Educated Chinamen loudly disclaim any participation in the superstitious beliefs which, to a European eye, hang like a dark cloud over an otherwise intellectually free people. There never has been a State religion in China, and it has always been open to every man to believe and practise as much or as little as he likes of Buddhism, Taoism, or Mahomedanism, without legal interference or social stigma of any kind. Of course it is understood that such observances must be purely self-regarding, and that directly they assume—as lately in the case of Mahomedanism—anything of a political character, the Chinese Government is not slow to protect the unity of the Empire by the best means in its power. And so, but for the suicidal zeal of Christian missions and their supporters, who have effected an unnatural amalgamation of religion and politics, and carried the Bible into China at the point of the bayonet, the same toleration might now be accorded to Christianity which the propagators of other religions have hitherto been permitted to enjoy.
As to religion in China, it 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;" and, as he further observed, the 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 state, he has preserved a most discreet silence. "While you do not know life, how can you know about death?" was the rebuke he administered to a disciple who urged some utterance on the problem of most interest to mankind. And yet, in spite of the extreme healthiness of Confucian ethics, there has grown up, around both the political and social life of the Chinese, such a tangled maze of superstition, that it is no wonder if all intellectual advancement has been first checked, and has then utterly succumbed. The ruling classes have availed themselves of its irresistible power to give them a firmer hold over their simple-hearted, credulous subjects; they have practised it in its grossest forms, and 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 China, a distinguished scholar, statesman, and general, prostrated himself before a diminutive water-snake, in 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 Viceroy, Lu Hung-chang, who has recently armed the forts at the mouth and on the banks of the Peiho with Krupp's best guns, instead of trusting, as would be consistent, the issue of a future war to the supernatural efforts of some Chinese Mars.
Turning now to the literature of China, we cannot but be astonished at the mass of novels which are one and all of the same tendency; in fact, not only throughout the entire stratum of Chinese fiction, but even in that of the gravest philosophical speculations, has the miraculous been introduced as a natural and necessary element. The following passage, taken from the writings of Han Wen-kung, whose 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 desert, which 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 withoutform, such as wind and thunder; others again have both form andsound, such as men and animals; and lastly, there is a classdevoid of both, namely,devils and spirits."
Descending to the harmless superstition of domestic life, we find that the cat washing her face is not, as with us, a sign of rain, but that a stranger is coming. On the other hand, "strangers" in tea portend, as with us, the arrival of some unlooked-for guest, tall or short, fat or lean, according 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 time, as 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.
It is a question of more than ordinary interest to those who regard the Chinese people as a worthy object of study, What 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 known, foreign ears being periodically stunned by the gonging of an excited crowd of natives, who are endeavouring with hideous noises to prevent some imaginary dog of colossal proportions from banqueting, as the case may be, upon 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 persons, who not only ought to know better themselves, but should be making some effort to enlighten their less fortunate countrymen instead of joining in the din. Such a hold, however, as superstition on the minds of the best informed in a Chinese community, that under the influence of any real or supposed danger, philosophy and Confucius are scattered to the four winds of Heaven, and the proudest disciple of the Master proves himself after all but a man.
Leaving the literati to take care of themselves, and confining our attention to the good-tempered, joyous, hospitable working-classes of China, we find many curious beliefs on subjects familiar among western nations to every national school-boy. The earth, for instance, is popularly believed to be square; and the heavens a kind of shell or covering, studded 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 sudden, nor would the ship appear to sink. But at the last moment, when we felt that conviction was entering into his soul and that another convert had been made to the great cause of scientific truth, he calmly replied that it was written—"Heaven is round, earth is square," and he didn't very well understand how books could be wrong!
The sun is generally supposed to pass at sunset into the earth, and 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 clouds, and the rainbow is believed to be formed by the breath of an enormous oyster which lives somewhere in the middle of the sea, far away from land. Comets and eclipses of the sun are looked upon as special warnings to the throne, and 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 thunder, lightning, and hail, regarded 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 England, as evidenced by the English wordthunderstruck. Sir Philip Sydney writes:—"I remained as a man thunder-stricken." Secondly, death by thunder is regarded as a punishment for some secret crime committed against human or divine law, and 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 Lightning, holding 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. Similarly, hail is looked upon as an instrument of punishment in the hands of the Hail God, directed 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 province, nay, each town, has its own particular set of superstitions on a variety of subjects; the above, however, dealing with the most important of all natural phenomena, will 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 classes, who are well aware of their value in the government of an excitable people. The Emperor himself prays loud and long for rain, fine weather, or snow, according as either may be needed by the suffering crops, and 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.
China New Year!—What a suggestive ring have those three words for "the foreigner in far Cathay."[*] What visions do they conjure up of ill-served tiffins, of wages forestalled, of petty thefts and perhaps a burglary; what thoughts of horrid tom-toms and ruthless fire-crackers, making day hideous as well as night; what apparitions of gaudily-dressed butlers and smug-faced coolies, their rear brought up by man's natural enemy in China—the cook, for 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 gifts, his countenance wore a placid appearance."—Analects: ch. x.
New Year's Day is the one great annual event in Chinese social and political life. An Imperial birthday, even an Imperial marriage, pales before the important hour at which all sublunary affairs are supposed to start afresh, every account balanced and every debt paid. About ten days previously the administration of public business is nominally suspended; offices are closed, official seals carefully wrapped up and given into the safe keeping of His Honour's or His Excellency's wife.[*] The holidays last one month, and during that time inaction is the order of the day, it being forbidden to punish criminals, or even to stamp, and consequently to write, a despatch on any subject whatever. The dangerous results, however, that might ensue from a too liberal observance of the latter prohibition are nearly anticipated by stamping beforehand a number of blank sheets of paper, so that, if occasion requires, a 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 othersagainst the degradation-of-women-in-China doctrine.
The New Year is the season of presents. Closely-packed boxes of Chinese cake, biscuits, and crystallised fruit, are presented as tributes of respect to the patriarchs of the family; grapes from Shansi or Shan-tung, hams from Foochow, and lichees from Canton, all form fitting vehicles for a declaration of friendship or of love. Now, too, the birthday gifts offered by every official in the Empire to his immediate superior, are supplemented by further propitiatory sacrifices to the powers that be, without which tenure of office would be at once troublesome and insecure. Such are known asdry, in contradistinction to thewaterpresents exchanged between relatives and friends. The latter are wholly, or at any rate in part, articles of food prized among the Chinese for their delicacy or rarity, perhaps 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 better, for beneath that smiling fruit lie concealed certain bank-notes or shoes of silver of unimpeachable touch, which form a unit in the sum of that functionary's income, and enable him in his turn to ingratiate himself with the all-powerful Viceroy, while 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[*] alike, the 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 Hearth, and 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 heaven, and lest aught of the disclosures he might make should entail unpleasant consequences, it is adjudged best that he shall be rendered incapable of making any disclosures at all. With this view, quantities 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 timepar excellencefor cracker-firing, though, as everybody knows, these abominations begin some days previously. Every one, however, may 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 over, so that the influences of the young year may be uncontaminated by their presence. New Year's eve is no season for sleep: in fact, Chinamen almost think it obligatory on a respectable son of Han to sit up all night. Indeed, unless his bills are paid, he would have a poor chance of sleeping even if he wished. His persevering creditor would not leave his side, but would sit there threatening and pleading by turns until he got his money or effected a compromise. Even should it be past twelve o'clock, the 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 exceptions, but 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. Then, with the first streaks of dawn, begins that incessant round of visits which is such a distinguishing feature of the whole proceedings. Dressed out in his very best, official hat and boots, button and peacock's feather, if 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 cards, he presents himself first at the houses of the elder branches of the family, or visits the friends of his father; when all the seniors have been disposed of, he seeks out his own particular cronies, of his own age and standing. If in the service of his country, he 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 eat, a fresh supply of cakes, fruit, and wine, being brought in for each guest as he arrives. While thus engaged his father, or perhaps brother, will be doing the honours at home, ready to take their turn as occasion may serve. "New joy, new joy; get rich, get rich," is the equivalent of our "Happy New Year," and is bandied about from mouth to mouth at this festive season, until petty distinctions of nationality and creed vanish before the conviction that, at least in matters of sentiment, Chinamen and Europeans meet upon common ground. Yet there is one solitary exception to the rule—an unfortunate being whom no one wishes to see prosperous, and whom nobody greets with the pleasant phrase, "Get rich, get rich." It is the coffin-maker.
[*] Chinese society is divided into two classes—officials andnon-officials.[+] No matter whether by merit or by purchase.
A great Chinese festival is the Feast of Lanterns, one 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 China, and whose ideas about the country are limited to a confused jumble of pigtails, birds'-nest soup, and thekotow. Its advent may or may not be noticed by residents in China; though if they know the date on which it falls, we 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 dynasty, or, in round numbers, about two thousand years ago. Originally it was a ceremonial worship in the temple of the First Cause, and lasted from the 13th to the 16th of the first moon, bringing to a close on the latter date all the rejoicings, feastings, and visitings consequent upon the New Year. In those early days it had no claim to its present title, for 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 nature, and the custom was introduced of illuminating the streets with many a festoon of those gaudy paper lanterns, without which now no nocturnal fete is thought complete. Another three hundred years passed away without change, and then two more days were added to the duration of the carnival, making it six days in all. For this it was necessary to obtain the Imperial sanction, and such was ultimately granted to a man named Ch'ien, in consideration of an equivalent which, as history hints, might be very readily expressed in taels. The whole thing now lasts from the 13th of the moon, the day on which it is customary to light up for the first time, to the 18th inclusive, when all the fun and jollity is over and the serious business of life begins anew. The 15th is the great time, work of every kind being as entirely suspended as it is with us on Christmas Day. At night the candles are lighted in the lanterns, and crackers are fired in every direction. The streets are thronged with gaping crowds, and cut-purses make small fortunes with little or no trouble. There being no policemen in a Chinese mob, and as the cry of "stop thief" would meet with no response from the bystanders, a thief has simply to look out for some simple victim, snatch perhaps his pipe from his hand, or his pouch from his girdle, and 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 both, though for reasons not generally known to uneducated natives. Ask a coolie why he lights candles and burns joss-stick at the Feast of Lanterns, and he will probably be unable to reply. The idea is that the spirits of one's ancestors choose this occasion to come backdulces 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-stick, that the noses of the spirits may run no risk of being offended by mundane smells. Candles are lighted, that 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 share, and 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-meat, is wrapped up in snow-white rice flour until about the size of a small hen's egg, only perfectly round, and these are eaten by hundreds in every household. Their shape is typical of a complete family gathering, for every Chinaman makes an effort to spend the Feast of Lanterns at home.
Under the mournful circumstances of the late Emperor's death, the 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 profusion, and 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-mentioned, and look forward to gayer times when the days of mourning shall be over.
Many writers on Chinese topics delight to dwell upon the slow but sure destruction of morals, manners, and men, which 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 quickly, or war leave half the desolation in its track, as 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 used, that 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 busy, noisy sight of a Chinese town, the contented, peaceful look of China's villagers, and the rich crops which are so readily yielded to her husbandmen by many an acre of incomparable soil. Where, then, is this scourge of which men speak? Evidently not in the highways, the haunts of commerce, or in the quiet repose of far-off agricultural hamlets. Bent on search, and probably determined to discover something, our seeker after truth is finally conducted to an opium den, one of those miserable hells upon earth common to every large city on the globe. Here he beholds the vice in all its hideousness; the gambler, the thief, the beggar, and such outcasts from the social circle, meet here to worship the god who grants a short nepenthe from suffering and woe. This, then, is China, and travellers' tales are but too true. A great nation has fallen a prey to the insidious drug, and her utter annihilation is but an affair of time!
We confess, however, we 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-shops, or from the half dozen extreme cases of which we may have been personally cognizant, or 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 curse, in 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 West, we are bound to admit that the comparison is very much to the disadvantage of the latter. Where opium kills its hundreds, gin 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 tremensis an untranslateable term. Who ever sees in China a tipsy man reeling about a crowded thoroughfare, or lying with his head in a ditch by the side of some country road? The Chinese people are naturally sober, peaceful, and industrious; they fly from intoxicating, quarrelsome samshoo, to the more congenial opium-pipe, which soothes the weary brain, induces sleep, and invigorates the tired body.
In point of fact, we have failed to find but a tithe of that real vice which cuts short so many brilliant careers among men who, with all the advantages of education and refinement, are euphemistically spoken of as addicted to the habit of "lifting their little fingers." Few Chinamen seem really to love wine, and opium, by its very price, is beyond the reach of the blue-coated masses. In some parts, especially in Formosa, a 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 Chinaman, with his box of clothes, thirty miles in from eight to ten hours on the hottest days in summer. They travel between five and six miles an hour, and on coming to a stage, pass 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 permit, they start once more upon the road; and the occupant of the chair cannot fail to perceive the lightness and elasticity of their tread, as compared with the dull, tired gait of half an hour before. They die early, of 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 impunity, and 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 theyinor not; meaning thereby, has he gradually increased his doses of opium until he has established acravingfor the drug, or is he still a free man to give it up without endangering his health. Hundreds and thousands stop short of theyin; a few, leaving it far behind them in their suicidal career, hurry on to premature old age and death. Further, from one point of view, opium-smoking is a more self-regarding vice than drunkenness, which entails gout and other evils upon the third and fourth generation. Posterity can suffer little or nothing at the hands of the opium-smoker, for 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 China, where children are regarded as the greatest treasures life has to give, and blessed is he that has his quiver full.
Indulgence in opium is, moreover, supposed to blunt the moral feelings of those who indulge; and to a certain extent this is true. If your servant smokes opium, dismiss 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 expenses, he will be driven to squeeze more than usual, and probably to steal. But to get rid of a writer or a clerk merely because he is a smoker, however moderate, would 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 habits, never even fuddled, still less stupefied. He may take his pipe because he likes it, or because it agrees with him; but it does not follow that he must necessarily make himself, even for the time being, incapable of doing business. Wine and moonlight were formerly considered indispensables by Chinese bards; without them, no inspiration, no poetic fire. The modern poetaster who pens a chaste ode to his mistress's eyebrow, seeks 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, drinking, and smoking, is just as common a virtue in China as in England or anywhere else.[*]
[*] Sir Edmund Hornley, after nine years' service as chief judge ofthe Supreme Court at Shanghai, delivered an opinion on the anti-opium movement in the following remarkable terms:—"Of all thenonsense that is talked, there is none greater than that talkedhere and in England about the immorality and impiety of the opiumtrade. It is simply sickening. I have no sympathy with it, neitherhave I any sympathy with the owner of a gin-palace; but as long asChina permits the growth of opium throughout the length andbreadth of the land, taxes it, and pockets a large revenue fromit,—sympathy with her on the subject is simply ludicrous andmisplaced."—(J. W. Walker v. Malcolm, 28th April 1875.)But the following extract from a letter to theLondon and ChinaExpress, of 5th July 1875, part of which we have ventured toreproduce in italics, surpasses, both in fiction and naivete,anything it has ever been our lot to read on either side of thismuch-vexed question:—"The fact is, that this tremendous evil isutterly beyond the control of politicians, or evenphilanthropists. Nothing but the divine power of Christian lifecan cope with it, and though this process may be slow, it is sure.Christian missions alone can deal with the opium traffic, now thatit has attained such gigantic dimensions, and the despisedmissionaries are solving a problem which to statesmen isinsoluble. Those, therefore, who recognise the evils of opium-smoking will most effectually stay the plagueby supportingChristian Protestant Missions in China.—Yours faithfully,"An Old Residenter in China."London, June 28, 1875."
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 unknown, and where the bulk of which is generally looked upon as fact requires in most cases a leavening element of truth, in others nothing more nor less than flat contradiction. The days are gone by for entertaining romances published as if they werebona fidebooks of travel, and 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 week, taking holidays as each may consider expedient with regard both to health and means, but 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 liquors, unaccompanied 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 people, and 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 himself, and 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 old, with the certainty of concluding that, whatever may be its fate in England or elsewhere, it secures for the government of China the best qualified and most intelligent men. Amongst other points, the alleged thievishness of the Chinese is well worth a few moments' consideration, were 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 saying, even among Europeans who have lived in China, that the Chinese are a nation of thieves. In Australia, in California, and in India, Chinamen have beaten their more luxurious rivals by the noiseless but irresistible competition of temperance, industry, and 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. Now, as regards the amount of theft daily perpetrated in China, we have been able to form a rough estimate, by very careful inquiries, as to the number of cases brought periodically before the notice of a district magistrate or his deputies, and we have come to a conclusion unfavourable in the extreme to western civilisation, which 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 China, which, had the offence been committed in England, would 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 force, and detectives trained men and keen. We know that in China many cases of theft are compromised, by the stolen property being restored to its owner on payment of a certain sum, which is fixed and shared in by the native constable who acts as middleman between the two parties, and we are fully aware that under circumstances of hunger or famine, and within due limits, the abstraction of anything in the shape of food is not considered theft. With all these considerations in mind, our 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 practice, but when we descend to private life, and 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 place, squeezing of masters by servants is a recognised system among the Chinese, and is never looked upon in the light of robbery. It iscommissionon the purchase of goods, and is taken into consideration by the servant when seeking a new situation. Wages are in consequence low; sometimes, as in the case of official runners and constables, servants have to make their living as best they can out of the various litigants, very often taking bribes from both parties. As far as slight raids upon wine, handkerchiefs, English bacon, or other such luxuries dear to the heart of the Celestial, we 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 be, with our eastern habits of carelessness and dependence, life in China would be next to impossible. As it is, people hire servants of whom they know absolutely nothing, put them in charge of a whole house many rooms in which are full of tempting kickshaws, go away for a trip to a port five or six hundred miles distant, and come back to find everything in its place down to the most utter trifles. Merchants as a rule have their servantssecuredby some substantial man, but many do not take this precaution, for 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 man, be not suspicious of him; if you are suspicious of a man, do not employ him"—and truly foreigners in China seem to carry out the first half to an almost absurd degree, placing the most unbounded confidence in natives with whose antecedents they are almost always unacquainted, and 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 market, and a steady consumption of about four dozen pocket-handkerchiefs per annum. Thefts there are, and always will be, in 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 old, if anything was seen lying in the road, nobody 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 cast, with many others, upon 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.
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 civilisation, we hasten to counterbalance our somewhat laudatory statements by the enunciation of another proposition less startling, but if anything more literally true.The Chinese are a nation of liars.If innate ideas were possible, the idea of lying would form the foundation of the Chinese mind. They lie by instinct; at any rate, they lie from imitation, and improve their powers in this respect by the most assiduous practice. They seem to prefer lying to speaking the truth, even when there is no stake at issue; and as for shame at being found out, the 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 fiction, the 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 medical, astrological, geomantic, and such works, pretend to a knowledge of mysteries we know to be all humbug. On the other hand, they 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 hideous, loathsome pamphlets, as the one which was some years ago translated into too faithful English by an American missionary, who had better have kept his talents to himself, or to post such inflammatory placards as the one which is placed at the end of this volume. Self-glorification, when no one suffers therefrom, is only laughable; and we shall take the liberty of presenting here the translation of an article which appeared in theShun Paoof the 19th September 1874, as 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 thePeking Gazetteof the 10th September1874 that the Prince of Kung had been degraded,—a fact receivedwith mingled feelings of surprise and regret by natives of theMiddle and Western kingdoms alike. For looking back to the lastyear of the reign Hsien Feng, we find that not only internaltrouble had not been set at rest when external difficulties beganto spring up around us, and war and battle were the order of theday. To crown all, His Majesty became a guest in the realm above,leaving only a child of tender years, unable to hold in his handsthe reins of government. Then, with our ruler a youth and affairsgenerally in an unsettled state, sedition within and war without,although their Majesties the Empresses-Dowager directed theadministration of government from behind the bamboo screen, thetask of wielding the rod of empire must have been arduous indeed.Since that time, ten years and more, the Eighteen Provinces havebeen tranquillised; without,western nations have yieldedobedience and returned to a state of peace; within, the empirehas been fixed on a firm basis and has recovered its formervitality. Never, even in the glorious ages of the Chou or Hsiadynasties, has our national prosperity been so boundless as it isto-day. Whenever I have seen one among the people patting hisstomach or carolling away in the exuberance of his joy, and haveasked the cause of his satisfaction, he has replied, 'It isbecause of the loving-kindness of this our dynasty.' I ask whatand whence is this loving-kindness of which he speaks? He answersme, 'It is the beneficent rule of their Majesties the Empresses-Dowager; it is the unspeakable felicity vouchsafed by Heaven tothe Emperor; it is the loyalty and virtue of those in high places,of Tseng Kuo-fan, of Li Hung-chang, of Tso Tsung-t'ang.' These,however, are all provincial officials. Within the palace we havethe Empresses-Dowager, and His Majesty the Emperor, toiling awayfrom morn till dewy eve; but among the ministers of state whotransact business, receiving and making known the Imperial will,working early and late in the Cabinet, the Prince of Kung takesthe foremost place; and it is through his agency, as natives andforeigners well know, that for many years China has been regainingher old status, so that any praise of their Imperial Majestiesleads 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 beoverlooked, hoping at the same time that the Emperor will begraciously pleased to take them into consideration and cancel hispresent punishment."
Lying, under any circumstances, is a very venial offence in China; it is, in fact, no offence at all, for everybody is prepared for lies from all quarters, and takes them as a matter of course.
It is strange, however, that such a practical people should not have discovered long ago the mere expediency of telling the truth, in the same way that they have found mercantile honesty to be unquestionably the best policy, and that trade is next to impossible without it. But to argue, as many do, that China is wanting in morality, because she has adopted a different standard of right and wrong from our own, is,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 partners, marry, and set up establishments for themselves, instead of bringing their wives to tend their aged parents, and 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 us, but Sparta'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, virtue, everything on which human happiness, on the largest scale, depends"—an abstract proposition which cannot be too carefully studied in connection with the present state of public morality in China, and the general welfare of the people. Dr Legge, however, whose logical are apparently in an inverse ratio to his linguistic powers, rushes wildly into the concrete, and 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 him, in which 'sincerity' is celebrated as highly and demanded as stringently as ever it has been by any Christian moralist," yet, on the strength of two passages in the Analects, and 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 men, encourages them to act, to dissemble, to sin." And what are these passages? In the first, Confucius applauds the modesty of an officer who, after boldly bringing up the rear on the occasion of a retreat, refused all praise for his gallant behaviour, attributing his position rather to the slowness of his horse. In the second, an unwelcome visitor calling on Confucius, the Master sent out to say he was sick, at 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. Lastly, when Confucius was once taken prisoner by the rebels, he was released on condition of not proceeding to Wei. "Thither, notwithstanding, he continued his route," and when asked by a disciple whether it was right to violate his oath, he replied, "It was a forced oath. The spirits do not hear such."
We shall not attempt to defend Confucius on either of these indictments, taken separately and without reference to his life and teachings; neither do we wish to temper the accusations we ourselves have made against the Chinese, of being a nation of liars. But when it is gravely asserted that the great teacher who made truthfulness and sincerity his daily texts, is alone responsible for a vicious national habit which, for aught any one knows to the contrary, may be a growth of comparatively modern times, we call to mind the Horatian poetaster, who began his account of the Trojan war with the fable of Leda and the swan.