus sentwhile
the banks forward the foil or other half to the house on which it is
drawnreceipt of which is necessary before the draft can be cashed.
Such documentstogether with small packets of syceemake up a
tolerably valuable bagand would often fall a prey to the highwaymen
which infest many of the provincesbut that most offices anticipate
these casualties by compounding for a certain annual sum which is paid
regularly to the leader of the gang. For this blackmail the robbers of
the district not only agree to abstain from pilfering themselvesbut
also to keep all others from doing so too. The arrangement suits the
local officials admirablyas they escape those pains and penalties
which would be exacted if it came to be known that their rule was too
weakand their example powerless to keep the district free from the
outrages of thieves and highwaymen. Large firmswhich supply carts to
travellers between given pointsare also often in the habit of
contracting with the brigands of the neighbourhood for the safe
passage of their customers. In some parts soldiers are told off by the
resident military officials to escort travellers who leave the inns
before daybreakuntil there is enough light to secure them against
the dangers of a sudden attack. In othersthere are bands of trained
men who hire themselves out in companies of three to five to convey a
string of carts with their dozen passengers across some dangerous part
of the countrywhere it is known that foot-pads are on the look-out
for unwary travellers. The escort consists of this small number only
for the reason that each man composing it is supposed to be equal to
five or six robbersnot in mere strengthbut in agility and
knowledge of sword-exercise. To accustom themselves to the attacks of
numbersand to acquire the requisite skill in fighting more than one
adversary at a timethese men practise in the following remarkable
manner. In a lofty barn heavy bags of sand are hung in a circle by
long ropes to the roofand in the middle of these the student takes
up his position. He then strikes one of the bags a good blow with his
fistsending it flying to a distance from himanother in the same
waythen anotherand so on until he has them all swinging about in
every possible direction. By the time he has hit two or three it is
time to look out for the return of the firstand sometimes two will
come down on him at once from opposite quarters; his part is to be
ready for all emergenciesand keep the whole lot swinging without
ever letting one touch him. If he fails in thishe must not aspire to
escort a traveller over a lonesome plain; andbesidesthe ruthless
sand-bag will knock him head over heels into the bargain.
SLANG
Although native scholars in China have not deemed it worth while to
compile such a work as the "Slang Dictionary" it is no less a fact
that slang occupies quite as important a position in Chinese as in any
language of the West. Thieves have their /argot/as with us
intelligible only to each other; and phrases constantly occureven in
refined conversationthe original of which can be traced infallibly
to the kennel. /Why so much paint?/ is the equivalent of /What a swell
you are!/ and is specially expressive in Chinawhere beneath a
flowered blue silk robe there often peeps out a pair of salmon-
coloured inexpressibles of the same costly material. /They have put
down their barrows/means that certain men have struck workand is
peculiarly comprehensible in a country where so much transport is
effected in this laborious way. Barrows are common all over the
Empireboth for the conveyance of goods and passengers; and where
long distances have to be traverseddonkeys are frequently harnessed
in front. The traditional sail is also occasionally used: we ourselves
have seen barrows running before the wind between Tientsin and Taku
of course with a man pushing behind. /The children have official
business/is understood to mean they are laid up with the small-pox;
the metaphor implying that their /turn/ has comejust as a turn of
official duty comes round to every Manchu in Pekingand in the same
inevitable way. Vaccination is gradually dispelling this erroneous
notionbut the phrase we have given is not likely to disappear.
A magistrate who has /skinned the place clean/has extorted every
possible cash from the district committed to his charge--a "father and
mother" of the peopleas his grasping honour is called. /That horse
has a mane/says the Chinese housebreakerspeaking of a wall well
studded at the top with pieces of broken glass or sharp iron spikes.
/You'll have to sprinkle so much water/urges the friend who advises
you to keep clear of lawlikening official greed to dustwhich
requires a liberal outlay of water in the shape of banknotes to make
it lie. A /flowery bill/ is understood from one end of China to the
other as that particular kind in which our native servants delight to
indulgenamelyan account charging twice as much for everything as
was really paidand containing twice as much in quantity as was
actually supplied. A /flowery suit/ is a case in which women play a
prominent part. /You scorched me yesterday/ is a quiet way of
remarking that an appointment was brokenand implying that the rays
of the sun were unpleasantly hot. /Don't pick out the sugar/ is a very
necessary injunction to a servant sent to market to buy food&c.the
metaphor being taken from a kind of sweet dumpling consumed in great
quantities by rich and poor alike. Another phrase is/Don't ride the
donkey/which may be explained by the proverbial dislike of Chinamen
for walking exerciseand the temptation to hire a donkeyand squeeze
the fare out of the money given them for other purposes. /That house
is not clean inside/signifies that devils and bogiesso dreaded by
the Chinesehave taken up their residence therein; in factthat the
house is haunted. /He's all rice-water/i.e.gives one plenty of the
water in which rice has been boiledbut none of the rice itselfis
said of a man who promises much and does nothing. /One load between
the two/ is very commonly said of two men who have married two
sisters. In Chinaa coolie's "load" consists of two baskets or
bundles slung with ropes to the end of a flat bamboo pole about five
feet in lengthand thus carried across the shoulder. Hence the
expression. Apropos of marriage/the guitar string is broken/is an
elegant periphrasis by which it is understood that a man's wife is
deadthe verb "to die" being rarely used in conversationandnever
of a relative or friend. He will not /put a new string to his guitar/
isof coursea continuation of the same ideamore coarsely
expressed as /putting on a new coat/. His father has been /gathered to
the west/--a phrase evidently of Buddhistic import--/is no morehas
gone for a strollhas bid adieu to the world/may all be employed to
supply the place of the tabooed verbwhich is chiefly used of animals
and plants. After a few days' illness /he kicked/is a vulgar way of
putting it and analogous to the English slang idiom. The Emperor
/becomes a guest on high/riding up to heaven on the dragon's back
with flowers of rhetoric ad nauseam; Buddhist priests /revolve into
emptiness/i.e.are annihilated; the soul of the Taoist priest
/wings its flight away/.
/Only a candle-end left/ is said of an affair which nears completion;
/red/ and /white matters/ are marriages and deathsso called from the
colour of the clothes worn on these important occasions. A blushing
person /fires up/or literally/ups fire/according to the Chinese
idiom. To be fond of /blowing/ resembles our modern term /gassing/. A
/lose-money-goods/ is a daughter as compared with a son who can go out
in the world and earn moneywhereas a daughter must be provided with
a dowry before any one will marry her. A more genuine metaphor is a
/thousand ounces of silver/; it expresses the real affection Chinese
parents have for their daughters as well as their sons. To /let the
dog out/ is the same as our letting the cat out; to /run against a
nail/ is allied to kicking against the pricks. A man of superficial
knowledge is called /half a bottle of vinegar/though why vinegarin
preference to anything elsewe have not been able to discover. He has
always /got his gun in his hand/ is a reproach launched at the head of
some confirmed opium debaucheeone of those few reckless smokers to
whom opium is indeed a curse. They have /burnt paper together/makes
it clear to a Chinese mind that the persons spoken of have gone
through the marriage servicepart of which ceremony consists in
burning silver papermade up to resemble lumps of the pure metal. /We
have split/ is one of those happy idioms which lose nothing in
translationbeing word for word the same in both languagesand with
exactly the same meaning. /A crooked stick/ is a man whose
eccentricities keep people from associating freely with him; he won't
lie conveniently in a bundle with the other sticks.
We will bring this short sketch to a close with one more example
valuable because it is oldbecause the date at which it came into
existence can be fixed with unerring certaintyand because it is
commonly used in all parts of Chinathough hardly one educated man in
ten would be able to tell the reason why. A jealous woman is said /to
drink vinegar/and the origin of the term is as follows:--Fang Hsuan-
ling was the favourite Minister of the Emperor T'ai Tsungof the
T'ang dynasty. He lived A.D. 578-648. One day his master gave him a
maid of honour from the palace as second wifebut the first or real
wife made the place too hot for the poor girl to live in. Fang
complained to the Emperorwho gave him a bowl of poisontelling him
to offer his troublesome wife the choice between death and peaceable
behaviour for the future. The lady instantly chose the formerand
drank up the bowl of /vinegar/which the Emperor had substituted to
try her constancy. Subsequentlyon his Majesty's recommendationFang
sent the young lady back to resume her duties as tire-woman to the
Empress. But the phrase livedand has survived to this day.
FORTUNE-TELLING
Everybody who has frequented the narrowdirty streets of a Chinese
town must be familiar with one figureunusually striking where all is
novel and much is grotesque. It is that of an old manoccasionally
white-beardedwearing a pair of enormous spectacles set in clumsy
rims of tortoiseshell or silverand sitting before a small table on
which are displayed a few mysterious-looking tablets inscribed with
characterspaperpencilsand ink. We are in the presence of a
fortune-tellera seera soothsayera vates; or bettera quack who
trusts for his living partly to his own witsand partly to the want
of them in the credulous numskulls who surround him. These men are
generally oldand sometimes blind. Youth stands but a poor chance
among a people who regard age and wisdom as synonymous terms; and it
seems to be a prevalent belief in China that those to whom everything
in the present is a sealed bookcan for this very reason see deeper
and more clearly into the destinies of their fellows. It is not until
age has picked out the straggling beard with silver that the
vaticinations of the seer are likely to spread his reputation far
beyond the limits of the street in which he practises. Younger
competitors must be content to scrape together a precarious existence
by preying on the small fry which pass unheeded through the meshes of
the old man's net. Just as there is no medical diploma necessary for a
doctor in Chinaso any man may be a fortune-teller who likes to start
business in that particular line. The ranks are recruited generally
from unsuccessful candidates at the public examinations; but all that
is really necessary is the minimum of educationsome months' study of
the artand a good memory. For there really are certain principles
which guide every member of the fraternity. These are derived from
books written on the subjectand are absolutely essential to success
or nativities cast in two different streets would be so unlike as to
expose the whole system at once. The method is this. A customer takes
his seat in front of the table and consults the wooden tablet on which
is engraved a scale of charges as follows:--
Foretelling any single event . . . . . . . . 8 cash
Foretelling any single event with joss-stick16 cash
Telling a fortune . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 cash
Telling a fortune in detail . . . . . . . . . 50 cash
Telling a fortune by reading the stars . . . 50 cash
Fixing the marriage day . . . . . . . According to agreement
In case he merely wants an answer on a given subjecthe puts his
question and receives the reply at once on a slip of paper. But if he
desires to have his fortune toldhe dictates the yearmonthday
and hour of his birthwhich are written down by the sage in the
particular characters used by the Chinese to express times and
seasons. From the combinations of these and a careful estimate of the
proportions in which the five elements--goldwoodwaterfireand
earth--make their appearancecertain results are deduced upon which
details may be grafted according to the fancy of the fortune-teller.
The same combinations of figuresi.e.characterswill always give
the same resultant in the hands of any one who has learned the first
principles of his art; it is only in the readingthe explanation
thereofthat any material difference can be detected between the
reckonings of any two of these philosopherswhich amounts to saying
that whoever makes the greatest number of happy hits beyond the mere
technicalities common to allis esteemed the wisest prophet and will
drive the most flourishing trade.
Fully believing in the Chinese household word which says "Ignorance of
any one thing is always one point to the bad" we have several times
read our destiny through the medium of some dirty old Chinaman. On the
last occasion we received the following advice in return for our 50
cashpaid as per tablet for a destiny in detail:--"Beware the odd
months of this year: you will meet with some dangers and slight
losses. Three male phoenixes (sons) will be accorded to you. Your
present lustrum is not a fortunate one; but it has nearly expiredand
better days are at hand. Fruit cannot thrive in the winter. (We had
placed our birthday in the 12th moon.) Conflicting elements oppose:
towards life's close prepare for trials. Wealth is beyond your grasp;
but nature has marked you out to fill a lofty place." How the above
was extracted from the eight characters which represented the year
monthdayand hour of our birthis made perfectly clear by a sum
showing every step in the working of the problemthough we must
confess it appeared to us a humbugging jumblethe most prominent part
of which was the answer. We found among other things that /earth/
predominated in the combination: hence our inability to grasp wealth.
/Water/ was happily deficientand on this datum we were blessed in
anticipation with three sonsto say nothing of daughters.
And this is the sort of trash that is crammed down the throats of
China's too credulous children--the "babies" as the Mandarins areso
fond of calling them. For this rubbish they freely spend their hard-
earned wagesconsulting some favourite prophet on most of their
domestic and other affairs with the utmost gravity and confidence. Few
Chinamen make a money venture without first applying to the oracle
and certainly never marry without arranging a lucky day for the event.
Ignorance and credulity combine to support a numerous class of the
most consummate adepts in the art of swindling; the supplyhowever
is not more than adequate to the demandalbeit they swarm in every
street and thoroughfare of a Chinese city.
GAMES AND GAMBLING
Chinamen suffer horribly from /ennui/--especially the first of the
four classes into which the non-official world has been subdivided.[*]
They have no rational amusements wherewith to fill up the intervals of
work. They hate physical exercise; more than thatthey despise it as
fit only for the ignorant and low. Yet they have not supplied its
place with anything intellectualand the most casual observer cannot
fail to notice that China has no national game. Fencingrowingand
cricketare alike unknown; and archerysuch as it isclaims the
attention chiefly of candidates for official honours. Within doors
they have chessbut it is not the game Europeans recognise by that
namenor is it even worthy of being mentioned in the same breath.
There is also another game played with three hundred and sixty black
and white pips on a board containing three hundred and sixty-one
squaresbut this is very difficult and known only to the few. It is
said to have been invented by His Majesty the Emperor Yao who lived
about two thousand three hundred and fifty years before Christso
that granting an error of a couple of thousand years or soit is
still a very ancient pastime. Dominoes are knownbut not much
patronised; cardson the other handare very commonthe favourite
games being those in which almost everything is left to chance. As to
open-air amusementsyouths of the baser sort indulge in battledore
and shuttlecock without the battledoreand every resident in China
must have admired the skill with which the foot is used insteadat
this foot-shuttlecock game. Twirling heavy bars round the bodyand
gymnastics generallyare practised by the coolie and horse-boy
classes; but the disciple of Confuciuswho has already discovered how
"pleasant it is to learn with a constant perseverance and
application"[+] would stare indeed if asked to lay aside for one
moment that dignified carriage on which so much stress has been laid
by the Master. Besides thisfinger-nails an inch and a half long
guarded with an elaborate silver sheathare decidedly /impedimenta/
in the way of athletic success. No--when the daily quantum of reading
has been achieveda Chinese student has very little to fall back upon
in the way of amusement. He may take a stroll through the town and
look in at the shopsor seek out some friend as /ennuye/ as himself
and while away an hour over a cup of tea and a pipe. Occasionally a
number of young men will join together and form a kind of literary
clubmeeting at certain periods to read essays or poems on subjects
previously agreed upon by all. We heard of one youth whoburning for
the poet's laurelproduced the following quatrain on /snow/which
had been chosen as the theme for the day:--
The north-east wind blew clear and bright
Each hole was filled up smooth and flat:
The black dog suddenly grew white
The white dog suddenly grew--
"And here" said the poet"I broke downnot being able toget an
appropriate rhyme to /flat/." A wag who was present suggested /fat/
pointing out that the dog's increased bulk by the snow falling on his
back fully justified the meaningandwhat is of equal importance in
Chinese poetrythe antithesis.
[*] Namely(1) the literati(2) agriculturists(3) artisansand
(4) merchants or tradesmen.
[+] The first sentence of the Analects or Confucian Gospels.
Riddles and word-puzzles are largely used for the purpose of killing
timethe nature of the written language offering unlimited facilities
for the formation of the latter. Chinese riddlesby which term we
include conundrumscharades/et hoc genus omne/are similar to our
ownand occupy quite as large a space in the literature of the
country. They are generally in doggerelof which the following may be
taken as a specimenbeing like the last a word-for-word
translation:--
Little boy red-jacketwhither away?
To the house with the ivory portals I stray.
Say will you come backlittle red-coatagain?
My bones will returnbut my flesh will remain.
In the present instance the answer is so plain that it is almost
insulting to our readers to mention that it is "a cherry" but thisis
by no means the case with all Chinese riddlesmany being exceedingly
difficult of solution. So much so that it is customary all over the
Empire to copy out any particularly puzzling conundrum on a paper
lanternand hang it in the evening at the street doorwith the
promise of a reward to any comer who may succeed in unravelling it.
These are called "lamp riddles" and usually turn upon the name of
some treefruitanimalor bookthe direction in which the answer
is to be sought being usually specified as a clue.
Were it only in such innocent pastimes as these that the Chinese
indulgedwe might praise the simplicity of their moralsand contrast
them favourably with the excitement of European life. But there is
just one more little solace for leisureand too often business hours
of which we have not yet spoken. Gambling isof coursethe
distraction to which we allude; a vice ten times more prevalent than
opium-smokingand proportionately demoralising in its effect upon the
national character. In private lifethere is always some stake
however small; take it awayand to a Chinaman the object of playing
any game goes too. In publicthe very costermongers who hawk cakes
and fruit about the streets are invariably provided with some means
for determining by a resort to chance how much the purchaser shall
have for his money. Hereit is a bamboo tube full of stickswith
numbers burnt into the concealed endfrom which the customer draws;
at another stall dice are thrown into an earthenware bowland so on.
Every hungry coolie would rather take his chance of getting nothing at
allwith the prospect of perhaps obtaining three times his money's
worththan buy a couple of sausage-rolls and satisfy his appetite in
the legitimate way. The worst feature of gambling in China is the
number of hells opened publicly under the very nose of the magistrate
all of which drive a flourishing trade in spite of the frequent
/presents/ with which they are obliged to conciliate the venal
official whose duty it is to put them down. To such an extent is the
system carried that any remissness on the part of the keepers of these
dens in conveying a reasonable share of the profits to his honour's
treasuryis met by /a brutum fulmen/ in the shape of a proclamation
setting forth how "it having come to my ears thatregardless of law
and in the teeth of my frequent warningscertain evil-disposed
persons have dared to open public gambling-housesbe it hereby made
known" &c.&c.the whole document being liberallyinterspersed with
allusions to the men of oldthe laws of the reigning dynastyand
filial piety /a discretion/. The upshot of this is that within twenty-
four hours after its appearance his honour's wrath is appeasedand
croupiers and gamblers go on in the same old round as if nothing
whatever had happened.
JURISPRUDENCE
Law[*] as we understand the termwith all its paradoxes and
refinementsis utterly unknown to the Chineseand it was absolutely
necessary to invent an equivalent for the word "barrister" simply
because no such expression was to be found ready-made in the language.
Furtherit would be quite impossible to persuade even the most
enlightened native that the Bar is an honourable professionand that
its members are men of the highest principles and integrity. They
cannot get it out of their heads that western lawyers must belong to
the same category as a certain disreputable class among themselvesto
be met with in every Chinese town of importanceand generally
residing in the vicinity of a magistrate's or judge's yamen. These
fellows are always ready to undertake for a small remuneration the
conduct of casesin so far as they are able to do this by the
preparation of skilfully-worded petitions or counter-petitionsand by
otherwise giving their advice. Of course they do not appear in court
for their very existence is forbiddenbut their services are largely
availed of by the peopleespecially the poor and ignorant. At the
trialprosecutor and accused must each manage his own casethe
magistrate himself doing all the cross-examination. We say
/prosecutor/ and /accused/ advisedlyfor as a matter of fact civil
cases are rare in Chinasuch questions as arise in the way of trade
being almost invariably referred to some leading guildwhose
arbitration is accepted without appeal. Nowwe know of no such book
as "Laws of Evidence" in the whole range of Chinese literature; yetwe
believe firmly that the intellects which adorn our own bench are not
more keen in discriminating truth from falsehoodand detecting at a
glance the corrupt witnessthan the semi-civilised native functionary
--that iswhen no silver influences have been brought to bear upon
his judgment. The Chinese have a penal code whichallowing for the
difference in national customs and habits of thoughtstands almost
unrivalled; and with this solitary work their legal literature begins
and ends. It is regarded by the people as an inspired bookthough few
know much beyond the titleand seems to answer its purpose well.
[*] Civil law.
But inasmuch as in China as elsewhere /summum jus/ is not infrequently
/summa injuria/a clever magistrate never hesitates to set aside law
or customand deal out Solomonic justice with an unsparing hand
provided always he can shew that his course is one which /reason/
infallibly dictates. Such an officer wins golden opinions from the
peopleand his departure from the neighbourhood is usually signalised
by the presentation of the much-coveted testimonial umbrella. In the
reign of the last Emperor but oneless than twenty years agothere
was an official of this stamp employed as "second Prefect" in the
department of Han-yang. Many and wonderful are the stories told of his
unerring acumenand his memory is still fondly cherished by all who
knew him in his days of power. We will quote one from among numerous
traditions of his genius which have survived to the present day.
A poor manpassing through one of the back thoroughfares in Hankow
came upon a Tls. 50[*] note lying in the road and payable to bearer.
His first impulse was to cash itbut reflecting that the sum was
large and that the loser might be driven in despair to commit suicide
the consequences of which might be that he himself would perhaps get
into troublehe determined to wait on the spot for the owner and rest
content with the "thanks money" he was entitled by Chinese customto
claim as a right. Very shortly he saw a stranger approachingwith his
eyes bent on the groundevidently in search of something; whereupon
he made up to him and asked at once if anything was the matter.
Explanations followedand the Tls. 50 note was restored to its lawful
possessorwhorecovering himself instantaneouslyasked where the
other one wasand went on to say that he had lost /two/ notes of the
same valueand that on recovery of the other one he would reward the
finder as he deservedbut that unless that was also forthcoming he
should be too great a loser as it was. His benefactor was protesting
strongly against this ungenerous behaviour when the "secondPrefect"
happened to come round the cornerwhoseeing there was a row
stopped his chairand inquired there and then into the merits of the
case. The result was that he took the Tls. 50 note and presented it to
the honest findertelling him to go on his way rejoicing; while
turning to the ungrateful loserhe sternly bade him wait till he met
some one who had found /two/ notes of that valueand from him
endeavour to recover his lost property.
[*] Fifty taelsequal to about 15 pounds.
JURISPRUDENCENO. II
From the previous sketch it may readily be gathered that the state of
Chinese lawboth civil[*] and criminalis a very important item in
the sum of those obstacles which bar so effectually the admission of
China--not into the cold and uncongenial atmosphere euphuistically
known as the "comity of nations"--but into closer ties of
international intercourse and friendship on a free and equal footing.
For as long as we have ex-territorial rightsand are compelled to
avail ourselves thereofwe can regard the Chinese nation only /de
haut en bas/; whileon the other handour very presence under such
to them abnormal conditionswill continue to be neither more or less
than a humiliating eye-sore. Till foreigners in China can look with
confidence for an equitable administration of justice on the part of
the mandarinswe fear that even sciencewith all its resourceswill
be powerless to do more than pave the way for that wished-for moment
when China and the West will shake hands over all the defeats
sustained by the oneand all the insults offered to the other.
[*] That islocal custom.
It is in the happily unfrequent cases of homicide where a native and a
foreigner play the principal partsthat certain discrepancies between
Chinese and Western lawrules of procedure and evidencebesides
several other minor pointsstand out in the boldest and most
irreconcilable relief. To begin withthe Penal Code and all its
modifications of murderanswering in some respects to our distinction
between murder and manslaughteris but little known to the people at
large. Naythe very officials who administer these laws are generally
as grossly ignorant of them as it is possible to beand in every
judge's yamen in the Empire there are one or two "law experts" who
are always prepared to give chapter and verse at a moment's notice--
in factto guide the judge in delivering a proper verdictand one
such as must meet with the approbation of his superiors. The people
on the other handknow but one leading principle in cases of murder--
a life for a life. Under extenuating circumstances cases of homicide
are compromised frequently enough by money paymentsbut if the
relatives should steadily refuse to forego their revengefew
officials would risk their own position by failing to fix the guilt
somewhere. As a ruleit is not difficult to obtain the conviction and
capital punishment of any nativeor his substitutewho has murdered
a foreignerand we might succeed equally well in many instances of
justifiable homicide or manslaughter: it is when the case is reversed
that we call down upon our devoted heads all the indignation of the
Celestial Empire. Of course any European who could be proved to have
murdered a native would be hanged for it; but he may kill him in self-
defence or by accidentin both of which instances the Chinese would
clamour for the extreme penalty of the law. Further/hearsay/ is
evidence in a Chinese court of justiceand if several witnesses
appeared who could only say that some one else told them that the
accused had committed the murderit would go just as far to
strangling or beheading himas if they had said they saw the deed
themselves. The accused ismoreovernot only allowed to criminate
himselfbut no case being complete without a full confession on the
part of the guilty mantorture might be brought into play to extort
from him the necessary acknowledgment. It is plainthereforethat
Chinese officials prosecuting on behalf of their injured countrymen
are quite at sea in an English courtand their case often falling
through for want of proper evidencethey return home cursing the
injustice done to them by the hated barbariansand longing for the
day which will dawn upon their extermination from the Flowery Land.
On the other handthe examination of Chinese witnesseseither in a
civil or criminal caseis one of the most trying tests to which the
forbearance of foreign officials is exposed in all the length and
breadth of their intercourse with the slippery denizens of the middle
kingdom. Leaving out of the question the extreme difficulty of the
languagenow gradually yielding to methodical and persevering study
the peculiar bent of the Chinese mindwith all its prejudices and
superstitionsis quite as much an obstacle in the way of eliciting
truth as any offered by the fantasticbut still amenablevarieties
of Chinese syntax. We believe that native officials have the power
though it does not always harmonise with their interests to exercise
itof arriving at as just and equitable decisions in the majority of
cases brought before themas any English magistrate who knows
"Taylor's Law of Evidence" from beginning to end. They accomplishthis
by a knowledge of characterunparalleled perhaps in any country on
the globewhich enables them to distinguish readilyand without such
constant recourse to torture as is generally supposedbetween the
false and honest witness. The study of mankind in China isbeyond all
doubt--man and his motives for action on every possible occasionand
under every possible condition. Thus it iswe may remarkthat the
Chinese fail to appreciate the efforts made for their good by
missionaries and othersbecause the motives of such a course are
utterly beyond the reach of native investigation and thought. They are
consequently suspicious of the Greeks--/et dona ferentes/. The self-
denial of missionaries who come out to China to all the hardships of
Oriental life--thoughas a facetious writer in the /Shanghai Courier/
lately remarkedthey live in the best housesand seem to lead as
jolly lives as anybody else out here--to say nothing of gratuitous
medical advice and the free distribution of all kinds of medicine--all
this is entirely incomprehensible to the narrow mind of the
calculating native. Their observations have been confined to the
characters and habits of thought which distinguish their fellow-
countrymenand with the result above-mentioned; of the European mind
they know absolutely nothing.
As regards the evidence of Chinese taken in a foreign court of
justicethe first difficulty consists generally in swearing the
witnesses. Old books on Chinawhich told great lies without much
danger of convictionmention cock-killing and saucer-breaking as
among the most binding forms of Chinese oaths. The common formula
howeverwhich we consider should be adopted in preference to any
hybrid expression invented for the occasionis an invocation to
heaven and earth to listen to the statements about to be madeand to
punish the witness for any deviation from the truth. This is sensible
enoughand is moreover not without weight among a superstitious
people like the Chinese. The witness then expects the magistrate to
ask him the name of his native districthis own namehis agethe
age of his father and mother (if alive)the maiden name of his wife
her agethe number and the ages of his childrenand many more
questions of similar relevancy and importancebefore a single effort
is made towards eliciting any one fact bearing upon the subject under
investigation. With a stereotyped people like the Chineseit does not
do to ignore these trifles of form and custom; on the contrarythe
witness should rather be allowed to wander at will through such
useless details until he has collected his scattered thoughtsand may
be safely coaxed on to divulge something which partakes more of the
nature of evidence. Under proper treatmenta Chinese witness is by no
means doggedly stubborn or doltishly stupid; he may be either or both
if he has previously been tampered with by native officialsbut even
then it is not absolutely impossible to defeat his dishonesty.
Occasionally a question will be put by a foreigner to an
unsophisticated boornever dreamt of in the philosophy of the latter
and such as would never have fallen from the lips of one of his own
officials; the answers given under such circumstances are usually
unique of their kind. We know of an instance where a boatman was
askedin reference to a collision caseat what rate he thought the
tide was running. The witness hesitatedlooked updownon either
sideand behind him; finally he replied:--"I am a poor boatman; I
only earn one hundred and fifty cash a dayand how can you expect me
to know at what rate the tide was running?"
BUDDHIST PRIESTS
There are few more loathsome types of character either in the East or
West than the Buddhist priest of China. He is an object of contempt to
the educated among his countrymennot only as one who has shirked the
cares and responsibilities to which all flesh is heirbut as a
misguided outcast who has voluntarily resigned the glorious title and
privileges of that divinely-gifted being represented by the symbol
/man/. With his own hands he has severed the five sacred ties which
distinguish him from the brute creationin the hope of some day
attaining what is to most Chinamen a very doubtful immortality. Paying
no taxes and rendering no assistance in the administration of the
Empirehis duty to his sovereign is incomplete. Marrying no wifehis
affinitythe complement of his earthly existencesinks into a
virgin's grave. Rearing no childrenhis troubled spirit meets after
death with the same neglect and the same absence of cherished rites
which cast a shadow upon his parents' tomb. Renouncing all fraternal
tieshe deprives himself of the consolation and support of a
brother's love. Detaching himself from the world and its vanities
friendship spreads its charms for him in vain. Thus he is in no
Chinese sense a man. He has no nameand is frequently shocked by some
western tyro in Chinese whothinking to pay the everyday compliment
bandied between Chinamenasks to his intense disgust--"What is your
honourable name?" The unfortunate priest has substituted a"religious
designation" for the patronymic he discarded when parentsbrethren
homeand friends were cast into oblivion at the door of the temple.
But it is not on such mere sentimental grounds that the Chinese nation
has condemned in this wholesale manner the clergy of China. Did the
latter carry out even to a limited extent their vows of celibacy and
Pythagorean principles of dietthey would probably obtain a fair
share of that questionable respect which is meted out to enthusiasts
in most countries on the globe. The Chinese hate them as double-dyed
hypocrites who extort money from the poor and ignorantwork upon the
fears ofand frequently corrupttheir wives or daughters; proclaim
in bold characters at the gates of each temple--"no meat or wine may
enter here"--while all the time they dine off their favourite pork as
often as most Chinamenand smoke or drink themselves into a state of
beastly intoxication a great deal more so. Opium pipes are to be found
as frequently as not among the effects of these sainted menwhowith
all the abundant leisure at their commandare rarely of sufficient
education to be mentioned in the same breath with an ordinary
graduate. Occasionally there have been exceptions to the rulebut the
phenomenon is seldom met with in modern times. We have read of a lame
old priest so renowned for self-denying liberality that the great
Emperor Ch'ien Lung actually paid him a visit. After some conversation
Ch'ien Lung presented him with a valuable pearlwhich the old man
immediately bestowed upon a beggar he espied among the crowd. His
Majesty was somewhat taken aback at this act of rudenessand asked
him if he always gave away everything in the same manner. On receiving
an affirmative replythe Emperor added"Even down to the crutch on
which you lean?" "Ah" said the priest"it is writtenthat the
superior man does not covet what his friend cannot spare." "But
supposing" said the Emperor"he was not a superior man.""In that
case" answered the priest"you could not expect me to be his
friend."
Cleanlinessagainis an especial attribute of Buddhismand in a few
temples in the south there is an attempt to make some show in this
direction; but as regards the personpriests are dirtier if anything
than the humblest members of their flock. It is laughable indeed to
hear them chant the /Ching/ignorant as ninety-nine per cent. are of
every word they are sayingfor of late the study of Sanskrit has been
utterly and entirely neglected. Their dutieshoweverin this respect
are as much curtailed as possibleexcept when wafting with their
prayers some spirit of the dead to the realms of bliss above. In such
cases it is a matter of businessa question of money; and the
unctuous air of solemn faith they then put on contrasts curiously with
the bored and sleepy look apparent on their faces as they gabble
through a midnight massin the presence of some such limited and
unimportant audience as a single and perhaps a red-haired barbarian.
It is pleasant to dismiss from our thoughts this lyingshameless
debauched class; and we do sowondering how Buddhism has retained its
hold so long over an intellectual people possessed of an elaborate
moral codewhich has been for centuries the acknowledged standard of
right and wrongand which condemns all fear or hope of an unknown and
unseen world.
RESPECT FOR THE WRITTEN CHARACTER
One of the most curious and harmless customs of the Chinese is that of
carefully burning every scrap of paper inscribed with the cherished
characters whichas far as calligraphy goesjustly take precedence
of those of any other language on the globe. Not content with mere
reduction by firea conscientious Chinaman will collect the ashes
thus producedand sealing them up in some earthen vesselwill bury
them deep in the earth or sink them to the bottom of a river. Then
only does he consider that he has fully discharged his duty towards
paper which has by mere accident become as sacred in the eyes of all
good men as the most precious relic of any martyred saint in the
estimation of a Catholic priest. Rich men are constantly in the habit
of paying /chiffoniers/ to collect such remnants of written paper as
they may find lying about the streetsand in all Chinese towns there
are receptacles at the most frequented points where the results of
their labours may be burned. The above facts are pretty generally
known to foreigners in China and elsewherebut we do not think that
native ideas on the subject have ever been brought forward otherwise
than indirectly. We therefore give the translation of a short essay
published in 1870 by an enthusiastic scholarand distributed gratis
among his erring countrymen:--
"From of old down to the present time our sages have devoted
themselves to the written character--that fairest jewel in heaven
above or earth beneath. Thosethereforewho are stimulated by a
thirst for /fame/strive to attain their end by the excellency of
their compositions; othersattracted by desire for wealthpursue
their object with the help of day-book and ledgers. In both cases
men would be helpless without a knowledge of the art of writing.
Howindeedcould despatches be composedagreements drawn up
letters exchangedand genealogies recordedbut for the
assistance of the written character? By what means would a man
chronicle the glory of his ancestorsindite the marriage deedor
comfort anxious parents when exiled to a distant land? In what way
could he secure property to his sons and grandchildrenborrow or
lend moneyenter into partnershipor divide a patrimonybut
with the testimony of written documents? The very labourer in the
fieldstenant of a few acresmust have his rights guaranteed in
black and white; and household servants require more than verbal
assurance that their wages will not fail to be paid. The
prescription of the physicianabout to call back some suffering
patient from the gates of deathis taken down with pen and ink;
and the prognostication of the soothsayerwarning men of evil or
predicting good fortuneexemplifies in another direction the use
of the written character. In a wordthe art of writing enriches
and ennobles manhands him over to life or deathconfers upon
him honours and distinctionsor covers him with abuse and shame.
"Of latehoweverour schools have turned out an arrogant and
ignorant lot--boys who venture to use old books for wrapping
parcels or papering windowsfor boiling wateror wiping the
table; boysI saywho scribble over their bookswho write
characters on wall or doorwho chew up the drafts of their poems
or throw them away on the ground. Let all such be severely
punished by their masters that they may be savedwhile there is
yet timefrom the wrath of an avenging Heaven. Some men use old
pawn-tickets for wrapping up things--it may be a cabbage or a
pound of bean-curd. Others use lottery-tickets of various
descriptions for wrapping up a picked vegetable or a slice of
porkwith no thought of the crime they are committing as long as
there is a cash to be made or saved. So also there are those who
exchange their old books for pumeloes or ground-nutsto be
defiled with the filth of the waste-paper basketand passed from
hand to hand like the cheques of the barbarian. Alastoofor
women when they go to fairsfor children who are sent to market!
They cannot read one single character: they know not the priceless
value of written paper. They drop the wrapping of a parcel in the
mire for every passer-by to tread under foot. Their crime
howeverwill be laid at the door of those who erred in the first
instance (i.e.those who sold their old books to the
shopkeepers). For they hoped to squeeze some profitinfinitesimal
indeedout of tattered or incomplete volumes; forgetting in their
greed that they were dishonouring the sagesand laying up for
themselves certain calamity. Why then sacrifice so much for such
trifling gain? How much better a due observance of time-honoured
customensuring as it would a flow of prosperity continuous and
everlasting as the waves of the sea! O ye merchants and
shopkeepersknow that in heaven as on earth written words are
esteemed precious as the jadeand whatever is marked therewith
must not be cast aside like stones and tiles. For happiness
wealthhonoursdistinctionsand old agemay be one and all
secured by a proper respect for written paper."
SUPERSTITION
Educated Chinamen loudly disclaim any participation in the
superstitious beliefs whichto a European eyehang like a dark cloud
over an otherwise intellectually free people. There never has been a
State religion in Chinaand it has always been open to every man to
believe and practise as much or as little as he likes of Buddhism
Taoismor Mahomedanismwithout legal interference or social stigma
of any kind. Of course it is understood that such observances must be
purely self-regardingand that directly they assume--as lately in the
case of Mahomedanism--anything of a political characterthe Chinese
Government is not slow to protect the unity of the Empire by the best
means in its power. And sobut for the suicidal zeal of Christian
missions and their supporterswho have effected an unnatural
amalgamation of religion and politicsand carried the Bible into
China at the point of the bayonetthe same toleration might now be
accorded to Christianity which the propagators of other religions have
hitherto been permitted to enjoy.
As to religion in Chinait is only of the ethics of Confucius that
the State takes any real cognizance. His is what John Stuart Mill
alluded to as "the best wisdom they possess;" andas he further
observedthe Chinese have secured "that those who have appropriated
most of it shall occupy the posts of honour and power." His maxims are
entirely devoid of the superstitious element. He recognises a
principle of right beyond the ken of man; but though he once said that
this principle was conscious of his existence and his work on earth
it never entered his head to endow it with anything like retributory
powers. Allusions to an unseen world were received by him with scorn;
and as regards a future statehe has preserved a most discreet
silence. "While you do not know lifehow can you know aboutdeath?"
was the rebuke he administered to a disciple who urged some utterance
on the problem of most interest to mankind. And yetin spite of the
extreme healthiness of Confucian ethicsthere has grown uparound
both the political and social life of the Chinesesuch a tangled maze
of superstitionthat it is no wonder if all intellectual advancement
has been first checkedand has then utterly succumbed. The ruling
classes have availed themselves of its irresistible power to give them
a firmer hold over their simple-heartedcredulous subjects; they have
practised it in its grossest formsand have written volumes in
support of absurdities in which they cannot really have the slightest
faith themselves. It was only a year or two ago that the most powerful
man in Chinaa distinguished scholarstatesmanand general
prostrated himself before a diminutive water-snakein the hope that
by humble intercession with the God of Floods he might bring about a
respite from the cruel miseries which had been caused by inundations
over a wide area of the province of Chihli. The suppliant was no other
than the celebrated ViceroyLu Hung-changwho has recently armed the
forts at the mouth and on the banks of the Peiho with Krupp's best
gunsinstead of trustingas would be consistentthe issue of a
future war to the supernatural efforts of some Chinese Mars.
Turning now to the literature of Chinawe cannot but be astonished at
the mass of novels which are one and all of the same tendency; in
factnot only throughout the entire stratum of Chinese fictionbut
even in that of the gravest philosophical speculationshas the
miraculous been introduced as a natural and necessary element. The
following passagetaken from the writings of Han Wen-kungwhose name
has been pronounced to be "one of the most venerated" is a fair
specimen of the trash to be met with at every turn in that trackless
treeless desertwhich for want of a more appropriate term we are
obliged to call the literature of China:--
"There are some things which possess form but are devoid of sound
as for instance jade and stones; others have sound but are without
formsuch as wind and thunder; others again have both form and
soundsuch as men and animals; and lastlythere is a class
devoid of bothnamely/devils and spirits/."
Descending to the harmless superstition of domestic lifewe find that
the cat washing her face is notas with usa sign of rainbut that
a stranger is coming. On the other hand"strangers" in teaportend
as with usthe arrival of some unlooked-for guesttall or shortfat
or leanaccording to the relative proportions of the prophetic twig.
Aching corns denote the approach of wet weather--we do not quote this
as a superstition--and for a girl to spill water on fowls or dogs will
ensure a downpour of rain on her wedding-day. Any one who hears a crow
caw should shatter his teeth three times and blow; and two brooms
together will bring joy and sorrow at the same timeas a birth and a
death on the same day. "Crows' feet" on the face are called"fishes'
tails" and in young men mean what the widower's peak is supposed to
signify with us.
Superstition is China's worst enemy--a shadow which only the pure
light of science will be able to dispel. There are many amongst us who
would give her more: but they will not succeed.
NATURAL PHENOMENA
It is a question of more than ordinary interest to those who regard
the Chinese people as a worthy object of studyWhat are the
speculations of the working and uneducated classes concerning such
natural phenomena as it is quite impossible for them to ignore? Their
theory of eclipses is well knownforeign ears being periodically
stunned by the gonging of an excited crowd of nativeswho are
endeavouring with hideous noises to prevent some imaginary dog of
colossal proportions from banquetingas the case may beupon the sun
or moon. At such laughable exhibitions of native ignorance it will be
observed that there is always a fair sprinkling of well-to-do
educated personswho not only ought to know better themselvesbut
should be making some effort to enlighten their less fortunate
countrymen instead of joining in the din. Such a holdhoweveras
superstition on the minds of the best informed in a Chinese community
that under the influence of any real or supposed dangerphilosophy
and Confucius are scattered to the four winds of Heavenand the
proudest disciple of the Master proves himself after all but a man.
Leaving the literati to take care of themselvesand confining our
attention to the good-temperedjoyoushospitable working-classes of
Chinawe find many curious beliefs on subjects familiar among western
nations to every national school-boy. The earthfor instanceis
popularly believed to be square; and the heavens a kind of shell or
coveringstudded with stars and revolving round the earth. We
remember once when out of sight of land calling the notice of our
native valet to the masts of a vessel sinking below the horizon. We
pointed out to him that were the earth a perfectly flat surface its
disappearance would not be so comparatively suddennor would the ship
appear to sink. But at the last momentwhen we felt that conviction
was entering into his soul and that another convert had been made to
the great cause of scientific truthhe calmly replied that it was
written--"Heaven is roundearth is square" and he didn't verywell
understand how books could be wrong!
The sun is generally supposed to pass at sunset into the earthand to
come out next morning at the other side. The moon is supposed to rise
from and set in the ocean. Earthquakes are held to result from
explosions of sulphur in the heart of the earth; rain is said to be
poured down by the Dragon God who usually resides on the other side of
the cloudsand the rainbow is believed to be formed by the breath of
an enormous oyster which lives somewhere in the middle of the seafar
away from land. Comets and eclipses of the sun are looked upon as
special warnings to the throneand it is usual for some distinguished
censor to memorialise the Emperor accordingly. The most curious
perhaps of all these popular superstitions are those which refer to
thunderlightningand hailregarded in China as the visitation of
an angry and offended god. In the first place it is supposed that
people are struck by thunder and not by lightning--a belief which was
probably once prevalent in Englandas evidenced by the English word
/thunderstruck/. Sir Philip Sydney writes:--"I remained as a man
thunder-stricken." Secondlydeath by thunder is regarded as a
punishment for some secret crime committed against human or divine
lawand consequently a man who is not conscious of anything of the
kind faces the elements without fear. Away behind the clouds during a
storm or typhoon sit the God of Thunder armed with his terrible bolts
and the Goddess of Lightningholding in her hand a dazzling mirror.
With this last she throws a flash of lightning over the guilty man
that the God of Thunder may see to strike his victim; the pealing
crash which follows is caused by the passage through the air of the
invisible shaft--and the wrongs of Heaven are avenged. Similarlyhail
is looked upon as an instrument of punishment in the hands of the Hail
Goddirected only against the crops and possessions of such mortals
as have by their wicked actions exposed themselves to the slow but
certain visitation of divine vengeance.
Each provincenayeach townhas its own particular set of
superstitions on a variety of subjects; the abovehoweverdealing
with the most important of all natural phenomenawill be found common
to every village and household in the Chinese Empire. The childlike
faith with which such quaint notions are accepted by the people at
large is only equalled by the untiring care with which they are
fostered by the ruling classeswho are well aware of their value in
the government of an excitable people. The Emperor himself prays loud
and long for rainfine weatheror snowaccording as either may be
needed by the suffering cropsand never leaves off until the elements
answer his prayers. But here we are ridiculing a phase of superstition
from which nations with greater advantages than China are not yet
wholly free.
CELEBRATION OF THE NEW YEAR
China New Year!--What a suggestive ring have those three words for
"the foreigner in far Cathay."[*] What visions do they conjure upof
ill-served tiffinsof wages forestalledof petty thefts and perhaps
a burglary; what thoughts of horrid tom-toms and ruthless fire-
crackersmaking day hideous as well as night; what apparitions of
gaudily-dressed butlers and smug-faced cooliestheir rear brought up
by man's natural enemy in China--the cookfor once in his life clean
and holding in approved Confucian style[+] some poisonous indigestible
present he calls a cake!
[*] The title of Mr Medhurst's work.
[+] "In presenting giftshis countenance wore a placidappearance."--
Analects: ch. x.
New Year's Day is the one great annual event in Chinese social and
political life. An Imperial birthdayeven an Imperial marriagepales
before the important hour at which all sublunary affairs are supposed
to start afreshevery account balanced and every debt paid. About ten
days previously the administration of public business is nominally
suspended; offices are closedofficial seals carefully wrapped up and
given into the safe keeping of His Honour's or His Excellency's
wife.[*] The holidays last one monthand during that time inaction is
the order of the dayit being forbidden to punish criminalsor even
to stampand consequently to writea despatch on any subject
whatever. The dangerous resultshoweverthat might ensue from a too
liberal observance of the latter prohibition are nearly anticipated by
stamping beforehand a number of blank sheets of paperso thatif
occasion requiresa communication may be forwarded without delay and
without committing an actual breach of law or custom.
[*] A universal custom which may be quoted with countless others
against the degradation-of-women-in-China doctrine.
The New Year is the season of presents. Closely-packed boxes of
Chinese cakebiscuitsand crystallised fruitare presented as
tributes of respect to the patriarchs of the family; grapes from
Shansi or Shan-tunghams from Foochowand lichees from Cantonall
form fitting vehicles for a declaration of friendship or of love. Now
toothe birthday gifts offered by every official in the Empire to his
immediate superiorare supplemented by further propitiatory
sacrifices to the powers that bewithout which tenure of office would
be at once troublesome and insecure. Such are known as /dry/in
contradistinction to the /water/ presents exchanged between relatives
and friends. The latter are whollyor at any rate in partarticles
of food prized among the Chinese for their delicacy or rarityperhaps
both; and so to all appearance are the baskets of choice oranges&c.
sent for instance by a District Magistrate with compliments of the
season to His Excellency the Provincial Judge. But the Magistrate and
the Judge know betterfor beneath that smiling fruit lie concealed
certain bank-notes or shoes of silver of unimpeachable touchwhich
form a unit in the sum of that functionary's incomeand enable him in
his turn to ingratiate himself with the all-powerful Viceroywhile he
lays by from year to year a comfortable provision against the time
when sickness or old age may compel him to resign both the duties and
privileges of government.
To "all between the four seas" patrician and plebeian[*] alikethe
New Year is a period of much intensity. On the 23rd or 24th of the
preceding moon it is the duty of every family to bid farewell to the
Spirit of the Hearthand to return thanks for the protection
vouchsafed during the past year to each member of the household. The
Spirit is about to make his annual journey to heavenand lest aught
of the disclosures he might make should entail unpleasant
consequencesit is adjudged best that he shall be rendered incapable
of making any disclosures at all. With this viewquantities of a very
sticky sweetmeat are prepared and presented as it were in sacrifice
on eating which the unwary god finds his lips tightly glued together
and himself unable to utter a single syllable. Beans are also offered
as fodder for the horse on which he is supposed to ride. On the last
day of the old year he returns and is regaled to his heart's content
on brown sugar and vegetables. This is the time /par excellence/ for
cracker-firingthoughas everybody knowsthese abominations begin
some days previously. Every onehowevermay not be aware that the
object of letting off these crackers is to rid the place of all the
evil spirits that may have collected together during the twelve months
just overso that the influences of the young year may be
uncontaminated by their presence. New Year's eve is no season for
sleep: in factChinamen almost think it obligatory on a respectable
son of Han to sit up all night. Indeedunless his bills are paidhe
would have a poor chance of sleeping even if he wished. His
persevering creditor would not leave his sidebut would sit there
threatening and pleading by turns until he got his money or effected a
compromise. Even should it be past twelve o'clockthe wretched debtor
cannot call it New Year's Day until his unwelcome dun has made it so
by blowing out the candle in his lantern. Of course there are
exceptionsbut as a rule all accounts in China are squared up before
the old year has become a matter of history and the new year reigns in
its stead. Thenwith the first streaks of dawnbegins that incessant
round of visits which is such a distinguishing feature of the whole
proceedings. Dressed out in his very bestofficial hat and boots
button and peacock's featherif lucky enough to possess them[+]
every individual Chinaman in the Empire goes off to call on all his
relatives and friends. With a thick wad of cardshe presents himself
first at the houses of the elder branches of the familyor visits the
friends of his father; when all the seniors have been disposed ofhe
seeks out his own particular croniesof his own age and standing. If
in the service of his countryhe does not omit to call at the yamen
and leave some trifling souvenir of his visit for the officer
immediately in authority over him. Wherever he goes he is always
offered something to eata fresh supply of cakesfruitand wine
being brought in for each guest as he arrives. While thus engaged his
fatheror perhaps brotherwill be doing the honours at homeready
to take their turn as occasion may serve. "New joynew joy; get rich
get rich" is the equivalent of our "Happy New Year" and isbandied
about from mouth to mouth at this festive seasonuntil petty
distinctions of nationality and creed vanish before the conviction
thatat least in matters of sentimentChinamen and Europeans meet
upon common ground. Yet there is one solitary exception to the rule--
an unfortunate being whom no one wishes to see prosperousand whom
nobody greets with the pleasant phrase"Get richget rich." It is
the coffin-maker.
[*] Chinese society is divided into two classes--officials and non-
officials.
[+] No matter whether by merit or by purchase.
THE FEAST OF LANTERNS
A great Chinese festival is the Feast of Lanternsone which is only
second in importance to New Year's Day. Its name is not unfamiliar
even to persons in England who have never visited Chinaand whose
ideas about the country are limited to a confused jumble of pigtails
birds'-nest soupand the /kotow/. Its advent may or may not be
noticed by residents in China; though if they know the date on which
it fallswe imagine that is about as much as is generally known by
foreigners of the Feast of Lanterns.
This festival dates from the time of the Han dynastyorin round
numbersabout two thousand years ago. Originally it was a ceremonial
worship in the temple of the First Causeand lasted from the 13th to
the 16th of the first moonbringing to a close on the latter date all
the rejoicingsfeastingsand visitings consequent upon the New Year.
In those early days it had no claim to its present titlefor lanterns
were not used; pious supplicants performed their various acts of
prayer and sacrifice by the light of the full round moon alone. It was
not till some eight hundred years later that art came to the
assistance of natureand the custom was introduced of illuminating
the streets with many a festoon of those gaudy paper lanternswithout
which now no nocturnal fete is thought complete. Another three hundred
years passed away without changeand then two more days were added to
the duration of the carnivalmaking it six days in all. For this it
was necessary to obtain the Imperial sanctionand such was ultimately
granted to a man named Ch'ienin consideration of an equivalent
whichas history hintsmight be very readily expressed in taels. The
whole thing now lasts from the 13th of the moonthe day on which it
is customary to light up for the first timeto the 18th inclusive
when all the fun and jollity is over and the serious business of life
begins anew. The 15th is the great timework of every kind being as
entirely suspended as it is with us on Christmas Day. At night the
candles are lighted in the lanternsand crackers are fired in every
direction. The streets are thronged with gaping crowdsand cut-purses
make small fortunes with little or no trouble. There being no
policemen in a Chinese moband as the cry of "stop thief" wouldmeet
with no response from the bystandersa thief has simply to look out
for some simple victimsnatch perhaps his pipe from his handor his
pouch from his girdleand elbow his way off as fast as he can go.
Plenty of lights and plenty of joss-stick would be enough of
themselves to make up a festival for Chinamen; in the present instance
there should be an extra abundance of boththough for reasons not
generally known to uneducated natives. Ask a coolie why he lights
candles and burns joss-stick at the Feast of Lanternsand he will
probably be unable to reply. The idea is that the spirits of one's
ancestors choose this occasion to come back /dulces revisere natos/
and that in their honour the hearth should be somewhat more swept and
garnished than usual. Therefore they consume bundle upon bundle of
well-scented joss-stickthat the noses of the spirits may run no risk
of being offended by mundane smells. Candles are lightedthat these
disembodied beings may be able to see their way about; and their sense
of the beautiful is consulted by a tasteful arrangement of the pretty
lamps in which the dirty Chinese dips are concealed. Worship on this
occasion is tolerably promiscuous; the Spirit of the Hearth generally
comes in for his shareand Heaven and Earth are seldom left out in
the cold. One very important part of the fun consists in eating
largely of a kind of cake prepared especially for the occasion. Sugar
or some sweet mince-meatis wrapped up in snow-white rice flour until
about the size of a small hen's eggonly perfectly roundand these
are eaten by hundreds in every household. Their shape is typical of a
complete family gatheringfor every Chinaman makes an effort to spend
the Feast of Lanterns at home.
Under the mournful circumstances of the late Emperor's deaththe 15th
of the 1st Chinese moon was this year (1875) hardly distinguishable
from any other day since the rod of empire passed from the hands of a
boy to those of a baby. No festivities were possible; it was of course
unlawful to hang lamps in any profusionand all Chinamen have been
prohibited by Imperial edict from wearing their best clothes. The
utmost any one could do in the way of enjoyment was to gorge himself
with the rice-flour balls above-mentionedand look forward to gayer
times when the days of mourning shall be over.
OPIUM SMOKING
Many writers on Chinese topics delight to dwell upon the slow but sure
destruction of moralsmannersand menwhich is being gradually
effected throughout the Empire by the terrible agency of opium.
Harrowing pictures are drawn of once well-to-do and happy districts
which have been reduced to know the miseries of disease and poverty by
indulgence in the fatal drug. The plague itself could not decimate so
quicklyor war leave half the desolation in its trackas we are told
is the immediate result of forgetting for a few short moments the
cares of life in the enjoyment of a pipe of opium. To such an extent
is this language usedthat strangers arriving in China expect to see
nothing less than the stern reality of all the horrors they have heard
described; and they are astonished at the busynoisy sight of a
Chinese townthe contentedpeaceful look of China's villagersand
the rich crops which are so readily yielded to her husbandmen by many
an acre of incomparable soil. Wherethenis this scourge of which
men speak? Evidently not in the highwaysthe haunts of commerceor
in the quiet repose of far-off agricultural hamlets. Bent on search
and probably determined to discover somethingour seeker after truth
is finally conducted to an opium denone of those miserable hells
upon earth common to every large city on the globe. Here he beholds
the vice in all its hideousness; the gamblerthe thiefthe beggar
and such outcasts from the social circlemeet here to worship the god
who grants a short nepenthe from suffering and woe. Thisthenis
Chinaand travellers' tales are but too true. A great nation has
fallen a prey to the insidious drugand her utter annihilation is but
an affair of time!
We confesshoweverwe have looked for these signs in vain; but our
patience has been rewarded by the elucidation of facts which have led
us to brighter conclusions than those so generally accepted. We have
not judged China as a nation from the inspection of a few low opium-
shopsor from the half dozen extreme cases of which we may have been
personally cognizantor which we may have gleaned from the reports of
medical missionaries in charge of hospitals for native patients. We do
not deny that opium is a cursein so far as a large number of persons
would be better off without it; but comparing its use as a stimulant
with that of alcoholic liquors in the Westwe are bound to admit that
the comparison is very much to the disadvantage of the latter. Where
opium kills its hundredsgin counts its victims by thousands; and the
appalling scenes of drunkenness so common to a European city are of
the rarest occurrence in China. In a country where the power of
corporal punishments is placed by law in the hands of the husband
wife-beating is unknown; and in a country where an ardent spirit can
be supplied to the people at a low price/delirium tremens/ is an
untranslateable term. Who ever sees in China a tipsy man reeling about
a crowded thoroughfareor lying with his head in a ditch by the side
of some country road? The Chinese people are naturally sober
peacefuland industrious; they fly from intoxicatingquarrelsome
samshooto the more congenial opium-pipewhich soothes the weary
braininduces sleepand invigorates the tired body.
In point of factwe have failed to find but a tithe of that real vice
which cuts short so many brilliant careers among men whowith all the
advantages of education and refinementare euphemistically spoken of
as addicted to the habit of "lifting their little fingers." Few
Chinamen seem really to love wineand opiumby its very priceis
beyond the reach of the blue-coated masses. In some partsespecially
in Formosaa great quantity is smoked by the well-paid chair-coolies
to enable them to perform the prodigies of endurance so often required
of them. Two of these fellows will carry an ordinary Chinamanwith
his box of clothesthirty miles in from eight to ten hours on the
hottest days in summer. They travel between five and six miles an
hourand on coming to a stagepass without a moment's delay to the
place where food and opium are awaiting their arrival. After smoking
their allowance and snatching as much rest as the traveller will
permitthey start once more upon the road; and the occupant of the
chair cannot fail to perceive the lightness and elasticity of their
treadas compared with the dulltired gait of half an hour before.
They die earlyof course; but we have trades in civilised England in
which a man thirty-six years of age is pointed at as a patriarch.
It is also commonly stated that a man who has once begun opium can
never leave it off. This is an entire fallacy. There is a certain
point up to which a smoker may go with impunityand beyond which he
becomes a lost man in so far as he is unable ever to give up the
practice. Chinamen ask if an opium-smoker has the /yin/ or not;
meaning therebyhas he gradually increased his doses of opium until
he has established a /craving/ for the drugor is he still a free man
to give it up without endangering his health. Hundreds and thousands
stop short of the /yin/; a fewleaving it far behind them in their
suicidal careerhurry on to premature old age and death. Further
from one point of viewopium-smoking is a more self-regarding vice
than drunkennesswhich entails gout and other evils upon the third
and fourth generation. Posterity can suffer little or nothing at the
hands of the opium-smokerfor to the inveterate smoker all chance of
posterity is denied. This very important result will always act as an
efficient check upon an inordinately extensive use of the drug in
Chinawhere children are regarded as the greatest treasures life has
to giveand blessed is he that has his quiver full.
Indulgence in opium ismoreoversupposed to blunt the moral feelings
of those who indulge; and to a certain extent this is true. If your
servant smokes opiumdismiss him with as little compunction as you
would a drunken coachman; for he can no longer be trusted. His wages
being probably insufficient to supply him with his pipe and leave a
balance for family expenseshe will be driven to squeeze more than
usualand probably to steal. But to get rid of a writer or a clerk
merely because he is a smokerhowever moderatewould be much the
same as dismissing an employe for the heinous offence of drinking two
glasses of beer and a glass of sherry at his dinner-time. An opium-
smoker may be a man of exemplary habitsnever even fuddledstill
less stupefied. He may take his pipe because he likes itor because
it agrees with him; but it does not follow that he must necessarily
make himselfeven for the time beingincapable of doing business.
Wine and moonlight were formerly considered indispensables by Chinese
bards; without themno inspirationno poetic fire. The modern
poetaster who pens a chaste ode to his mistress's eyebrowseeks in
the opium-pipe that flow of burning thoughts which his forefathers
drained from the wine-cup. We cannot see that he does wrong. We
believe firmly that a moderate use of the drug is attended with no
dangerous results; and that moderation in all kinds of eating
drinkingand smokingis just as common a virtue in China as in
England or anywhere else.[*]
[*] Sir Edmund Hornleyafter nine years' service as chief judge of
the Supreme Court at Shanghaidelivered an opinion on the anti-
opium movement in the following remarkable terms:--"Of all the
nonsense that is talkedthere is none greater than that talked
here and in England about the immorality and impiety of the opium
trade. It is simply sickening. I have no sympathy with itneither
have I any sympathy with the owner of a gin-palace; but as long as
China permits the growth of opium throughout the length and
breadth of the landtaxes itand pockets a large revenue from
it--sympathy with her on the subject is simply ludicrous and
misplaced."--(J. W. Walker v. Malcolm28th April 1875.)
But the following extract from a letter to the /London and China
Express/of 5th July 1875part of which we have ventured to
reproduce in italicssurpassesboth in fiction and naivete
anything it has ever been our lot to read on either side of this
much-vexed question:--"The fact isthat this tremendous evil is
utterly beyond the control of politiciansor even
philanthropists. Nothing but the divine power of Christian life
can cope with itand though this process may be slowit is sure.
Christian missions alone can deal with the opium trafficnow that
it has attained such gigantic dimensionsand the despised
missionaries are solving a problem which to statesmen is
insoluble. Thosethereforewho recognise the evils of opium-
smoking will most effectually stay the plague /by supporting
Christian Protestant Missions in China/.--Yours faithfully
An Old Residenter in China.
"LondonJune 281875."
THIEVING
Nowhere can the monotony of exile be more advantageously relieved by
studying dense masses of humanity under novel aspects than in China
where so much is still unknownand where the bulk of which is
generally looked upon as fact requires in most cases a leavening
element of truthin others nothing more nor less than flat
contradiction. The days are gone by for entertaining romances
published as if they were /bona fide/ books of traveland the opening
of China has enabled residents to smile at the audacity of the too
mendacious Huc. It has enabled them at the same time to view millions
of human beings working out the problem of existence under conditions
which by many persons in England are deemed to be totally incompatible
with the happiness of the human race. They behold all classes in China
labouring seven days in every weektaking holidays as each may
consider expedient with regard both to health and meansbut without
the mental and physical demoralisation supposed to be inseparable from
a non-observance of the fourth commandment. They see the unrestricted
sale of spirituous liquorsunaccompanied by the scenes of brutality
and violence which form such a striking contrast to the intellectual
advancement of our age. They notice that charity has no place among
the virtues of the peopleand that nobody gives away a cent he could
possibly manage to keep; the apparent result being that every one
recognises the necessity of working for himselfand that the
mendicants of a large Chinese city would barely fill the casual ward
of one of our smallest workhouses. They have a chance of studying a
competitive system many hundred years oldwith the certainty of
concluding thatwhatever may be its fate in England or elsewhereit
secures for the government of China the best qualified and most
intelligent men. Amongst other pointsthe alleged thievishness of the
Chinese is well worth a few moments' considerationwere it only out
of justice to the victims of what we personally consider to be a very
mischievous assertion. For it is a not uncommon sayingeven among
Europeans who have lived in Chinathat the Chinese are a nation of
thieves. In Australiain Californiaand in IndiaChinamen have
beaten their more luxurious rivals by the noiseless but irresistible
competition of temperanceindustryand thrift: yet they are a nation
of thieves. It becomes then an interesting question how far a low tone
of morality on such an important point is compatible with the
undisputed practice of virtues which have made the fortunes of so many
emigrating Celestials. Nowas regards the amount of theft daily
perpetrated in Chinawe have been able to form a rough estimateby
very careful inquiriesas to the number of cases brought periodically
before the notice of a district magistrate or his deputiesand we
have come to a conclusion unfavourable in the extreme to western
civilisationwhich has not hesitated to dub China a nation of
thieves. We have taken into consideration the fact that many petty
cases never come into court in Chinawhichhad the offence been
committed in Englandwould assuredly have been brought to the notice
of a magistrate. We have not forgotten that more robberies are
probably effected in China without detection than in a country where
the police is a well-organised forceand detectives trained men and
keen. We know that in China many cases of theft are compromisedby
the stolen property being restored to its owner on payment of a
certain sumwhich is fixed and shared in by the native constable who
acts as middleman between the two partiesand we are fully aware that
under circumstances of hunger or famineand within due limitsthe
abstraction of anything in the shape of food is not considered theft.
With all these considerations in mindour statistics (save the mark!)
would still compare most favourably with the records of theft
committed over an area in England equal in size and population to that
whence our information was derived. The above refers specially to
professional practicebut when we descend to private lifeand view
with an impartial eye the pilfering propensities of servants in China
we shall have even less cause to rejoice over our boasted morality and
civilisation. In the first placesqueezing of masters by servants is
a recognised system among the Chineseand is never looked upon in the
light of robbery. It is /commission/ on the purchase of goodsand is
taken into consideration by the servant when seeking a new situation.
Wages are in consequence low; sometimesas in the case of official
runners and constablesservants have to make their living as best
they can out of the various litigantsvery often taking bribes from
both parties. As far as slight raids upon winehandkerchiefsEnglish
baconor other such luxuries dear to the heart of the Celestialwe
might ask any one who has ever kept house in England if pilfering is
quite unknown among servants there. If it were strictly true that
Chinamen are such thieves as we make them out to bewith our eastern
habits of carelessness and dependencelife in China would be next to
impossible. As it ispeople hire servants of whom they know
absolutely nothingput them in charge of a whole house many rooms in
which are full of tempting kickshawsgo away for a trip to a port
five or six hundred miles distantand come back to find everything in
its place down to the most utter trifles. Merchants as a rule have
their servants /secured/ by some substantial manbut many do not take
this precautionfor an honest Chinaman usually carries his integrity
written in his face. Confucius gave a wise piece of advice when he
said"If you employ a manbe not suspicious of him; if you are
suspicious of a mando not employ him"--and truly foreigners in China
seem to carry out the first half to an almost absurd degreeplacing
the most unbounded confidence in natives with whose antecedents they
are almost always unacquaintedand whose very names in nine cases out
of ten they actually do not know! And what is the result of all this?
A few cash extra charged as commission on anything purchased at shop
or marketand a steady consumption of about four dozen pocket-
handkerchiefs per annum. Thefts there areand always will bein
China as elsewhere; but there are no better grounds for believing that
the Chinese are a nation of thieves than that their own tradition is
literally true which says"In the glorious days of oldif anything
was seen lying in the roadnobody would pick it up!" On the contrary
we believe that theft is not one whit more common in China than it is
in England; and we are fully convinced that the imputation of being a
nation of thieves has been castwith many othersupon the Chinese by
unscrupulous persons whose business it is to show that China will
never advance without the renovating influence of Christianity-an
opinion from which we here express our most unqualified dissent.
LYING
We have stated our conviction that the Chinese as a nation are not
more addicted to thieving than the inhabitants of many countries for
whom the same excuses are by no means so available. That no
undiscerning persons may be led to regard us as panegyrists of a
stationary civilisationwe hasten to counterbalance our somewhat
laudatory statements by the enunciation of another proposition less
startlingbut if anything more literally true. /The Chinese are a
nation of liars./ If innate ideas were possiblethe idea of lying
would form the foundation of the Chinese mind. They lie by instinct;
at any ratethey lie from imitationand improve their powers in this
respect by the most assiduous practice. They seem to prefer lying to
speaking the trutheven when there is no stake at issue; and as for
shame at being found outthe very feeling is unfamiliar to them. The
gravest and most serious works in Chinese literature abound in lies;
their histories lie; and their scientific works lie. Nothing in China
seems to have escaped this taint.
Essentially a people of fictionthe Chinese have given up as much
time to the composition and perusal of romances as any other nation on
the globe; and this phase of lying is harmless enough in its way.
Neither can it be said to interfere with the happiness of foreigners
either in or out of China that Chinese medicalastrological
geomanticand such workspretend to a knowledge of mysteries we know
to be all humbug. On the other handthey ought to keep their lying to
themselves and for their own special amusement. They have no right to
circulate written and verbal reports that foreigners dig out babies'
eyes and use them in their pharmacopoeia. They have no right to
publish such hideousloathsome pamphletsas the one which was some
years ago translated into too faithful English by an American
missionarywho had better have kept his talents to himselfor to
post such inflammatory placards as the one which is placed at the end
of this volume. Self-glorificationwhen no one suffers therefromis
only laughable; and we shall take the liberty of presenting here the
translation of an article which appeared in the /Shun Pao/ of the 19th
September 1874as a specimen of the manner in which Chinamen delight
to deceive even themselves on certain little points connected with the
honour and glory of China. The writer says:--
"I saw yesterday in the /Peking Gazette/ of the 10th September
1874 that the Prince of Kung had been degraded--a fact received
with mingled feelings of surprise and regret by natives of the
Middle and Western kingdoms alike. For looking back to the last
year of the reign Hsien Fengwe find that not only internal
trouble had not been set at rest when external difficulties began
to spring up around usand war and battle were the order of the
day. To crown allHis Majesty became a guest in the realm above
leaving only a child of tender yearsunable to hold in his hands
the reins of government. Thenwith our ruler a youth and affairs
generally in an unsettled statesedition within and war without
although their Majesties the Empresses-Dowager directed the
administration of government from behind the bamboo screenthe
task of wielding the rod of empire must have been arduous indeed.
Since that timeten years and morethe Eighteen Provinces have
been tranquillised; without/western nations have yielded
obedience and returned to a state of peace/; withinthe empire
has been fixed on a firm basis and has recovered its former
vitality. Nevereven in the glorious ages of the Chou or Hsia
dynastieshas our national prosperity been so boundless as it is
to-day. Whenever I have seen one among the people patting his
stomach or carolling away in the exuberance of his joyand have
asked the cause of his satisfactionhe has replied'It is
because of the loving-kindness of this our dynasty.' I ask what
and whence is this loving-kindness of which he speaks? He answers
me'It is the beneficent rule of their Majesties the Empresses-
Dowager; it is the unspeakable felicity vouchsafed by Heaven to
the Emperor; it is the loyalty and virtue of those in high places
of Tseng Kuo-fanof Li Hung-changof Tso Tsung-t'ang.' These
howeverare all provincial officials. Within the palace we have
the Empresses-Dowagerand His Majesty the Emperortoiling away
from morn till dewy eve; but among the ministers of state who
transact businessreceiving and making known the Imperial will
working early and late in the Cabinetthe Prince of Kung takes
the foremost place; and it is through his agencyas natives and
foreigners well knowthat for many years China has been regaining
her old statusso that any praise of their Imperial Majesties
leads naturally on to eulogistic mention of our noble Premier.
Hearing now that the Prince has incurred his master's displeasure
there are none who do not fear lest his previous services may be
overlookedhoping at the same time that the Emperor will be
graciously pleased to take them into consideration and cancel his
present punishment."
Lyingunder any circumstancesis a very venial offence in China; it
isin factno offence at allfor everybody is prepared for lies
from all quartersand takes them as a matter of course.
It is strangehoweverthat such a practical people should not have
discovered long ago the mere expediency of telling the truthin the
same way that they have found mercantile honesty to be unquestionably
the best policyand that trade is next to impossible without it. But
to argueas many dothat China is wanting in moralitybecause she
has adopted a different standard of right and wrong from our ownis
/mutato nomine/one of the most ridiculous traits in the character of
the Chinese themselves. They regard us as culpable in the highest
degree because our young men choose their own partnersmarryand set
up establishments for themselvesinstead of bringing their wives to
tend their aged parentsand live all together in harmony beneath the
paternal roof. We are superior to the Chinese in our utter abhorrence
of falsehood: in the practice of filial piety they beat us out of the
field. "Spartan virtue" is a household word amongst usbutSparta's
claims to pre-eminence certainly do not rest upon her children's love
either for honesty or for truth. The profoundest thinker of the
nineteenth century has said that insufficient truthfulness "does more
than any one thing that can be named to keep back civilisation
virtueeverything on which human happinesson the largest scale
depends"--an abstract proposition which cannot be too carefully
studied in connection with the present state of public morality in
Chinaand the general welfare of the people. Dr Leggehoweverwhose
logical are apparently in an inverse ratio to his linguistic powers
rushes wildly into the concreteand declares that every falsehood
told in China may be traced to the example of Confucius himself. He
acknowledges that "many sayings might be quoted from himin which
'sincerity' is celebrated as highly and demanded as stringently as
ever it has been by any Christian moralist" yeton the strength of
two passages in the Analectsand another in the "Family Sayings"he
does not hesitate to say that "the example of him to whom they bow
down as the best and wisest of menencourages them to actto
dissembleto sin." And what are these passages? In the first
Confucius applauds the modesty of an officer whoafter boldly
bringing up the rear on the occasion of a retreatrefused all praise
for his gallant behaviourattributing his position rather to the
slowness of his horse. In the secondan unwelcome visitor calling on
Confuciusthe Master sent out to say he was sickat the same time
seizing his harpsichord and singing to it"in order that Pei might
hear him." Dr Legge lays no stress on the last half of this story--
though it is impossible to believe that its meaning can have escaped
his notice altogether. Lastlywhen Confucius was once taken prisoner
by the rebelshe was released on condition of not proceeding to Wei.
"Thithernotwithstandinghe continued his route" and when askedby
a disciple whether it was right to violate his oathhe replied"It
was a forced oath. The spirits do not hear such."
We shall not attempt to defend Confucius on either of these
indictmentstaken separately and without reference to his life and
teachings; neither do we wish to temper the accusations we ourselves
have made against the Chineseof being a nation of liars. But when it
is gravely asserted that the great teacher who made truthfulness and
sincerity his daily textsis alone responsible for a vicious national
habit whichfor aught any one knows to the contrarymay be a growth
of comparatively modern timeswe call to mind the Horatian poetaster
who began his account of the Trojan war with the fable of Leda and the
swan.
SUICIDE
Suicidecondemned among western nations by human and divine laws
alikeis regarded by the Chinese with very different eyes. Posthumous
honours are even in some cases bestowed upon the victimwhere death
was met in a worthy cause. Such would be suicide from grief at the
loss of a beloved parentor from fear of being forced to break a vow
of eternal celibacy or widowhood. Candidates are for the most part
womenbut the ordinary Chinaman occasionally indulges in suicide
urged by one or other of two potent causes. Either he cannot pay his
debts and dreads the evil hour at the New Yearwhen coarse-tongued
creditors will throng his dooror he may himself be anxious to settle
a long-standing score of revenge against some one who has been
unfortunate enough to do him an injury. For this purpose he commits
suicideit may be in the very house of his enemybut at any rate in
such a manner as will be sure to implicate him and bring him under the
lash of the law. Nor is this difficult to effect in a country where
the ends of justice are not satisfied unless a life is given for a
lifewhere magistrates are venaland the laws of evidence lax.
Occasionally a young wife is driven to commit suicide by the harshness
of her mother-in-lawbut this is of rare occurrenceas the
consequences are terrible to the family of the guilty woman. The blood
relatives of the deceased repair to the chamber of deathand in the
injured victim's hand they place a broom. They then support the corpse
round the roommaking its dead arm move the broom from side to side
and thus sweep away wealthhappinessand longevity from the accursed
house for ever.
The following extract from the /Peking Gazette/ of 14th September
1874being a memorial by the Lieutenant Governor of Kiangsiwill
serve to show--though in this case the act was not consummated--that
under certain circumstances suicide is considered deserving of the
highest praise. In any casepublic opinion in China has every little
to say against it:--
"The magistrate of the Hsin-yu district has reported to me that in
the second year of the present reign (1863) a young ladythe
daughter of a petty officialwas betrothed to the son of
an expectant commissioner of the Salt Gabelleand a day was fixed
upon for the marriage. The bridegroomhoweverfell ill and died
on which his /fiancee/ would have gone over to the family to see
after his intermentand remain there for life as an unmarried
wife. As it washer mother would not allow her to do sobut
beguiled her into waiting till her fatherthen away on business
should return home. Meanwhilethe old lady betrothed her to
another man belonging to a different familywhereupon she took
poison and nearly died. On being restored by medical aidshe
refused food altogether; and it was not until she was permitted to
carry out her first intentions that she would take nourishment at
all. Since then she has lived with her father and mother-in-law
tending them and her late husband's grandmother with the utmost
care. They love her dearlyand are thus in a great measure
consoled for the loss of their son. Long thorns serve her for
hair-pins;[*] her dress is of cotton cloth; her food consists of
bitter herbs. Such privations she voluntarily acceptsand among
her relatives there is not one but respects her.
"The truth of the above report having been ascertainedI would
humbly recommend this virtuous ladyalthough the full time
prescribed by law has not yet expired[+] for some mark[:] of Your
Majesty's approbation." Rescript:--Granted!
[*] Instead of the elaborate gold and silver ornaments usually worn by
Chinese women.
[+] A woman must be a widow before she is thirty years oldand remain
so for thirty years before she is entitled to the above reward.
This is both to guard against a possible relapse from her former
virtuous resolutionand to have some grounds for believing that
she was prompted so to act more by a sense of right than by any
ungallant neglect on the part of the other sex.
[:] Generally a tablet or bannerinscribed with well-chosen words of
praise.
The only strange part in this memorial is that the girl's mother was
not censured for trying to prevent her from acting the part of a
virtuous wife and filial daughter-in-law. It is also more than
probable that her early attempts at suiciderather than any
subsequent household economy or dutiful behaviourhave secured for
this lady the coveted mark of Imperial approbation.
Suicidewhile in an unsound state of mindis rare; insanity itself
whether temporary or permanentbeing extremely uncommon in China.
Neither does the eye detect any of the vast asylums so numerous in
England for the reception of lunaticsidiotsdeaf-mutescripples
and the blind. There are a few such institutions here and therebut
not enough to constitute a national feature as with us. They are only
for the poorest of the poorand are generally of more benefit to
dishonest managers than to anybody else. And yet in the streets of a
Chinese town we see a far less number of "unfortunates" than amongour
own highly civilised communities. Blindness is the most common of the
above afflictionsso many losing their sight after an attack of
small-pox. But a Chinaman with a malformation of any kind is very
seldom seen; andas we have said beforelunacy appears to be almost
unknown. Such suicides as take place are usually well-premeditated
actsand are committed either out of revengeor in obedience to the
"despotism of custom." Statistics are impossibleand we offer our
conclusionsfounded upon observation alonesubject to whatever
correction more scientific investigators may hereafter be enabled to
produce.
TORTURE
Torture is commonly supposed to be practised by Chinese officials upon
each and every occasion that a troublesome criminal is brought before
them. The known necessity they are under of having a prisoner's
confession before any "case" is considered completecoupled withsome
few isolated instances of unusual barbarity which have come to the
notice of foreignershas probably tended to foster a belief that such
scenes of brutality are daily enacted throughout the length and
breadth of China as would harrow up the soul of any but a soulless
native. The curious part of it all is that Chinamen themselves regard
their laws as the quintessence of leniencyand themselves as the
mildest and most gentle people of all that the sun shines upon in his
daily journey across the earth--and back again under the sea. The
truth lies of course somewhere between these two extremes. For just as
people going up a mountain complain to those they meet coming down of
the bitter coldand are assured by the latter that the temperature is
really excessively pleasant--sofrom a western point of view certain
Chinese customs savour of a cruelty long since forgotten in Europe
while the Chinese enthusiast proudly compares the penal code of this
the Great Pure dynasty with the scattered laws and unauthorised
atrocities of distant and less civilised ages.
The Han dynasty which lasted from about B.C. 200 to A.D. 200 has been
marked by the historian as the epoch of change. Before that time
punishments of all kinds appear to have been terribly severeand the
vengeance of the law pursued even the nearest and most distant
relatives of a criminal devoted perhaps to death for some crime in
which they could possibly have had no participation. It was then
determined that in future only rebellion should entail extirpation
upon the families of such seditious offendersand at the same time
legal punishments were limited to fiveviz.: bambooing of two degrees
of severitybanishment to a certain distance for a certain time or
for lifeand death. These werehoweverfrequently exceeded by
independent officers against whose acts it would have been vain to
appealand it was not until the Sui dynasty (589-618 A.D.) that
mutilation of the body was absolutely forbidden. It mayindeedbe
said to have survived to the present day in the form of the "lingering
death" which is occasionally prescribed for parricides and matricides
but that we now know that this hideous fate exists only in words and
form. When it was first held to be inconsistent with reason to mete
out the same punishment to a highway robber who kills a traveller for
his purseand to the villain who takes away life from the author of
his beinga distinction was instituted accordinglybut we can only
rest in astonishment that any executioner could be found to put such a
horrible law into execution as was devised to meet the requirements of
the case. First an arm was chopped offthen the other; the two legs
in the same way. Two slits were made transversely on the breastand
the heart was torn out; decapitation finished the proceedings. Nowa
slight gash only is made across each collar-boneand three gashes
across the breast in the shape of the character meaning /one
thousand/and indicative of the number of strokes the criminal ought
properly to have received. Decapitation then follows without delay.
The absurd statement in the Shanghai /Daily News/ of the 16th January
lastthat this punishment "is the most frightful inflictedeven in
any of the darkest habitations of crueltyat the present day" is
utterly unworthy of that respectable journalbut only of a piece with
the general ignorance that prevails among foreigners generally on
topics connected with China and the Chinese. At the same timeit may
fairly be pleaded that the error in question was due to
disingenuousness on the part of the translator from the /Peking
Gazette/ whomentioning that such a sentence had been lately passed
upon two unhappy beingsadds that"they have been publicly sliced to
death accordinglywith the usual formalities"--which certainly might
lead a mere outsider to conclude that the horrible decree had actually
been put into execution. We may notice in passing that this so-called
"lingering death" is now almost invariably coupled with the name of
some poor lunatic who in a frenzy of passion has killed either father
or mothersometimes both. Vide /Peking Gazette/two or three times
every year. This is one of those pleasant fictions of Chinese official
lifewhich every one knows and every one winks at. In nine cases out
of tenthe unhappy criminal is not mad at all; but he is always
entered as such in the report of the committing magistratewho would
otherwise himself be exposed to censure and degradation for not having
brought his district to estimate at their right value the five[*]
cardinal relationships of mankind.
[*] Between(1) sovereign and subject(2) husband and wife(3)
parent and child(4) brothersand (5) friends.
Under the present dynasty the use of torture is comparatively rare
and mutilation of the person quite unknown. Criminals are often thrust
into filthy dungeons of the most revolting descriptionand are there
further secured by a chain; but except in very flagrant casesankle-
beating and finger-squeezingto say nothing of kneeling on chains and
hanging up by the earsbelong rather to the past than to the present.
The wife and children of a rebel chief may pass their days in peace
and quietness; innocent people are no longer made to suffer with the
guilty. A criminal under sentence of death for any crime except
rebellion may save his life and be released from further punishment
if he can prove that an aged parent depends upon him for the
necessaries of daily existence. The heavy bamboounder the infliction
of which sufferers not uncommonly diedhas given place to the lighter
instrument of punishmentwhich may be used severely enough for all
practical purposes while it does not endanger life. The Emperor K'ang
Hsiwhose name is inseparably connected with one of the most valuable
lexicons that have ever been compiledforbade bambooing across the
upper part of the back and shoulders. "Near the surface" said this
benign father of his people"lie the liver and the lungs. For some
trivial offence a man might be so punished that these organs would
never recover from the effects of the blows." The ruling system of
bribery has taken away from the bamboo its few remaining terrors for
those whose means are sufficient to influence the hand which lays it
on. Petty offences are chiefly expiated by a small payment of money to
the gaolerwho lets the avenging bamboo fall proportionately light
or assists the culprit by every means in his power to shirk the
degradation and annoyance of a week in the cangue.[*] These two are
the only ordinary punishments we hear much about; tortureproperly so
calledis permitted under certain circumstancesbut rarely if ever
practised.
[*] A heavy wooden collartaken off at night only if the sentence is
a long oneor on payment of a bribe.
In further support of this most heterodox positionwe beg to offer a
translation of two chapters from "Advice to Government Officials"a
native work of much repute all over the Empire:--
"CHAPTER V.
"The infliction of the bamboo is open to abuse in various ways.
For instancethe knots in the wood may not have been smoothed
off; blows may be given inside the jointsinstead of above the
knees; the tip end instead of the flat of the bamboo may be used;
each stroke may be accompanied by a drawing movement of the hand
or the same spot may be struck again after the skin has been
brokenwhereby the suffering of the criminal is very much
increased. Similarlythe "squeezing" punishment depends entirely
for its severity on the length of the sticks employedwhether
these are wet or dryas well as upon the tightness of the string.
Such points should be carefully looked to by the magistrate
himselfand not left to his subordinates. At the time of
infliction still greater precautions should be taken to prevent
the possibility of any accidentand where the offence was
committed under venial circumstancessome part of the punishment
may be remitted if it is considered that enough has already been
inflicted. Such punishments as pressing the knees to the ground
making prisoners kneel on chainsor burning their legs with hot
ironsadopted under the specious pretence of not using the
"squeezing" tortureare among the most barbarous of prohibited
practicesand are on no account to be allowed."
"CHAPTER VI.
"Lu Hsin-wu saysThere are five classes of people who must be
exempted from the punishment of the bamboo. (1) The aged. (2) The
young. (3) The sick. [It is laid down expressly by statute that
the aged and the young must not be thus coerced into giving
evidencebut there is a danger of overlooking this in a moment of
anger.] (4) The hungry and naked. [For thus to punish a beggar
half dead with cold and hunger and destitute of friends to nurse
him afterwardswould be equivalent to killing him outright.] (5)
Those who have already been beaten. [Whether in a brawl or by
other officials. A second beating might result in death for which
the presiding magistrate would be responsible.]
"There are five classes of people not to be hastily sentenced to
the bamboo. (1) Members of the Imperial family. [The relatives of
his Majestyeven though holding no rankare notsays the
statuteto be hastily punished in this way. The case must be laid
before the proper authorities.] (2) Officials. [However low down
in a scalethey are still part of the scheme of government;
besidesit affects their good name ever afterwards.] (3)
Graduates. (4) The official servants of your superiors. [Look out
for the vase when you throw at the rat. Though you may be actually
in the rightyet the dignity of your superiors might be
compromised. A plain statement of the facts should be made out and
privately handed to the official in questionleaving punishment
in his hands. But to refrain from such a course through fear of
the consequences would be weak indeed.] (5) Women.
"There are also five cases in which temporary suspension of
punishment is necessary. (1) When the prisoner is under the
influence of excitementor (2) anger. [The working classes are an
obstinate lot and beating only increases their passionso that
they would die rather than yield. Arguments should first be used
to show them their errorand then corporal punishment may be used
without fear.] (3) Or drink. [A drunken man doesn't know heaven
from earthhow can he be expected to distinguish right from
wrong? Besides he feels no painand further there is a risk of
his insulting the magistrate. He ought to be confined until he is
sober and then punished; but not in a cold place for fear of
endangering his life.] (4) Or when a man has just completed a
journeyor (5) when he is out of breath with running.
"There are also five instances in which it is well for your own
sake to put off punishment for a time. (1) When you are in a rage.
(2) When you are drunk. (3) When you are unwell. [For in the
latter case the system is heatedand not only would you be more
liable to improper infliction of punishmentbut also to lose your
temper; and thus injury would be done both to yourself and the
prisoner.] (4) When you can't see your way clearly as to the facts
of the case. (5) When you can't make up your mind as to the proper
punishment. [For in difficult cases and when the prisoner in
question is no ordinary manit is just as well to look forward a
little as to how the case is likely to end before you apply the
bamboo. It would never do to take such measures without some
considerationor you might suddenly find that you had by no means
heard the last of it.]
"There are three classes of people who should not be beaten in
addition to what they are to suffer. (1) Those who are to have
their fingers squeezed. (2) Those who are to have the ankle frame
applied. (3) Those who are to be exposed in the cangue. [For if
previously beaten they might be almost unable to moveor their
sores might not healand death might perhaps ensue. The statute
provides that they shall be beaten on releasebut this might
easily be forgotten in a moment of anger.]
"There are three instances in which compassion should save the
prisoners from the bamboo. (1) When the weather is extremely cold
or hot. (2) When a festival is being celebrated. (3) When the
prisoner has lately been bereaved. [A man who is mourning for his
fathermotherwifeor childshould not be punished
corporeally; it might endanger his life.]
"There are three cases in which a beating deserved should
nevertheless be remitted. (1) When one of the litigants is
considerably older than the otherhe should not be beaten. (2)
When one of the litigants is an official servantthe other should
not be beaten. [For although the former may be in the righthis
opponent should be treated with leniencyfor fear of people
saying you protect your Yamen servants; and lest in futurewhen
the servant is in the wrongno one will dare come forward to
accuse him.] (3) Workmen and others employed by the magistrate
himself should not be bambooed by himeven if they deserve it.
"Three kinds of bambooing are forbidden. (1) With the greater
bamboo. [One stroke of the /greater/ bamboo is counted as ten;
three with the /middle-sized/and five with the /smaller/.
Officials are often too free withnever too chary oftheir
punishments. With the smaller bambooused even to excesslife is
not endangered. Besidesif the punishment is spread over a longer
timethe magistrate has a longer interval in which to get calm.
But with the heavy bamboothere is no saying what injuries might
be done even with a few blows.] (2) It is forbidden to strike too
low down. (3) It is forbidden to allow petty officers to use
unauthorised instruments of punishment. These five preceding
clauses refer to cases in which there is no doubt that punishment
ought to be inflictedbut which officials are apt to punish too
indiscriminately without due investigation of circumstances
whereby they infallibly stir up a feeling of discontent and
insubordination. As regards those instances where punishment is
deserved but should be temporarily suspendeda remission of part
or the whole of the sentence may be granted as the magistrate sees
fit. The great point is to admit an element of compassionas
thereby alone the due administration of punishment can be
ensured."
FENG-SHUI
"Feng-shui" has of late years grown to be such a common expressionin
the mouths of foreigners resident in China that it stands no poor
chance of becoming gradually incorporated in the languages of more
than one nation of the West. And yetin spite of Dr Eitel's little
hand-bookwe may venture to assert that a very small percentage of
those who are constantly using this phrase really have a distinct and
correct idea as to the meaning of the words they employ. It is vaguely
known that Feng-shui is a powerful weapon in the hands of Chinese
officials whereby they successfully oppose all innovations which
savour of progressand preserve unbroken that lethargic sleep in
which China has been wrapt for so many centuries: beyond this all is
mystery and doubt. Some say the natives themselves do not believe in
it; others declare they do; others again think that the masses have
faithbut that enlightened and educated Chinese scout the whole thing
as a bare-faced imposture. Most Chinamen will acknowledge they are
entirely ignorant themselves on the subjectthough at the same time
they will take great pains to impress on their hearers that certain
friendsrelativesor acquaintances as the case may behave devoted
much time and attention to this fascinating study and are downright
professors of the art. They will further express their conviction of
its infallibilitywith certain limitations; and assert that there are
occasions in lifewhen to call in the assistance of Feng-shui is not
only advisable but indispensable to human happiness.
For those who will not be at the trouble of reading for themselves Dr
Eitel's valuable little bookwe may explain that Feng is the Chinese
word for /wind/ and Shui for /water/; consequentlyFeng-shui is wind-
water; the first half of which/wind/cannot be comprehendedthe
latter half/water/cannot be grasped. It may be defined as a system
of geomancyby the /science/ of which it is possible to determine the
desirability of sites whether of tombshousesor citiesfrom the
configuration of such natural objects as riverstreesand hillsand
to foretell with certainty the fortunes of any familycommunityor
individualaccording to the spot selected; by the /art/ of which it
is in the power of the geomancer to counteract evil influences by good
onesto transform straight and noxious outlines into undulating and
propitious curvesrescue whole districts from the devastations of
flood or pestilenceand "scatter plenty o'er a smiling land" which
might otherwise have known the blight of poverty and the pangs of
want. To perform such miracles it is merely necessary to build pagodas
at certain spots and of the proper heightto pile up a heap of
stonesor round off the peak of some hill to which nature's rude hand
has imparted a square and inharmonious aspect. The scenery round any
spot required for building or burial purposes must be in accordance
with certain principles evolved from the brains of the imaginative
founders of the science. It is the business of the geomancer to
discover such sitesto say if a given locality is or is not all that
could be desired on this headsometimes to correct errors which
ignorant quacks have committedor rectify inaccuracies which have
escaped the notice even of the most celebrated among the fraternity.
There may be too many treesso that some must be cut down; or there
may be too fewand it becomes necessary to plant more. Water-courses
may not flow in proper curves; hills may be too hightoo lowand of
baleful shapesor their relative positions one with another may be
radically bad. Any one of these causes may be sufficient in the eyes
of a disciple of Feng-shui to account for the sudden outbreak of a
plaguethe gradual or rapid decay of a once flourishing town. The
Feng-shui of a house influences not only the pecuniary fortunes of its
inmatesbut determines their general happiness and longevity. There
was a room in the British Legation at Peking in which two persons died
with no great interval of time between each event; and subsequently
one of the students lay there /in articulo mortis/ for many days. The
Chinese then pointed out that a tall chimney had been built opposite
the door leading into this roomthereby vitiating the Feng-shuiand
making the place uninhabitable by mortal man.
From the above most meagre sketch it is easy to understand that if the
natural or artificial configuration of surrounding objects is really
believed by the Chinese to influence the fortunes of a citya family
or an individualthey are only reasonably averse to the introduction
of such novelties as railways and telegraph poleswhich must
inevitably sweep away their darling superstition--never to rise again.
And they /do/ believe; there can be no doubt of it in the mind of any
one who has taken the trouble to watch. The endless inconvenience a
Chinaman will suffer without a murmur rather than lay the bones of a
dear one in a spot unhallowed by the fiat of the geomancer; the sums
he will subscribe to build a protecting pagoda or destroy some harmful
combination; the pains he will be at to comply with well-known
principles in the construction and arrangement of his private house--
all prove that the iron of Feng-shui has entered into his souland
that the creed he has been suckled in is the very reverse of outworn.
The childlike faith of his early years gradually ripens into a strong
and vigorous belief against which ridicule is perhaps the worst weapon
that can possibly be used. Nothing less than years of contact with
foreign nations and deep draughts of that real science which is even
now stealing imperceptibly upon themwill bring the Chinese to see
that Feng-shui is a vain shadowthat it has played its allotted part
in the history of a great nationand is now only fit to be classed
with such memories of by-gone glory as the supremacy of Chinathe bow
and arrowthe matchlockand the junk.
MONEY
Few things are more noticeable in China than the incessant chattering
kept up by servantscooliesand members of the working classes. It
is rare to meet a string of porters carrying their heavy burdens along
some country roadwho are not jabbering awayone and allas if in
the very heat of some exciting discussionand afraid that their
journey will come to an end before their most telling arguments are
exhausted. One wonders what ignorantilliterate fellows like these
can possibly have to talk about to each other in a country where beer-
shop politics are unknownwhere religious disputations leave no sting
behindand want of communication limits the area of news to half-a-
dozen neighbouring streets in a single agricultural village. Comparing
the uncommunicative deportment of a bevy of English bricklayerswho
will build a house without exchanging much beyond an occasional pipe-
lightwith the vivacious gaiety of these light-hearted sons of Han
the problem becomes interesting enough to demand a solution of the
question--What is it these Chinamen talk about? And the answer is
/Money/. It may be said they talkthinkdream of nothing else. They
certainly live for little besides the hope of some day compassingif
not wealthat any rate a competency. The temple of Plutus--to be
found in every Chinese city--is rarely without a suppliant; but there
is no such hypocrisy in the matter as that of the Roman petitioner who
would pray aloud for virtue and mutter "gold." And yet a rich manin
China is rather an object of pity than otherwise. He is marked out by
the officials as their lawful preyand is daily in danger of being
called upon to answer some falsesome trumped-up accusation. A
subscription listnominally for a charitable purposefor building a
bridgeor repairing a roadis sent to him by a local magistrateand
woe be to him if he does not head it with a handsome sum. A ruffian
may threaten to charge him with murder unless he will compromise
instantly for Tls. 300; and the rich man generally prefers this course
to proving his innocence at a cost of about Tls. 3000. He may be
accused of some trivial disregard of prescribed ceremoniesgiving a
dinner-partyor arranging the preliminaries of his son's marriage
before the days of mourning for his own father have expired. No handle
is too slight for the grasp of the greedy mandarinespecially if he
has to do with anything like a recalcitrant millionaire. But this very
mandarin himselfif compelled by age and infirmities to resign his
placeis forced in his turn to yield up some of the ill-gotten wealth
with which he had hoped to secure the fortunes of his family for many
a generation to come. The young hawks peck out the old hawks' e'en
without remorse. The possession of money is therefore rather a source
of anxiety than happinessthough this doesn't seem to diminish in the
slightest degree the Chinaman's natural craving for as much of it as
he can secure. At the same timethe abominable system of official
extortion must go far to crush a spirit of enterprise which would
otherwise most undoubtedly be rife. Everybody is so afraid of bringing
himself within the clutch of the lawthat innovation is quite out of
the question.
Neither in the private life of a rich Chinese merchant do we detect
the same keen enjoyment of his wealth as is felt by many an affluent
westernto whom kindly nature has given the intellect to use it
rightly. The former indulges in sumptuous feastsbut he does not
collect around his table men who can only give him wit in return for
his dinner; he rather seeks out men whose purses are as long as his
ownfrom amongst whose daughters he may select a well-dowried mate
for his dunderheaded son. He accumulates vast wardrobes of silk
satinand furs; but he probably could not show a copy of the first
edition of K'ang Hsior a single bowl bearing the priceless stamp of
six hundred years ago. These articles are collected chiefly by
scholarswho often go without a meal or two in order to obtain the
coveted specimen; the rich merchant spends his money chiefly on
dinnersdressand theatrical entertainmentsknowing and caring
little or nothing about art. His conversation is alsolike that of
his humbler countrymenconfined to one topic; if he is a banker
rates of exchange haunt him day and night; whatever he ishe lives in
daily dread of the next phase of extortion to which he will be obliged
to open an unwilling purse. How different from the literati of China
who live day by day almost from hand to moutheking out a scanty
subsistence by writing scrolls for door-postsand perhaps presenting
themselves periodically at the public examinationsonly to find that
their laboured essays are thrown out amongst the ruck once more! Yet
these last are undeniably the happier of the two. Having no wealth to
excite the rapacious envy of their rulersthey pass through life in
rapt contemplation of the sublime attributes of their Master
forgetting even the pangs of hunger in the elucidation of some obscure
passage in the Book of Changesand caring least of all for the idol
of their unlettered brethrenexcept in so far as it would enable them
to make more extensive purchases of their beloved booksand provide a
more ample supply of the "four jewels" of the scholar. Occasionallyto
be seen in the streetsthese literary devotees may be known by their
respectable but poverty-stricken appearancegenerally by their
spectaclesand always by their stoopacquired in many years of
incessant toil. These are the men who hate us with so deep a hatefor
we have dared to set up a rival to the lofty position so long occupied
by Confucius alone. If we came in search of trade onlythey would
toleratebecause they could understand our motivesand afford to
despise; but to bring our religion with usto oppose the precepts of
Christ to the immortal apophthegms of the Masterthis is altogether
too much for the traditions in which they have been brought up.
A DINNER-PARTY
It is a lamentable fact that although China has now been open for a
considerable number of years both to trade and travellersshe is
still a sealed book to the majority of intelligent Europeans as
regards her manners and customsand the mode of life of her people.
Were it not sosuch misleading statements as those lately published
by a young gentleman in the service of H.I.M. the Emperor of China
and professing to give an account of a Chinese dinnercould never
have been served up by half-a-dozen London newspapers as a piece of
valuable information on the habits of Chinamen. There is so much that
is really quaintinterestingand worthy of record in the social
etiquette observed by the natives of Chinathat no one with eyes to
see and ears to hear need ever draw upon his imagination in the
slightest degree. We do not imply that this has been done in the
present instance. The writer has only erred through ignorance. He has
doubtless been to a Chinese dinner where he "sat inside a glass door
and cigars were handed round after the repast" as many other brave
men have been before him--at Mr Yang'sthe celebrated Peking pawn-
broker. But had he been to more than that oneor taken the trouble to
learn something about the subject on which he was writinghe would
have found out that glass doors and cigars are not natural and
necessary adjuncts to a Chinese dinner. They are in fact only to be
found at the houses of natives who have mixed with foreigners and are
in the habit of inviting them to their houses. The topic is an
interesting oneand deserves a somewhat elaborate treatmentboth for
its own sake as a study of native customsand also to aid in
dispelling a host of absurd ideas which have gathered round these
everyday events of Chinese life. For it is an almost universal belief
that Chinamen dine daily upon ratspuppy-dogsand birds'-nest soup;
whereas the truth is thatsave among very poor peoplethe first is
wholly unknownand the two last are comparatively expensive dishes.
Dog hams are rather favourite articles of food in the south of China
but the nests from which the celebrated soup is made are far too
expensive to be generally consumed.
A dinner-party in China is a most methodical affair as regards
precedence among gueststhe number of coursesand their general
order and arrangement. We shall endeavour to give a detailed and
accurate account of such a banquet as might be offered to half-a-dozen
friends by a native in easy circumstances. In the first placeno
ladies would be presentbut men only would occupy seats at the
squarefour-legged "eight fairy" table. Before each there will be
found a pair of chopsticksa wine-cupa small saucer for soya two-
pronged forka spoona tiny plate divided into two separate
compartments for melon seeds and almondsand a pile of small pieces
of paper for cleaning these various articles as required. Arranged
upon the table in four equidistant rows are sixteen small dishes or
saucers which contain four kinds of fresh fruitsfour kinds of dried
fruitsfour kinds of candied fruitsand four miscellaneoussuch as
preserved eggsslices of hama sort of sardinepickled cabbage&c.
These four are in the middlethe other twelve being arranged
alternately round them. Wine is produced the first thingand poured
into small porcelain cups by the giver of the feast himself. It is
polite to make a bow and place one hand at the side of the cup while
this operation is being performed. The host then gives the signal to
drink and the cups are emptied instantaneouslybeing often turned
bottom upwards as a proof there are no heel-taps. Many Chinamen
howevercannot stand even a small quantity of wine; and it is no
uncommon thing when the feast is given at an eating-houseto hire one
of the theatrical singing-boys to perform vicariously such heavy
drinking as may be required by custom or exacted by forfeit. The
sixteen small dishes above-mentioned remain on the table during the
whole dinner and may be eaten of promiscuously between courses. Now we
come to the dinnerwhich may consist of eight large and eight small
coursessix large and six smalleight large and four smallor six
large and four smallaccording to the means or fancy of the host
each bowl of food constituting a course being placed in the middle of
the table and dipped into by the guests with chopsticks or spoon as
circumstances may require. The first is the commonestand we append a
bill of fare of an ordinary Chinese dinner on that scaleeach course
coming in its proper place.
I. Sharks' fins with crab sauce.
1. Pigeons' eggs stewed with mushrooms.
2. Sliced sea-slugs in chicken broth with ham.
II. Wild duck and Shantung cabbage.
3. Fried fish.
4. Lumps of pork fat fried in rice flour.
III. Stewed lily roots.
5. Chicken mashed to pulpwith ham.
6. Stewed bamboo shoots.
IV. Stewed shell-fish.
7. Fried slices of pheasant.
8. Mushroom broth.
Remove--Two dishes of fried puddingone sweet and the other salt
with two dishes of steamed puddingsalso one sweet and one
salt. [These four are put on the table together and with them
is served a cup of almond gruel.]
V. Sweetened duck.
VI. Strips of boned chicken fried in oil.
VII. Boiled fish (of any kind) with soy.
VIII. Lumps of parboiled mutton fried in pork-fat.
These last four large courses are put on the table one by one and are
not taken away. Subsequently a fiftha bowl of soupis addedand
small basins of rice are served roundover which some of the soup is
poured. The meal is then at an end. A /rince-bouche/ is handed to each
guest and a towel dipped in boiling water but well wrung out. With the
last he mops his face all overand the effect is much the same as
half a noggin of Exshare diluted with a bottle of Schweppe. Pipes and
tea are now handed roundthough this is not the first appearance of
tobacco on the scene. Many Chinamen take a whiff or two at their
hubble-bubbles between almost every courseas they watch the
performance of some broad farce which on grand occasions is always
provided for their entertainment. Opium is served when dinner is over
for such as are addicted to this luxury; and after a few minutes
spent perhaps in arranging the preliminaries of some future banquet
the partywhich has probably lasted from three to four hoursis no
longer of the present but in the past.
FEMALE CHILDREN
A great deal of trash has been committed to writing by various
foreigners on the subject of female children in China. The prevailing
belief in Europe seems to be that the birth of a daughter is looked
upon as a mournful event in the annals of a Chinese familyand that a
large percentage of the girls born are victims of a wide-spread system
of infanticidea sufficient numberhoweverbeing spared to prevent
the speedy depopulation of the Empire. It became our duty only the
other day to correct a mistakeon the part of a reverend gentleman
who has been some twelve years a missionary in Chinabearing on this
very subject. He observed that "the Chinese are always profuse in
their congratulations on the birth of a /son/; but if a girl is born
the most hearty word they can afford to utter is'girls too are
necessary.'" Such a statement is very misleadingand cannotin these
days of enlightenment on Chinese topicsbe allowed to pass
unchallenged. "I hear you have obtained one thousand ounces ofgold"
is perhaps the commonest of those flowery metaphors which the Chinese
delight to bandy on such an auspicious occasion; another being"You
have a bright pearl in your hand" &c.&c. The truth is thatparents
in China are just as fond of all their children as people in other and
more civilised countrieswhere male children are also eagerly desired
to preserve the family from extinction. The excess in value of the
male over the female is perhaps more strongly marked among the
Chineseowing of course to the peculiarity of certain national
customsand not to any want of parental feeling; buton the other
handa very fair share both of care and affection is lavished upon
the daughters either of rich or poor. They are not usually taught to
read as the boys arebecause they cannot enter any condition of
public lifeand education for mere education's sake would be
considered as waste of time and money by all except very wealthy
parents. Besideswhen a daughter is marriednot only is it necessary
to provide her with a suitable dowry and trousseaubut she passes
over to the house of her husbandthere to adopt his family name in
preference to her ownand contract new obligations to a father- and
mother-in-law she may only have seen once or twice in her lifemore
binding in their stringency than those to the father and mother she
has left behind. A son remains by his parents' side in most cases till
death separates them for everand on him they rely for that due
performance of burial rites which alone can ensure to their spirits an
eternal rest. When old age or disease comes upon thema son can go
forth to earn their daily riceand protect them from povertywrong
and insultwhere a daughter would be only an additional encumbrance.
It is no wonder therefore that the birth of a son is hailed with
greater manifestations of joy than is observable among western
nations; at the same timewe must maintain that the natural love of
Chinese parents for their female offspring is not thereby lessened to
any appreciable degree. No /red eggs/ are sent by friends and
relatives on the birth of a daughter as at the advent of the first
boythe hope and pride of the family; but in other respects the
customs and ceremonies practised on these occasions are very much the
same. On the third day the milk-name is given to the childand if a
girl her ears are pierced for earrings. A little boiled rice is rubbed
upon the lobe of the earwhich is then subjected to friction between
the finger and thumb until it gets quite numb: it is next pierced with
a needle and thread dipped in oilthe latter being left in the ear.
No blood flows. Boys frequently have one ear piercedas some people
sayto make them look like little girls; and up to the age of
thirteen or fourteengirls often wear their hair braided in a tail to
make them look like little boys. But the end of the tail is always
tied with /red/ silk--the differentiating colour between youths and
maids in China. And here we may mention that the colour of the silk
which finishes off a Chinaman's tail differs according to
circumstances. Black is the ordinary colouroften undistinguishable
from the long dresses in which they take such pride; /white/ answers
to deep crape with usand proclaims that either the father or mother
of the wearer has bid adieu to this sublunary sphere;[*] /green/
/yellow/and /blue/are worn for more distant relativesor for
parents after the first year of mourning has expired.
[*] The verb "to die" is rarely used by the Chinese of their
relatives. Some graceful periphrasis is adapted instead.
We will conclude with a curious custom whichas far as our inquiries
have extendedseems to be universal. The first visitorstranger
messengercoolieor friendwho comes to the house where a new-born
baby liesignorant that such an event has taken placeis on no
account allowed to go away without having first eaten a full meal.
This is done to secure to the child a peaceful and refreshing night's
rest; and as Chinamen are always ready at a moment's notice to dispose
of a feed at somebody else's expensedifficulties are not likely to
arise on a score of a previous dinner.
TRAVEL
Books of travel are eagerly read by most classes of Chinese who have
been educated up to the requisite standardand long journeys have
often been undertaken to distant parts of the Empirenot so much from
a thirst for knowledge or love of a vagrant lifeas from a desire to
be enrolled among the numerous contributors to the deathless
literature of the Middle Kingdom. Such travellers start with a full
knowledge of the tastes of their publicand a firm conviction that
unless they can provide sufficiently marvellous stories out of what
they have seen and heardthe fame they covet is not likely to be
accorded. No European reader who occupies himself with these works can
fail to discover that in every single one of them invention is brought
more or less into play; and that when fact is not forthcomingthe
exigencies of the book are supplemented from the convenient resources
of fiction. Of course this makes the accounts of Chinese travellers
almost worthlessand often ridiculous; though strange to sayamongst
the Chinese themselveseven to the grossest absurdities and most
palpable falsehoodsthere hardly attaches a breath of that suspicion
which has cast a halo round the name of Bruce.
We have lately come across a book of travelsin six thin quarto
volumeswritten by no less a personage than the father of Ch'ung-hou.
It is a very handsome workbeing well printed and on good paper
besides being provided with numerous woodcuts of the scenes and
scenery described in the text. The authorwhose name was Lin-ch'ing
was employed in various important posts; and while rising from the
position of Prefect to that of Acting Governor-General of the two
Kiangtravelled about a good dealand was somewhat justified in
committing his experiences to paper. We doubthoweverif his
literary efforts are likely to secure him a fraction of the notoriety
which the Tientsin Massacre has conferred upon his son. He never saw
the moon shining upon the waterbut away he went and wrote an ode to
the celestial luminaryalways introducing a few pathetic lines on the
hardships of travel and the miseries of exile. One chapter is devoted
to the description of a curious rock called the /Loom Rock/. It is
situated in the Luhsi district of the Chang-chou prefecture in Hunan
and is perfectly inaccessible to manas it well might beto judge
from the drawing of it by a native artist. From a little distance
howevercaves are discernible hollowed out in the cliffand in these
the eye can detect various articles used in housekeepingsuch as a
teapot&c.; and amongst others a /loom/. On a ledge of smooth rock a
boat may be seenas it were hauled up out of the water. How these got
thereand what is the secret of the placenobody appears to know
but our author declares that he saw them with his own eyes. We have
given the above particulars as to the whereabouts of the rockin the
hope that any European meditating a trip into Hunan may take the
trouble to make some inquiries about this wonderful sight. The late Mr
Margary must have passed close to it in his boatprobably without
being aware of its existence--if indeed it does exist at all.
We cannot refrain from translating verbatim one passage which has
reference to the Englishand of which we fancy Ch'ung-hou himself
would be rather ashamed since his visit to the Outside Nations. Here
it is:--
"When the English barbarians first began to give trouble to the
Inner Nationthey relied on the strength of their ships and the
excellence of their guns. It was therefore proposed to build large
ships and cast heavy cannon in order to oppose them. I
representedhoweverthat vessels are not built in a dayand
pointed out the difficulties in the way of naval warfare. I showed
that the power of a cannon depends upon the strength of the
powderand the strength of the powder upon the sulphur and
saltpetre; the latter determining the explosive force forwards and
backwardsand the formerthe same force towards either side.
Therefore to ensure powder being powerfulthere should be seven
parts saltpetre out of ten. The English barbarians have got rattan
ash which they can use instead of sulphurbut saltpetre is a
product of China alone. AccordinglyI memorialised His Majesty to
prohibit the export of saltpetreand caused some thirty-seven
thousand pounds to be seized by my subordinates."
PREDESTINATION
Theoreticallythe Chinese are fatalists in the fullest sense of the
word. Love of life and a desire to enjoy the precious boon as long as
possibleprevent them from any such extended application of the
principle as would be prejudicial to the welfare of the nation; yet
each man believes that his destiny is pre-ordainedand that the whole
course of his life is mapped out for him with unerring exactitude.
Happilywhen the occasion presents itselfhis thoughts are generally
too much occupied with the crisis before himto be able to indulge in
any dangerous speculations on predestination and free-will; his
practicethereforeis not invariably in harmony with his theory.
On the first page of a Chinese almanack for the current yearwe have
a curious woodcut representing a flya spidera birda sportsmana
tigerand a well. Underneath this strange medley is a legend couched
in the following terms:--"Predestination in all things!" The
letterpress accompanying the picture explains that the spider had just
secured a fat flyand was on the point of making a meal of himwhen
he was espied by a hungry bird which swooped down on both. As the bird
was making off to its nest with this delicious mouthfula sportsman
who happened to be casting round for a supperbrought it down with
his gunand was stooping to pick it upwhen a tigeralso with an
empty stomachsprang from behind upon the manand would there and
then have put an end to the dramabut for an ugly wellon the brink
of which the bird had droppedand into which the tigercarried on by
the impetus of his springtumbled headlongtaking with him man
birdspiderand fly in one fell career to the bottom. This fable
embodies popular ideas in China with regard to predestinationby
virtue of which calamity from time to time overtakes doomed victims
as a punishment for sins committed in their present or a past state of
existence. Coupled with this belief are many curious sayings and
customsthe latter of which often express in stronger terms than
language the feelings of the people. For instanceat the largest
centre of population in the Eighteen Provincesthere is a regulation
with regard to the porterage by coolies of wine and oilwhich
admirably exemplifies the subject under consideration. If on a wet and
stormy dayor when the ground is covered with snowa coolie laden
with either of the above articles slips and fallshe is held
responsible for any damage that may be done; whereasif he tumbles
down on a fine day when the streets are dryand there is no apparent
cause for such an accidentthe owner of the goods bears whatever loss
may occur. The idea is that on a wet and slippery day mere exercise of
human caution would be sufficient to avert the disasterbut happening
in brightdry weatherit becomes indubitably a manifestation of the
will of Heaven. In the same wayan endless run of bad luck or some
fearful and overwhelming calamityagainst which no mortal foresight
could guardis likened to the burning of an /ice-house/whichfrom
its very naturewould almost require the interposition of Divine
power to set it in a blaze. In such a casehe who could doubt the
reality of predestination would be rankedin Chinese eyesas little
better than a fool. And yet when these emergencies arise we do not
find the Chinese standing still with their hands in their sleeves (for
want of pockets)but working away to stop whatever mischief is going
onas if after the all the will of Heaven may be made amenable to
human energy. It is only when an inveterate gambler or votary of the
opium-pipe has seen his last chance of solace in this life cut away
from under himand feels himself utterly unable any longer to stem
the currentthat he weakly yields to the force of his destinyand
borrows a stout rope from a neighbouror wanders out at night to the
brink of some deep pool never to return again.
There is a charming episode in the second chapter of the "Dream of the
Red Chamber" where the father of Pao-yu is anxious to read the
probable destiny of his infant son. He spreads before the little boy
then just one year oldall kinds of different thingsand declares
that from whichever of these the baby first seizeshe will draw an
omen as to his future career in life. We can imagine how he longed for
his boy to grasp the manly /bow/in the use of which he might some
day rival the immortal archer Pu:--the /sword/and live to be
enrolled a fifth among the four great generals of China:--the /pen/
and under the favouring auspices of the god of literaturerise to
assist the Son of Heaven with his counselsor write a commentary upon
the Book of Rites. Alas for human hopes! The naughty babyregardless
alike of his father's wishes and the filial codepassed over all
these glittering instruments of wealth and powerand devoted his
attention exclusively to some hair-pinspearl-powderrougeand a
lot of women's head-ornaments.
JOURNALISM
Were any wealthy philanthropist to consult us as to the disposal of
his millions with a view to ensure the greatest possible advantages to
the greatest possible numberwe should unhesitatingly recommend him
to undertake the publication of a Chinese newspaperto be sold at a
merely nominal figure per copy. Under skilled foreign guidanceand
with the total exclusion of religious topicsmore would be effected
in a few years for the real happiness of China and its ultimate
conversion to western civilisationthan the most hopeful enthusiast
could venture to predict. The /Shun-pao/edited in Shanghai by Mr
Ernest Majoris doing an incredible amount of good in so far as its
influence extends; but the daily issue of this widely-circulated paper
amounts only to about four thousand copiesor one to every hundred
thousand natives! Missionary publications are absolutely uselessas
they have a very limited sale beyond the circle of converts to the
faith; but a /colporteur/ of religious books informed us the other day
that he was continually being asked for the /Shun-pao/. Now the /Shun-
pao/ owes its success so far to the fact that it is a pure money
speculationand therefore an undertaking intelligible enough to all
Chinamen. Not only are its columns closed to anything like
proselytising articlesbut they are open from time to time to such
tit-bits of the miraculous as are calculated to tickle the native
palateand swell the number of its subscribers. Thereforeto avert
suspicionit would be necessary to make a chargehowever small
while at the same time such bogy paragraphs as occasionally appear in
the columns of the /Shun-pao/ might be altogether omitted.
Our attention was called to this matter by a charming description in
the /Shun-pao/ of a late balloon ascent from Calaiswhich was so
nearly attended with fatal results. Written in a singularly easy
styleand going quite enough into detail on the subject of balloons
generally to give an instructive flavour to its remarksthis article
struck us as being the identical kind of "light science for leisure
hours" so much needed by the Chinese; and it compared most favourably
with a somewhat heavy disquisition on aeronautic topics which appeared
some time back in the /Peking Magazine/albeit the latter was
accompanied by an elaborate woodcut of a balloon under way. There is
so much that is wonderful in the healthy regions of fact which might
with mutual advantage be imparted to a reading people like the
Chinesethat it is quite unnecessary to descend to the grossand too
often indecentabsurdities of fiction. Much indeed that is not
actually marvellous might be put into language which would rivet the
attention of Chinese readers. The most elementary knowledgeaccording
to our standardis almost always neweven to the profoundest scholar
in native literature: the ignorance of the educated classes is
something appalling. On the other handall who have read their /Shun-
pao/ with regularityeven for a few monthsare comparatively
enlightened. We heard the other day of a Tao-t'ai who was always
meeting the phrase "International Law" in the above paperand his
curiosity at length prompted him to make inquiriesand finally to
purchase a copy of Dr Martin's translation of "Wheaton." He
subsequently complained bitterly that much of it was utterly
unintelligible; and judging from our own limited experience of the
translationwe think His Excellency's objection not altogether
groundless.
Of the domestic life of foreignersthe Chinesewith the exception of
a few servantsknow absolutely nothing; and equally little of foreign
mannerscustomsor etiquette. We were acquainted with one healthy
Briton who was popularly supposed by the natives with whom he was
thrown in contact to eat a whole leg of mutton every day for dinner;
and a high native functionarycomplaining one day of some tipsy
sailors who had been rioting on shoreobserved that "he knew
foreigners always got drunk on Sundaysand had the offence been
committed on that day he would have taken no notice of it; but"&c.
&c. They have vague notions that filial piety is not considered a
virtue in the Westand look upon our system of contracting marriages
as objectionable in the extreme. They think foreigners carry whips and
sticks only for purposes of assaultand we met a man the other day
who had been wearing a watch for yearsbut was in the habit of never
winding it up till it had run down. This we afterwards found out to be
quite a common custom among the Chineseit being generally believed
that a watch cannot be wound up whilst going; consequentlymany
Chinamen keep two always in useand it is worth noticing that watches
in China are almost invariably sold in pairs. The term "foreigndevil"
is less frequently heard than formerlyand sometimes only for the
want of a better phrase. Mr Alabasterin one of his journeys in the
interiorwas politely addressed by the villagers as /His Excellency
the Devil/. The Chinese settlers in Formosa call themselves "foreign
men" but they call us "foreign things;" forthey argueifwe called
you foreign menwhat should we call ourselves? The /Shun-pao/
deserves much credit for its unvarying use of /western/ instead of
/outside/ nations when speaking of foreign powersbut the belief is
still very prevalent that we all come from a number of small islands
scattered round the coast of one great centrethe Middle Kingdom.
And so we might go on multiplying /ad nauseam/ instances of Chinese
ignorance in trivial matters which an ably-conducted journal has it in
its power to dispel. We are so dissimilar from the Chinese in our ways
of lifeand so unlike them in dress and facial appearancethat it is
only many years of commercial intercourse on the present familiar
footing which will cause them to regard us as anything but the
barbarians they call us. Red hair and blue eyes may make up what Baron
Hubner would euphemistically describe as the "beau type d'un gentleman
anglais" but when worn with a funny-shaped hata short coattight
trousersand a Penang lawyerthe picture produced on the retina of a
Chinese mind is unmistakably that of a "foreign devil."
FUNERALS
Of all their cherished ceremoniesthere are none the Chinese observe
with more scrupulous exactness than those connected with death and
mourning. We have just heard of the Governor of Kiangsu going into
retirement because of the decease of his mother; and so he will
remainineligible to any officefor the space of three years. He
will not shave his head for one hundred days. For forty-nine nights he
will sleep in a hempen garmentwith his head resting on a brick and
stretched on the hard groundby the side of the coffin which holds
the remains of the parent who gave him birth. He will go down upon his
knees and humbly kotow to each friend and relative at their first
meeting after the sad event--a tacit acknowledgment that it was but
his own want of filial piety which brought his beloved mother
prematurely to the grave. To the coolies who bear the coffin to its
resting-place on the slope of some wooded hillor beneath the shade
of a clump of dark-leaved cypress treeshe will make the same
obeisance. Their lives and properties are at his disposal day and
night; but he now has a favour to ask which no violence could secure
and pleads that his mother's body may be carried gentlywithout jar
or concussion of any kind. He will have her laid by the side of his
fatherin a coffin which cost perhaps 100 poundsand repair thither
periodically to appease her departed spirit with votive offerings of
fruitvegetablesand pork.
Immediately after the decease of a parentthe children and other near
relatives communicate the news to friends living farther offby what
is called an "announcement of death" which merely states that the
father or motheras the case may behas diedand that theythe
survivorsare entirely to blame. With this is sent a "sad report"or
in other words a detailed account of deceased's last illnesshow it
originatedwhat medicine was prescribed and takenand sundry other
interesting particulars. Their friends reply by sending a present of
money to help defray funeral expensesa present of food or joss-
stickor even a detachment of priests to read the prescribed
liturgies over the dead. Sometimes a large scroll is written and
forwardedinscribed with a few such appropriate words as--"A hero has
gone!" When all these have been receivedthe members of the bereaved
family issue a printed form of thanksone copy being left at the
house of each contributor and worded thus:--"This is to express the
thanks of . . . the orphaned son who weeps tears of blood and bows his
head: of . . . the mourning brother who weeps and bows his head: of
. . . the mourning nephew who wipes away his tears and bows his head."
It is well known that all old and even middle-aged people in China
like to have their coffins prepared ready for use. A dutiful son will
see that his parents are thus providedsometimes many years before
their deathand the old people will invite relatives or friends to
examine and admire both the materials and workmanshipas if it were
some beautiful picture or statue of which they had just cause to be
proud. Upon the coffin is carved an inscription with the name and
titles of its occupant; if a womanthe name of her husband. At the
foot of the coffin are buried two stone tablets face to face; one
bears the name and title of the deceasedand the other a short
account of his lifewhat year he was born inwhat were his
achievements as a scholarand how many children were born to him.
Periods of mourning are regulated by the degrees of relationship to
the dead. A son wears his white clothes for three years--actually for
twenty-eight months; and a wife mourns her husband for the same
period. The death of a wifehowevercalls for only a single year of
grief; foras the Sacred Edict points outif your wife dies you can
marry another. The same suffices for brothersisteror child.
Marriages contracted during these days of mourning are not only
invalidbut the offending parties are punished with a greater or
lesser number of blows according to the gravity of the offence.
Innumerable other petty restrictions are imposed by national or local
customwhich are observed with a certain amount of fidelitythough
instances are not wanting where the whole thing is shirked as
inconvenient and a bore.
Cremationonce the prevailing fashion in Chinais now reserved for
the priest of Buddha alone--that self-made outcast from society
whose parting soul relies on no fond breastwho has no kith or kin to
shed "those pious drops the closing eye requires;" but whoseatedin
an iron chair beneath the miniature pagoda erected in most large
temples for that purposepasses away in fire and smoke from this vale
of tears and sin to be absorbed in the blissful nothingness of an
eternal Nirvana.
INQUESTS
Inquests in China serveunfortunatelybut to illustrate one more
phase of the folly and ignorance which hopelessly overshadow the vast
area of its Empire. For although the Chinese justly regard such
investigations as matters of paramount importanceand the office of
coroner devolves upon a high functionary--the district magistrate--yet
the backward state of science on the one handand the necessity the
ruling classes have been under of supplying this deficiency on the
otherhave combined to produce at once the most deplorable and the
most laughable results. Two good-sized volumes of "Instructions to
Coroners" beautifully printed on white paper and altogether
handsomely got upare published under the authority of the
Governmentand copies of this book are to be found in the offices of
every magistrate throughout the Empire. It is carefully studied even
by the underlings who play only subordinate parts on such occasions
and the coroner himself generally carries his private copy with him in
his sedan-chair to the very scene of the inquest. From this work the
following sketch has been compiledfor though it has been our fate to
be present at more than one of the lamentable exhibitions thus
dignified by the name of inquestand to have had ocular demonstration
of the absurdities there perpetratedit will be more satisfactory to
stick closely to the text of an officially-recognised bookthe
translation of which helped to while away many a leisure hour.
The first chapter opens as follows:--
"There is nothing more sacred than human life: there is no
punishment greater than death. A murderer gives life for life: the
law shows no mercy. But to obviate any regrets which might be
occasioned by a wrong infliction of such punishmentthe validity
of any confession and the sentence passed are made to depend on a
satisfactory examination of the wounds. If these are of a /bona
fide/ nature [i.e.not counterfeit]and the confession of the
accused tallies therewiththen life may be given for lifethat
those who know the laws may fear themthat crime may become less
frequent among the peopleand due weight be attached to the
sanctity of human existence. If an inquest is not properly
conductedthe wrong of the murdered man is not redressedand new
wrongs are raised up amongst the living; other lives may be
sacrificedand both sides roused to vengeance of which no man can
foresee the end."
On this it is only necessary to remark that the "validity" of a
confession is an important point in Chinasince substitutes are
easily procurable at as low a rate as from 20 to 50 pounds a life.
The duties of a Chinese coroner are by no means limited to /post
mortem/ examinations; he visits and examines any one who has been
dangerously woundedand fixes a date within which the accused is held
responsible for the life of his victim.
"Murders are rarely the result of premeditationbut can be
tracedin the majority of casesto a brawl. The statute which
treats of wounding in a brawl attaches great weight to the 'death-
limit' which means that the wounded man be handed over to the
accused to be taken care of and provided with medical aidand
that a limit of time be fixedon the expiration of which
punishment be awarded according to circumstances. Now the
relatives of a wounded manunless their ties be of the closest
generally desire his death that they may extort money from his
slayer; but the accused wishes him to live that he himself may
escape deathand therefore he leaves no means untried to restore
his victim to health. This institution of the 'death-limit' is a
merciful endeavour to save the lives of both."
One whole chapter is devoted to a division of the body into vital and
non-vital parts. Of the former there are twenty-two altogether
sixteen before and six behind; of the latter fifty-sixthirty-six
before and twenty behind. Every coroner provides himself with a form
drawn up according to these divisionsand on this he enters the
various wounds he finds on the body at the inquest.
"Do not" say the Instructions"deterred by the smell of the
corpsesit at a distanceyour view intercepted by the smoke of
fumigationletting the assistants call out the wounds and enter
them on the formperhaps to garble what is of importance and to
give prominence to what is not."
The instructions for the examination of the body from the head
downwards are very explicitand among them is one sentence by virtue
of which a Chinese judge would have disposed of the Tichborne case
without either hesitation or delay.
"Examine the cheeks to see whether they have been tattooed or not
or whether the marks have been obliterated. In the latter case
cut a slip of bamboo and tap the parts; the tattooing will then
re-appear."
In cases where the wounds are not distinctly visiblethe following
directions are given:--
"Spread a poultice of grainand sprinkle some vinegar upon the
corpse in the open air. Take a piece of new oiled silkor a
transparent oil-cloth umbrellaand hold it between the sun and
the parts you want to examine. The wounds will then appear. If the
day is dark or rainyuse live charcoal [instead of the sun].
Suppose there is no resultthen spread over the parts pounded
white prunes with more grains and vinegarand examine closely. If
the result is still imperfectthen take the flesh only of the
pruneadding cayenne pepperonionssaltand grainsand mix it
up into a cake. Make this very hotand having first interposed a
sheet of paperlay it on the parts. The wound will then appear."
Hot vinegar and grains are always used previous to an examination of
the body to soften it and cause the wounds to appear more distinctly.
"But in winterwhen the corpse is frozen hardand no amount of
grains and vinegarhowever hotor clothes piled uphowever
thickwill relax its rigiditydig a hole in the ground of the
length and breadth of the body and three feet in depth. Lay in it
a quantity of fuel and make a roaring fire. Then dash over it
vinegarwhich will create dense volumes of steamin the middle
of which place the body with all its dressings right in the hole;
cover it over with clothes and pour on more hot vinegar all over
it. At a distance of two or three feet from the hole on either
side of it light firesand when you think the heat has thoroughly
penetratedtake away the fire and remove the body for
examination."
It is always a great point with the coroner to secure as soon as
possible the fatal weapon. If a long time has elapsed between the
murder and the inquestand no traces of blood are visible on the
knife or sword which may have been used"heat it red hot in a
charcoal fireand pour over it a quantity of first-rate vinegar. The
stains of blood will at once appear."
The note following this last sentence is still more extraordinary:--
"An inquest was held on the body of a man who had been murdered on
the high roadand at first it was thought that the murder had
been committed by robbersbut on examination the corpse was found
to be fully clothed and bearing the marks of some ten or more
wounds from a sickle. The coroner pointed out that robbers kill
their victims for the sake of bootywhich evidently was not the
case in the present instanceand declared revenge to be at the
bottom of it all. He then sent for the wife of the murdered man
and asked her if her husband had lately quarrelled with anybody.
She replied Nobut stated that there had been some high words
between her husband and another man to whom he had refused to lend
money. The coroner at once despatched his runners to the place
where this man livedto bid the people of that village produce
all their sickles without delayat the same time informing them
that the concealment of a sickle would be tantamount to a
confession of guilt. The sickles were accordingly producedin
number about eightyand spread out upon the ground. The season
being summer there were a great quantity of fliesall of which
were attracted by one particular sickle. The coroner asked to whom
this sickle belongedand lo! it belonged to him with whom the
murdered man had quarrelled about a loan. On being arrestedhe
denied his guilt; but the coroner pointed to the flies settling
upon the sickleattracted by the smell of bloodand the murderer
bent his head in silent acknowledgment of his crime."
Inquests are often held in China many years after the death of the
victim. Give a Chinese coroner merely the dry and imperfect skeleton
of a man known to have been murderedand he will generally succeed in
fixing the guilt on some one. To supplement thus by full and open
confession of the accused is a matter of secondary difficulty in a
country where torture may at any moment be brought to bear with
terrible efficacy in the cause of justice and truth. Its application
howeveris extremely rare.
"Man has three hundred and sixty-five bonescorresponding to the
number of days it takes the heavens to revolve. The skull of a
manfrom the nape of the neck to the top of the headconsists of
eight pieces--that of a Ts'ai-chow manof nine; women's skulls
are of six pieces. Men have twelve ribs on either side; women have
fourteen."
The above being sufficient to show where the Chinese are with regard
to the structure of the human framewe will now proceed to the
directions for examining bonesit may be months or even years after
death.
"For the examination of bones the day should be clear and bright.
First take clean water and wash themand then with string tie
them together in proper order so that a perfect skeleton is
formedand lay this on a mat. Then make a hole in the ground
five feet longthree feet broadand two feet deep. Throw into
this plenty of firewood and charcoaland keep it burning till the
ground is thoroughly hot. Clear out the fire and pour in two pints
of good spirit and five pounds of strong vinegar. Lay the bones
quickly in the steaming pit and cover well up with rushes&c. Let
them remain there for two or three hours until the ground is cold
when the coverings may be removedthe bones taken to a convenient
spotand examined under a red oil-cloth umbrella.
"If the day is dark or rainy the 'boiling' method must be adopted.
Take a large jar and heat in it a quantity of vinegar; then having
put in plenty of salt and white prunesboil it altogether with
the bonessuperintending the process yourself. When it is boiling
fasttake out the boneswash them in waterand hold up to the
light. The wounds will be perfectly visiblethe blood having
soaked into the wounded partsmarking them with red or dark blue
or black.
"The above method ishowevernot the only one. Take a new yellow
oil-cloth umbrella from Hangchowhold it over the bonesand
every particle of wound hidden in the bones will be clearly
visible. In cases where the bones are old and the wounds have been
obliterated by long exposure to wind and rain or dulled by
frequent boilingsit only remains to examine them in the sun
under a yellow umbrellawhich will show the wounds as far as
possible.
"There must be no zinc boiled with the bones or they will become
dull.
"Bones which have passed several times through the process of
examination become quite white and exactly like uninjured bones;
in which casetake such as should show wounds and fill them with
oil. Wait till the oil is oozing out all overthen wipe it off
and hold the bone up to the light; where there are wounds the oil
will collect and not pass; the clear parts have not been injured.
"Another method is to rub some good ink thick and spread it on the
bone. Let it dryand then wash it off. Where there are wounds
and there onlyit will sink into the bone. Or take some new
cotton wool and pass it over the bone. Wherever there is a wound
some will be pulled out [by the jagged parts of the bone]."
A whole chapter is devoted to counterfeit woundsthe means of
distinguishing them from real woundsand the manner in which they are
produced. Section 2 of the thirteenth chapter is on a cognate subject
namelyto ascertain whether wounds were inflicted before or after
death:--
"If there are several dark-coloured marks on the bodytake some
water and let it fall drop by drop on to them. If they are wounds
the water will remain without trickling away; if they are not
woundsthe water will run off. In examining woundsthe finger
must be used to press down any livid or red spot. If it is a wound
it will be hardand on raising the finger will be found of the
same colour as before.
"Wounds inflicted on the bone leave a red mark and a slight
appearance of saturationand where the bone is broken there will
be at either end a halo-like trace of blood. Take a bone on which
there are marks of a wound and hold it up to the light; if these
are of a fresh-looking redthe wound was afflicted before death
and penetrated to the bone; but if there is no trace of saturation
from bloodalthough there is a woundif was inflicted after
death."
In a chapter on wounds from kicksthe following curious instructions
are given regarding a "bone-method" of examination:--
"To depend on the evidence of the bone immediately below the wound
would be to let many criminals slip through the meshes of the law.
Where wounds have been thus inflictedno matter on man or woman
the wounds will be visible on the upper half of the bodyand not
on the lower. For instancethey will appear in a male at the
roots of either the top or bottom teethinside; on the right hand
if the wound was on the leftand /vice versa/; in the middle of
the wound was central. In womenthe wounds will appear on the
gums right or left as above."
The next extract needs no commentexcept perhaps that it forms the
most cherished of all beliefs in the whole range of Chinese medical
jurisprudence:--
"The bones of parents may be identified by their children in the
following manner. Let the experimenter cut himself or herself with
a knife and cause the blood to drip on to the bones; thenif the
relationship is an actual fact the blood will sink into the bone
otherwise it will not. N.B. Should the bones have been washed with
salt watereven though the relationship existsyet the blood
will not soak in. This is a trick to be guarded against
beforehand.
"It is also said that if parent and childor husband and wife
each cut themselves and let the blood drip into a basin of water
the two bloods will mixwhereas that of two people not thus
related will not mix.
"Where two brothers who may have been separated since childhood
are desirous of establishing their identity as suchbut are
unable to do so by ordinary meansbid each one cut himself and
let the blood drip into a basin. If they are really brothersthe
two bloods will congeal into one; otherwise not. But because fresh
blood will always congeal with the aid of a little salt or
vinegarpeople often smear the basin over with these to attain
their own ends and deceive others; thereforealways wash out the
basin you are going to use or buy a new one from a shop. Thus the
trick will be defeated.
"The above method of dropping blood on the bones may be used even
by a grandchilddesirous of identifying the remains of his
grandfather; but husband and wifenot being of the same flesh and
bloodit is absurd to suppose that the blood of one would soak
into the bones of the other. For such a principle would apply with
still more force to the case of a childwho had been suckled by a
foster-mother and had grown upindebted to her for half its
existence. With regard to the water methodif the basin used is
large and full of waterthe bloods will be unable to mix from
being so much diluted; and in the latter case where there is no
waterif the interval between dropping the two bloods into the
basin is too longthe first will get cold and they will not mix."
Not content with holding an inquest on the bones of a man who may have
been murdered five years beforea Chinese coroner quite as often
proceeds gravely to examine the wounds of a corpse which has been
reduced to ashes by fire and scattered to the four winds of heaven. No
mere eyewitness would dare to relate the singular process by which
such a result is achieved; but directions exist in black and whiteof
which the following is a close translation:--
"There are some atrocious villains whowhen they have murdered
any oneburn the body and throw the ashes awayso that there are
no bones to examine. In such cases you must carefully find out at
what time the murder was committed and where the body was burnt.
Thenwhen you know the placeall witnesses agreeing on this
pointyou may proceed without further delay to examine the
wounds. The mode of procedure is this. Put up your shed near where
the body was burntand make the accused and witnesses point out
themselves the very spot. Then cut down the grass and weeds
growing on this spotand burn large quantities of fuel till the
place is extremely hotthrowing on several pecks of hempseed. By
and by brush the place cleanand thenif the body was actually
burnt in this spotthe oil from the seed will be found to have
sunk into the ground in the form of a human figureand wherever
there were wounds on the dead manthere on this figure the oil
will be found to have collected togetherlarge or smallsquare
roundlongshortobliqueor straightexactly as they were
inflicted. The parts where there were no wounds will be free from
any such appearances. But supposing you obtain the outline only
without the necessary detail of the woundsthen scrape away the
masses of oillight a brisk fire on the form of the body and
throw on grains mixed with water. Make the fire burn as fiercely
as possibleand sprinkle vinegarinstantly covering it over with
a new well-varnished table. Leave the table on for a little while
and then take it off for examination. The form of the body will be
transferred to the table and the wounds will be distinct and clear
in every particular.
"If the place is wild and some time has elapsed since the deed was
doneso that the very murderer does not remember the exact spot
inquire carefully in what direction it was with regard to such and
such a village or templeand about how far off. If all agree on
this pointproceed in person to the placeand bid your
assistants go round about searching for any spots where the grass
is taller and stronger than usualmarking such with a mark. For
where a body has been burnt the grass will be darker in huemore
luxuriantand taller than that surrounding itand will not lose
these characteristics for a long timethe fat and grease of the
body sinking down to the roots of the grass and causing the above
results. If the spot is on a hillor in a wild place where the
vegetation is very luxuriantthen you must look for a growth
about the height of a man. If the burning took place on stony
groundthe crumbly appearance of the stones must be your guide;
this simplifies matters immensely."
Suchthenare a few of the absurdities which pass muster among the
credulous people of China as the result of deep scientific research;
but whether the educated classes--more especially those individuals
who devote themselves in the course of their official duties to the
theory and practice of /post mortem/ examinations--can be equally
gulled with the gaping crowd around themwe may safely leave our
readers to decide for themselves.
INQUESTSNO. II
Section IV. of the valuable work which formed the basis of our
preceding sketchis devoted to the enumeration of methods for
restoring human life after such casualties as drowninghanging
poisoning&c.some hours and even days after vitality has to all
appearances ceased. We shall quote as before from our own literal
translation.
"Where a man has been hanging from morning to nighteven though
already colda recovery may still be effected. Stop up the
patient's mouth tightly with your handand in a little over four
hours respiration will be restored. /Or/Take equal parts of
finely-powdered soap-bean and anemone hepaticaand blow a
quantity of this--about as much as a bean--into the patient's
nostrils.
"In all cases where men or women have been hangeda recovery may
be effected even if the body has become stiff. You must not cut
the body downbutsupporting ituntie the rope and lay it down
in some smooth place on its back with the head propped up. Bend
the arms and legs gentlyand let some one sitting behind pull the
patient's hair tightly. Straighten the armslet there be a free
passage through the wind-pipeand let two persons blow
incessantly into the ears through a bamboo tube or reedrubbing
the chest all the time with the hand. Take the blood from a live
fowl's comband drop it into the throat and nostrils--the left
nostril of a womanthe right of a man; also using a cock's comb
for a mana hen's for a woman. Re-animation will be immediately
effected. If respiration has been suspended for a long timethere
must be plenty of blowing and rubbing; do not think that because
the body is cold all is necessarily over.
"Where a man has been in the water a whole nighta recovery may
still be effected. Break up part of a mud wall and pound it to
dust; lay the patient thereon on his backand cover him up with
the sameexcepting only his mouth and eyes. Thus the water will
be absorbed by the mudand life will be restored. This method is
a very sure oneeven though the body has become stiff.
"In cases of injury from scaldingget a large oyster and put it
in a basin with its mouth upwards somewhere quite away from
anybody. Wait till its shell opensand then shake in from a spoon
a little Borneo camphormixed and rubbed into a powder with an
equal portion of genuine musk. The oyster will then close its
shell and its flesh will be melted into a liquid. Add a little
more of the above ingredientsand with a fowl's feather brush it
over the parts and round the woundgetting nearer and nearer
every time till at last you brush it into the wound; the pain will
thus gradually cease. A small oyster will do if a large one is not
to be had. This is a first-rate prescription.
"Where a man has fallen into the water in winterand has quite
lost all consciousness from coldif there is the least warmth
about the chestlife may still be restored. Should the patient
show the slightest inclination to laughstop up his nose and
mouth at onceor he will soon be unable to leave offand it will
be impossible to save him. On no account bring a patient hastily
to the firefor the sight of fire will excite him to immoderate
laughterand his chance of life is gone.
"In cases of nightmaredo not at once bring a lightor going
near call out loudly to the sleeperbut bite his heel or his big
toeand gently utter his name. Also spit on his face and give him
ginger tea to drink; he will then come round. /Or/Blow into the
patient's ears through small tubespull out fourteen hairs from
his headmake them into a twist and thrust into his nose. Also
give salt and water to drink. Where death has resulted from seeing
goblinstake the heart of a leek and push it up the patient's
nostrils--the left for a manthe right for a woman. Look along
the inner edge of the upper lips for blisters like grains of
Indian cornand prick them with a needle."
The work concludes with an antidote against a certain dangerous poison
known as /Ku/originally discovered by a Buddhist priest and
successfully administered in a great number of cases. Its ingredients
which comprise two red centipedes--one live and one roasted--must be
put into a mortar and pounded up together either on the 5th of the 5th
moonthe 9th of the 9th moonor the 8th of the 12th moonin some
place quite away from womenfowlsand dogs. Pills made from the
paste produced are to be swallowed one by one without mastication. The
preparation of this deadly /Ku/ poison is described in the last
chapter but one of Section III. in the following words:--
"Take a quantity of insects of all kinds and throw them into a
vessel of any kind; cover them up and let a year pass away before
you look at them again. The insects will have killed and eaten
each other until there is only one survivorand this one is
/Ku/."
In the next chapter we are informed that spinach eaten with tortoise
is poisonas also is shell-fish eaten with venison; that death
frequently results from drinking pond-water which has been poisoned by
snakesfrom drinking water which has been used for flowersor tea
which has stood uncovered through the nightfrom eating the flesh of
a fowl which has swallowed a centipedeand wearing clothes which have
been soaked with perspiration and dried in the sun. Finally
"A case is recorded of a man who tied his victim's hands and feet
and forced into his mouth the head of a snakeapplying fire at
the same time to its tail. The snake jumped down the man's throat
and passed into his stomachbut at the inquest held over the body
no traces of wounds were found to which death could be attributed.
Such a crimehowevermay be detected by examination of the bones
whichfrom the head downwardswill be found entirely of a bright
red colourcaused by the dispersion of the blood; and moreover
the more the bones are scraped awaythe brighter in colour do
they become."
It is difficult to speak of such a book as "Instructions toCoroners"
with anything like becoming gravityand yet it is one of the most
widely-read and highly-esteemed works in China; so much sothat
native scholars frequently throw it in the teeth of foreigners as one
of their many repertories of real wonder-working scienceequal to
anything that comes from the Westif only foreigners would take the
trouble to consult it. To satisfy our own curiosity on the subject we
bought a copy and translated it from beginning to end; but our readers
will perhaps be able to determine its scientific value from the few
quotations given aboveand agree with us that it would hardly be
worth while to learn Chinese for the pleasure or profit to be derived
from reading "Instructions to Coroners" in the original character.
CHRISTIANITY
The extraordinary feeling of hatred and contempt evinced by the
Chinese nation for missionaries of every denomination who settle in
their countrynaturally suggests the question whether Christianity is
likely to prove a boon to Chinaifindeedit ever succeeds in
taking root at all. That under the form of Roman Catholicismit once
had a chance of becoming the religion of the Empireand that that
chance was recklessly sacrificed to bigotry and intoleranceis too
well known to be repeated; but that such an opportunity will ever
occur again is quite beyond the boundsif not of possibilityat any
rate of probability. Missionary prospects are anything but bright in
China just nowin spite of rosily worded "reports" and annual
statistics of persons baptized. A respectable Chinaman will tell you
that only thieves and bad characters who have nothing to lose avail
themselves of baptismas a means of securing "long nights of
indolence and ease" in the household of some enthusiastic missionary
at from four to ten dollars a month. Educated men will not tolerate
missionaries in their housesas many have found to their cost; and
the fact cannot be concealed that the foreign community in China
suffers no small inconvenience and incurs considerable danger for a
cause with which a large majority of its members has no sympathy
whatever. It wouldhoweverbe invidious to dwell upon the class of
natives who allow themselves to be baptized and pretend to accept
dogmas they most certainly do not understandor on the mental and
social calibre of numbers of those gentlemen who are sent out to
convert them; we will confine ourselves merely to considering what
practical benefits Christianity would be likely to confer upon the
Chinese at large. And this we may fairly donot being of those who
hold that all will be damned but the sect of that particular church to
which they themselves happen to belong; but believing that the Chinese
have as good a chance as anybody else of whatever happiness may be in
store for the virtuouswhether they become Christians or whether they
do not.
In the course of eight years' residence in Chinawe have never met a
drunken man in the streets. Opium-smokers we have seen in all stages
of intoxication; but no drunken brawlsno bruised and bleeding wives.
Would Christianity raise the Chinese to the standard of European
sobriety? Would it bring them to renounce opiumonly to replace it
with gin? Would it cause them to become more frugalto live more
economically than they do now on their bowl of rice and cabbage
moistened with a drink of teaand perhaps supplemented with a few
whiffs of the mildest possible tobacco? Would it cause them to be more
industrious than--e.g.the wood-carvers of Ningpo who work daily from
sunrise to duskwith two short intervals for meals? Would it make
them more filial?--justly renowned as they are for unremitting care of
aged and infirm parents. More fraternal?--where every family is a
small societyeach member toiling for the common goodand being sure
of food and shelter if thrown out of work or enfeebled by disease.
More law-abiding?--we appeal to any one who has lived in Chinaand
mixed with the people. Would it make them more honest?--when many
Europeans confess that for straightforward business they would sooner
deal with Chinamen than with merchants of certain Christian
nationalities we shall not take upon ourselves to name. Should we not
run the risk of sowing seed for future and bloody religious wars on
soil where none now rage? To teach them justice in the administration
of law would be a glorious task indeedbut even that would have its
dark side. Litigation would become the order of the dayand a
rapacious class would spring into existence where lawyers and
barristers are now totally unknown. The striking phenomenon of extreme
wealth side by side with extreme povertymight be produced in a
country where absolute destitution is at present remarkably rareand
no one need actually starve; and thus would be developed a fine field
for the practice of that Christian charity which by demoralisation of
the poorer classes so skilfully defeats its own end. We should rejoice
if anything could make Chinamen less cruel to dumb animalsdesist
from carrying ducksgeeseand pigshanging by their legs to a pole
feed their hungry dogsand spare their worn-out beasts of burden. But
pigeon-shooting is unknownand gag-bearing reins have yet to be
introduced into China; neither have we heard of a poor heathen
Chinaman "skinning a sheep alive." (/Vide Daily Papers of July/ 12
1875.)
Last of allit must not be forgotten that China has already four
great religions flourishing in her midst. There is /Confucianism/
whichstrictly speakingis not a religionbut a system of
self-culture with a view to the proper government of (1) one's own
family and of (2) the State. It teaches man to be goodand to love
virtue for its own sakewith no fear of punishment for failureno
hope of reward for success. Is it below Christianity in this?
/Buddhism//Taoism/and /Mahomedanism/share the patronage of the
illiterateand serve to satisfy the natural craving in uneducated man
for something supernatural in which to believe and on which to rely.
The /literati/ are sheer materialists: they laugh at the absurdities
of Buddhismthough they sometimes condescend to practise its rites.
They strongly object to the introduction of a new religionand
successfully oppose it by every means in their power. They urgeand
with justicethat Confucius has laid down an admirable rule of life
in harmony with their own customsand that the conduct of those who
approximate to this standard would compare not unfavourably with the
practiceas distinguished from the professionof any religion in the
world.
ANTI-CHRISTIAN LYRICS
The following inflammatory placardwhich was posted up last year at a
place called Lung-p'ingnear the great tea mart of Hankowwill give
a faint idea of native prejudice against the propagation of
Christianity in China. The original was in verseand evidently the
work of a highly-educated man:--
Strange doctrines are speedily to be eradicated:
The holy teaching of Confucius is now in the ascendant.
There is but one most sacred religion:
There can be but one Mean.
By their great virtue Yao and Shun led the way
Alone able to expound the "fickle" and the "slight;"[*]
Confucius' teachings have not passed away
Yet working wonders in secret[+] has long been in vogue.
Be earnest in practising the ordinary virtues:
To extend filial pietybrotherly loveloyaltyand
consideratenessis to benefit one's-self.
Be careful in your speech
And marvelsfeats of strengthseditionand spirits[:] will
disappear from conversation.
I pray you do not listen to unsubstantiated words:
Then who will dare to deceive the age with soft-sounding phrases.
Our religion is for all who choose to seek it;
But we build no chapels to beguile the foolish.
Our true religion has existed from of oldup to the present day
undergoing no change.
Its true principles include in their application those of the middle
and outside nations alike.
Great is the advantage to us!
Great is the good influence on this generation!
Of all religions the only true one
What false doctrine can compare with it?
The /stillness/ and /cleanliness/ of Buddhism
The /abstruseness/ and /hollow mockery/ of Taoism--
These are but side-doors compared with ours;
Fit to be quittedbut not to be entered.
These are but by-paths compared with ours;
Fit to be blocked upbut not to be used.
How then about this onestranger than Buddhist or Taoist creed?
With its secret confusion of sexesunutterable!
More hurtful than all the dogmas of the other two;
Spreading far and wide the unfathomable poison of its mysteries.
Herein you must carefully discriminate
And not receive it with belief and veneration.
Those who now embrace Christ
Call him Lord of heaven and earth
Worshipping him with prayer
Deceiving and exciting the foolish
Dishonouring the holy teaching of Confucius.
I laugh at your hero of the cross
Whothough sacrificing his lifedid not preserve his virtue
complete.
Missions build chapels
But the desire to do good works is not natural to them.
The method of influencing the natures of women
Is but a trick to further base ends.
They injure boys by magical arts
And commit many atrocious crimes.
They say their religion is the only true one
But their answers are full of prevarication.
They say their book is the Holy Book
But the Old and New Testaments are like the songs of Wei and
Cheng.[!]
As to the people who are gradually being misled
I compassionate their ignorance;
As to the educated who are thus deceived
I am wroth at their want of reflection.
For these men are not of us;
We are like the horse and the cow;[@]
If you associate with them
Who will expel these crocodiles and snakes?
This is a secret grievance of the State
A manifest injury to the people!
Truly it is the eye-sore of the age.
You quietly look on unconcerned!
Imusing over the present state of men's hearts
Desire to rectify them.
Alas! the ways of devils are full of guile!
But man's disposition is naturally pure.
How then can men willingly walk with devils?
Youlike trees and plantswithout understanding
Allow the Barbarians to throw into confusion the Flowery Land.
Is it that no holy and wise men have appeared?
Under the Chow dynastywhen the barbarians were at the height of
their arrogance
The hand of Confucius and Mencius was laid upon them!
Under the T'ang when Buddhism was poisoning the age
Han and Hsi exterminated them.
Now these devils are working evil
Troubling the villages and market-places where they live.
Surely many heroes must come forward
To crush them with the pen of Confucius.
Turn then and consider
That were it not for my class[#]
None would uphold the true religion.
I say unto you
And you should give heed unto me
Believe not the nonsense of Redemption
Believe not the trickery of the Resurrection.
Set yourselves to find out the true path
And learn to distinguish between man and devil.
Pass not with loitering step the unknown ford
Nor bow the knee before the vicious and the depraved.
Wait not for Heaven to exterminate them
To find out that earth has a day for their destruction.
The shapelessvoiceless imp--
Why worship him?
His supernaturalunprincipled nonsense
Should surely be discarded.
Ye who think not so
When the devils are in your houses
They will covet your homes
And they will take the fingers and arms of your strong ones
To make claws and teeth for imps.
They excite people at first by specious talk
Not one jot of which is intelligible;
Then they destroy your reason
Making you wander far from the truth.
You throw over ancestral worship to enjoy none yourselves;
Your wives and children suffer pollution
And you are pointed at with the finger.
Thus heedlessly you injure eternal principles
Embracing filth and treasuring corruption
To your endless shame
And to your everlasting misfortune.
Finallyif in life your heads escape the axe
There will await you the excessive injury of the shroud.[$]
Judging by the crimes of your lives
Your corpses will be cast to scorpions and snakes.
The devils introduce this doctrine
Which grows like plants from seeds;
Some one must arise to punish them
And destroy their religion root and branch.
Hastenall of youto repent
And walk in the way of righteousness;
We truly pity you.
A warning notice to discard false doctrines!
[*] The fickle nature of men's mindsand slight regard for the true
doctrine.
[+] Forbidden by Confucius.
[:] Avoided by Confucius as topics.
[!] Licentious.
[@] The Chinese say horses prefer going againstcows withthe wind.
[#] The /literati/.
[$] Missionaries are said to keep the corpses of converts concealed
from public view between death and intermentthat the absence of
the dead man's eyes may not be detected.
CONCLUSION
"Surely it is manifest enough that by selecting the evidenceany
society may be relatively blackenedand any other society relatively
whitened."[*] We hope that no such principle of selection can be
traced in the preceding pages. Irritation against traducers of China
and her morality[+] may have occasionally tinged our views with a
somewhat rosy hue; but we have all along felt the danger of this bias
and have endeavoured to guard against it. We have no wish to exalt
China at the expense of European civilisationbut we cannot blind
ourselves to the fact that her vices have been exaggeratedand her
virtues overlooked. Only the bigoted or ignorant could condemn with
sweeping assertions of immorality a nation of many millions absolutely
freeas the Chinese arefrom one such vice as drunkenness; in whose
cities may be seen--what all our legislative and executive skill
cannot secure--streets quiet and deserted after nine or ten o'clock at
night. Add to this industryfrugalitypatriotism[:] and a boundless
respect for the majesty of office: it then only remains for us to
acknowledge that China is after all "a nation of much talentandin
some respectseven wisdom."[!]
[*] Spencer's Sociology: The Bias of Patriotism.
[+] "The miseries and horrors (?) which are now destroying (?) the
Chinese Empire are the direct and organic result of the moral
profligacy of its inhabitants."--/Froude's Short Studies on Great
Subjects/.
[:] "Every patriotic Chinese--and there are millions of such."--/Dr
Legge to London and China Telegraph/July 51875.
[!] Mill's Essay on Liberty.