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 theirargot, as with us, intelligible only to each other; and phrases constantly occur, even in refined conversation, the original of which can be traced infallibly to the kennel.Why so much paint?is the equivalent ofWhat a swell you are!and is specially expressive in China, where 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 work, and is peculiarly comprehensible in a country where so much transport is effected in this laborious way. Barrows are common all over the Empire, both for the conveyance of goods and passengers; and where long distances have to be traversed, donkeys 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 theirturnhas come, just as a turn of official duty comes round to every Manchu in Peking, and in the same inevitable way. Vaccination is gradually dispelling this erroneous notion, but the phrase we have given is not likely to disappear.
A magistrate who hasskinned the place clean, has extorted every possible cash from the district committed to his charge—a "father and mother" of the people, as his grasping honour is called.That horse has a mane, says the Chinese housebreaker, speaking 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 law, likening official greed to dust, which requires a liberal outlay of water in the shape of banknotes to make it lie. Aflowery billis understood from one end of China to the other as that particular kind in which our native servants delight to indulge, namely, an account charging twice as much for everything as was really paid, and containing twice as much in quantity as was actually supplied. Aflowery suitis a case in which women play a prominent part.You scorched me yesterdayis a quiet way of remarking that an appointment was broken, and implying that the rays of the sun were unpleasantly hot.Don't pick out the sugaris 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 exercise, and the temptation to hire a donkey, and squeeze the fare out of the money given them for other purposes.That house is not clean inside, signifies that devils and bogies, so dreaded by the Chinese, have taken up their residence therein; in fact, that the house is haunted.He's all rice-water, i.e., gives one plenty of the water in which rice has been boiled, but none of the rice itself, is said of a man who promises much and does nothing.One load between the twois very commonly said of two men who have married two sisters. In China, a coolie's "load" consists of two baskets or bundles slung with ropes to the end of a flat bamboo pole about five feet in length, and 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 dead, the verb "to die" being rarely used in conversation, and never of a relative or friend. He will notput a new string to his guitaris, of course, a continuation of the same idea, more coarsely expressed asputting on a new coat. His father has beengathered to the west—a phrase evidently of Buddhistic import—is no more, has gone for a stroll, has bid adieu to the world, may all be employed to supply the place of the tabooed verb, which is chiefly used of animals and plants. After a few days' illnesshe kicked, is a vulgar way of putting it and analogous to the English slang idiom. The Emperorbecomes a guest on high, riding up to heaven on the dragon's back, with flowers of rhetoric ad nauseam; Buddhist priestsrevolve into emptiness, i.e., are annihilated; the soul of the Taoist priestwings its flight away.
Only a candle-end leftis said of an affair which nears completion;redandwhite mattersare marriages and deaths, so called from the colour of the clothes worn on these important occasions. A blushing personfires up, or literally,ups fire, according to the Chinese idiom. To be fond ofblowingresembles our modern termgassing. Alose-money-goodsis a daughter as compared with a son who can go out in the world and earn money, whereas a daughter must be provided with a dowry before any one will marry her. A more genuine metaphor is athousand ounces of silver; it expresses the real affection Chinese parents have for their daughters as well as their sons. Tolet the dog outis the same as our letting the cat out; torun against a nailis allied to kicking against the pricks. A man of superficial knowledge is calledhalf a bottle of vinegar, though why vinegar, in preference to anything else, we have not been able to discover. He has alwaysgot his gun in his handis a reproach launched at the head of some confirmed opium debauchee, one of those few reckless smokers to whom opium is indeed a curse. They haveburnt paper together, makes it clear to a Chinese mind that the persons spoken of have gone through the marriage service, part of which ceremony consists in burning silver paper, made up to resemble lumps of the pure metal.We have splitis one of those happy idioms which lose nothing in translation, being word for word the same in both languages, and with exactly the same meaning.A crooked stickis 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 old, because the date at which it came into existence can be fixed with unerring certainty, and because it is commonly used in all parts of China, though hardly one educated man in ten would be able to tell the reason why. A jealous woman is saidto drink vinegar, and the origin of the term is as follows:—Fang Hsuan-ling was the favourite Minister of the Emperor T'ai Tsung, of 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 wife, but the first or real wife made the place too hot for the poor girl to live in. Fang complained to the Emperor, who gave him a bowl of poison, telling him to offer his troublesome wife the choice between death and peaceable behaviour for the future. The lady instantly chose the former, and drank up the bowl ofvinegar, which the Emperor had substituted to try her constancy. Subsequently, on his Majesty's recommendation, Fang sent the young lady back to resume her duties as tire-woman to the Empress. But the phrase lived, and has survived to this day.
Everybody who has frequented the narrow, dirty streets of a Chinese town must be familiar with one figure, unusually striking where all is novel and much is grotesque. It is that of an old man, occasionally white-bearded, wearing a pair of enormous spectacles set in clumsy rims of tortoiseshell or silver, and sitting before a small table on which are displayed a few mysterious-looking tablets inscribed with characters, paper, pencils, and ink. We are in the presence of a fortune-teller, a seer, a soothsayer, a vates; or better, a quack who trusts for his living partly to his own wits, and partly to the want of them in the credulous numskulls who surround him. These men are generally old, and 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 book, can 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 China, so 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 education, some months' study of the art, and a good memory. For there really are certain principles which guide every member of the fraternity. These are derived from books written on the subject, and 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 cashForetelling any single event with joss-stick, 16 cashTelling a fortune . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 cashTelling a fortune in detail . . . . . . . . . 50 cashTelling a fortune by reading the stars . . . 50 cashFixing the marriage day . . . . . . . According to agreement
In case he merely wants an answer on a given subject, he puts his question and receives the reply at once on a slip of paper. But if he desires to have his fortune told, he dictates the year, month, day, and hour of his birth, which 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—gold, wood, water, fire, and earth—make their appearance, certain results are deduced upon which details may be grafted according to the fancy of the fortune-teller. The same combinations of figures, i.e., characters, will 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 reading, the explanation thereof, that any material difference can be detected between the reckonings of any two of these philosophers, which amounts to saying that whoever makes the greatest number of happy hits beyond the mere technicalities common to all, is 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 cash, paid 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 expired, and 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, month, day, and hour of our birth, is made perfectly clear by a sum showing every step in the working of the problem, though we must confess it appeared to us a humbugging jumble, the most prominent part of which was the answer. We found among other things thatearthpredominated in the combination: hence our inability to grasp wealth.Waterwas happily deficient, and on this datum we were blessed in anticipation with three sons, to 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 are so fond of calling them. For this rubbish they freely spend their hard-earned wages, consulting 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 supply, however, is not more than adequate to the demand, albeit they swarm in every street and thoroughfare of a Chinese city.
Chinamen suffer horribly fromennui—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 that, they despise it as fit only for the ignorant and low. Yet they have not supplied its place with anything intellectual, and the most casual observer cannot fail to notice that China has no national game. Fencing, rowing, and cricket, are alike unknown; and archery, such as it is, claims the attention chiefly of candidates for official honours. Within doors they have chess, but it is not the game Europeans recognise by that name, nor 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 squares, but 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 Christ, so that granting an error of a couple of thousand years or so, it is still a very ancient pastime. Dominoes are known, but not much patronised; cards, on the other hand, are very common, the favourite games being those in which almost everything is left to chance. As to open-air amusements, youths of the baser sort indulge in battledore and shuttlecock without the battledore, and every resident in China must have admired the skill with which the foot is used instead, at this foot-shuttlecock game. Twirling heavy bars round the body, and gymnastics generally, are practised by the coolie and horse-boy classes; but the disciple of Confucius, who 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 this, finger-nails an inch and a half long, guarded with an elaborate silver sheath, are decidedlyimpedimentain the way of athletic success. No,—when the daily quantum of reading has been achieved, a 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 shops, or seek out some friend asennuyeas 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 club, meeting at certain periods to read essays or poems on subjects previously agreed upon by all. We heard of one youth who, burning for the poet's laurel, produced the following quatrain onsnow, 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 down, not being able to get an appropriate rhyme toflat." A wag who was present suggestedfat, pointing out that the dog's increased bulk by the snow falling on his back fully justified the meaning, and, what is of equal importance in Chinese poetry, the antithesis.
[*] Namely, (1) the literati, (2) agriculturists, (3) artisans, and(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 time, the nature of the written language offering unlimited facilities for the formation of the latter. Chinese riddles, by which term we include conundrums, charades,et hoc genus omne, are similar to our own, and occupy quite as large a space in the literature of the country. They are generally in doggerel, of which the following may be taken as a specimen, being like the last a word-for-word translation:—
Little boy red-jacket, whither away?To the house with the ivory portals I stray.Say will you come back, little red-coat, again?My bones will return, but 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 this is by no means the case with all Chinese riddles, many 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 lantern, and hang it in the evening at the street door, with 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 tree, fruit, animal, or book, the 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 indulged, we might praise the simplicity of their morals, and contrast them favourably with the excitement of European life. But there is just one more little solace for leisure, and too often business hours, of which we have not yet spoken. Gambling is, of course, the distraction to which we allude; a vice ten times more prevalent than opium-smoking, and proportionately demoralising in its effect upon the national character. In private life, there is always some stake however small; take it away, and to a Chinaman the object of playing any game goes too. In public, the 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. Here, it is a bamboo tube full of sticks, with numbers burnt into the concealed end, from which the customer draws; at another stall dice are thrown into an earthenware bowl, and so on. Every hungry coolie would rather take his chance of getting nothing at all, with the prospect of perhaps obtaining three times his money's worth, than 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 frequentpresentswith 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 treasury, is met bya brutum fulmenin the shape of a proclamation, setting forth how "it having come to my ears that, regardless of law, and in the teeth of my frequent warnings, certain evil-disposed persons have dared to open public gambling-houses, be it hereby made known," &c., &c., the whole document being liberally interspersed with allusions to the men of old, the laws of the reigning dynasty, and filial pietya discretion. The upshot of this is that within twenty-four hours after its appearance his honour's wrath is appeased, and croupiers and gamblers go on in the same old round as if nothing whatever had happened.
Law,[*] as we understand the term, with all its paradoxes and refinements, is utterly unknown to the Chinese, and 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. Further, it would be quite impossible to persuade even the most enlightened native that the Bar is an honourable profession, and 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 themselves, to be met with in every Chinese town of importance, and 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 cases, in so far as they are able to do this by the preparation of skilfully-worded petitions or counter-petitions, and by otherwise giving their advice. Of course they do not appear in court, for their very existence is forbidden, but their services are largely availed of by the people, especially the poor and ignorant. At the trial, prosecutor and accused must each manage his own case, the magistrate himself doing all the cross-examination. We sayprosecutorandaccusedadvisedly, for as a matter of fact civil cases are rare in China, such questions as arise in the way of trade being almost invariably referred to some leading guild, whose arbitration is accepted without appeal. Now, we know of no such book as "Laws of Evidence" in the whole range of Chinese literature; yet we believe firmly that the intellects which adorn our own bench are not more keen in discriminating truth from falsehood, and detecting at a glance the corrupt witness, than the semi-civilised native functionary —that is, when no silver influences have been brought to bear upon his judgment. The Chinese have a penal code which, allowing for the difference in national customs and habits of thought, stands almost unrivalled; and with this solitary work their legal literature begins and ends. It is regarded by the people as an inspired book, though few know much beyond the title, and seems to answer its purpose well.
[*] Civil law.
But inasmuch as in China as elsewheresummum jusis not infrequentlysumma injuria, a clever magistrate never hesitates to set aside law or custom, and deal out Solomonic justice with an unsparing hand, provided always he can shew that his course is one whichreasoninfallibly dictates. Such an officer wins golden opinions from the people, and 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 one, less than twenty years ago, there 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 acumen, and 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 man, passing 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 it, but 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 trouble, he determined to wait on the spot for the owner and rest content with the "thanks money" he was entitled by Chinese custom to claim as a right. Very shortly he saw a stranger approaching, with his eyes bent on the ground, evidently in search of something; whereupon he made up to him and asked at once if anything was the matter. Explanations followed, and the Tls. 50 note was restored to its lawful possessor, who, recovering himself instantaneously, asked where the other one was, and went on to say that he had losttwonotes of the same value, and that on recovery of the other one he would reward the finder as he deserved, but 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 "second Prefect" happened to come round the corner, who, seeing there was a row, stopped his chair, and 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 finder, telling him to go on his way rejoicing; while, turning to the ungrateful loser, he sternly bade him wait till he met some one who had foundtwonotes of that value, and from him endeavour to recover his lost property.
[*] Fifty taels, equal to about 15 pounds.
From the previous sketch it may readily be gathered that the state of Chinese law, both civil[*] and criminal, is 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 rights, and are compelled to avail ourselves thereof, we can regard the Chinese nation onlyde haut en bas; while, on the other hand, our very presence under such, to them abnormal conditions, will 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 mandarins, we fear that even science, with all its resources, will 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 one, and all the insults offered to the other.
[*] That is, local custom.
It is in the happily unfrequent cases of homicide where a native and a foreigner play the principal parts, that certain discrepancies between Chinese and Western law, rules of procedure and evidence, besides several other minor points, stand out in the boldest and most irreconcilable relief. To begin with, the Penal Code and all its modifications of murder, answering in some respects to our distinction between murder and manslaughter, is but little known to the people at large. Nay, the very officials who administer these laws are generally as grossly ignorant of them as it is possible to be, and 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 fact, to guide the judge in delivering a proper verdict, and one such as must meet with the approbation of his superiors. The people, on the other hand, know 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 payments, but if the relatives should steadily refuse to forego their revenge, few officials would risk their own position by failing to fix the guilt somewhere. As a rule, it is not difficult to obtain the conviction and capital punishment of any native, or his substitute, who has murdered a foreigner, and 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 accident, in both of which instances the Chinese would clamour for the extreme penalty of the law. Further,hearsayis evidence in a Chinese court of justice, and if several witnesses appeared who could only say that some one else told them that the accused had committed the murder, it would go just as far to strangling or beheading him, as if they had said they saw the deed themselves. The accused is, moreover, not only allowed to criminate himself, but no case being complete without a full confession on the part of the guilty man, torture might be brought into play to extort from him the necessary acknowledgment. It is plain, therefore, that Chinese officials prosecuting on behalf of their injured countrymen, are quite at sea in an English court, and their case often falling through for want of proper evidence, they return home cursing the injustice done to them by the hated barbarians, and longing for the day which will dawn upon their extermination from the Flowery Land.
On the other hand, the examination of Chinese witnesses, either in a civil or criminal case, is 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 language, now gradually yielding to methodical and persevering study, the peculiar bent of the Chinese mind, with all its prejudices and superstitions, is quite as much an obstacle in the way of eliciting truth as any offered by the fantastic, but still amenable, varieties of Chinese syntax. We believe that native officials have the power, though it does not always harmonise with their interests to exercise it, of arriving at as just and equitable decisions in the majority of cases brought before them, as any English magistrate who knows "Taylor's Law of Evidence" from beginning to end. They accomplish this by a knowledge of character, unparalleled perhaps in any country on the globe, which enables them to distinguish readily, and without such constant recourse to torture as is generally supposed, between the false and honest witness. The study of mankind in China is, beyond all doubt—man and his motives for action on every possible occasion, and under every possible condition. Thus it is, we may remark, that the Chinese fail to appreciate the efforts made for their good by missionaries and others, because 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—though, as a facetious writer in theShanghai Courierlately remarked, they live in the best houses, and 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-countrymen, and 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 justice, the first difficulty consists generally in swearing the witnesses. Old books on China, which told great lies without much danger of conviction, mention cock-killing and saucer-breaking as among the most binding forms of Chinese oaths. The common formula, however, which we consider should be adopted in preference to any hybrid expression invented for the occasion, is an invocation to heaven and earth to listen to the statements about to be made, and to punish the witness for any deviation from the truth. This is sensible enough, and 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 district, his own name, his age, the age of his father and mother (if alive), the maiden name of his wife, her age, the number and the ages of his children, and many more questions of similar relevancy and importance, before a single effort is made towards eliciting any one fact bearing upon the subject under investigation. With a stereotyped people like the Chinese, it does not do to ignore these trifles of form and custom; on the contrary, the witness should rather be allowed to wander at will through such useless details until he has collected his scattered thoughts, and may be safely coaxed on to divulge something which partakes more of the nature of evidence. Under proper treatment, a 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 officials, but even then it is not absolutely impossible to defeat his dishonesty. Occasionally a question will be put by a foreigner to an unsophisticated boor, never 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 asked, in reference to a collision case, at what rate he thought the tide was running. The witness hesitated, looked up, down, on either side, and behind him; finally he replied:—"I am a poor boatman; I only earn one hundred and fifty cash a day, and how can you expect me to know at what rate the tide was running?"
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 countrymen, not only as one who has shirked the cares and responsibilities to which all flesh is heir, but as a misguided outcast who has voluntarily resigned the glorious title and privileges of that divinely-gifted being represented by the symbolman. With his own hands he has severed the five sacred ties which distinguish him from the brute creation, in 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 Empire, his duty to his sovereign is incomplete. Marrying no wife, his affinity, the complement of his earthly existence, sinks into a virgin's grave. Rearing no children, his 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 ties, he 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 name, and is frequently shocked by some western tyro in Chinese who, thinking to pay the everyday compliment bandied between Chinamen, asks to his intense disgust—"What is your honourable name?" The unfortunate priest has substituted a "religious designation" for the patronymic he discarded when parents, brethren, home, and 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 diet, they 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 ignorant, work upon the fears of, and frequently corrupt, their 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 Chinamen, and 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 men, who, with all the abundant leisure at their command, are rarely of sufficient education to be mentioned in the same breath with an ordinary graduate. Occasionally there have been exceptions to the rule, but 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 pearl, which the old man immediately bestowed upon a beggar he espied among the crowd. His Majesty was somewhat taken aback at this act of rudeness, and asked him if he always gave away everything in the same manner. On receiving an affirmative reply, the Emperor added, "Even down to the crutch on which you lean?" "Ah," said the priest, "it is written that 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."
Cleanliness, again, is an especial attribute of Buddhism, and in a few temples in the south there is an attempt to make some show in this direction; but as regards the person, priests are dirtier if anything than the humblest members of their flock. It is laughable indeed to hear them chant theChing, ignorant as ninety-nine per cent. are of every word they are saying, for of late the study of Sanskrit has been utterly and entirely neglected. Their duties, however, in this respect are as much curtailed as possible, except when wafting with their prayers some spirit of the dead to the realms of bliss above. In such cases it is a matter of business, a 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 mass, in 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 lying, shameless, debauched class; and we do so, wondering how Buddhism has retained its hold so long over an intellectual people possessed of an elaborate moral code, which has been for centuries the acknowledged standard of right and wrong, and which condemns all fear or hope of an unknown and unseen world.
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 which, as far as calligraphy goes, justly take precedence of those of any other language on the globe. Not content with mere reduction by fire, a conscientious Chinaman will collect the ashes thus produced, and sealing them up in some earthen vessel, will 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 payingchiffoniersto collect such remnants of written paper as they may find lying about the streets, and 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 elsewhere, but 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 scholar, and distributed gratis among his erring countrymen:—
"From of old down to the present time our sages have devotedthemselves to the written character—that fairest jewel in heavenabove or earth beneath. Those, therefore, who are stimulated by athirst forfame, strive to attain their end by the excellency oftheir compositions; others, attracted by desire for wealth, pursuetheir object with the help of day-book and ledgers. In both casesmen would be helpless without a knowledge of the art of writing.How, indeed, could despatches be composed, agreements drawn up,letters exchanged, and genealogies recorded, but for theassistance of the written character? By what means would a manchronicle the glory of his ancestors, indite the marriage deed, orcomfort anxious parents when exiled to a distant land? In what waycould he secure property to his sons and grandchildren, borrow orlend money, enter into partnership, or divide a patrimony, butwith the testimony of written documents? The very labourer in thefields, tenant of a few acres, must have his rights guaranteed inblack and white; and household servants require more than verbalassurance that their wages will not fail to be paid. Theprescription of the physician, about to call back some sufferingpatient from the gates of death, is taken down with pen and ink;and the prognostication of the soothsayer, warning men of evil orpredicting good fortune, exemplifies in another direction the useof the written character. In a word, the art of writing enrichesand ennobles man, hands him over to life or death, confers uponhim honours and distinctions, or covers him with abuse and shame."Of late, however, our schools have turned out an arrogant andignorant lot—boys who venture to use old books for wrappingparcels or papering windows, for boiling water, or wiping thetable; boys, I say, who scribble over their books, who writecharacters on wall or door, who chew up the drafts of their poems,or throw them away on the ground. Let all such be severelypunished by their masters that they may be saved, while there isyet time, from the wrath of an avenging Heaven. Some men use oldpawn-tickets for wrapping up things—it may be a cabbage or apound of bean-curd. Others use lottery-tickets of variousdescriptions for wrapping up a picked vegetable or a slice ofpork, with no thought of the crime they are committing as long asthere is a cash to be made or saved. So also there are those whoexchange their old books for pumeloes or ground-nuts, to bedefiled with the filth of the waste-paper basket, and passed fromhand to hand like the cheques of the barbarian. Alas, too, forwomen when they go to fairs, for children who are sent to market!They cannot read one single character: they know not the pricelessvalue of written paper. They drop the wrapping of a parcel in themire for every passer-by to tread under foot. Their crime,however, will be laid at the door of those who erred in the firstinstance (i.e., those who sold their old books to theshopkeepers). For they hoped to squeeze some profit, infinitesimalindeed, out of tattered or incomplete volumes; forgetting in theirgreed that they were dishonouring the sages, and laying up forthemselves certain calamity. Why then sacrifice so much for suchtrifling gain? How much better a due observance of time-honouredcustom, ensuring as it would a flow of prosperity continuous andeverlasting as the waves of the sea! O ye merchants andshopkeepers, know that in heaven as on earth written words areesteemed precious as the jade, and whatever is marked therewithmust not be cast aside like stones and tiles. For happiness,wealth, honours, distinctions, and old age, may be one and allsecured by a proper respect for written paper."