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 §1 irr§ Si ..
 
 THE 
 
 REAL CHINAMAN 
 
 BY 
 
 CHESTER HOLCOMBE 
 
 For many years Interpreter, Secretary of Legation, and Acting 
 Minister of the United States at Peking 
 
 IVITH SEVENTY-SEyBN ILLUSTR^iTIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
 1909
 
 CoPYRiGHT^ iSpi^, BY 
 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
 
 All Rigbti Reserxed
 
 Z>3 
 
 THIS volume is bound in a shade of color 
 known in China as "Imperial Yellow." 
 It is set apart for the exclusive use of the 
 Emperor, and severe penalties attach to its 
 use for any jjurpose by a Chinese subject. 
 The decoration in tlie upper left liand corner of tiie cover 
 represents the five-clawed dragon rising from the sea, surrounded 
 by clouds, and grasping the sun. It is thus the symbol of uni- 
 versal dominion, and forms tlie crest of the Emperor. The fig- 
 ure used is an exact reproduction, reduced in size, of that worn 
 upon tlie breast and back of all (Chinese officials of high civil 
 rank in uniform or court dress. In the design and at the top 
 is an archaic form of the character which means " happmess." 
 Underneatli tlie decoration is tlie Cliinese title of the book. 
 It was kindly written lor tiie autlior by His Excellency, the 
 Chinese Minister at Washington, wiio, however, is responsible 
 for no part of the contents oi the volume. It is written in a 
 peculiar style of penmanship exclusively used for book titles. 
 
 Upon the back of tlie volume is the autlior's name, repro- 
 duced from a visiting card, in tlie ordinary style of writing. 
 
 ^MfS 
 
 1167153
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The average of mankind resembles too 
 closely that pleasant old lady who lived 
 alone, miles from a neighbor, in one of the 
 more remote nooks of the Green Moun- 
 tains. A stranger stopped at her gate one 
 summer day for a glass of water. Upon 
 being told, in answer to her question, that he lived 
 in Boston, she exclaimed : " Dear me ! How lone- 
 some you must be away off there !" Boston was a 
 lonely spot in her conception ; but the very centre 
 of the universe was framed within the weather- 
 beaten walls of her cottage. 
 
 Like her, we are inclined to measure all people 
 by a yardstick of our own construction, the model 
 for which is found in ourselves. Others are right 
 or wrong, wise or unwise, according as they copy 
 or depart from the fashion which we have arbitra- 
 rily set up, the ideal formed within the essentially 
 narrow limits of our personal surroundings. 
 
 We smile at and perhaps ridicule tlie unthinking, 
 automatic regularity with which millions of Chi- 
 nese drop their winter garb for that of summer, or 
 the reverse, upon a day fixed by the will of one 
 man. Yet how does this act differ in wisdom from 
 that other procedure under which millions of the 
 most cultivated and refined ladies of America and
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 Europe copy blindly monstrosities in dress or cos- 
 tume at the freaky dictation of an impersonality 
 called Fashion ? And if there is a difference in the 
 two rules of conduct, upon which side does the 
 greater wisdom lie ? Look at the grotesque out- 
 lines and shapes of deformity which have supplant- 
 ed the graceful contour of the natural woman, and 
 then decide which is wiser, or, if you please, less 
 unwise, for a nation to accept the dictum of one man 
 upon the time when the climate requires a change 
 of garb, or for half the population of two conti- 
 nents, in defiance of their individual taste and good 
 sense, to adopt a whim in dress which may have 
 originated in the slums of Paris or London ? 
 
 There is need of more genuine knowledge and 
 less narrow-minded judgment. It would, doubt- 
 less, be well if we could see ourselves as others see 
 us. But it would be much better if we could see 
 both others and ourselves from a higher and hence 
 more accurate plane of sight, if we could measure 
 men not by oirselves, but by an ideal, a standard 
 man. A greater breadth of vision would serve a 
 more valuable purpose than to increase the accuracy 
 and intelligence of our conceptions. It would make 
 charity more common, patience easier, and belief 
 in the essential unity and nobility of humankind 
 the rule rather than, what it now is, the exception. 
 
 It is far easier to criticise the Chinese than to 
 understand tlicm. Tlie i)oints of contact are too 
 few and too recent. Our information is based 
 largely upon fancy instead of fact, and misinter- 
 pretation of them and their ways is the easy and 
 inevitable result. Yet they are emj^hatically a race
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 worthy of serious study. As real life is far more 
 fascinating than any work of fiction, so is the genu- 
 ine Son of Ilan, witli his fixed and crystallized 
 peculiarities, immensely more interesting to the 
 honest student than the caricatured Chinaman, with 
 whom alone the average public is familiar. 
 
 This volume is neither a defence, apology, criti- 
 cism, nor paneg3'ric. It is rather an explanation. 
 It attempts to give ii few of the results of many 
 years of residence among the Chinese, in the course 
 of which the author was brought into close and 
 familiar relations with all classes of the people in 
 nearly every section of the empire. In it an effort 
 is made to describe and explain some of the more 
 prominent factors in tlie national life, and t(j show 
 why some of their ways, so odd to us, are natural 
 to them. Facts are dealt with rather than opin- 
 ions. The book represents an effort to outline 
 with a few broad sweeps of the pen the Chinaman 
 as he is. 
 
 The numerous incidents scattered through the 
 volume are inserted with a view to make the pic- 
 ture more lifelike, interesting, and intelligible. 
 Each one represents an actual occurrence, free of 
 coloring or exaggeration. Were it necessary, the 
 place and date of each, with the names of the 
 persons concerned in it, could be given. In the same 
 way, the illustrations are sun pictures, owing noth- 
 ing to art save the skill and fidelity with which they 
 have been transferred, unchanged even in minute 
 details, to these pages. 
 
 Intertwisted with tlie faults and foibles of tlie 
 Chinese are many sterling virtues and admirable
 
 X PREFA CE. 
 
 traits of character. They combine the fixedness of 
 age with the persistence of youth. They change 
 slowly. Yet it seems impossible that any one 
 should come to know them well without reaching 
 the conviction that there is a great future before 
 the nation, and that China has yet an important 
 part to play in the history of the world. 
 
 Chester Holcombe. 
 New York, January i, 1895.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A High Chinese Official in Evening Dress. . . Frontispiece 
 
 Imperial Dragon v 
 
 Buddhist Devil v 
 
 Pagoda at Pa Li Chuang vii 
 
 Ornamental Street Archway in Peking x 
 
 Stone Gateway xi 
 
 Dragons Supporting the Globe xiii 
 
 Ornamental Fan Design . xx 
 
 Dragon Design i 
 
 A Gate of Peking 13 
 
 Mounted Chinese Official 20 
 
 Li Hung Chang ^. » 25 
 
 Bronze Open Work , 28 
 
 Chinese Flag 29 
 
 F.nirance to the Palace 32 
 
 View of Peking 37 
 
 Chinese River Scene 44 
 
 Post Marking Land Boundary 49 
 
 A Lock on the Grand Canal 51 
 
 Souvenir Fan 58 
 
 Toad Catching Flies (from Chinese Painting) 66 
 
 Bridge in Summer Palace 72
 
 xil LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Buddhist Female Idol , 73 
 
 Group of Children , 75 
 
 Street Scene in Peking 81 
 
 Wall About Peking 89 
 
 Entrance Hall to Imperial Tombs 92 
 
 Jinricksha 93 
 
 Carriage of Chinese Official 95 
 
 Front of Official Residence loi 
 
 Chinese Dragon (Moulded in Porcelain) 11 1 
 
 Sedan Chai r 115 
 
 Incense Urn I16 
 
 Oven for Burning Paper, Confucian Temple, Peking 122 
 
 Buddhist Priest Trampling Satan Under Foot 133 
 
 Goddess of Mercy 137 
 
 Chinese Wedding Chair 143 
 
 Chinese Head of Pillar 144 
 
 Tomb of the Emperor Yung Lo, Died a.d. 1425 147 
 
 Pagoda at Yii Chuan Shan 155 
 
 Chinese Catafalque 163 
 
 Dragons 170 
 
 Head of Buddhist Devotee 171 
 
 Peddling Fruit 172 
 
 Group of Children 175 
 
 Chinese Barber o . 1 79 
 
 Bit of Great Wall 191 
 
 Flag Standards ... 1 92 
 
 Entrance to Imperial Cemetery 194 
 
 Approach to Ming Tombs 195 
 
 Bridge on the Grand Canal 199 
 
 Street Barrier 213 
 
 Ornament Pillar 214 
 
 The Great Wall 217 
 
 Chinese Beggar 226 
 
 Mongol Winter Encampment 231 
 
 Top of Pagoda 237 
 
 Village on Grand Canal near Peking 241 
 
 A Chinese Student ,,...„ 252 
 
 Chinese Pony and Groom 257
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XiU 
 
 PAGP. 
 
 Gateway „ . 260 
 
 Bronze Lion 261 
 
 Chinese Passenger Hoat 265 
 
 The Donkey 275 
 
 Chinese Mule Litter 281 
 
 Dragons Reaching for the Sun 285 
 
 Archway , 286 
 
 Chinese Jinricksha „ 289 
 
 Chinese Servants 303 
 
 lunk 309 
 
 Dragon , 310 
 
 Group of Chinese Workmen 317 
 
 Mender of Tubs 321 
 
 Chinese Passenger Cart 325 
 
 Dragon 330 
 
 Antique Chinese Cash 337 
 
 Peking-Bank Notes , 345 
 
 "No Thoroughfare" 350
 
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introductory 1-28 
 
 Recent acquaintance of China with Western nations, r. 
 Date of first treaty, 2. Contrast between the Oriental 
 and Occidental world, 2. Chinese seclusion, 3. Igno- 
 rance regarding foreigners, 4. The Chinese Empire and 
 surrounding kingdoms, 5. Position of Japan, 6. The 
 so-called suzerainty of China, S. Exact nature of rela- 
 tionship, 9. The opium war, 10. Mutual misunderstanding 
 inevitable, 14. Contrast between China and Japan. 17. 
 Discrimination against China and its results, 18. Students 
 at Annapolis and West Point, 19. Prince Kung, 22. Li 
 Hung Chang, 24. No real opposition to the reigning 
 family among Chinese, 28. 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 The Government OK Cn-NA 29-48 
 
 Peculiarities of the governmental system, 3.1. Its antiquity, 
 31. Satisfies the people, 32. It is pure paternalism, 33. 
 Filial obedience and parental responsibility enforced by 
 law, 34. The family the unit of government, 36. The 
 Emperor, 36. Laws are comparatively mild and humane, 
 40. Rewards and penalties, 41. Two theories regarding 
 the system, 42. Filial piety. 43. Influence of Confucius, 
 45. Officials chosen frt)m among the people, 45. Similarity 
 between Chinese form of choosing officers and that followed 
 in the United States, 47.
 
 XVI ANALYSIS OF CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Language 49-72 
 
 Its antiquity, 49. Immense but uncertain number of charac- 
 ters, 50. Mode of writing and printing, 51. Characters 
 were originally outlines of objects which they represented, 
 54. Modes of combination illustrated, 55. Idiomatic con- 
 structions, 56. Grammar of Chinese, 57. Chinese efforts 
 to learn English, 58. Words lacking in the language, 60. 
 Difficulties of pronunciation, 62. Sounds cannot be rep- 
 resented by any alphabet, 63. Aspirated and unaspirated 
 consonants, 64. Tone has equal part with sound in deter- 
 mining the meaning, 65. Four tones recognized in standard 
 Chinese, 67. Amusing blunders, 69. Local dialects, 70. 
 Pidgin English, 71. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Chinese Ho^^■: Like 73-92 
 
 Does not begin with marriage, 73. Lot of young married 
 women, 74. Motherhood a badge of honor, 75. Polyg- 
 amy allowed, but monogamy the rule, 77. Influence of 
 women, 78. Ties of locality, 80. Chinese not natural 
 colonists, S3. Ancestral worship, 86. Filial obedience, 
 Sg. Coffins presented to parents, 90. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Chinese Social Like 93-115 
 
 Little time given to recreation, 93. An overworked Chinese 
 statesman, 93. Peculiar model of Oriental society, 97. 
 Husband and wife may not ride in the same vehicle, 99. 
 Chinese students in America, 100. Social amusements of 
 Chinese ladies, 102. Women of the poorer classes, 103. 
 Oriental ideas of dignity, 104. Etiquette interferes with 
 social life, 105. Chinese fond of argument, 107. Legend 
 of the fox, 108. Chinese reception-rooms, 109. Dinner- 
 giving between Occidentals and Orientals, iio. The ser- 
 vant of the Corean minister, 113,
 
 AA'ALYSIS OF CONTEXTS. xvii 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Chinese Religions ... 116-143 
 
 Confucius not the founder of a religion, 116. He was a sage, 
 not a devotee, 117. Materialism is the basis of Confucian- 
 ism, 118. Temple of Heaven, 119. Respect for education 
 and literature, 121. Worship of ancestors, 123. What is 
 the practical idea involved, 123. Chinese belief in a future 
 state, 124. Ancestral tablet, 125. All Chinese are Con- 
 fucianists, 126. Taoism, 126. Its theory and practice, 
 127. Buddhism, 12S. Method of worship, 130. Thibetan 
 archbishop, I31. Living Buddhas, 131. Ideas borrowed 
 from Christianity, 132. Mendicant priests, 135. A pil- 
 grimage to Wu Tai Shan, 139. Chinese Government tol- 
 erant, 142. Mohammedans and Jews in China, 143. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Chinese SurEKsmioNs. , 144-170 
 
 Saturated with superstitious notions, 144. They are separate 
 from religious belief, 145. Fing Skui, 145. Interfered 
 with burial of an emperor, 149. Chinese astrologers, 152. 
 Methods of placating local spirits, 154. The use of pago- 
 das, 156. Lucky and unlucky days, 157. Prayer at the 
 hole of a fox, 158. Prayers for rain, 159. Ling Shih 
 Hsien, 160. Old trees, 161. Inhumanity as a fruit of su- 
 perstition, 165. Infanticide, 166. Treatment of young 
 children when ill, 167. Two cases, 16S. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Chinese Queues 171-191 
 
 Peculiarities of Oriental hair, 171. Admiration of the Occi- 
 dental beard, 172. Symbol of Chinese manhood, 174. 
 How the queue was introduced into China, 174. It is a 
 badge of respectability, 178. Etiquette of the queue, 178. 
 " Tail-cutting," 181. Chinese belief in magic, 182. Of- 
 ficial proclamations giving preventives for " tail-cutting," 
 183, One genuine case, 184.
 
 xviu AJVALYSIS OF COXTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Chinese Courts ok Law 192-213 
 
 Primitive hall of justice, 192. Antiquity of the judicial sys- 
 tem, 193. The Censorate, 193. The Chinese Code, 195. 
 Cases are decided by precedents, 197. Dangerous latitude 
 allowed to magistrates, 198. Efforts to secure confession, 
 201. Antiquated processes, 202. Scene in a Chinese 
 court, 203. Chinese prisons, 205. Modes of punishment, 
 206. Forms of death psnalty, 207. The white silken cord, 
 208. Etiquette of a Chinese court, 209. A fearful case of 
 cruelty, 210. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Officials and People 214-236 
 
 The Chinaman a philosopher, 214. Official salaries, 216. 
 Illegal and extra-legal fines, 219. Guards against injustice 
 and extortion, 223. Civil-service regulations, 224. Sale 
 of titles and official honors, 225. Power of public opinion, 
 227. The literati, 227. Dangerous exercise of their 
 power, 229. The Tientsin massacre, 230. Mandarin 
 boots, 233. Interesting case of resistance to oppression, 
 234- 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Education AND Literature... 237-260 
 
 Object of study, 237. Chinese ambition, 237. High moral 
 tone of educational works, 238. Narrow limits of system, 
 243. Description of course of study, 244. Schools and 
 their arrangements, 246. Method of study, 247. High in- 
 tellectual ability of the Chinese, 248. The Chinese stu- 
 dents in America, 248. Illiteracy in China, 249. System 
 of government examinations originated 1900 years ago, 
 250. Proscribed classes, 250. Degrees conferred, 253. 
 Regulations for the examinations, 254.
 
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Etiquette and Cekemonv 261-2S5 
 
 Politeness universal, 261. Etiquette complicated and tedious, 
 262. Pompous and bombastic titles, 263. Foreign rela- 
 tions vexed by questions of etiquette, 264. The audience 
 question, 267. The etiquette of a cup of tea, 269. Im- 
 portance of familiarity with Oriental forms, 270. A Mexi- 
 can saddle and sombrero in China, 271. Tedious formali- 
 ties evaded, 273. Lies of courtesy, 274. Chinese habit of 
 repression, 277. yuaint custom among Pekingese, 279. 
 
 CHAPTER Xril. 
 
 Merchants and Tricks ov Tradk 2S6-309 
 
 Grades of Chinese society, 286. Standing of Chinese mer- 
 chants, 287. Merchants study their customers, 291. Va- 
 rious prices for various customers, 294. The dicker, 295. 
 No standard of weight or measure, 29S. Exact book-keep- 
 ing impossible, 300. Co-operative system, 301. The Chi- 
 nese " squeeze," 301. Chinese servants, 305. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Poor in China 310-329 
 
 Intense poverty of the Chinese masses, 310. Average prices 
 paid for labor, 311. Food of common people, 312. Ex- 
 periences at Chinese inns, 313. Clothing, 316 The 
 house, 319 The labor problem in China, 320. Economy 
 of the Chinese, 322. Government allows begging, 323. 
 The queen of the beggars of Peking, 327. Incidents, 328.
 
 XX AA^JLVS/S OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Chinese Financial System 330-350 
 
 The Chinese money unit, 330. Spanish and Mexican dol- 
 lars, 331. Varying and various ounce weights, 332. Form 
 of silver bullion used, 334. Tests of fineness, 334. Chinese 
 cash, 336. Attempts to tamper with the currency, 339. 
 Doubling cash, 34r. Chinese banks, 343. Taxation, 346. 
 Uncertainty regarding total revenue, 347. Taxes payable 
 in kind, 347. Modes of remittance, 348. Needs of reform.. 
 349-
 
 THE REAL CHINAMAN 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 The commencement 
 of any mutual acquaint- 
 ance between China 
 and the Western world 
 dates back only a little 
 more than thirty years. 
 The first treaties by which China acknowledged the 
 existence of the nations of America and Europe were 
 signed about fifty years ago. Those treaties, how- 
 ever, only served as a preliminary introduction, 
 and lacked such provisions as would enable either 
 of the parties consenting to them to prosecute any 
 friendly intimacy with the other. So long as not 
 more than three or four points upon the Chinese 
 seaboard were thrown open to foreign residence 
 and commerce, while travel in the interior of the 
 empire was prohibited, Peking remained inaccessi- 
 ble to all diplomatic representatives, and our lega- 
 tions were kept on board men-of-war cruising up 
 and down the Chinese coast — so long as such a 
 condition of affairs existed, we of the Western
 
 2 77/ A' REAL CUIXAMAN. 
 
 World could learn little about the Chinese, and 
 they could gain no knowledge of us. 
 
 Such was the situation from the date on which 
 the first treaty between China and any foreign 
 power was signed — the British treaty, signed at 
 Nanking, August 29th, 1842 — up to the time when, 
 by the treaties of Tientsin, signed in 1861, diplo- 
 matic representatives were accorded the right of 
 residence at the capital, and foreigners of all 
 classes were permitted to travel freely throughout 
 the empire. 
 
 Then first in the history of humankind two 
 great antipodal worlds of men stood face to face 
 and gazed into each other's eyes. The progressive 
 and aggressive Occidental, quick, eager, and alert, 
 met in the Oriental the very incarnation of con- 
 servatism, the embodiment of dignity and repose. 
 Action met inertia. The age of steam, steel, and 
 electricity stood over against the age of Confucius. 
 Let the reader imagine a modern pushing man of 
 business introduced to the Chinese sage, and the 
 two left to become acquainted, and each to gather 
 his impressions of tlie other, tlien add to the pic- 
 ture the essential fact that the sage had a positive 
 unwillingness to meet the business man, and he will 
 have a sufficiently accurate idea of the situation. 
 
 There was absolutely no common point of meet- 
 ing, no standing ground of a mutual advantage 
 mutually recognized. True, we wished to trade 
 with the Chinese. He had shown how much or 
 how little he desired commerce with us by so care- 
 fully hedging al)()ut and restricting our interchanges 
 with him at Canton — tlie single point where they
 
 JN TR OD UC 7 'OR 1 '. 3 
 
 liad been permitted to go on at all — that it was as 
 though we received his bales of silk and chests of 
 tea lowered to us from the battlements of an im- 
 pregnable wall, and delivered our Mexican dollars 
 and British opium to him by the returning rope. 
 Recognition of this extremely attenuated line of 
 commercial intercourse, so far as it existed, was in 
 the form of restrictive rather than encouraging 
 regulations. 
 
 It was not that China had any peculiar objection 
 to political and trade relations with America and 
 Europe. She desired no enlargement of her ac- 
 c[uaintance in any direction. An imperial decree 
 made any Chinese subject forfeit his head to the 
 executioner, as a punishment for having wandered 
 into foreign parts, if he was so indiscreet as to 
 come within reach of that gentleman by a return 
 to his native land. Tiiat law still stands unre- 
 pealed, though for many years it has never been 
 enforced. The government order, forbidding the 
 construction of any junks or vessels of a greater 
 length than sixty feet, made all other than short 
 coasting voyages both unprofitable and dangerous. 
 With her ports closed to foreign craft, regardless 
 of nationality, and no domestic vessels fit for even 
 motlerately long ocean voyages, it is easy to esti- 
 mate the extent of China's desire to either receive 
 or return visits from strangers. The sole excep- 
 tion to this exclusion was in favor of a limited 
 number of Siamese merchant-vessels, duly regis- 
 tered and furnished with permits to trade between 
 Bangkok and certain Chinese ports. These made 
 their leisure way northward with the summer or
 
 4 THE REAL CIIIXAMAX.. 
 
 southeastern monsoon, and were blown home again 
 by the northwestern winds of winter, thus making 
 one round voyage eacli year. 
 
 It is unnecessary to the purpose of this vokime 
 tliat the causes which led China to prefer such ab- 
 solute seclusion should be inquired into and their 
 validity either recognized or denied. That she 
 was totally ignorant of the character and position 
 of Western nations, and necessarily so, is self evi- 
 dent. It is related that when what is now the Ger- 
 man Empire sent commissioners to China to nego- 
 tiate a treaty, they were refused. On the kindly 
 interference of the British minister, this refusal was 
 withdrawn, the Chinese Government naively re- 
 marking that it was informed by the British repre- 
 sentative that the Germans were really a respect- 
 able people, and that their king was a relative of 
 the Queen of Great Britain. For this reason they 
 decided to negotiate a treaty. In 1870 one of the 
 most prominent officials in Peking, being dis- 
 patched to Europe upon a special mission, gave 
 directions that some one hundred and fifty pounds 
 of salt should be packed with liis other baggage, 
 as he was accustomed to use it in his food, and he 
 had reason to fear difficulty in obtaining it in the 
 regions to which he was bound. A member of the 
 Imperial Cabinet was once overheard, so recently 
 as 1884, inquiring of an associate whether foreign- 
 ers had any form of marriage contract, or whether 
 the two sexes lived promiscuously together. 
 
 Coupled with this unqualified ignorance were 
 certain absurd and amusing notions concerning the 
 liabits and personal appearance of the unfortunate
 
 IN TROD UC rOR V. $ 
 
 creatures who lived beyond the reach of the civiliz- 
 ing influences of the Chinese Empire. The inter- 
 ested student in ethnology may find in tlie book- 
 stores of Peking and other Chinese cities to-day 
 volumes containing descriptive accounts of some of 
 these outside barbarians, with carefully executed 
 representations of them d(}ne in water-colors. One 
 type has ears reaching to the earth, another has no 
 legs worthy of mention. The representation of 
 one tribe forces the student to the conclusion that 
 the Chinese must have heard, and with some ac- 
 curacy, of the gorilla. One race is pictured as 
 having its face as a sort of boss in low relief upon 
 the breast, while another carries its head con- 
 veniently located under the left arm. Small won- 
 der that China desired no close acquaintance with 
 people concerning whom she knew so little and 
 imagined so much. 
 
 Prior to this disturbance of her seclusion, China 
 had, for many centuries, been the single central 
 figure in a world largely of her own creation and in 
 which she was the final dominant force. She had 
 been the jilanct, the powerful civilized, cultivated 
 empire, surrounded by its circle of admiring satel- 
 lite kingdoms. Corea, upon the northeast, the 
 Mongol families on the north, Kashgar and Sam- 
 arcand upon the west, Thibet in its Himalayan 
 clouds and snows at the southwest, Burmah and 
 Siam at the south, Annam and Cochin China trail- 
 ing off from her southeastern border, and the little 
 kingdom of Liu Chin lying like a fringe in the 
 China Sea — these formed a system, a world, of 
 which the Chinese Empire was the centre. They
 
 6 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 flattered her by that most delicate and subtle of 
 all forms of flattery, imitation. They copied her 
 forms of civilization, to a considerable extent mod- 
 eled their governmental systems after hers, bor- 
 rowed her religions, several of them adopted her 
 written language, gained their knowledge of the 
 arts and literature from her, and all of them de- 
 ferred and appealed to her as final authority and 
 sovereign mistress of the Oriental world. She was 
 arbiter of their disputes, whether domestic or inter- 
 national. She aided them at times to quell insur- 
 rection by force of arms. She held herself and was 
 held as the patron and the superior of all. 
 
 In this planetary system — to pursue the figure 
 already used — Japan was the erratic and dangerous 
 comet. Probably no other Oriental nation gained 
 such large and practical advantages from China as 
 did Japan. Her knowledge of art, her written lan- 
 guage, much of her literature, at least one of her 
 religious systems, were all borrowed from her great 
 continental neighbor. The very names Japan has 
 given to her two great staple products, tea and silk, 
 show that they were introduced from China. Yet 
 she was always the troublesome neighbor, the one 
 disturbing force in the calm of China's recog- 
 nized supremacy. Those who imagine that recent 
 troubles between these two nations are exceptional 
 are mistaken. They are but a modern repetition 
 of the history of the past ten centuries. 
 
 Between the nations named, excepting Japan and 
 China, a definite and well-understood relationship 
 and intercourse was established. Annual embas- 
 sies came from the smaller States, at each new year
 
 I.V TRODUC TOR V. 7 
 
 to Peking, bringing presents and the felicitations 
 of the season to the Itmperor. They were enter- 
 tained by him, and on their return home were the 
 bearers of return gifts to tlie heads of their own 
 nations, whicli gifts were always cis much more valu- 
 able than tliose they brought as the Emperor was 
 greater in power and wealth than their lord. It is 
 only within a very few years that the King of Siam 
 has ceased sending white elephants to the Emperor 
 of China. Some of those sent are still living and 
 kept in the " Elephant Stables" at Peking. And 
 the winter of 1894-95 bids fair to be the first in 
 many decades, if not centuries, in which the King 
 of Corea has failed to dispatcli liis annual mission 
 to the Chinese capital. Much of the traffic be- 
 tween the two nations was carried on by means of 
 these embassies, a large number of merchants 
 being allowed to accompany them, and the goods 
 they sold and bought being, as a matter of priv- 
 ilege, exemjit from duties t)r imposts of any sort. 
 Wiienever the question of succession to the throne 
 became practical in any of these outlying king- 
 doms, tlie will of the l-lmperor of China was taken 
 in case of strife between several claimants. And 
 in some of the States niimed it had come to be a 
 custom, thougli never more than a matter of form, 
 for the new incumbent to dispatch a special em- 
 bassy to Peking to announce his accession and re- 
 quest the gracious recognition of the Emperor. 
 This was peculiarly true of the kings of Corea and 
 An nam. 
 
 As might oe expected, much confusion and mis- 
 understanding has grown up in the exact and in-
 
 8 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 tensely practical Western mind regarding this 
 loose-jointed and essentially Oriental relationship. 
 There is no word in any European tongue which 
 will describe the position which China claims to 
 hold vis-a-vis the smaller States named, because the 
 idea is wholly foreign to our notions of interna- 
 tional connections. It has therefore, for lack, 
 partly, of a better term, and partly of accurate 
 knowledge of what the relationship was, been 
 spoken of as a suzerainty. Whatever it is, it is 
 not that. The vital point of the connection of 
 suzerain and vassal is that the latter must pay 
 regular sums of tribute and furnish specified mili- 
 tary forces to the former. Neither of these has 
 ever been exacted in a single instance. China has 
 repeatedly sent armed bodies of men to assist her 
 weaker neighbors to suppress internal rebellion, 
 but she has never either asked or received aid of 
 that sort from them. And aside from the inter- 
 change of New Year gifts, in which China invari- 
 ably gives more than she receives, there is no such 
 thing as tribute paid by king to emperor. 
 
 Vague and indefinite as is this relationship to 
 our minds, it is simple and clear to the Oriental, 
 since it is exactly in the line of his ideas. He de- 
 scribes it as the connection between the elder and 
 the younger l^rotlier ; and when the Chinese Gov- 
 ernment has had occasion to mention her position 
 — toward Corea, for example — the same word has 
 been used as is employed to express the relative 
 position in the family of two brothers. Keeping 
 in view tlie fact that, under tlie ])atriarclial system, 
 whicli is \\(A only in vogue in China, but forms the
 
 IJVTA'0/)CC/OA'V. 9 
 
 basis of her entire form of f^overnment, the elder 
 brother has a certain aulhoriiy over and responsi- 
 bility for the younger, it ceases to be difficult to 
 understand the tie which connects China with her 
 surrounding and less powerful neighbors. It im- 
 plies a sort of moral .uithority or right of control, 
 which is entirely foreign to our ideas, and particu- 
 larly objectionable, since it can be exercised or re- 
 pudiated at will. And perhaps in the fact that it 
 can be enforced or evaded, as discretion may indi- 
 cate, is to be found the feature of the system wliich 
 is most pleasing to the Oriental mind. 
 
 It cannot be a matter of surprise to a thoughtful 
 mind tliat long centuries of unquestioned suprem- 
 acy, of admiriition and flattery from her weaker 
 and less civilized neighbors, had developed an in- 
 tense national conceit in the Chinese mind, and 
 that she should regard with feelings closely allied 
 to contempt all remote nations which had not been 
 favored with her example, and hence had not 
 formed themselves upon her model. She had her 
 coterie of humble admirers, and desired no ques- 
 tionable additions to tlie circle. And it must not 
 be forgotten that she had more or less communica- 
 tion with India, and had a substantially correct 
 idea of what European intercourse had meant, 
 from an Oriental standpoint, to that great empire 
 of Southern Asia. 
 
 Such being the attitude of China upon the gen- 
 eral question of establishing friendly relations with 
 the nations of Europe and America, and such her 
 position of calm, yet absurd, superiority, it was 
 peculiarly unfortunate that acquaintance and asso-
 
 lo THE REAL CJIIXAMAX. 
 
 ciation wilh us was forced upon her ia what her 
 government and people could with justice regard 
 as a bad cause. 
 
 This is not the place fur a discussion of the ques- 
 tion whether any nation has the right to insist, by 
 force of arms, if necessary, that any other nation 
 shall establish and maintain commercial and friend- 
 ly intercourse with it. That question may be left 
 to recognized authorities on international law. 
 Nor is it intended to express an opinion regarding 
 the right or wrong of the so-called opium war. 
 The attempt is here made not to record opinions, 
 but to portray, with some degree of faithfulness 
 and accuracy, a situation. The broad outline of 
 facts is sufficiently well known to all intelligent 
 readers, and each of them can and will draw his 
 own conclusions. But the feeling which those facts 
 aroused in the Chinese, the view which they took 
 of them, and which has very seriously colored their 
 opinions of all foreigners, and influenced the entire 
 course of their foreign relations, are not sufficiently 
 well understood nor its more remote effects always 
 clearly recognized. No true picture of the mod- 
 ern Chinese can be drawn without bringing the 
 opium war upon the canvas. For that reason alone 
 it is introduced. 
 
 Whatever may have been tlie otiier causes — and 
 they were many and serious — which led to the series 
 of military and naval expeditions against China, 
 from the attack upon the Bogue forts, below Can- 
 teen, in 1 S42, to the capture of one of the nortli gates 
 of Peking and the destruction of the Summer Pal- 
 ace, in i860, to the Chinese the purpose of all of
 
 ■ IN TROD UCTOK Y. 1 1 
 
 these operations is summed up in one word — 
 opium. He looks upon all other grievances as 
 pretexts, or as valid only through being made to 
 subserve one main purpose, the opening of the em- 
 pire as a vast market for the sale and consumption 
 of the drug raised in India. 
 
 To him the facts are plain and their logic irre- 
 sistible. There had been much friction between 
 the authorities at Canton and the agent of the East 
 India Company for years prior to 1842 over the in- 
 troduction of the drug into China, either in open 
 or secret violation of the laws of the empire. 
 These troubles increased after the expiration of 
 the charter of the East India Company. They 
 reached a climax in 1840, when Commissioner Lin 
 reached Canton, sent there by the Chinese Em- 
 peror with the most explicit and peremptory orders 
 to put a comj)lete end to the opium traffic at all 
 hazards. He found, shortly after his arrival, opium 
 on board twenty- two ships in the river below Can- 
 ton, to the value of about $9,000,000. It was there 
 in open and notorious violation of the laws of the 
 empire, and hence was, with the vessels which 
 brought it, liable, by universally recognized law, to 
 seizure and confiscation. Its surrender was de- 
 manded, and after some peculiar steps taken by 
 Commissioner Lin to enforce the demand, it was 
 delivered to him by Captain Elliot, the agent of 
 the British Government, who also gave a pledge 
 that no more should be brought into the port. 
 The opium thus secured (20,291 chests) was at 
 once completely destroyed by being thrown into 
 trenches and mixed with lime and salt water, and
 
 12 THE KKAL CIIIXAMAX. 
 
 this mixture was allowed to run into the river at 
 low tide. Officers were stationed to prevent any- 
 one from carrying away an}^ portion of the drug ; 
 and one Chinese who endeavored to carry away a 
 small quantity was summarily beheaded. There is 
 not the least reason to doubt that every ounce was 
 disposed of in this thorough manner. These are 
 facts about which there can be no question. The 
 Government of China was honest in its intention 
 to exterminate the opium trade ; it was within its 
 right in the demand for the surrender of the con- 
 traband drug, and, for once at least, it possessed a 
 servant in Commissioner Lin who inflexibly and 
 thoroughly executed the instructions which he had 
 received. 
 
 For this legitimate and praiseworthy act, as the 
 Chinese reason, a British military and naval force 
 was dispatched to China. Several important ports 
 upon the coast were attacked and captured ; the 
 Chusan Islands were occupied ; Nanking, once the 
 capital of the empire, was besieged, and there 
 China was forced at the point of the bayonet to 
 enter into a treaty with Great Britain by which she 
 agreed to pay $21,000,000. Of this, $6,000,000 was 
 for the opium surrendered and destroyed, $3,000,- 
 000 was for other claims, and $12,000,000 for the 
 cost of the war. And the important island of 
 Hong Kong was unconditionally ceded to the 
 Oueen. 
 
 Such are the facts which tlie Chinese have in 
 mind, and which give a permanent color to their 
 opinion of foreigners. It is idle to explain other 
 and grave grievances which influenced the action
 
 A GATE OF PEKING.
 
 I.VTKO/U'CTOh'V. 15 
 
 of the British, and wliich, had opium never been 
 known, would have demanded forciljle interfer- 
 ence. They reply by pcnnting out the fact that 
 these armed operations against their country never 
 fully ceased until the practical occupation of Pe- 
 king in i860. Tlie flight of their Emperor and his 
 death in exile had wrung from their government a 
 further concession legalizing the opium traffic in 
 China. Only when that was secured, they say, did 
 Great Britain lay aside her warlike mien and adopt 
 a conciliatory tone and policy. And the efforts 
 made by the Chinese Government — and they have 
 been many and urgent — to induce England to con- 
 cert measures with China either for the immedi- 
 ate or gradual suppression of the traffic are well 
 known among the more intelligent of the people. 
 It is also well known that these appeals have uni- 
 formly been unanswered or refused. This fact 
 lends intensity to their conviction and bitterness to 
 their dislike. 
 
 These are the more important features of the 
 situation under which China was dragged from her 
 seclusion, brought face to face with the modern 
 Western world, and forced into new and undesired 
 relationships. That she should resent what, from 
 her standpoint, was an unwarranted intrusion, is 
 but natural. That she should misunderstand and 
 misconstrue the motives of those who were sin- 
 cerely desirous of serving her best interests was to 
 be expected. Her rulers were in abst)lute igno- 
 rance of both the principles and technicalities of 
 modern international law, and the rules which gov- 
 ern the intercourse of autonomous and equal States.
 
 1 6 THE REAL CH IX AM AN. 
 
 Through this ignorance they have often put their 
 government in false positions, and hence lost diplo- 
 matic battles when the point for which the}^ were 
 striving was right and they ought to have won. 
 They are as well aware of this fact as any of their 
 critics, but are too proud and reserved to openly 
 confess it. One of the members of the Chinese 
 Cabinet said to the author on one occasion : "It 
 makes no difference on which side justice and right 
 lie, whatever the question may be, China is always 
 obliged to take the wall. Even when our case is 
 good, we blunder and lose it." And the pathetic 
 remark contained far more of truth than, perhaps, 
 the speaker himself knew. 
 
 Here is an illustration, a case unimportant in itself, 
 yet fully justifying the complaint of the Cabinet 
 minister. It has been the custom in Peking from 
 time immemorial that, whenever the Emperor goes 
 abroad, the streets through which he passes must be 
 closed to public travel. On one such occasion the 
 Chinese Foreign Office, two days in advance of the 
 event, notified the various diplomatic representa- 
 tives in a courteous note. The streets to be closed 
 were not in that part of the city where foreigners 
 resided ; none of them would be in the least in- 
 commoded, and, moreover, tlie interruption to 
 traffic would last only a couple of hours. Yet, 
 with a single exception, every legation in Peking 
 replied, resenting the action of the Chinese authori- 
 ties. In this case the Chinese Government erred 
 through an excessive desire to be courteous. In 
 no capital of either Europe or America would the 
 municii)al authorities, much less the Privy Coun-
 
 ix'/'A'onrcTOA'Y. 17 
 
 cil of State, trouble themselves to inform for- 
 eign ministers of a temporary blockade of certain 
 streets. They would simply close the streets for a 
 day, or a month if need be, and promptly and 
 properly rebuke any question of their action by 
 foreign representatives. 
 
 When the Chinese people are more fully under- 
 stood, their faults, foibles, and virtues recognized 
 — they have many of each — and the history of this 
 first thirty years of intercourse between them and 
 the outside world is accurately written, the won- 
 der will be, not that China has modified her an- 
 cient ways so little in this period, but rather that 
 she has changed so much and conformed so largely 
 and, on the whole, so good-naturedly to the demands 
 of modern life. Her people are not stolid, how- 
 ever much they may appear so. But they are natu- 
 rally cautious, conservative, and intensely proud. 
 The)^ have been rudely awakened from a sleep of 
 centuries — not, it must be admitted, under the most 
 favorable circumstances. And it takes time to 
 safely recast the life and mode of thought of four 
 hundred millions of people. 
 
 There is neither force nor point in drawing com- 
 parisons between them and the Japanese in regard 
 to their progress in Western civilization. The two 
 races are essentially unlike. Then one more read- 
 il}'' casts off borrowed habiliments than those which 
 were originally his own, earned by his labor, and 
 worn until they have become almost an integral 
 part of himself. As has already been pointed out, 
 Japan, in discarding Oriental fashions foi Western, 
 was, in the main, merely casting off borrowed
 
 i8 THE REAL CHJXAMAX. 
 
 clothing. Those of China, on the contrary, are of 
 her own devising, and have been slowly and labori- 
 ously woven as the shuttle of time passed to and 
 fro through many centuries. 
 
 Aside from tliis, there has been an enormous dif- 
 ference, all in favor of Japan, in both the initiation 
 and the conduct of their relations with the West- 
 ern world. Enough has been said of the opium 
 war which was the occasion of the formal and 
 forced introduction of China into the so-called 
 " family of nations." Shortly after that event, 
 Japan, also at the point of the bayonet, it is true, 
 received her introduction. The United States per- 
 formed that ceremony, and made the first treaty. 
 In both countries there existed ligid laws against 
 the importation and use of opium. We have seen 
 how those laws were treated by those who made 
 the first treaty with China. Our commissioner to 
 Japan, on the other hand, scrupulously regarded 
 Japanese legislation and wishes upon this point, 
 and practically strengthened the determination of 
 the native authorities. To put the contrast in the 
 mildest possible form, Great Britain hampered 
 legislation against the use of opium in China ; the 
 United States rendered moral support to such 
 legislation in Japan. The difference between these 
 two lines of action at the outset is much further- 
 reaching in its results tlian is ordinarily supposed. 
 It is nearly sufficient to account for the different 
 positions of the two nations to-day. In 1872, Japan 
 and Cliina tiuMi having no treaty relations, a peti- 
 tion was fcjrwarded by certain Cliinese residents in 
 Japan to the United States Legation at Peking,
 
 IN TROD UfJ-QK Y. 19 
 
 with the request that it be laid before the Imperial 
 Government. It prayed for the redress of certain 
 serious grievances and hardships to which they 
 were subjected in Japan. The chief complaint was 
 that many of them were opium-smokers, and that 
 the Japanese authorities interfered with their prac- 
 tice of the vice. They summed up their sufferings in 
 this matter with the declaration that the police were 
 even in the habit of entering their sleeping-rooms 
 at night and smelling their breath, in order to dis- 
 cover whether they had been using the opium pipe. 
 In 187S the Chinese Government asked the per- 
 mission of the United States to place certain stu- 
 dents, then being educated in this country at its 
 expense, in our military and naval schools at West 
 Point and Annapolis. Although the request was 
 not favorably received, it was earnestly pressed for 
 nearly tliree years before being abandoned. Our 
 refusal was the main cause of the withdrawal of 
 what was known as the Chinese Educational Mis- 
 sion, the most practical scheme ever undertaken 
 by China for placing herself in line with modern 
 ways and ideas. At the time this request was being 
 urged by China, Japanese students, sent and sup- 
 ported by their government, were learning the art 
 and science of naval warfare at Annapolis, as the 
 Chinese authorities well knew. How far this 
 favor, granted to Japan and refused to China, may 
 have determined the issue of the great naval battle 
 recently fought between the ships of those nations, 
 in which several of the principal Japanese actors 
 were graduates of the United States Naval Acad- 
 emy, cannot, of course, be determined. Nor can
 
 20 
 
 THE REAL CN IX A. VAX. 
 
 it be known how far our refusal disheartened and 
 prejudiced a nation at best only half-hearted in its 
 desire for progress, and timid and uncertain as tc 
 the best means of promoting it. 
 
 ClUNKSE UKKICIAL — MOUNTED. 
 
 The United States and all British colonies within 
 a reaching distance of Chinese emigrants, wliicli 
 practically includes all countries in which the 
 Chinese coolie can be certain of the treatment due 
 to human beings, have passed laws against Chinese
 
 immigration. No such Icgislalive action lias been 
 taken by any against the natives of Japan. While 
 the Chinese Government is decidedly opposed to 
 the emigration if its people, it does not regard 
 them as the scum of the earth, and very naturally 
 objects to discriminative legislation against them. 
 
 These comparisons and contrasts are not drawn 
 for the purpose of argument or accusation. The 
 (juestion whether these diverse lines of action tow- 
 ard two neighboring powers, brought out of cen- 
 tuiies of isolation about the same time, and each 
 intensely jealous of the other, was wise or unwise, 
 right or wrong, is not raised. They are brought 
 forward solely as facts which have had an essential 
 bearing \\\\o\\ the present attitude and position of 
 China, and hence must be kept in mind by any 
 person who is desirous of obtaining a reasonably 
 accurate conception of the people of that great 
 empire, and the peculiar agencies which have 
 operated, from without as well as from within, to 
 place them where they are to-day. 
 
 During the thirty years which have passed since 
 China was opened to the Western world, and 
 brought, without prelude or preparation, face to 
 face with the host of delicate and confusing ques- 
 tions which came with what was really a new 
 national existence, two men have practically shaped 
 the policy and guided the destinies of the empire. 
 When, in i860, the allied British and French 
 armies reached Peking, Prince Kung, a younger 
 brother of the Emperor, was the only member of 
 the imperial famih^ who remained at the capital. 
 He came forward and made terms of peace with
 
 2 2 THE REAL CH IX AM AN. 
 
 the diplomatic representatives who accompanied 
 the military forces. And from that event until his 
 retirement from office in 1884 he was by far the most 
 conspicuous and influential figure in either the for- 
 eign or domestic politics of China. His name is, 
 perhaps, less familiar to foreigners than that of the 
 Viceroy, Li Hung Chang. This arises partly from 
 the fact of his residence at the capital instead of a 
 seaport, and because his imperial rank renders him 
 less democratic and accessible to the ordinary trav- 
 eler. But for a quarter of a century he was the 
 head and Li Hung Chang the strong right arm of 
 the Chinese Empire. 
 
 At the very outset of his public career he suc- 
 cessfully initiated a system of diplomatic inter- 
 course with Western powers, established a customs 
 system which has no superior in efficiency, and at 
 the siime time crushed out the Taiping rebellion in 
 Central China, and, a little later, the Mohamme- 
 dan uprising in the northwestern provinces. He 
 satisfied the just indignation of foreign govern- 
 ments at the indescribable horrors of the Tientsin 
 massacre on surjM-isingly easy terms, fought against 
 and then yielded the audience question when his 
 shrewd foresight showed him that further opposi- 
 tion was dangerous, outwitted Russia in the Kuldja 
 affair, crushed the coolie trafiic out of existence, 
 and finally came to grief in connection with the 
 French invasion of Cochin China, though the policy 
 outlined by him in that affair was successfully fol- 
 lowed by Ills successors. 
 
 Prince Kung is a past master in the art of Ori- 
 ental diplomacy. He studies the man pitted against
 
 INTKOD UCTOR Y. 23 
 
 him in any given contest even more carefully than 
 the question at issue. He is overbearing and con- 
 ciliatory, rude and courteous, frank and reserved, 
 prompt and dilatory, patient and hot-tempered — 
 all exactly as suits his purpose, and with a startling 
 rapidity of change from one role to another. The 
 great secret of his success lies in his ability to de- 
 termine in advance when it will be necessary to 
 yield. His sudden changes of front are no indica- 
 tion of a vacillating disposition. They are the 
 shifting of so many masks behind which he studies 
 his opponent, estimates the amount of his deter- 
 mination, and thereby decides his own course. He 
 gives no premonitory sign of surrender, is the 
 more positive and unyielding as the final moment 
 approaches, and then, when his antagonist is brac- 
 ing himself for a final attack, the enemy suddenly 
 disappears, and a smiling, compliant friend takes 
 his place. 
 
 As a leader in what may be termed a defensive 
 foreign policy — and thus far China has had only 
 that — Prince Kung has probably no equal. No 
 man in tlie empire better understands her future 
 possibilities and present inherent weakness. No 
 man now living there has had any such broad range 
 of experience and responsibility as he. During the 
 twenty- four years of his premiership there was an 
 emperor upon the throne but two, and he was an 
 effeminate and vicious boy, who died from the 
 effects of dissipation. Practically, during his entire 
 term of public service, Prince Kung was the master 
 mind in determining the policy of the government, 
 and the shrewd and versatile politician and diplo-
 
 24 THE REAL CIIEYAMAX. 
 
 mat in its execution. His recent recall to the post 
 formerly held by him is a distinct gain to the em- 
 pire. 
 
 Li Hung Chang was born in the province of An 
 Huei, in Central China, in 1822. He comes from 
 an ordinary Chinese family, which, however, has 
 become noted from the fact that all of the sons in 
 the present generation attained the highest rank 
 in public service, each being entitled to wear the 
 pink coral button. Hence his mother is highly 
 honored among Chinese women. He became 
 prominent in connection with the efforts made by 
 the Imperial Government to suppress the Taiping 
 rebellion, at which time he was governor of one of 
 the provinces which was overrun by the insurgents. 
 He ordered the immediate decapitation of five 
 Wangs, or rebel chiefs, wlio had surrendered under 
 a pledge made them by General Gordon that their 
 lives should be spared and they should be allowed 
 to go unpunished. He was made Viceroy of Chihli 
 in 1871, and has been retained in that post continu- 
 ously since. This is the highest viceroyalty in the 
 empire, since the capital is within its limits. 
 
 Li has had a large military experience, and in his 
 bearing and modes of thought is more of the sol- 
 dier than tlie politician. He is exceptionally large 
 for a Chinese, has a gruff, hearty voice, and is ex- 
 ceedingly democratic in his feelings. Despite the 
 reserve and show of state which is supposed to sur- 
 round an Oriental of his high station, he is easily 
 reached, and may be seen by any foreigner who 
 can induce his consul to request an interview. 
 Some of these visitors, and they are many, might
 
 LI HUNG CHANG.
 
 IN TROD UCTOR V. 27 
 
 learn a lesson in ordinary politeness from the gruff 
 old viceroy. One of them, an ex-governor of one 
 of our States, who had been received with extreme 
 courtesy, remarked to an American friend as they 
 were leaving, the viceroy and his interpreter, 
 through whom the conversation had been conduct- 
 ed, being close at his side, " Well, I don't see that 
 the viceroy is such an old heathen after all." 
 
 Throughout his brilliant career, Viceroy Li has 
 given consistent and conclusive evidence of his 
 unswerving fidelity to the reigning family. He has 
 been the strong right arm of the government. To 
 him is mainly due the progress made in building 
 up a navy of modern ships and organizing an army 
 with modern weapons. The Imperial Government 
 has leaned upon him more, relied more upon his 
 counsel, trusted him more implicitly than any other 
 officer, Chinese or Manchu, outside of Peking, 
 within the limits of the empire. And there never 
 has been a time when rumors of disaffection on his 
 part or distrust upon the part of those above him 
 had any foundation in fact. This is not only true 
 of Li Hung Chang, but is equally true of all Chi- 
 nese officials, so far, at least, as any objection to 
 the reigning dynasty on account of its being Man- 
 chu is concerned. Manchu rule has been wise, 
 moderate, and sagacious. Aside from rare cases 
 of personal favoritism, no discrimination whatever 
 is allowed between Chinese and Manchu subjects. 
 The number of Chinese office-holders exceeds enor- 
 mously the Manchu list. As a matter of fact, the 
 native race has absorbed its conquerors, and the 
 two are practically one. It is as rare to find a Chi-
 
 28 
 
 THE KEAL ClflXAMAX. 
 
 nese who objects to the Emperor because he is a 
 Manchu, as it is to find one of our British friends 
 objecting to Her Majesty Queen Victoria because 
 of her German extraction.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT OF CHINA. 
 
 To misunderstand every- 
 thing Chinese appears to be 
 the rule in Western lands. 
 And in no direction is this 
 misunderstanding so pardon- 
 able, so much, indeed, to be expected, as in questions 
 rehiting to the government of that empire. To the 
 student of modern political systems, with his ideas 
 of authority based more or less completely upon 
 a popular vote, with its clean-cut and accurate limi- 
 tations and divisions of power, its immediate and 
 well-defined responsibility to the governed, and its 
 forms and methods carefully exposed to constant 
 publicity, the system whicli has existed for thou- 
 sands of years in China appears a hopeless puzzle. 
 To him it is only a confused snarl of undefined and 
 often conflicting power. He searches in vain for 
 the end of the thread by wliich he may striughten 
 out the tangle, iind abandons the task, himself con- 
 fused and undecided whether the continued exist- 
 ence of such a system, or tlie fact that any people 
 could be governed by it for a single day, is the 
 more remarkable. He classifies it by that familiar 
 old phrase, an absolute despotism, and, thus la- 
 belled, he leaves it.
 
 so THE REAL CHIXAMAN, 
 
 Such a conclusion, readied from a standpoint 
 exterior to China, is by no means remarkable. Her 
 people possess few or none of those peculiar rights 
 and privileges which appear so essential to others, 
 nor can it truthfully be said that they long for 
 them. Trial by jury is unknown, and the average 
 Chinese defendant would shake his head at the 
 idea, preferring to trust his case to one man rather 
 than to twelve. Like the English and Americans, 
 his language contains no phrase even remotely 
 equivalent to habeas corpus. Nor does he know 
 anything about such high-sounding phrases as 
 " the palladium of our rights" and " the magna 
 charta of our liberties." He is amused rather than 
 interested at our elections, and has never had any 
 direct voice either in the choice of those who rule 
 over him or in the enactment of legislation. The 
 laws of China are simply the expression of the will 
 of the Emperor, made in individual cases. And the 
 code — -for China has a code — is the collection and 
 orderly arrangement of these imperial decrees as 
 they have accumulated through many centuries. 
 They are collated from an immense supply of prec- 
 edents, and touch every imaginable case and all 
 shadings of circumstance. The Chinese have an 
 invincible repugnance to lawyers. Their strongest 
 objection to all Western modes of judicial procedure 
 is the existence and employment of lawyers in our 
 courts. Said a distinguished Chinese statesman to 
 the author : " We can trust our own judgment and 
 common sense to get at the merits of any case and 
 do substantial justice. We do not need to hire 
 men to prove that right is wrong and wrong right."
 
 TJIK COl'KRX.UJ'lXT OF CHIXA. 31 
 
 The fact is, tliat while all Western nations are 
 cc^ming more and more closely in their ideas of 
 government to that declaration peculiarly fiimiliar 
 to Americans, that " all governments derive their 
 iust powers from tlie consent of the governed," the 
 Chinese have not yet even considered such a theory. 
 Few of them have heard of it. Their theory, on 
 the other hand, is found, with tlie change of a sin- 
 gle word, in iin old book which some of them have 
 seen, and which declares that " the powers that be 
 are ordained of Heaven." They have adhered to 
 this generic idea of authority through all the ages, 
 under emperors good, bad, and indifferent. Through 
 repeated changes of dynasty and thousands of years 
 of time, back to the point where their history 
 ceases to be fact and becomes fanciful legend and 
 myth, they have held unchanged to this idea, and 
 no essential modification can at any period in all the 
 centuries be discovered in their system of govern- 
 ment. So far as their records show, it is to-day 
 what it was in the days of Yao and Shun, more 
 than four thousand years ago. 
 
 Nor does history record any desire or effort, in 
 all these years, to modify the Chinese form of gov- 
 ernment. It not only has existed, it has satisfied 
 the people who w^ere ruled by it. It has been 
 copied by smaller adjacent peoples, but never re- 
 pudiated by its own. It has existed for a far 
 greater period of time than any other sj'stem of 
 authority on earth ; has ruled an immense multi- 
 tude of people — probably one third of the popula- 
 tion of the globe — and has secured to them a rea- 
 sonable measure of freedom, peace, and prosper-
 
 32 
 
 THE REAL CHlXAJE-iy. 
 
 ity. It apparently siitisfies them as well to-day as 
 it did centuries in the past. There surely must be 
 something good, some element which appeals to 
 the better side of human nature, in any form of 
 power of which this can be said. 
 
 ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE. 
 
 Whatever may be the explanation, it is not to be 
 found in any lack or deficiency in the Chinese char- 
 acter which would lead the race to submit quietly 
 and without show of resistance to an oppression 
 which other more progressive races would over- 
 throw. The Chinese is cautious, slow, conserva- 
 tive. But he has a sturdy independence of char- 
 acter, an innate and strongly developed love of his 
 rights, and will defend them as promptly and posi- 
 tively as any men elsewhere. He may not select
 
 THE GOVERNMENT OE CHINA. Z2> 
 
 the same methods as others, but he reaches the 
 same end by his own way. The Chinese people 
 have in numberless instances risen in opposition to 
 their local rulers, but it has been an uprising 
 against abuses of the system of government, never 
 against the system itself. They have been known 
 to deal with a local magistrate, such as the mayor 
 of a city, in a most democratic and unceremonious 
 manner ; have gone so far as to pull his queue and 
 slap his face ; but it was not because of the exer- 
 cise on his part of lawful authority, but because he 
 had exceeded it. They are much given to attach- 
 ing slang names to their officials, descriptive of 
 their peculiarities of person or administration, and 
 have even called the Emperor by a phrase equiva- 
 lent to " Our Head Clerk ;" but this last is rare. 
 
 Theoretically it may be proper to classify the 
 Chinese system of government as an absolute des- 
 potism, but in its practical operations such a de- 
 scription of it not only fails to describe, but is mis- 
 leading and unjust. It is paternalism pure and 
 simple. Not the man, but the home, the family is 
 the unit of Chinese life. And paternalism, based 
 upon the ancient patriarchal idea of the position 
 and authority of the head of the family, is the 
 theory upon which the form of government is 
 based. The only despotic element in it is to be 
 found in the practically unlimited authority which, 
 under tlie old patriarchal law, parents exercised 
 over their children. This law is in full force in 
 China to-day, and is perhaps more rigoroush' en- 
 forced than any other. The theory is simple, and 
 may be stated in a single line. The parent is the
 
 34 THE A'EAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 absolute master of his son, entitled to his service 
 and obedience so long as the parent lives. The 
 son never becomes of age, in our sense of the word, 
 during the life of the father — that is, never becomes 
 independent of him. He must serve him so long as 
 he lives, at the sacrifice of his own wife and chil- 
 dren if necessity arise ; must honor him with an 
 extravagant funeral at death, mourn him for three 
 years, during which period his wife must not give 
 birth to a child, and offer sacrifice twice each year, 
 so long as he himself lives, at his father's tomb. 
 
 The Chinese code provides that any one who is 
 guilty of addressing abusive language to his or her 
 father or mother, or father's parents, or a wife who 
 rails at her husband's parents or grandparents, 
 shall be strangled. Other penalties equally^ severe 
 are provided for all possible offences against filial 
 duty. And no statutes in the empire are more 
 rigorously enforced. Upon the other hand, the 
 father, having been given uncontrolled authority 
 over his son throughout his life, is held responsible 
 by the government for the conduct of the son. If 
 the latter violates any law, his parents and grand- 
 parents, if living, are punished with him, upon the 
 theory that they had failed in their duty to instruct 
 him in such a way as to make him a good citizen. 
 A most shocking illustration of this theory occurred 
 in Peking in 1S73. A Ciiinese was convicted of 
 having broken open tlie tomb of a prince and 
 robbed the coffin of some valuable ornaments con- 
 tainerl within it. Although there was no evidence 
 to shc^w that any relative of his was aware of the 
 crime, much less a party to it, yet the entire family 
 
 \
 
 THE GOVERNMENT OF CI/ IN' A. 35 
 
 of thirteen persons, representing five generations, 
 and including a man more than ninety years of 
 age and a babe of less than two months, were put 
 to death. The criminal and liis parents were 
 sliced in pieces ; of the others, the men were be- 
 headed and the women strangled. 
 
 It is necessary to keep carefully in mind this 
 patriarchal idea of parental authority, since from it 
 the entire system of government in China has de- 
 veloped. The family is the microcosm which, en- 
 larged but otherwise unchanged, forms the type of 
 power throughout the empire. The family, with 
 its autocratic head, is the unit. Next comes the 
 simplest form of combination in the village life, in 
 which is found a considerable degree of local self- 
 government, the old men being allowed a certain 
 control, and being in return held responsible for 
 the good conduct and proper discipline of the 
 younger. Practically this semi-official council of 
 elders is allowed to regulate the less important 
 affairs of the commune without interference, and 
 its opinion has great weight in the adjustment of 
 questions of more gravity. Its functions have been 
 fully recognized, not merely by high officials, but 
 by every emperor who has occupied the throne. 
 Some two hundred years ago the Emperor Kang 
 Hsi, one of the wisest in the long list, prepared a 
 series of eighteen essays upon the varied duties of 
 his subjects in all their relations to each other and 
 the State, and the elders in the different villages 
 throughout the empire were commanded to call all 
 the young men together upon the ist and 15th of 
 each month and to reiid and expound to them the
 
 ^6 THE REAL CHIXAMAJSf. 
 
 whole or a part of one of these essays. Following 
 the village group comes naturally the larger com- 
 binations up to the province, which corresponds 
 substantially with our State. And these, eighteen 
 in number in China proper, form the empire. 
 
 The central figure in this system is, of course, 
 the Emperor. He is the sire, the father of all the 
 Sons of Han, as the Chinese are proud to call them- 
 selves. Me receives his authority direct from 
 Heaven. He is the source of law and the fountain- 
 head of authority, the owner by Divine right of 
 every foot of ]and and every dollar's worth of prop- 
 erty in the empire. China has no domestic debt, 
 and under this system can have none, for when the 
 Emperor needs what is his and is still nominally in 
 the possession of his subjects, he does not borrow, 
 he simply takes it. All the forces and wealth of 
 the empire are his, and he may claim the services 
 of all male subjects between the ages of sixteen 
 and sixty. He has another, a sacerdotal function, 
 which adds largely to the reverence and semi-sacred 
 character in wliich he is held by the people, and to 
 which is due the seclusion in which he is kept. He 
 is the son of Heaven, and, as such, Heaven's high- 
 priest. He alone can worsiiip and offer sacrifice on 
 behalf of his people at the great altar of Heaven. 
 In this service he has no recognized substitute or 
 subordinate. He stands alone between his people 
 and the Heaven which is to them the final power, 
 Jie source of blessing and bane, tlie sentient and 
 perfect judge, swift to reward virtue and punish 
 vice. But he stands there as its son and servant, 
 thus forming the connecting link between his chil-
 
 THE GOVERXMENT OF CHIXA. 39 
 
 dren and Heaven, which is, in their eyes, his ancestor 
 and theirs. 
 
 While the imperial power thus described appears 
 to be absolutely without limit, it is, in point of fact, 
 no more despotic or arbitrary than that with which 
 the head of every family in China is clothed. It is 
 precisely the same in both kind and degree. The 
 Emperor is simply the patriarch of his people. 
 He exercises in that great area which forms the na- 
 tivon, iind wliich they call "The Central Empire," 
 neither more nor less than the same powers and 
 privileges which each father of a family, even the 
 meanest and most ignorant, exercises in his mud- 
 walled and straw-thatched hovel. He delegates 
 his parental authority, of necessity, to officers of 
 various ranks and degrees, and each of them be- 
 comes by this act the father of those under his 
 jurisdiction. The patriarchal idea is the vital cord, 
 the generic theory of the entire system ; and in 
 that fact is to be found the explanation of its per- 
 manence and the power which it has among the 
 people. 
 
 To these officers is given so large a measure of 
 discretionary power that, in a considerable degree, 
 each district becomes, like the village, self-govern- 
 ing. Practically officials are held responsible for 
 certain results. Ways and means are left to their 
 judgment. They must keep order and administer 
 justice within their jurisdiction to such an extent 
 at least that no complaints are lodged against them 
 at Peking, and collect and remit the amount of 
 taxes due to the central government. The impe- 
 rial commands appear not to run beyond those
 
 40 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 points. The results of this freedom of action are 
 twofold. They give, as has been stated, a consid- 
 erable degree of liberty to local authorities to 
 consult the popular will, and while they permit a 
 vicious official to abuse his position, they make it 
 certain that the popular censure for maladministra- 
 tion shall rest upon him and not upon the source 
 of his power. The government is thus loose-joint- 
 ed in its application rather than the reverse ; and 
 when the people complain, which they are not slow 
 to do if occasion arise, it is not of despotic inter- 
 ference with their affairs, but of indifference, not 
 of too much government, but of too little. He 
 who has absolute authority seldom exercises any. 
 The despot is a mere figure-head, a nonentity. 
 
 It must also be said that the laws, as a whole, 
 are mild and humane, far superior to those found 
 in any other Asiatic country. Sir George Stan- 
 ton, who translated the Chinese code, said of it : 
 " When we turn from the ravings of the Zend- 
 Avesta or the Puranastothe tone of sense and busi- 
 ness in this Chinese collection, it is like passing 
 from darkness to light, from the dwellings of do- 
 cage to the exercise of an improved understanding ; 
 and redundant and minute as these laws are in 
 many particulars, we scarcely know a European 
 code that is at once so copious and so consistent, 
 <ir is nearly so freed from intricacy, bigotry, and 
 liilion. " 
 
 There are a variety of other causes tending to 
 promote the complacency of the people with their 
 rulers and the form of government under which 
 they live. ThiM'c arc numerous checks and guards
 
 77//; (/('/7-.7v'.\J//;.\/' OF CJILVA. 41 
 
 against abuse of power. The path of appeal to 
 Peking lies always open ; and, theoretically at 
 least, it can be traveled without money and with- 
 out price. Although the Imperial Government sel- 
 dom shows its hand in interference with the local 
 authority, it has a complete system of espionage 
 over all of its subordinates. One of the depart- 
 ments at the capital is charged with the duty of 
 keeping a record of the conduct of every officer in 
 the empire. 
 
 Aside from the more serious rewards and pen- 
 alties of promotion or dismissal, a record similar 
 to the credit and demerit system of school days 
 is kept, and the bahmce tells for or against the 
 career of the given officer, as the case may be. 
 Some of these entries are whimsical in their nature 
 when viewed from a Western standpoint, especially 
 as it is common for officials, even of the highest 
 rank, to report themselves for punishment, and be- 
 cause of events whicla were manifestly beyond their 
 control. That celebrated warrior and statesman, 
 Li Hung Chang, has more than once petitioned the 
 Emperor that a punishment might be awarded him 
 because a river within his jurisdiction had over- 
 flowed its banks, owing to excessive rain. Another, 
 only less distinguished than lie, asked to be re- 
 moved from office because a drought and conse- 
 quent famine had come upon the people of the 
 province which he governed, presunial^ly through 
 some fault of his. 
 
 Tlie central government has also a series of re- 
 wards for especial diligence and iU)ility in public 
 service. A peacock feather to be worn in the offi-
 
 42 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 cial hat, and possessed of no eye or of one, two, or 
 three eyes, according to the magnitude of the favor 
 shown, is one of these. Another is the permission 
 to enter the outer gate of the palace on horseback. 
 Another is a sable robe. And the last and most 
 prized of all is a short jacket of imperial yellow, 
 the color sacred to His Majesty. These personal 
 marks of favor may be given or withdrawn without 
 interfering with the actual position of him who 
 gains or loses them. The last two named are be- 
 stowed only upon officials of the highest rank. 
 Titular honors are also at times bestowed upon the 
 deceased ancestors of praiseworthy servants of the 
 government — a well-meant but useless reward to 
 them for having given to the service of the Em- 
 peror zealous and devoted sons. 
 
 The two most important factors in securing the 
 permanence of the Chinese governmental system, 
 and winning for it throughout the centuries the 
 continued and hearty support of all classes of the 
 people, remain to be noticed. 
 
 The system has been described as pure paternal- 
 ism, based upon the patriarchal idea of authority. 
 The student of the system may hold either of two 
 opinions. He may regard the form of government 
 as the natural outgrowth of the peculiar genius or 
 bent of the Chinese mind, or he may look upon it 
 as arbitrarily adopted in the early ages of the 
 human race, and ascribe its perpetuity to a long- 
 continued system of education, wliich has so shaped 
 the popular mind as to conform it to the funda- 
 mental idea of government. With either view the 
 result is the same. The Chinese Empire stands
 
 THE GOl'KRXMF.Xr OF CHINA. 43 
 
 solidly imbedded in the minds of the people. It 
 satisfies both their judgment and affections. Their 
 idea and range of instruction have remained un- 
 changed for more than twenty centuries, and filial 
 piety is by far the most essential duty taught in it. 
 That virtue is held as the source and root of ail 
 goodness, as the mainspring of morality, and the 
 fountain-head of all lionor and prosperity. 
 
 Filial piety may properly be styled the only origi- 
 nal religion of the Chinese. It is taught in every 
 text-book of every school, and from tlie l)eginning 
 to the end of the educational course. Exceptional 
 examples of the practice of the virtue i:ave been 
 in all past time and are now brought to the notice 
 of the Emperor, and by him rewarded with ex- 
 ceptional honors. Every boy and girl in the em- 
 pire has, as a part of necessary education, been 
 told the stories of certain Chinese who practiced 
 this duty in a remarkable degree. Their names 
 and the manner in which their devotion to their 
 parents was shown are fresh in the minds of every 
 person in the empire. There are twenty-four of 
 these renowned and special exhibitions. The 
 " Sacred Edicts of the Emperor Kang Hsi," al- 
 ready mentioned, contains one chapter devoted to 
 exhortation to the practice of this virtue ; and 
 one incident is given illustrative of the beneficial 
 effects of its exercise not included in the twenty- 
 four, and so peculiar as to be well worthy of trans- 
 lation. It runs as follows : " There was also in the 
 district of Chiang Cho a single family named Ch'en, 
 comprising, in its various generations, more than 
 seven hundred persons, all of ^"hom ate at one tab'^
 
 44 
 
 THE REAL CHI. YAM an: 
 
 Among them they possessed some one hundred 
 and fifteen or one hundred and twenty dogs, who 
 also ate their food together. If any one of the 
 dogs failed to come to his food, none of the others 
 would consent to eat."' " You see," moralizes the 
 venerable and wise Emperor, " this Ch'en family, 
 
 CHINESE RIVER SCENE. 
 
 by their concord and liarmonious lives, liad con- 
 verted and regenerated all of their dogs." 
 
 It is, perhaps, unnecessary to inquire whether 
 " this Ch'en family" possessed a peculiar breed of 
 dogs, or whether the Emperor had been imposed 
 upon. The tale serves fitly to illustrate the variety 
 of ways and means by which this duty of filial 
 obedience is impressed upon the minds of the peo- 
 ple, until the phrase has become with them a syn-
 
 THE GOrEA'.YArF.XT OF ClffXA. 45 
 
 onym for the sum of all virtue aud the climax of 
 all religion. Confucius found this idea already 
 existent, and he so enforced and (Mnbodied it in his 
 code of political ethics as to immeasurably increase 
 its power. To him it was alike the root and cul- 
 mination of all priv^ate or national virtue and wis- 
 dom. His writings have shaped the minds of the 
 people and the policy of the empire for more than 
 two thousand years. He is quoted alike by prince 
 and peasant, by emperor and beggar. A quota- 
 tion from Confucius has settled many a quarrel, 
 arbitrated many a dispute. And, beyond ques- 
 tion, this long-continued and consistent line of 
 education, coincident at every point with the root 
 idea of the governmental system, has had an im- 
 mense effect in giving permanence to that system, 
 and in the control of the people under it. 
 
 The other important element in the conservation 
 of the system is found in the fact that the adminis- 
 trators of the affairs of state are chosen from among 
 the people themselves. The imperial family, aside 
 from its head, has never absorbed many of the 
 offices nor concerned itself with the government. 
 There is no titled nobility, with its long list of elder 
 and younger sons, sons-in-law, and cousins near 
 and remote, to be supported from the public funds 
 and to fill all the more important positions of honor 
 and profit. The few titles that are from time to 
 time bestowed carr\' nothing with them but the 
 nominal honor ; they are bestowed as rewards for 
 distinguished services, and have never been recog- 
 nized as forming the basis of any claim whatever 
 upon cither otTices or treasury. In a way they are
 
 46 THE REAL CinXAMAX. 
 
 hereditary, but soon run out, since the rank de- 
 creases one grade with each generation. Even the 
 imperial clan forms no exception to this rule. The 
 author has many a time had in his employ a man 
 who, as a blood relative of the Emperor, was en- 
 titled to wear the imperial yellow girdle ; but he 
 was a hod- carrier, and earned six cents a day. 
 
 There is thus no class or barrier of persons en- 
 titled to special privileges between the Emperor 
 and his people. Succession to the throne itself, 
 while it is practically a matter of hereditary de- 
 scent, is not necessarily so. The eldest son is not 
 the heir apparent. The Emperor names his suc- 
 cessor, and is supposed to study the character of 
 all his sons and to select that one who is, in his 
 j-udgment, best qualified to manage the affairs of 
 state. The eldest is frequently put aside ; and one 
 of the best rulers of the present dynasty was the 
 fourteenth son of his father. Theoretically the 
 Emperor may go entirely outside his own family, 
 and select his successor from among any family of 
 his subjects. This course, however, is never fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 Here, then, is seen at a glance the Chinese sys- 
 tem. The Emperor stands alone. He is the son 
 of Heaven, the father of the empire, with its count- 
 less millions of population. The innumerable 
 "hands and eyes of the throne," his officers of 
 every grade of degree, rank, and responsibility are 
 chosen, under a carefully devised series of regula- 
 tions, from among the people themselves. The 
 door to office is open to all. Every boy in the em- 
 pire is a possible iit'inc-minister. But each one
 
 Tifi'. r,o\-i-:K.\.\n-:xi' of cirrxA. 47 
 
 must start at the l)()tt()in of tlic official ladder, and 
 the height to which he may climb is then deter- 
 mined solely l)y his own ability, zeal, and fidelity. 
 This is not a mere theory, it is a fact. The major- 
 ity of the hioii ministers of state in China wlio have 
 held office during the past centuries, and hence 
 whose histories can readily be traced, began life as 
 poor boys — poor with a poverty of which we fortu- 
 nately know nothing. To name one or two by way 
 of example merely : Wen Hsiang, one of the great- 
 est Chinese statesmen of the present dynasty, and 
 for many years prime-minister, was the son of a 
 farmer, who reared a large family upon less than 
 ten acres of leased land. His colleague and suc- 
 cessor, Shen Kuei Fen, was the son of a street ped- 
 dler, who esteemed himself fortunate if he made a 
 profit of ten cents a day from his business. Such 
 cases are not exceptions ; they form tlie rule. 
 
 Leaving out of sight the mode of selection, the 
 fact that officials in China are not chosen by the 
 people, but named by the Emperor, there is a re- 
 markable similarity between the system in vogue 
 in that great Oriental empire and that followed by 
 the United States. There, as here, it is a govern- 
 ment of the people by officers chosen from among 
 the people, with no bar to the ambition of any of 
 the governed to become a governor. And the re- 
 sult is much as might be expected. Tliere is in- 
 tense ambition to fill positions which are univer- 
 sally recognized as belonging to the people, a 
 sturdy freedom and independence of opinion in the 
 criticism of the conduct of magistrates, and a gen- 
 eral spirit of democracy in the popular mind which
 
 48 THE REAL C/lEVAAfAA': 
 
 forms the most remarkable anomaly to those who, 
 not having the key to the puzzle, look upon the 
 administration of Chinese affairs as a type of pure 
 despotism. Perhaps no better proof of the fact 
 that all classes of the people fully understand the 
 theory and practice upon which the government is 
 based can be found than the marked difference of 
 manner with which they speak of their officials, even 
 the highest, and of the Emperor. Of the former 
 they speak with the utmost freedom ; criticise their 
 public acts and private life, dub them with nick- 
 names, and generally treat them as their own fel- 
 lows. Of the Emperor they speak with bated 
 breath, and only in the most reverential accents. 
 
 It is not easy to overestimate the power which 
 such a governmental system has to consolidate and 
 perpetuate itself in the affections of the governed. 
 Laxity of administration or its extreme opposite, 
 tyrannous oppression, are alike condoned, as being 
 the fault of the particular incumbent of office rather 
 than of the system. Every family in the empire 
 has or aims to have a relative, more or less remote, 
 in some grade of public service, and hence extor- 
 tion, perversion of justice, and all the long list of 
 possible wrongs are borne with a patience and 
 complacency wiiich could not endure for a moment 
 if the official class W'ere not chosen ivova or did not 
 constitute a part of the people themselves. 
 
 This mode of selection of the administrators of 
 public affairs, described more in detail in another 
 chapter, has a tremendous power in conserving and 
 perpetuating the government of China.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE LANGUAGE. 
 
 It is impossible to know any people 
 well until the student can speak and 
 think in their tongue. And a barrier far 
 ^rjfiffll more serious than the Great Wall to any 
 ^jtfu! intimate acquaintance with the Chinese 
 is found in their language. It is the 
 oldest spoken language now existent upon 
 the earth, has been the mother tongue 
 of a far larger number of human beings 
 than any other either in the past or pres- 
 ent, and, so far as can be determined, 
 has undergone no serious changes either 
 in its construction or written form since 
 it came into existence. It has had, in 
 common with all other languages, a con- 
 stant process of growth and decay ; new 
 ideas have required new symbols of expression. 
 Characters have dropped out of common use as the 
 ideas which they represented were lost or modified. 
 But the national habit of thrift and economy appears 
 to have shown itself even in their word-building. 
 While new characters hiive been added to the lan- 
 guage, none of the old ones have been absolutely 
 dropped. The result is an enormous list of words, 
 which literally " no man can number." The esti-
 
 50 THE REAL CI/lXAAfAN: 
 
 mate of the total number of distinct characters in 
 the Chinese languao^e ranges all the way from 
 25,000 to 260,000. Tlie Kang Hsi Tz Tien — the 
 standard dictionary of China — -contains 44,449. 
 Probably not more than 10,000 of these are in con- 
 stant use even among the educated classes. The 
 nine volumes of the Chinese classics contain only 
 4601 different characters, though in five of the nine 
 volumes are found a total of over two hundred 
 thousand words. Hence the list of what we would 
 call obsolete characters must be far more extensive 
 tlian that of the active living characters of the lan- 
 guage. But pedantry, as shown in searching for 
 and making use of some long-forgotten character, 
 is a virtue among the Chinese, and one of the favor- 
 ite modes of exhibiting great scholarship is by inter- 
 larding a memorial to the throne, or an essay, with a 
 host of characters resurrected from the most an- 
 cient debris of the language. While this enormous- 
 ly increases the labor of learning Chinese — makes 
 it, indeed, an endless task — it carries with it one 
 comfort. It is no discredit to any person, however 
 learned, to l)e ignorant of the form, sound, or 
 meaning of characters met in his daily reading. 
 
 The Chinese language has no alphabet. Each 
 character represents in itself a complete idea, and 
 hence it is spoken of as a monosyllabic language. 
 But, practically speaking, each character corre- 
 sponds more nearly to our syllable. As ordinarily 
 used, it is no more nearly monosylkibic than is 
 I'lnglish. It is written in columns from top to bot- 
 tom of tlut i^agi.', and from right to left. A Chinese 
 book ends where ours begins. Writing is done
 
 ^ ••• "T - V ^- -'»i 
 
 ^ 
 
 A LOCK ON THE GRAND CANAL.
 
 THK I.AiVGUACE. 53 
 
 with a fine camel's-hair brush and India ink. The 
 process of printing in Cliina, known centuries be- 
 fore the discovery of the art in luirope, is very sim- 
 ple. A leaf of tlie manuscript, written exactly as it 
 is to be printed, page for page, is pasted upon a 
 block of wood. The "block-cutter" chisels out 
 the entire surface of the block to a slight depth 
 except that covered by the lines of the characters. 
 The surface thus prepared is brushed over with ink, 
 a sheet of paper is laid upon it and pressed gently 
 and then removed. The book is thus printed, a 
 page at a time. Volumes in the handwriting of 
 the author are not unusual. But literary gentle- 
 men among the Chinese are not exempt from the 
 habit of bad penmanship common to their class in 
 other lands, and, as a rule, the manuscript is gen- 
 erally, rewritten i)y an expert scribe. 
 
 The lack of any alphabet and the enormous num- 
 ber of characters make the labor of learning to 
 read Chinese burdensome in the extreme. Each 
 character must be learned by itself, and when the 
 student has mastered a thousand or five thousand, 
 the succeeding thousands must be learned in the 
 same way. Those already familiar furnish no other 
 assistance than a certain quickness to perceive the 
 peculiar form which serves to distinguish each 
 from its fellows. But there is a peculiar fascina- 
 tion in tlie study of these same characters when 
 once they are known. The student of any foreign 
 tongue learns more than how to think and speak 
 in it. He may learn much of tlie range of ideas 
 and standard of judgment of the people who use 
 it. Each word is a photograph, more or less exact.
 
 54 
 
 THE REAL CIIINAMAX. 
 
 of the conception which those who use the word 
 have of the idea which they intend it to express. 
 
 This is peculiarly true of the written language 
 of China. In their original forms the characters 
 were rude outlines of the objects they were intend- 
 ed to represent. The first change to which they 
 were subjected was the omission of unimportant 
 lines, leaving only such parts of the picture as 
 represented the peculiar form or essential points of 
 the object. Thus a man was represented with an 
 upright line for the body and two spreading lines 
 for legs ; a sheep, by lines so drawn as to represent 
 the horns, head, feet, and tail ; cattle, by a head, 
 two horns, and a tail ; the sun, by a circle with a 
 dot in the centre ; and a tree, by lines representing 
 the trunk, roots, and branches. In this way a lim- 
 ited number of forms, to indicate single visible ob- 
 jects, were secured. 
 
 Next came the combination of these simple out- 
 lines to represent ideas rather than objects. And 
 the study of this process of word-building is espe- 
 cially fascinating, since a large proportion of the 
 compounded characters are, of necessity, ideo- 
 graphic. Dissect one of them and there lies be- 
 fore you, in its component parts, the Chinese con- 
 ception of the elements which combine to form the 
 idea which the character represents. Those ancient 
 Chinese word-builders crystallized into these com- 
 binations their own conceptions, often crude, in- 
 adequate, and even grotesque, of the ideas which 
 they sought to express. Here are a few of these 
 combinations by way of illustration : Two trees 
 represent a forest, three a thicket. The sun be-
 
 TlIK I.AXCl'AGF.. 55 
 
 side the moon represents brightness. A prisoner 
 is literally a man in a box. A mouth in a door 
 signifies to ask ; a mouth and a dog, to bark ; and 
 a woman watching at a window, jealousy. A pig 
 under a roof indicates the Chinese idea of home, 
 and a woman beside a pig under a roof, the mar- 
 riage of a woman ; while the character " to seize" 
 placed cn'cr a woman shows the Celestial idea of 
 the part played by a man in a matrimonial alliance. 
 And when a Chinaman made a woman placed be- 
 side a broom represent a wife, he painted thereby 
 his own conception of her principal office in the 
 family. On the other hand, he gave an illustration 
 of his love for male offspring when he made a 
 woman standing beside a son signify good. He 
 indicates his modest conception of wealth, since 
 his combination consists of one moutla under a roof 
 and over a field. Other and perhaps more natural 
 compounds, from our standpoint, are " white" and 
 " heart," to signify fear ; a hand beside a man mean- 
 ing to help, and a man standing by words as a 
 symbol of faith. Few would fail to recognize the 
 aptness of thouglit under a tiger as a symbol for 
 worry or care, or heart beside a pig-sty as signify- 
 ing mortification or disgrace. But we have a sorry 
 picture of Chinese ideas of womankind in their 
 representation of peace or rest by one woman 
 under a roof, while two women mean " to quar- 
 rel," and three together signify intrigue of the 
 most disgraceful kind. Generally speaking, the 
 frequent use of tlie character meaning woman in 
 combinations in which the idea to be expressed is 
 wrong in its nature more than adequately illus-
 
 56 THE REAL CHINAMAN: 
 
 trates the ancient Chinese idea that the female sex 
 is " moulded out of faults." These Orientals have 
 both antedated and gone further than the French, 
 who, when a man is found guilty of offence, ask : 
 " Who is the woman ?" They have woven the idea 
 into the very fabric of their language. They show 
 their relationship to Adam by pointing, like him, 
 to the woman as the chief source of temptation and 
 sin. 
 
 In the construction of phrases and idiomatic ex- 
 pressions a similar peculiarity exists. Their idioms 
 are by turns simple, quaint, grotesque, full of force, 
 and utterly devoid of any apparent connection with 
 the idea they represent. By way of example, they 
 show a peculiarly low national idea of the color 
 white by its general use to signify uselessness or 
 failure. A " white man" means a useless good- 
 for-nothing, while a " red man" is a popular, suc- 
 cessful person. A " white house" is a hovel ; 
 " white talk" means unsuccessful argument, and 
 " white running" means labor spent in vain. As 
 the language in common use is practically a hope- 
 less entanglement of these phrases and idioms, from 
 most of which time has stripped all their original 
 force and connection, it will readily be seen that 
 the task of becoming familiar with an innumerable 
 list of characters is, after all, less difficult than that 
 of building them into sentences which, from a Chi- 
 nese standpoint, shall be intelligible and correct. 
 More foreigners fail to speak idiomatic Chinese 
 than to acquire a reasonable knowledge of the 
 written characters. And the failure is far more 
 serious.
 
 THE LAXCUAGE. 5- 
 
 Fortunately the grammar of the hmguage gives 
 no trouble. It is so simple as to be almost non- 
 existent. The words appear to have been worn 
 smooth and round by long use, and may be used 
 for the different parts of speech almost at will. 
 The same word serves indifferently as a noun, verb, 
 adverb, or adjective, or for any otiier subordinate 
 purpose as may please the speaker. Moods, tenses, 
 persons, gender, and number are all lacking. 
 Conjugations, declensions, and the whole tribe of 
 auxiliary verbs are conspicuous only by their ab- 
 sence. A single character furnishes the root-idea. 
 All qualifications of it must be effected by the 
 addition of other characters. The few educated 
 Chinese who have made any attempt to master the 
 English tongue look with horror and amazement 
 upon what they regard as the clumsy grammatical 
 construction of our language. And it must be 
 confessed that while it furnishes many a pitfall to 
 the unwary speaker to whom it is his mother 
 tongue, it becomes a hopeless task to the foreigner. 
 
 A distinguished Chinese official, who had once 
 made a sea voyage with the author of this volume, 
 presented him with a fan as a pleasant souvenir of 
 their companionship in travel. He was a cele- 
 brated scholar among his own people, an indefati- 
 gable student, and while in mourning for the 
 death of his father, and consequent retirement from 
 office, had, without a teacher, and with no other 
 aids than a Bible, Webster's Dictionary, a copy 
 of Watts and Select Hymns, and some " copy- 
 books," spent nearly three years in the effort 
 to learn English. The accompanying reproduc-
 
 58 
 
 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 tion of a photograph of the fan shows in part how 
 well he had succeeded. Every stroke seen in the 
 picture was done by him with an ordinary Chinese 
 
 SOUVENIR FAN. 
 
 brush, the English text as well as the native. The 
 latter is elegant both in poetic style (it is a poem) 
 and in penmanship ; and the writing of the English
 
 THE LAXGUACE. 
 
 59 
 
 translation is marvelous when the implement used 
 is remembered. In " the black ocean" the mar- 
 quis referretl to a fog at sea wliich had mucli 
 alarmed him ; the " red" water was the muddy 
 current at the river's mouth which marked the end 
 of the voyage. The " captain's bed" was a sofa 
 upon which the donor of the fan and the author 
 spent many hours in conversation. It was in the 
 captain's cabin, which was occupied by the author 
 during the voyage. There is a certain odd division 
 of words and lameness of grammar in the English 
 text, which is, however, an accurate reproduction 
 of the main idea of the original Chinese. 
 
 In another effort this distinguished scholar was 
 less fortunate. He fell into the bog of our auxil- 
 iary verbs, and never came to land. Here is his 
 English version of a poem, written also upon a fan, 
 in praise of the scholarship of an American friend. 
 The Chinese text was not less elegant than that 
 shown above : 
 
 " To combine the reason of heaven, earth and man, 
 
 Only the sage's disciple who is can. 
 
 Universe to be included in knowledge all men are should, 
 
 But only the wise man who is could. 
 
 I have heard doctor enough to have compiled the branches of 
 
 science 
 And the books of Chinese and foreigners all to be experience. 
 Chosen the deeply learning to be deliberated are at right. 
 Take off the jewels by side of the dragon it as your might." 
 
 As has been shown, Chinese characters are, to a 
 large extent, mental pictures of the ideas which 
 they are intended to express. They hint at the 
 thought, but give no clew to the sound or pronun-
 
 6o THE REAL ClIIXAMAX. 
 
 ciation. There is absolutely nothing about a Chi- 
 nese character that will give the perplexed student 
 even a faint hint as to how it shall be uttered by 
 the voice. And this is a generic point of difference 
 between the written language of China and those 
 of America and Europe. There, characters paint 
 the idea ; the use of it in speech must be learned 
 separately. Here the word, or combination of let- 
 ters, is more of a guide to correct pronunciation 
 than to the thought of which it is supposed to be 
 the sign. 
 
 While the Chinese tongue discloses various lines 
 of thought, delicate turns of speech, and, so to 
 speak, accurate shades of idea unknown in Eng- 
 lish, there are many subjects in which the language 
 is totally devoid of words, many ideas for which 
 there are no forms of expression, simply because 
 those ideas have never entered the Chinese head. 
 In the whole range of scientific language, for ex- 
 ample, and the simpler terms and phrases used 
 in our text-books in common schools, no equivalent 
 expressions are found in Chinese, because the sci- 
 ences and even the simpler studies are unknown to 
 them. 
 
 By direction of the Secretary of State, the au- 
 thor once addressed a dispatch to the Chinese 
 Foreign Office, which is composed of the entire 
 Cabinet, requesting that certain facilities be ex- 
 tended to several naval officers who were in- 
 structed to take observations in order to determine 
 a magnetic secondary meridian of longitude. No 
 reply was received to the request for a week, and 
 IJien came a note saying that the Prince Regent
 
 THE LANGUAGE. 6j 
 
 and the Cabinet would call the next afternoon to 
 inquire after the author's health. They arrived at 
 the appointed hour, and having shown anxious 
 solicitude for the physical welfare of their host, 
 who had not been ill a day during the ten or more 
 years of their acquaintance with him, the real ob- 
 ject of their visit came to light. They introduced 
 it by the most profuse and extravagant compli- 
 ments for the elegant diction and high literary style 
 of the dispatch. It was chaste, clean cut, and 
 exact. No native scholars in modern days could 
 write better Chinese ; but — and here they hesi- 
 tated and commented upon their own stupidity and 
 ignorance — they had not the most remote idea 
 what it meant. They could gather that the dis- 
 patch made a request, but beyond that point they 
 groped in utter darkness. An hour of explanation, 
 while it manifestly failed to give them any clear 
 idea of the nature of a secondary meridian of longi- 
 tude, showed them that the request involved noth- 
 ing dangerous or that would be unwise to grant. 
 They naively admitted that the Cabinet had been 
 for a week divided regarding the contents of the 
 dispatch ; one faction, headed by the Secretary of 
 the Treasury, insisting that it referred to a quaran- 
 tine, since it contained one character used in con- 
 nection with cholera, while the others followed 
 the lead of the Prince Regent, who held that it had 
 something to say about a dynamite gun. The day 
 following this visit a most courteous rep'y was re- 
 ceived granting the request. 
 
 But, after all, the difficulties, already described, 
 which confront any person who would become
 
 62 THE REAL CIILYAMAX. 
 
 familiar with the Chinese language as a necessary 
 preliminary to acquaintance with the Chinese peo- 
 ple, are not insurmountable. Patience, an accu- 
 rate eye, and a retentive memory will enable any 
 person to learn a sufficient number of characters 
 for practical every-day use. And that is as far as 
 it would be necessary to go. Few foreigners care 
 to become finished scholars in this ancient, interest- 
 ing language. Even the more perplexing idioms 
 may be mastered if patience in committing them to 
 memory and judgment in their use do not fail. 
 
 The realh' serious difficulties inherent in the Clii- 
 nese language, and which render it an almost in- 
 surmountable barrier to any thorough knowledge 
 of the people, lie in the use of the language in con- 
 versation. No amount of book study will enable a 
 person to speak it. It must be learned from the 
 lips of a living teacher. With any amount of drill 
 it requires a cpiick ear and great flexibility of the 
 vocal organs to acquire accuriite pronunciation. 
 So serious is the difficulty, that it may be accepted 
 as a rule that no person over tliirly years of age 
 can learn to speak Chinese correctly, as the vocal 
 organs, after that period, appear to have lost a por- 
 tion of their flexibility. Many persons under that 
 age fail to actpiire a command of the language 
 even with the most faithful effort. Not one foreign 
 speaker of Chinese in ten can make the ordinary 
 Chinese cat call. Although I accomplished this 
 feat, I failed, after seventeen years of patient effort, 
 to produce a certain sound with which the donkey- 
 driver urges his long-eared beast al)out the streets 
 of Peking. My onl}- C(jnsolation in the failure is
 
 THE LANGUAGE. 63 
 
 that no other forcigiu-r has been known to mas- 
 ter it. 
 
 There is little use in the attempt to reduce the 
 sounds to writing. Leaving out of sight the fact 
 that one broad peculiarity which affects every 
 word in the language, and which is yet to be de- 
 scribed, could not be covered by any system of re- 
 duction, no alphabet or combination of alphabets 
 has been found which will accurately represent the 
 sounds. And, as will readily be seen, to follow a 
 representation that was only approximately cor- 
 rect, no matter how close the approximation, would 
 cause the student always to speak with a brogue. 
 As a rule, the vowel sounds are simple and easy. 
 The consonants are peculiar, and some of them 
 almost beyond the reach of the vocal organs of 
 foreigners. 
 
 The best — tliat is, the most expert foreign au- 
 thorities — disagree as to the best approximate rep- 
 resentation in letters of any alphabet of many of 
 these sounds. It probably will never be settled 
 whether the Chinese word for " man" should be- 
 gin with j or r ; the fact being that the exact 
 sound is an intermediate one, almost impossible to 
 any foreigner, between the two. The writer once 
 asked each of several American and European 
 scholars learned in the Chinese language, who 
 were guests at his table, how the Chinese word 
 meaning " porridge" should be represented with 
 English letters. He received the following re- 
 plies : "67/cw," " i/iow," '\-/u'i/," '\-/iau," '' tc/icaii," 
 " djou," and " tscciit." In like manner, the word 
 for " fowl" is t rati si iterated by different Anglo-
 
 64 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 Chinese authorities in the following manner : 
 ''Chi,'" " ki," '' dji," "/M7,"and " ^v." And all 
 of these different modes of representation refer to 
 the common, plain hen. 
 
 The Chinese, curious in their language as in 
 everything else, seem unable to catch the differ- 
 ences between our liquid sounds represented by 
 /, w, //, and ;-. They confuse and misplace them in 
 their efforts to speak English. Yet each of these 
 sounds is constantly and correctly used by them in 
 their native tongue. There is a large class of Chi- 
 nese words having an initial sound fairly repre- 
 sented by sh as initial, and another, smaller but 
 numerous, which must be represented by those 
 letters reversed, or /is, as the initial sound. 
 
 Again, all words which, if spelled in English let- 
 ters, would begin with ch, /, and /, are subdivided 
 into two classes. There is an aspirated ch, p, and /, 
 and an iniaspiratcd ch, p, and /. If by mistake one 
 aspirates an initial / where it ought not to be as- 
 pirated, or the reverse, he, by that error, changes 
 entirely the meaning of the word spoken. Thus, 
 " tan," the / being unaspirated, means an egg, and 
 exactly the same sound with an aspirated / means 
 charcoal. The writer once heard a venerable mis- 
 sionary address the Deity in prayer before a crowd- 
 ed Chinese audience as " O Thou Omniverous 
 God." He meant to say " omniscient," but used 
 an aspirated ch when the other would have better 
 served his purpose. On another occasion a mis- 
 sionary saw with astonishment an audience hur- 
 ricfliy leave his cluipel in response to what he sup- 
 posed was a courtcovis invitation from his lips to
 
 77/A LANGUAGE. 65 
 
 them to be seated. In point of fact, however, lie 
 was not giving them a welcome, but assuring them 
 that they had made a mistake in entering. An as- 
 pirated / caused all the misunderstanding. While 
 it is true that an unaspirated r//, /, and / represent 
 very closely the same sounds as ,;,>■, /', and </, they 
 still are not exactly the same. Any attempt to use 
 those sounds, while they would doubtless enable 
 the speaker to be understood, would at the same 
 time effectually prevent him from speaking accu- 
 rate Chinese. And this fact fitly illustrates the ex- 
 ceedingly delicate gradations of some of the sounds 
 in the language. 
 
 Another broad peculiarity, which affects every 
 word spoken in Chinese, and forbids all attempt at 
 reduction to alphabetical form, remains to be no- 
 ticed. In English and most other tongues the 
 sound of what is called a word conveys a single and 
 invariable idea to the person to whom it is spoken. 
 The tone in which the word is uttered may serve 
 to indicate inquiry, contempt, sarcasm, surprise, 
 anger, or any other emotion ; but the fundamental, 
 the root idea, as we may call it, which is conveyed 
 by the sound remains always the same. Thus in 
 our tongue a man is always a man, whether the 
 word is uttered with sudden explosive force, as in 
 anger, with rising inflection, as in incjuiry, or with 
 any other variety of intonation. 
 
 All this is changed in Chinese. Here the tone 
 of utterance affects, or rather determines, the root 
 idea as much as the sound itself does. The tone is 
 equal partner with the sound in fixing the idea to 
 be conveved ; and anv error in the one is as fatal
 
 G6 
 
 THE REAL CJf/.VAMAX. 
 
 to the correct expression of any thought intended 
 to be conveyed by the speaker as an error in the 
 other. In Chinese a man ceases to be a man the 
 instant you change the tone of your voice in utter- 
 ing the word. He may be a disease, a nightingale, 
 
 ^^^^msssm^% 
 
 TOAU CATCH I N(; KUKS. 
 (Fro»i ChiiitSi- J'uiniin^.) 
 
 or a carrot, l)ut ]u> can l)e a man in only one tone of 
 voice. 
 
 In the stanchird or nuuuhirin dialect, as it iscalK'd 
 among foreigners, there are four of tliese tones or 
 inflections of the voice : first, a high-keyed, explo-
 
 Tirr. r.ANGUAGE. 67 
 
 sivc tone ; second, £i rising tone, as in asking a 
 question with us ; third, a curving inflection ; and 
 fourth, a falling inflection. A sound uttered in 
 one of these tones has a meaning devoid of all re- 
 lationship to or connection with exactly the same 
 sound uttered in either one of the other three. 
 Thus, to take the sound " man" again, if uttered 
 in tlic first tone, it means l)razen-faced ; in the sec- 
 ond tone, to hide ; in the third, full ; and in the 
 fourth, slow. Another sound which might be rep- 
 resented by our word "one," if used in the first 
 tone, means warm ; in the second, educated ; in 
 the third, steady ; and in the fourth, to ask. 
 
 These illustrations show fully that there is abso- 
 lutely no connection in idea between the different 
 tones of the same sound. They show also that the 
 tone is etpial partner with the sound in fixing tlie 
 meaning of any utterance. Perhaps no rule of 
 English speech is responsible for so many blunders 
 in Chinese as that which requires the rising inflec- 
 tion to be given to the final word of a question 
 which can be answ^ered by " yes" or " no." The 
 obedience to this rule becomes instinctive ; it pur- 
 sues the unhappy foreigner into his Chinese, where, 
 instead of indicating a question, it fatally affects the 
 meaning of the last word of his sentence, and plays 
 havoc generally with what he would say. He is 
 fortunate if it renders his remark nonsensical rather 
 than insulting. 
 
 With peculiarities of consonant sounds unknown 
 in any Western tongue, and with a special tone to 
 each idea, a mistake in which changes the entire 
 meaning, it is no easy matter to speak a single
 
 68 THE REAL CI/IXAMAX. 
 
 word of Chinese correctly. A long and steady drill 
 of the vocal organs is necessary to the accurate and 
 ready pronunciation of each separate character. 
 At the outset of his Chinese studies the author de- 
 voted four hours each day for eight weary months 
 to a drill on the tone table — a table in which each 
 sound in the language is given in the four different 
 tones — and for many months afterward had occa- 
 sional reviews of it. 
 
 There are as many variations in these tones for 
 the sake of rhythm as there are exceptions to some 
 rules of English grammar — variations which add 
 greatly to the labor of the student. Thus, for 
 example, if, in any word of two syllables or sounds, 
 the second is the emphatic syllable and is of the 
 fourth tone, the tone is changed to the first. But 
 the presence of so many varying inflections in Chi- 
 nese gives a rhythmic swing to the language which 
 makes it pleasant to spe^ik and exceedingly grate- 
 ful to the ear. With some speakers whose inflec- 
 tions are clear-cut and accurate, it sounds much 
 like chanting. One might expect this effect, since 
 it is impossible to speak in a monotone, and the 
 voice, in any sentence, must pass through five 
 notes of tlie musical scale. 
 
 But the pleasure of Chinese speech comes, if at 
 all, as a well-earned reward for indomitable perse- 
 verance in mastering the most difficult language on 
 earth, and is interrupted, often in the study and 
 not seldom afterward, by the most annoying and 
 absurd blunders. A volume might be filled with 
 them. A missionary once informed his audience 
 that the Saviour, when on earth, " went about eat-
 
 THE LANGUAGE. ^<^ 
 
 ing cake." He intended to say " healing the 
 sick ;" but an aspirate wrongly ])laced changed 
 healing into eating, while an error in tone made 
 cakes out of those who were ill. 
 
 Upon one occasion, when the writer sat at his 
 dinner-table as the host of a large party, he called 
 the attention of his Chinese butler to some little 
 item that was lacking from the table, and directed 
 him to supply it. The butler appeared puzzled, 
 asked if the article named was desired, and on 
 being assured that it was, and must be produced 
 at once and without more words, disappeared, 
 and in a moment returned, bringing upon a tray, 
 and with that wonderful gravity which never 
 deserts a well-trained Chinese servant, the kitchen 
 poker — an iron rod some three feet in length, 
 knobbed at one end and sharpened to a point at 
 the other. He probably believed that the host was 
 about to brain one of his guests ; but that was 
 none of his business, and the poker was gravely 
 presented to his master, who had simply placed an 
 aspirate where it did not belong. 
 
 Upon another occasion my cook was directed to 
 arrange, upon short notice, for a large evening re- 
 ception. In order to lighten his labors, he was told 
 that he might purchase one hundred " ladies' fin- 
 gers" at the confectioner's. About two hours after 
 this order was given he entered the legation riding 
 upon the shaft of a Chinese cart, dismounted, en- 
 tered the office, and reported that he had thor- 
 oughly searched that section of Peking, but had 
 been able to buy only sixty-four " ladies' fingers." 
 It would be necessary to go to a distance to secure
 
 70 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 the remaining thirty-six. He was told that the 
 number bought would answer, and then asked why- 
 he had hired a cart. " To bring them home," he 
 replied. " But could you not bring them ?" was 
 the next question. To this he replied : " Of course 
 not ; they weigh five or six pounds each." An 
 immediate inspection of that cart was the sequence 
 of this startling statement regarding tin)^ strips of 
 cake to be served with ice cream, with the result 
 that the master found himself the disgusted owner 
 of sixty-four fresh ox tongues. A wrong tone of 
 voice had done all the mischief. 
 
 The foregoing statements apply accurately to the 
 Chinese language as spoken by at least four fifths 
 of the population. While in certain regions there 
 are slight local peculiarities of pronunciation and 
 idiom, these are nowhere sufficienth' serious to de- 
 serve mention with a single exception. This ex- 
 ception consists of a strip of country bordering 
 upon the seaboard, and extending from a point 
 north of Shanghai to the extreme southern limit of 
 the empire. It runs back inland in distances varying 
 from fifty to one hundred and fifty miles. Through- 
 out this region, while the written language is the 
 same as in other parts of China, the spoken tongue 
 is broken up into a number of local dialects. Pro- 
 nunciation of the characters differs so widely in 
 districts that are contiguous that it is commonly 
 said among that Chinese that " people living upon 
 one bank of a river cannot understand £i word ut- 
 tered by their neighbors upon the other." Since 
 Chinese officials are never allowed to hold posts 
 of duty in tlic ]irovinces where they were born,
 
 TlfF. LAXCl'ACK. 7^ 
 
 those on duty in these districts can only communi- 
 Ccite with tlic people whom they i^overn l)y the 
 use of interpreters. Chinese who emigriite to the 
 United States, and, in fact, to other foreign parts, 
 all come from within this area. Ilence, with few 
 exceptions, none of tiiem speak or understantl the 
 correct, standard Ciunese. 
 
 A chapter ujion the ianouaoe of China would 
 hardly be comph-tc unless it at least mentioned a 
 nondescript tongue that has si>rung up within mod- 
 ern times at the jioints where foreigners are by 
 treaty allowed to reside and pursue their varied 
 callings. Few of these learn the language, and 
 their only medium of communication with the na- 
 tives in the transaction of l)usiness is through the 
 medium of what is known as " pidgin English." 
 " Pidgin" is the net result of the native attempt to 
 pronounce the word " business." Hence the proper 
 name of the jargon would be " business English." 
 With the exception cjf a few mongrel words gath- 
 ered no one knows how or whence, it consists {;f 
 the Chinese idiom literally translated into English ; 
 the pronunciation, however, being varied to suit 
 the exigencies of the native powers of speech and 
 understanding. A couple of incidents will show 
 how absurd and utterly undignified this mode of 
 communication is, and will give all necessary ex- 
 planation of its peculiarities. The reader may be 
 a trifle astonished and perhaps incredulous at the 
 assertion, which, however, is founded in fact, that 
 nine tenths of the enormous business done between 
 foreigners and natives in China is done by means 
 of this grotesque gibberish.
 
 72 
 
 THE kEAL chinaman: 
 
 A young man who called upon two young ladies 
 was gravely informed by the Chinese servant who 
 opened the door : " That two piecey girlo no can 
 see. Number one piecey top side makee washee, 
 washee. Number two piecey- go outside, makee 
 walkee, walkee." By which he meant to say that 
 the elder of the two was taking a bath upstairs, 
 and the 3'ounger had gone out. 
 
 When King Kalakua, of the Hawaiian Islands, 
 was in Shanghai in April, 1881, he occupied a suite 
 of rooms up one flight of stairs at the Astor House. 
 Two American gentlemen, desiring to pay their 
 respects to His Majesty, went to the hotel one 
 morning, and meeting the proprietor at the foot of 
 the stairs, made known their errand, and inquired 
 if the king was in. " I will see," replied the land- 
 lord, and turning on his heel, he shouted to a 
 Chinese servant at the head of the stairs : " Boy ! 
 That piecey king top side hab got ?" " Hab got," 
 laconically responded the servant. " Gentlemen," 
 said the landlord, " His Majesty is in. Pray walk 
 up."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHINESE HOME I, I F E , 
 
 In one respect at least China sets 
 an example which all the world may 
 wisely follow. In this empire every 
 one marries, and no one " boards." 
 Hence, generally speaking, there 
 are as many wedded couples as there 
 are men and women above the mar- 
 riageable age, and as many present 
 and prospective centres of home life 
 as there are couples married. Bachelors and old 
 maids are conspicuous only because of their absence. 
 Marriage, however, seldom means an immediate, 
 new, and independent home centre. It does not 
 emancipate the man from his duty to his parents, 
 nor lessen in any degree the obedience and support 
 he is bound to render them. He never becomes of 
 age and gains his independence so long as they 
 live. A newly married pair invarial)ly take up 
 their residence with the parents of the groom. In 
 fact, the essential part of the ceremony is the con- 
 veyance of the bride in a red sedan chair to the 
 residence of the groom's parents, and the delivery 
 of her to him there. By this act she loses all con- 
 nection with her own home, her own family, and 
 becomes an integral part of that of her husband.
 
 74 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 And in it she does not appear to be primarily the 
 wife of her husband so much as the servant, the 
 drudge, of her mother-in-law. 
 
 The lot of the young married woman in China is 
 hard and unenviable in the extreme. She has no 
 voice in the selection of the man to whom she is to 
 be joined, but, theoretically at least, marries one 
 whom she has never seen and to whom she has 
 never spoken. Upon the day appointed for the 
 ceremony she is carried and delivered to him liter- 
 ally like " a cat in a bag," for her head and body 
 to the waist are thus enveloped. He, upon his 
 part, has never seen her, had no share in making 
 the selection, and has not the least reason to be 
 other than wholly indifferent to her. Hence, while 
 mutual affection may come after marriage, it never 
 precedes it, and has no share in the bond which 
 binds the two together. In her new home she 
 simply becomes a convenient under-servant. The 
 most menial tasks, the heaviest burdens are laid 
 upon her. Her only justification for continuing to 
 live is found in child-bearing. Prior to that event 
 she is not ordinarily given the title of a marrie<i 
 woman, l)ut is still spoken of or addressed as a 
 girl. In China, not marriage, but motherhood, 
 changes a woman's title from Miss to Mrs. When 
 she becomes a mother, and especially if she bears 
 a son, tlien at last she is entitled to a certain amount 
 of respect and recognition as something higher 
 than a beast of burden. But bef(.)re this event 
 occurs young wives not infrequently commit, or 
 attempt, suicide as the only escape from the intol- 
 erable cnicltics of tlu> motlicr-in-law.
 
 CJIIXI'.SK JIOMI-: J.IJ-K. 
 
 75 
 
 In motherhood alone does the Chinese woman 
 find protection and honor. Yet even here her posi- 
 tion, viewed from a Western standpoint, is pecul- 
 iar and jierhaps grotes({iie. She may be an auto- 
 
 GROUP OF CHILDREN. 
 
 CI at with her children. She may claim absolute 
 obedience from them, even when they are gray- 
 headed and perhaps themselves fathers of families. 
 She may become, in turn, the terror of several 
 daughters-in-law, and wreak upon them the heavy 
 load of misery she endured as a young wife. But
 
 76 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 she is never anything but a servant to her liusband. 
 In the event of her death her sons must, by Chinese 
 law, wear mourning and go about with unshaven 
 heads for a period of one hundred days. But her 
 husband would render himself an object of ridicule 
 and contempt among his friends if he put on 
 mourning or expressed grief at her loss. He may 
 marry again as often as he sees fit, but it is not 
 considered respectable for a widow to take a sec- 
 ond husband. The Chinese, with their usual dis- 
 like for plain speech upon any disagreeable sub- 
 ject, never say, " Widow Wang has married 
 again," but " she has taken a step in advance." 
 If a young Chinese widow desires the praise and 
 honor of all her nation, and perhaps a monu- 
 mental arch erected by command of the Emperor 
 to celebrate her virtues, she will put an end to her 
 own existence upon her husimnd's coffin. If she is 
 ambitious in a more moderate degree, she will de- 
 vote the entire remainder of her life to attendance 
 upon the parents of the man whose name she bears. 
 
 In conversation with some high officials of the 
 government of China, I once referred to the recent 
 death of the wife of the Prince Regent, and re- 
 marked that of course the prince would go into 
 retirement and lay aside his duties for a time. 
 
 " Oh, no," replied one of the Cabinet with a 
 laugh ; " the death of a wife counts iov nothing 
 with us. Why should the prince go into mourning 
 for her ? He can get as many more as he wishes." 
 
 In point of fact, he already had several others 
 on hand. In China a man is legally and morally 
 allowed to marry as many wives as he can support.
 
 c/ii.v/':s/-: /ro.u/-: tjfe. 77 
 
 The first, or proper wife, appears to have a certain 
 amount of precedence over the others. They are 
 all servants, aniDno^ whom she is the head. The 
 children by all are ecpially legitimate, and have 
 equal rie^hts of inheritance. That this rule is liter- 
 ally carried out is shown by the fact that the Em- 
 peror, who seldom marries less than four " head 
 wives," and has any where froni seventy-five to a 
 hundred "assistant wives," as they are called, or 
 concubines, as we should call them, is supposed to 
 study the characters of all his sons by all these 
 head and assistant wives, and to select from the 
 entire number that one best qualified to succeed 
 him upon his imperial throne. His selection, as 
 miglit be expected, not infrequently falls upon the 
 son of some favorite concubine, who thus becomes 
 his successor. Chien Lung, one of the ablest rulers 
 of China in many hundred years, was the four- 
 teenth son of his father. And Tung Chih, who 
 died in 1S75, and of whom so much cannot be said, 
 was the son of a subordinate wife. 
 
 Yet among the middle and poorer classes one 
 wife is practically the universal rule, to which ex- 
 ceptions are very rare. Some of my readers may 
 be inclined to discover a relationship between the 
 fact that, while any number of wives is permissible, 
 more than one is seldom taken, and that other fact, 
 already mentioned, that ii; the written language 
 of the empire one woman under a roof means 
 "peace," two women under a roof mean "dis- 
 cord," and three, intrigue in its worst form. It 
 would not Ix; at all surprising if some relationship 
 did exist between these widely separated facts.
 
 78 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 The Chinese is botn practical and of a philosophi- 
 cal turn of mind. It would not be strange if he 
 had seen fit, in this way, to build into the very- 
 structure of his language a monument which should 
 for all time give expression of his judgment as to 
 the unwisdom of polygamy. 
 
 It should not be inferred, from what has been 
 said, that woman plays no other part in Chinese 
 home life than one of service and drudgery. She 
 has absolute control of her daughters until they 
 are lost to her by marriage into other families. 
 She to a large extent shapes the lives of her sons, 
 and commands their full obedience from their birth 
 until her death. The old women of a Chinese vil- 
 lage not only dissect and disseminate all the gos- 
 sip and scandal afloat in the community, but have 
 a very influential part in determining public opin- 
 ion. They form what may be called an undertow 
 of influence in village affairs, and often decide mat- 
 ters with which they have no apparent connection. 
 This might be expected from the autocratic posi- 
 tion occupied by them in regard to their sons. 
 During more than thirty years two women, the 
 wives of the Emperor Hsien Feng, and known to 
 foreigners as the Empress Dowager and Empress 
 Mother, have practically controlled the domestic 
 and foreign affairs of China. In all important 
 crises their judgment and will have been accepted as 
 final authority, and have determined the policy of 
 the government. Yet, in obedience to Oriental 
 etiquette, they live in such strict seclusic^n that, 
 when a council of State becomes necessary, they are 
 indeed present, but concealed by a curtain, Their
 
 ciri.vESE iro.vF. tjfe. 79 
 
 voices are heard by tlie meml)ers of the Cabinet, 
 but their faces are never seen. One of them died 
 some few years ago, but the other is still vigorous, 
 active, and potential in public affairs. 
 
 These two women exactly illustrate the peculiar 
 position occupied by women in the Chinese Em- 
 pire. As wives they apparently have no influence 
 whatever ; as mothers they are all-powerful. Dur- 
 ing the life and reign of their husband, lisien Feng, 
 the two were merely the puppets of his pleasure. 
 They were unheard, unthought of in any other 
 capacity. lUit with his deeith, in 1862, came their 
 period of power which, in the case of one of them, 
 has lasted until the present time. And this is all 
 the more remarkable as showing maternal control 
 to be an actual power, in view of the fact that 
 for nearly twenty years of this period — since Janu- 
 arv, 1875 — the nominal Emperor has not been tlie 
 son of either of these women. He is a nephew of 
 their deceased husband. Yet his respect and 
 obedience to the will of his aunt are absolute. 
 
 Then it is as true in China as everywhere else 
 that a stronger will and character always domi- 
 nates the weaker. Instances arc not rare in which 
 the Chinese wife, hedged in and bound down by 
 the most rigid rules of custom and law, unedu- 
 cated and unrecognized except as a sort of upper 
 servant, guides and controls her husband, and makes 
 him the mere echo of her opinion. Still further, a 
 Chinese woman never forgets that she has a tongue. 
 Whatever may be her capacity in other directifuis, 
 5n shrill and voluminous scolding slie lias no eciual. 
 Whoever luis once listened to a good sj^ecimen of
 
 So THE REAL CHI X AM AX. 
 
 her efforts has noticed how the ver}' atmosphere 
 seems to quiver and collapse under the torrent of 
 abusive language which is poured forth, picturesque 
 in its adjectives, and, fortunately, untranslatable 
 into English. Whoever has once heard this will 
 readily believe that in her tongue the Chinese wife 
 possesses a vi'eapon against which man has no de- 
 fence. He must either run or surrender. He re- 
 ceives no comfort from his masculine neighbors. 
 They jeer at and ridicule him, not at all from 
 sympathy with the wife, but because he has failed 
 to keep her in proper, that is to say quiet, subjec- 
 tion. 
 
 The ties of locality are ver}- strong among the 
 Chinese, and hence new families, as they are 
 formed, are commonly established in the imme- 
 diate vicinity of that from whicli they sprung. In 
 this wa}^ one sees groups or nests of families gath- 
 ered about the parent stock. Whole villages may 
 be found composed almost exclusively of persons 
 of the same name, and containing four or five 
 generations of the same family. " Smithville," 
 " Jonesville," or, to translate more exactly, "The 
 Village of the Chang Family," " The Town of the 
 Wang Family," " The Li Family Cross-Roads' — 
 these and similar names of hamlets, villages, and 
 cities are so frequent throughout China that tliey 
 form a large fraction of all the names of places 
 in the empire. Tlic property of each family, and 
 more particularly the real estate, is largely held 
 and worked in common, and divisions of it only 
 occur upon the death of tlie malt' head of tlie name. 
 All members of the family, old and young, male
 
 CIlhXESE IIOMJi LIFE. 83 
 
 cind female, take part in the labor. If it is a farm, 
 all go to the fields together at daybreak and spend 
 the day at work. Women are as comnKjnly seen 
 engaged in such labor as men. I once saw a Chi- 
 nese farmer holding a plough which was drawn by 
 a cow, a donkey, and his wife, the three harnessed 
 and pulling together. 
 
 The class of " globe trotters," as they are some- 
 what irreverently called — persons of wealth, who 
 travel about the earth sight-seeing — form a never- 
 solved puzzle to the Chinese, His home ties are 
 very strong. He never travels for pleasure, and 
 never leaves home except when obliged to do so 
 upon either public or private business. While ab- 
 sent, whether in foreign lands or in some other 
 part of his own country, he always looks upon him- 
 self as an exile, is always more or less homesick, 
 and, no matter how dirty and squalid his native 
 village may be, he looks forward to his return to 
 the wretched place as the chief joy of his life. 
 
 The Chinese is not, and cannot become, a colo- 
 nist without an entire change of his natural disposi- 
 tion. True, he is found in America, North and 
 South, in the Australasian colonies, in Burmah, 
 Siam, the East Indian Archipelago, in Java, and 
 Japan. But in none of these places is his stay per- 
 manent. He is nowhere a colonist, but a temporary 
 migrant. He resembles closely the migratory flocks 
 of birds who feed in one region for many months, 
 but build their nests and rear their young invari- 
 ably in some spot well remembered but far distant. 
 He is driven by emergency away from home, goes 
 into what he considers as exile, but has all his
 
 84 THE REAL CHINA MA AK 
 
 plans for return carefully made before he sets out, 
 and these plans and the hopes connected with them 
 are never absent from his mind. A careful exami- 
 nation of the lists of steerage passengers upon the 
 various lines of steamships running between China 
 and the foreign countries to which the Chinese go, 
 if the examination were so extended as to cover a 
 considerable term of years, would show that prac- 
 tically all who leave the empire return again. They 
 come and go like the migratory birds just men- 
 tioned. Those who are so unfortunate as to die 
 in exile have almost invariably made arrangements 
 by which their bodies shall be carried back to 
 their native village, there to rest with their an- 
 cestors. It would astonish the people of this land 
 could they know the total number of Chinese who 
 have been in it during the past twenty years, and 
 compare that total with the marvelously small 
 number of graves of the Chinese found among us. 
 And those whose bones have been left to lie perma- 
 nently here were, beyond question, waifs, poor un- 
 fortunates without home ties or friends in their 
 native land. 
 
 The Chinese is an acute and careful merchant, a 
 patient, faithful, and diligent laborer, but, above 
 everything else, he is a lover of his home. While 
 he wanders all over the earth, and submits to all 
 sorts of privations, abuses, and hardships, he is 
 only a wanderer whose deepest, all-absorbing de- 
 sire is for home, a quiet old age with his family, 
 and, more important than all else, burial in the 
 tomb of his fathers. This is true of him not only 
 when necessity drives him into foreign lands, but
 
 CHINESE HOME LIFE. S5 
 
 equally so when he establishes himself in some 
 other part of his own empire. It is not so much a 
 love of China that deterniincs him in this ]")eculiar- 
 ity as a local tie. A Cantonese never becomes a 
 permanent resident of Pekini^, for example. He 
 may 1^0 tliere on !)usiness — many of them do ; but 
 they arc alwa}'s " pilgrims and strangers," and 
 their plans invariably culminate in a permanent 
 home in the village of their birth. If one of them 
 dies in Peking, poor and friendless, the charitably 
 disposed see to it that his body is sent home for 
 burial. There are guilds, or benevolent societies, 
 organized in every large city in the empire, one of 
 the principal objects of such organization being to 
 send home for burial such unfortunates as have 
 died away from their families. The so-called " Six 
 Companies" of San Francisco, about which so much 
 and so many lies have been written, has this among 
 the other purposes of their organization. A trav- 
 eler in China will occasionally meet a coffin car- 
 ried suspended between two long poles, and the 
 ends of these poles fastened to the pack-saddles of 
 two mules. Upon the head of the coffin is a wicker 
 crate containing a white rooster. The coffin con- 
 tains the body of some man who has died away 
 from home, and is being thus carried, perhaps 
 across the entire stretch of the empire, to its proper 
 resting-place. The looster, which must be of spot- 
 less white, unblemished by a single black feather, 
 is supposed to guide or lead the soul of the dead 
 man in the long journey, or to persuade it to ac- 
 company the material part. And the livelier the 
 young rooster is, the more he struts about in his
 
 86 THE REAL CHI X AM AN. 
 
 cage and crows, the more successful he is supposed 
 to be in the performance of his function. 
 
 This intensely strong tie of locality, developed, 
 strengthened, and intensified as it has been through 
 a thousand generations, is reinforced by what is to 
 them a religion, and thus a final return, alive or 
 dead, becomes a sacred necessity in the heart of 
 every Chinese. Reference of course is made to the 
 so-called " worship of ancestors." 
 
 While we may and must condemn tliis worsiiip 
 as a form of idolatry, I must confess that I have 
 never seen a Chinese coffin being carried, either by 
 sea or by land, on its long journey back to the na- 
 tive village of its occupant, without being remind- 
 ed of the beautiful bit of history found in the early 
 part of the Bible, in which it is written that Abra- 
 ham bought a field and a cave for a burial-place 
 for Sarah, his wife, in Hebron. Abraham himself 
 was buried there, and so were Isaac and Rebecca. 
 After the deatli of Jacob, Joseph and his brethren 
 carried the body of their father from Egypt back 
 to Canaan, and laid it there beside Leah. Joseph 
 exacted a jiromise from his children that his ashes 
 too should be laid in the same tomb. And this 
 promise was fulfilled two centuries after his death. 
 Surely one can hardly fail to respect in the Chinese 
 a feeling which, they hixve in common with the ear- 
 liest members of the human family, and which they 
 have carried into practice during thousands of 
 years. 
 
 The Chinese Government has taken advantage 
 of this peculiarity of the people in a curious way. 
 One of the essential conditions required of any for-
 
 Clil\li.SK JIOMK LIFE. 8^ 
 
 elgner who may desire to become a naturalized sub- 
 ject of China is that he should own a graveyard, 
 have a burial-place within the limits of the empire. 
 Such ownership is regarded as final evidence of his 
 intention to become a permanent resident. 
 
 In another way the government has for many 
 centuries exercised its influence in a manner calcu- 
 lated to keep the people at home, and to minimize 
 and counteract any tendency to change either their 
 residence or occupation. One of the sections of 
 tlic Code of Laws orders that persons and families 
 truly represent their profession in life, and refrain 
 from altering it. " Generation after generation, 
 they must not change nor alter it" — so the statute 
 reads. The wisdom of such a law in its effect upon 
 a people already too little inclined to favor change 
 of any sort may, perhaps, be questioned. To-day 
 it is practically a dead letter. But it has had a 
 double influence upon the nation. It has caused 
 them to hand down their various callings and oc- 
 cupations from father to son without variation or 
 improvement in methods or processes. It has, at 
 least, had a part in restraining China from all prog- 
 ress, until she is centuries behind the age. And it 
 has, indirectly, segregated the people. A man 
 naturally remains where his business is ; and if that 
 business must be that of his father, he naturally 
 follows it where he finds it — at home. His interests 
 centre there, and he seldom wanders far afield. 
 
 I once asked an old man whom I saw leaning 
 against the sunny side of a mud wall, as a slight pro- 
 tection from the piercing January wind, how far it 
 was to a Chinese city where I was planning to spend
 
 8S THE REAL CI/IXAJfA?/. 
 
 the night. He replied that he did not know. Sur- 
 prised and incredulous at his answer, I asked him 
 whether he too was a traveler. " Oh, no !" he 
 said ; " I live just over there," nodding his head 
 at a comfortable-appearing Chinese house not a 
 hundred yards distant. " How long have you lived 
 there ?" asked I. " All my life," said he, " and I 
 am seventy-eight years old." " And you do not 
 know how far it is to such a city ?" persisted I, in- 
 credulous at his statement. " No. Why should 
 I?" he responded. "I have never been there." 
 This was more amazing still. " You are seventy- 
 eight years old, have lived here all your life, and 
 never been there!" I exclaimed. "Of course 
 not," the old man stoutly retorted. " Why should 
 I go there ? I live here." The city named was less 
 than ten miles distant ! 
 
 The effect of the law mentioned in encouraging 
 the permanence of all things, though not in the 
 wisest sense of that word, may have another illus- 
 tration. In every city of considerable size in China 
 there will be found a certain number of shops for 
 the repair of clocks and watches. No such articles 
 are manufactured in China, few people own them, 
 and the importation is comparatively small. A trav- 
 eler might be interested to learn where these shops 
 find their customers, and, above all, where they 
 learned their triide. The imswer is simple. They 
 know little or nothing of their business. They are 
 invariably Roman Catholics, and inherited both 
 their religion and their calling from their ancestors, 
 who were converts and students of the very early 
 Catholic missionaries in China, more than two hun-
 
 CIIIXESE JJOMK JJFE 
 
 89 
 
 dred years ago. And they only know as much, or 
 as little, of clock and watch repairing as the mis- 
 sionaries were able to teach their ancestors then. 
 
 Honor thy father and thy mother" is a com- 
 mand so inwrought into the very fibre of the Chi- 
 nese nature, so sustained by public opinion, and so 
 
 WAI.I, ABOUT PEKING. 
 
 carefully reinforced by law, that he who neglects it 
 even in a small degree, if he escapes punishment as 
 a criminal, is certain to l)e ch'iven from society as a 
 leprobate and a heathen. It is, in fact, carried to 
 such an unreasonable extreme that it has practi- 
 cally become a form of tyranny. It leaves no room 
 for independent action or personal judgment, and 
 a man cannot exercise his individual powers of 
 manhood until he is too far advanced in years to 
 liave their exercise productive of growth or any
 
 90 THE REAL ClfEVAMA.V. 
 
 Other beneficial results. At the same time, one of 
 the most pleasing features of Chinese home life is 
 the deference and respect shown to their elders by 
 the younger members of the household. Such 
 nondescript creations as half-grown boys superior 
 in imaginary wisdom and in practical experience 
 with the seamy side of life to their fathers are 
 unknown there. Such phrases as " the old man," 
 " the governor," " the old woman" are not found 
 in the language — at least as applicable to parents. 
 Age is invariably respected and honored. A ragged, 
 dirty, and foul-mouthed beggar-woman upon the 
 streets has so much of reverence shown to her gray 
 hairs that she is never addressed with any other 
 term than " lao tai tai" — " venerable lady." Gray- 
 headed ministers of State, burdened with heavy 
 cares of office, still find time to attend upon their 
 mothers, who may be toothless, blind, and petu- 
 lant with the fretfulness of second childhood, with 
 the same assiduous care and obedience to all their 
 unreasonable whims that they were taught to give 
 in boyhood. If old age is, indeed, the reward of 
 filial obedience and honor, then the average length 
 of life in China ought to be greater than anywhere 
 else on earth. 
 
 Sometimes this respect and affection is shown in 
 what would seem to us as a questionable form, but 
 it is always in accordance with Chinese ideas of 
 propriety. It is no uncommon sight in Peking or 
 any other city of the empire to see a company of 
 men, headed by a band of music and many ban- 
 ners, parading the streets in a long procession, at 
 the centre of which are two coffins. The ab-
 
 CHINESE HOME LIEE. 9 1 
 
 sence of white, which is the national mourning 
 color, the lively strains of music, and the general 
 air of pleasure throughout tlie members of the 
 party, makes it certain that they are not perform- 
 ing the last sad rites for the dead. The two coffins 
 have been purchased by the sons of, say, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Chang, as a slight token of filial affection and 
 honor. And they are being carried with great 
 pomp and display to the home of the old people, 
 to whom they will be presented with pleasant 
 speeches and appropriate replies from the sur- 
 prised recipients. By us such a present would be 
 regarded much as we regard the action of a friend 
 who pulls out his watch in the midst of a call we 
 are making upon him as a hint that we had best be 
 taking our departure. But Chinese parents have 
 no such squeamish notions. They accept these 
 finely lacquered and decorated coffins as a final 
 proof of the forethought and affectionate care of 
 their children. They are placed in the state apart- 
 ments of their home, carefully protected from in- 
 jury, and shown with great pride to their friends. 
 The Chinese may not have expensive pianos in 
 their drawing-rooms, but they are frequently pro- 
 vided in advance with the casket which is to fur- 
 nish their last resting-place ; and this, if less noisy, 
 is equally satisfying to their pride. The lugubri- 
 ous side of the gift never strikes them. They see 
 in it only the love, respect, and forethought of 
 their children. It assures their minds upon one 
 point which is of great importance to a Chinese : 
 it is a present pledge of an honorable, dignified 
 funeral.
 
 92 THE REAL C/I/XJMAY. 
 
 It may be said in passing, thongh not strictly 
 germane to tlie subject of this chapter, that the 
 Chinese often provide themselves with coffins years 
 in advance of death, and when in robust health. 
 These are carefully put aside against the day of 
 need. A childless widow, for many years in my 
 employ, as a result of the closest economical use of 
 her wages of $4 a month, at last was able to save a 
 sum necessary to buy herself a coffin of plain, un- 
 carved, and unvarnished cedar. Having no home 
 in which to store it, she accepted the offer of a dis- 
 tant relative, a farmer living several miles out of 
 town, to give it room in his house. For three 
 years she made semi-annual pilgrimages upon a 
 donkey to this place of storage in order that she 
 might assure herself that her coffin was safe and 
 kept in good order. But at last she returned from 
 one of these journeys heartbroken, with her tale of 
 woe. Her relative, being hard pressed for money, 
 had pawned her coffin, and then had put the cli- 
 max upon her disaster by selling the pawn-ticket. 
 Undismayed by this unfortunate experience, the 
 old woman began again to save funds, only a cash 
 or two at a time, w^th which to buy another coffin ; 
 but cliolcra seized her before the task was com- 
 pleted, and friends gave her the desire of her heart, 
 a decent burial.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CHINESE SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 The Chinese devote little 
 time to amusement and rec- 
 reation. To the poor, who 
 form an immense majority of 
 the population, life is a never- 
 ending struggle against starvation. They rise at 
 dawn and work until dark, have no Sundays or other 
 rest days. They have but three established holi- 
 days in the year. Weddings and funerals form 
 their only excitements, and the only luxuries of 
 which they dream are an ounce or two of meat at 
 very rare intervals with their invariable food of 
 rice and cabbage, and the necessary tea and to- 
 bacco. With them half a day of idleness means 
 half a day of hunger, and they appear to lack both 
 opportunity and capacity for what is called social 
 enjoyment. The middle class are extremely busy, 
 but appear to take life more easily. Many of the 
 officials have an excess of leisure, but those who 
 are high in office and in favcjrwith the Emperor are 
 sadly overworked. 
 
 I once asked a member of the Chinese Cabinet, 
 who was complaining of fatigue and exhaustion, 
 for a statement of his daily routine of duty. He 
 replied that he left home every morning at two
 
 94 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 o'clock, as he was on duty at the palace from three 
 until six, and if the Emperor was to give him audi- 
 ence upon public affairs, the interview always took 
 place before dawn. As a member of the Privy 
 Council, he was engaged in that body from six 
 until nine. He was President of the War Depart- 
 ment, and hence was there from nine until eleven. 
 Being an officer of the Supreme Court, he was 
 necessarily in daily attendance upon that body from 
 eleven until two. And as he was the senior and 
 responsible minister of the Foreign Office, he spent 
 the hours from two until five or six there every 
 afternoon. 
 
 These were his regular daily duties. In addi- 
 tion to them, he was frequently appointed upon 
 special commissions, boards of inquiry, or to posts 
 involving additional labor, and these he sandwiched 
 in between the others as well as he could. He 
 stated that he never reached home before seven or 
 eight o'clock in the evening, and that his connec- 
 tion w^th his family was merely nominal, as he was 
 never able to eat a me^il with them, and really 
 knew less about them than he did about the affairs 
 of his master, the Emperor. Restaurants are con- 
 nected with all the various offices mentioned by 
 him, and at these, when he had time, he got his 
 food. He died six months after the conversation 
 here reported, literalh' of overwork and exhaus- 
 tion.* Other able Chinese officials have been known 
 to sacrifice their lives in the same way. Indeed, 
 
 * This statement was originally given to the public, several 
 years ago, in an article written for the Youth's Companion by 
 the author of \\n% voluriie.
 
 I
 
 CIIIXKSK SOCIAL LIFE. 97 
 
 they have no possible way of escape. The will of 
 the Emperor is a final command, and they can only 
 struggle on, overtaxing both Ijraiu and body, until 
 one or the other gives way, or the utter collapse 
 of both sends them into a premature grave. Such 
 men take no part in Chinese social life. 
 
 Oriental ideas of society are based upon a very 
 different model from those in Western lands. They 
 are so hampered and confined by conventionalities, 
 etiquette, and peculiar notions of what is proper 
 and becoming, that general society, as we use the 
 phrase, thereby meaning the intermingling of the 
 two sexes, is absolutely impossible. There are no 
 social occasions or assemblies in the empire where 
 men and women meet as friends and entertain each 
 other. Such modes of harmless amusement are 
 impossible without an entire reformation of the 
 Chinese social code. The rules of proper inter- 
 course between the sexes, or, to speak more exact- 
 ly, the rules forbidding any intercourse of any sort 
 whatever, are rigid, inflexible, and admit of no 
 exceptions. 
 
 The Chinese, even in the case of old friends, 
 never make inquiry as to the health of the female 
 members of each other's families, or refer to them 
 in any way. With them the question, " How is 
 your wife?" which is so common and innocent a 
 civility elsewhere, would be regarded as discourte- 
 ous and insulting, even between acquaintances of 
 years' standing. Men who have grown gray to- 
 gether will inquire about and discuss the qualities 
 of each other's sons with the utmost freedom, but 
 they may never mention the female members of
 
 pS THE kEAL CIIEVAMAN: 
 
 the families, even to ask concerning a little girl only- 
 eight or nine years of age. The nearest they may 
 approach this forbidden topic is by the use of a 
 phrase generally interpreted as meaning "your 
 family," but which is, in fact, far less direct and 
 to the point than that expression. An illustration 
 of this social law is worthy of being recited. 
 
 In May, 1875, news reached Peking that an hon- 
 ored Chinese official, then resident in the United 
 States, had married an American lady. Soon after 
 the receipt of this intelligence, the United States 
 Minister and I had occasion to visit the Chinese 
 Foreign Office. The minister informed me that he 
 intended to congratulate the Chinese officials upon 
 this marriage. I advised him that it was contrary 
 to Chinese notions of propriety to refer to such sub- 
 jects, and that his remarks would be misunderstood. 
 However, when the party were, as usual, seated 
 around a table at the Foreign Office, tea had been 
 served, and the ordinary salutations exchanged, 
 the minister requested me to say to Prince Kung, 
 then at the head of the government, that " the re- 
 lations between the United States and China, which 
 had been of so friendly a character for many years, 
 ought to be much strengthened by the fact that a 
 distinguished Chinese officer had married a pretty 
 Yankee girl." I again remonstrated with the min- 
 ister, but upon his renewed request, I repeated this 
 remark in Chinese to the prince. We were seated 
 around a circular table, and besides the prince and 
 two foreigners there were present six members of 
 the Cabinet, venerabh,' and gray-headed men. For 
 a moment there was a dead silence. Each minis-
 
 CHINESE SOCIAL LIFE. 99 
 
 ter of State looked down at his plate. None dared 
 to speak. Then Prince Kung raised his head, 
 looked at me for another moment in silence, and, 
 drawing a long breath, remarked : " It is fearfully 
 hot to-day." This was the sole outcome of our 
 minister's well-meant but ill-timed congratulations. 
 
 Not only are mixed assemblages of the two sexes 
 forbidden by the Chinese social code, but husband 
 and wife are not expected to appear together in 
 public. There are necessary modifications to this 
 rule, as, for example, when families are traveling 
 long distances. Even in such cases the female 
 members of the family have their own servants, 
 who look after their comfort, and the master 
 ignores their presence as far as possible. In point 
 of fact, the entire domestic relationship which 
 every man in China has is universally and abso- 
 lutely ignored and tabooed. Every one knows, as 
 a matter of course, that it exists, but no one ever 
 mentions or recognizes it. A Chinese gentleman 
 very rarely appears upon the street with his wife, 
 and, when he does, never walks beside, but follows 
 her. And under no circumstances could he be in- 
 duced to ride in the same carriage with her. It 
 would irretrievably ruin his reputation to do so. 
 
 An amusing wrangle wliich once took place in 
 Peking between a foreigner and a party of Chinese 
 muleteers illustrates Oriental prejudice upon this 
 point. A party of foreigners were setting out in 
 mule litters — large sedan chairs borne by two 
 mules — on a journey of five days. One gentleman 
 desired, for the sake of company, to occupy the 
 same litter with his wife. With a little crowding
 
 lOO 77//-; KliAL CIIIXAMAX. 
 
 it could be made to carry two persons. The mule- 
 teers at once protested, and refused to proceed. 
 They insisted that it was a gross breach of Chinese 
 propriety, and that they would be abused and 
 jeered at throughout the journey. And they more 
 than hinted that if the foreigner cared nothing for 
 his own or his wife's reputation, they must protect 
 theirs, and they would not be parties to any such 
 scandalous proceedings. No persuasion and no 
 offer of extra wages would move them. To them 
 it was a question of morals, not of money. The 
 scheme was of necessity abandoned. 
 
 Another incident somewhat in the same line de- 
 serves record, since it shows how very broadly our 
 ideas of social intercourse between persons of op- 
 posite sexes differ from the Chinese, and also what 
 serious injury may be done by running counter to 
 their prejudices. The headquarters of the Chinese 
 students who were some years ago sent to this 
 country to be educated, under the care and at the 
 expense of the Chinese Government, were in Hart- 
 ford, Conn. Some of the young men went to 
 church and Sunday-school. One of them, walking 
 home from church one afternoon American fash- 
 ion — vvliich is to say, with a young lady — met the 
 Chinese director of this educational mission, as it 
 was called, out driving. The young gentleman 
 politely bowed, and removed his hat to his supe- 
 rior. The conservative old disciple of Confucius 
 C(juld hardly credit his eyes. Here was one of the 
 boys under his charge, for whose moral and men- 
 tal training he was responsible, actually walking in 
 full daylight upon the streets with a young woman 
 
 I
 
 CIIIXESE SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 who was neither his sister nor his first cousin. 
 This fact alone was quite sufficient to stamp the 
 reputation of both the young people as hopelessly 
 bad. But to complete his offence, the youn^^ man 
 
 FRONT OF OFFICIAL RESIDENCE. 
 
 had the effrontery to remove his hat before his 
 superior, an act which of itself was a grave breach 
 of Chinese etiquette. The incident was reported 
 to Peking, where it was looked upon, as the director
 
 102 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 himself viewed and characterized it, as an evidence 
 that the students had quite lost their good manners 
 and sense of decency. With other and more seri- 
 ous causes, it led to the recall of the entire body of 
 students, and the abandonment of the enterprise. 
 
 Chinese ladies do a considerable amount of call- 
 ing, and have other social duties, exclusively among 
 themselves. They evidently have the same ques- 
 tions of dress and fashions to discuss that their sis- 
 ters in other lands find so absorbing. While the cut 
 of their garments never changes, being exactly the 
 same to-day as it was two centuries ago, the style 
 of decoration varies from year to year. They never 
 shop except in the retirement of their own apart- 
 ments, to which all articles which they may desire 
 to purchase are taken. It is said that they gamble 
 and even take opium " socially," but of the truth 
 or falsity of the statement I have no certain knowl- 
 edge. It is difficult to conceive what amusement 
 they can have, or how they manage to pass the 
 hours, either in their own homes or when congre- 
 gated together at sociid afternoon feminine teas. 
 They do no work, as a retinue of servants is pro- 
 vided to attend to all household duties. None of 
 them can either read or write. As an evidence 
 that they are ladies, and as such above labor of 
 any sort, their finger-nails are allowed to grow to 
 an extraordinary length — to such length, in fact, 
 that they wear gold or silver " nail sheaths," much 
 as a sewing-woman wears a thimble — that is to 
 say, it is fitted X.o the finger in the same manner, 
 and extends the length and in the natural curve of 
 the nail which it encases. Tiny bells dangle from
 
 CJIIXESK SOCIAL LIFE. 103 
 
 it by delicate chiiins. This fashion effectually pre- 
 vents them from busying their lingers with those 
 trifling bits of fancy work with whicli ladies in 
 other lands occui)y so many spare moments. 
 
 The women of the poorer classes appeiir to have 
 absolutely no ideas beyond the range of household 
 drudgery and food and clothing. True, they love 
 to gather, two or three of them, under the shade 
 of a tree in summer, or on the sunny side of a wall 
 in winter, and exchange bits of gossip about neigh- 
 borhood affairs. But no idea of a social gathering, 
 in the Western sense of the phrase, can be said to 
 have found its way into their minds. A foreign 
 lady once invited several of these poor women, 
 neighbors and acquaintances of each other, to 
 spend the afternoon with her, and provided for 
 theni a very simple entertainment of buns and tea. 
 In due time these articles were placed upon the 
 table, and the hostess, being called from the room 
 for a few moments, asked her guests to help them- 
 selves. Upon her return she found that they had 
 carefully counted out to each woman her share of 
 the buns, an odd one being divided with the most 
 exact justice between them all, and each had taken 
 her share and a cup of tea to a corner of the room, 
 where she refreshed herself in silence. 
 
 In Chinese country life some of these strict rules 
 of separation between the sexes are, in a very mod- 
 erate degree, set aside. The inhabitants of a vil- 
 lage will raise a small sum by subscription, with 
 which to construct a cheap mat-shed for a stage, 
 and employ a company of strolling actors to per- 
 form for a day or two at the time of the spring and
 
 I04 THE REAL CHI X AM AX. 
 
 autumn festivals. All members of the various 
 families attend tliese ; but the women and girls are 
 carefully seated by themselves in a reserved space, 
 and opportunities for general intercourse are very 
 slight. In the larger cities ladies sometimes attend 
 the theatres, which there are permanently estab- 
 lished, but they always occupy secluded and care- 
 fully screened boxes. It is naturally impossible 
 that in village life, where men and boys, women 
 and children, all go together to the fields at dawn 
 and work there together until dusk — that under 
 such circumstances the same absolute restraints 
 should be enforced as in the easier seclusion of 
 town life. Yet it is astonishing how keenly the 
 sharp eyes of the old women in such a company of 
 laborers watch the younger women and men, and 
 how little of familiar conversation is allowed be- 
 tween them. 
 
 There is another reason aside from this separa- 
 tion of the sexes which renders many of what we 
 are accustomed to regard as among the highest 
 pleasures of social life impossible in China. They 
 are totally at variance with Chinese ideas of enjoy- 
 ment. It is related that the first Chinese minister 
 to this country was once invited to a reception in 
 Washington, where dancing was the principal fea- 
 ture of the evening's entertainment. After watch- 
 ing the flushed and heated dancers for some time 
 in undisguised amazement, and contrasting tlieir 
 violent exercise with their elegant and manifestly 
 expensive costumes, he turned to a friend and in- 
 quired : " Why do they do that hard work ? Can- 
 not thev afford to hire some one to do it f(jr them ?"
 
 CiriXKSE SOCIAL I.ll-K. 1 05 
 
 The accuracy of this story cannot be verified ; but 
 if it is not true, it ought to be, as it exactly repre- 
 sents the Oriental idea of much of what we consider 
 as pleasure. His conceptions have been fixed in 
 a totally different mould. He has, indeed, but one 
 model in life — the Confucian. A gentleman must 
 be, above and before everything else, dignified and 
 stately in his motions. To walk rapidly is an 
 offence ; to run is absolutely vicious. And to him 
 whirling about on a polished floor would, if men 
 alone were engaged in it, be almost a proof of in- 
 sanity. But when men and women engaged in it 
 locked arm in arm, if his notions of politeness al- 
 lowed him to characterize his view of the amuse- 
 ment, it would be in terms far from complimentary. 
 The female sex has no place in his idea of respect- 
 able pleasures, nor has violent exercise of any sort 
 a place in his category of gentlemanly amusements. 
 Chinese gentlemen visit and entertain each other 
 to a considerable extent. But their laborious code 
 of etiquette, elsewhere described, is so cumbersome 
 and vexatious in its details regarding the reciprocal 
 duties of host and guest as to destroy all spon- 
 taneity of action, and make entertainment a bur- 
 den rather than a pleasure. If, in calling upon a 
 friend, one is met at the door by that person, and 
 then he must spend five minutes with him in a 
 polite wrangle over the question which shall first 
 pass the portal, it being absolutely certain at the 
 outset which shall eventually do so ; and if this 
 ready-made sort of politeness must be repeated 
 over and over again, when the visitor takes his 
 seat, when he receives the inevitable cup of tea,
 
 lo6 THE REAL CinXAMAY. 
 
 and at every other point and movement of the in- 
 terview — if making social calls involves all this, as 
 it does in Chinese polite society, then it is easy to 
 see how closely social intercourse comes to being a 
 bore and a nuisance. 
 
 Many Chinese gentlemen have fine libraries of 
 ancient Chinese authors, and are able to talk intel- 
 ligently and with great interest about their own 
 literature. Many of them, too, make a special 
 study of antique porcelains, jades, coins, litho- 
 graphs and paintings, all of Chinese origin, and to 
 one somewhat familiar with these subjects they 
 make most charming companions. In discussing 
 questions relating to such subjects the foreigner 
 naturally finds himself in the position of a learner, 
 his Chinese host being his instructor. And he 
 will show such careful research, such patient detail 
 in his investigations, as to astonish his pupil and 
 arouse his admiration. 
 
 It requires a peculiar course of instruction, only 
 obtainable by experience, before a man having 
 Western ideas can come into anything approaching 
 familiar social intercourse with a Chinese gentle- 
 man. Each has to make so many allowances for 
 the other, their courses and systems of education 
 have been so different, their mental methods are so 
 diverse, their respect for standard authorities rests 
 upon such dissimilar foundations — in short, each 
 finds so many points of what he regards as gross 
 ignorance in the other, that two such men can only 
 come by slow processes, and by a gradually devel- 
 oped mutual forbearance, to be familiar friends. 
 By way of illustration, we should hardly expect to
 
 CHIKKSr-: SOC/AL LIFE. 107 
 
 find a man able to reason closely and logically on 
 ]-)<)ints of mental and moral philosophy who did 
 not kn(nv that the earth was spherical, and who 
 could not possibly be made to understand that a 
 traveler wishing to go from New York to Peking 
 would be equally certain of reaching his destina- 
 tion either by traveling east or west. Yet there 
 are many such men in tlie Cliinese Empire. One 
 would not expect to find an acute and sagacious 
 statesman in a person who had never heard of the 
 law of gravitation, and wlio was confident that an 
 eclipse was caused by a dog in the heavens endeav- 
 f)ring to devour either the sun or the moon, as the 
 case might be. Yet there are such. It seems 
 strange to us that a person could be a master of 
 style in composition, and have a wide and well- 
 deserved reputation as an elegant and polished 
 writer, yet be ignorant of the simplest fundamental 
 elements of what to us constitutes an education. 
 Yet there are many such examples. 
 
 The Chinese gentleman — he is always a literary 
 graduate — is fond of an argument. He has his 
 own system of logic, and reaches his conclusions 
 on what may seem at times to us to be whimsical 
 and even absurd grounds. He is acute, quick to 
 detect flaws in the chain of reasoning of his adver- 
 sary, and to take advantage of them. He always 
 bows to an}' quotation from the writings of Confu- 
 cius. He sometimes, to his own satisfaction at 
 least, turns the tables upon his opponent, and makes 
 his own interpretation of certain mutually accept- 
 ed facts settle in his favor some hotly contested 
 principle. It is from this peculiarity that argument
 
 lo8 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 with him has a special interest. It shows how his 
 mind works, and to what extent credulity is made 
 to take the place of broad and well-established gen- 
 eral principles. 
 
 I once had an aigument lasting several hours 
 with a distinguished Chinese scholar who held a 
 high post under the government, over the general 
 proposition, advanced by him, that a fox had the 
 power to turn himself at will into a man. Gro- 
 tesque as this proposition may appear, we fought 
 over it for the time mentioned, neither apparently 
 making headway against the other, when suddenly 
 my friend and opponent said : " But how can you 
 deny what you know has occurred, as an actual 
 fact, here in Peking ? And you yourself are familiar 
 with all the circumstances of the case. A soldier 
 in the British Legation was preparing for bed one 
 night a couple of years ago, when he heard the cry 
 of a fox in the legation grounds. He dressed 
 again, took his rifle, and telling his wife that he 
 was going to kill that fox, went out. Shortly after 
 she heard the report of his rifle, and fell asleep. 
 When she awoke in tlie morning she was surprised 
 not to find him in the room. A few moments later 
 two of his comrades brought his dead body into 
 the house. He had been found in a clump of 
 laurel bushes, shot through the head. His rifle lay 
 beside him, but the fox weis nowhere to be seen. 
 Now, what can be plainer," exclaimed my antago- 
 nist most triumphantly, " than the facts of this 
 case ? Tlie soldier was ciiasing that fox through 
 those laurel bushes. He was gaining on him ; the 
 fox saw that he was likely to be caught, and so, in
 
 CIIIXKSE SOCIAL LIFE. I09 
 
 the flash of an eye, he changed himself into a man, 
 snatched his rifle from the poor soldier, and shot 
 him through the head with his own weapon. Then 
 he changed himself into a fox again and ran away. 
 Why do you need argument in the face of such 
 facts ?" And he, smiling and confident, paused 
 for my reply. My only reply was, and the only 
 possible answer, that I adinitted his facts, which 
 indeed were familiar to every person in Peking ; 
 but I denied his inferences. The transfcjrmation 
 of the fox into human form and his subsequent 
 action were not facts, but inferences. My infer- 
 ences were that the soldier was crawling upon his 
 hands and knees tlirough the laurel thicket in a 
 stealthy approach to the fox, and that he was care- 
 lessly dragging his rifle behind him, having hold 
 of it near the muzzle. A twig caught the trigger 
 and exploded the piece, the charge entering his 
 brain. Thus the argument ended, neither side hav- 
 ing won the other to his view. Grotesque as his 
 ideas upon this point of natural history may ap- 
 pear, this Chinese was a wise, sagacious, and broad- 
 minded public officer. 
 
 Chinese reception-rooms and libraries are fitted 
 up with great elegance, though not, perhaps, in 
 accordance with our ideas of comfort. To recur 
 again to the strict seclusion required of the female 
 portion of any household, it should be noticed that 
 a caller, in approaching these rooms, is expected 
 to make his approach known by a cough, in order 
 to afford them time to retire before he enters. The 
 Chinese are very proud of their sons, and they are 
 allowed to be present, and are exhibited with an
 
 no THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 assumption of Indifference and many formal words 
 of disappointment and regret at tlieir stupidity, all 
 of which is only a barely perceptible veil covering 
 their fondness and pride. The surest way by 
 which to gain a much-desired point with a Chinese 
 father is to see him, if possible, in his own home, 
 and there to admire and praise his sons. 
 
 It need hardly be said that all social intercourse 
 between natives and foreigners in China is strictly 
 confined to persons of the same sex. This is un- 
 fortunate, no matter from what point it is viewed. 
 But no change is likely until Oriental views of pro- 
 priety shall be so far relaxed as to conform in some 
 degree to the practice in Western lands. And this 
 is a change which cannot be hastened, and any 
 effort to force it would have an effect in exactly the 
 opposite direction. At present the international 
 gatherings, as they may be called, for social pur- 
 poses, lacking that which the grace, wit, and beauty 
 of woman alone can give, are, on the whole, dreary 
 festivals. It requires mucli patience and a philo- 
 sophic turn of mind to endure them ; or perhaps it is 
 better to say that it would require these qualities 
 were there not invariably so large an element of 
 comicality j^resent to enliven the feast. 
 
 In dinner-giving in China between Chinese and 
 foreigners, the guests are invariably at the mercy 
 of their hosts. The peculiarities of table service 
 are each so utterly unlike the other, the dishes 
 served are so strange, and the whole code of table 
 manners is so widely diverse, that a dinner of this 
 sort, otherwise tedious, becomes entertaining by 
 reason of the very l)lunders of the guests, who may
 
 CHINESE DRAGON (MOULDED IN PORCELAIN).
 
 CHINESE SOCIAL LIFE. 113 
 
 be past-masters in the art of elegant dining upon 
 their own ground, but become blundering school- 
 boys with strange food strangely cooked and to be 
 eaten with strange utensils. If an American chases 
 a grain of rice all around the circumference of his 
 plate with a pair of chop-sticks when he is a guest 
 at a Chinese dinner, he has his revenge when, at 
 his own table, he watches his former host, after 
 numerous struggles with a knife and fork, gravely 
 abandon them and make free use of nature's uten- 
 sils — his lingers. 
 
 In entertaining strangers from strange lands, one 
 is often amused and also instructed. It was once 
 my fortune to show civilities to a distinguished 
 Corean, a member of the Cabinet, who came to 
 Peking at the head of the annual embassy to the 
 Emperor of China. lie was a man of dignified 
 and refined manners ; his face showed acuteness 
 and ability, and he was greatly esteemed for his 
 high scholarship and literary ability. Yet the 
 photographic camera and the photographs of him- 
 self taken that winter were the first articles of the 
 sort he had ever seen. A kerosene lamp was an 
 utter novelty to him, and he evidently disbelieved 
 the statement that the oil burned in it flowed from 
 the ground. He had never seen, much less set 
 foot within, a foreign residence, and all its varied 
 arrangements and conveniences were of the utmost 
 interest to him. He was startled out of his usual 
 dignified bearing when he seated himself in an 
 upholstered spring-bottomed chair. At a dinner 
 which I gave to him and his colleague, it was almost 
 pathetic to notice how carefully the two Corean
 
 114 THE REAL CirEXAMAY. 
 
 gentlemen watched the actions of others at the 
 table, and followed the example they thus found in 
 the use of table implements, and the mode of eat- 
 ing food with which they were wholly unfamiliar. 
 But in the course of the dinner they gave their 
 host an illustration of Corean table manners which 
 was amusing at the outset, and by its ultimate con- 
 sequences quite upset his gravity. Each Corean 
 brought his body-servant to the dinner, and each 
 servant placed himself behind his master's chair. 
 As they took no part in the service of the table, 
 their presence at first appeared to be purely orna- 
 mental, or a sort of necessary exponent of the rank 
 and dignity of their masters. It soon became evi- 
 dent, however, that there were certain emoluments 
 attached to their position ; for when the master 
 of either had eaten as much of any course as he 
 cared for, he would pass what remained on his 
 plate, or so much as he could gather in his fingers, 
 over his shoulder to his servant, who would eat it. 
 Thus when, for example, chicken cutlets were 
 served, the master would pass the bone, with some 
 remnants of flesh upon it, to his man, who would 
 gnaw it clean, and gravely drop the bone upon the 
 carpet. 
 
 This was amusing, though not specially benefi- 
 cial to my carpet. However, my revenge came 
 later, when, in an unlucky moment. His Excellency 
 Chin Hong Chi handed to his servant the butt 
 of a particularly large stem of French asparagus. 
 The master had dealt with it as he had seen other 
 gentlemen deal willi theirs, and the result was 
 favorable. The servant was not so fortunate. His
 
 CHINESE SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 "5 
 
 heroic efforts to chew and swallow the strange arti- 
 cle of food made him black in the face, quite upset 
 the gravity of the host, and made him guilty of 
 a grave breach of Oriental etiquette. And the 
 wretched valet probably left the feast disgusted at 
 the bad taste of foreigners, who would serve boiled 
 corn-stalks with melted butter upon their tables, 
 and amazed at the strength of foreign jaws and the 
 sharpness of foreign teeth, which could cope with 
 a vegetable so hopelessly tough.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CHINESE RELIGIONS 
 
 It is difficult to understand how 
 Confucius has come to be regarded as 
 the founder of a system of religious 
 belief. He is so regarded among 
 many foreigners, and even by some 
 writers who should be better inform- 
 ed. He wrote little or nothing upon 
 what may be termed religious topics further than 
 to endorse and commend certain rites which had 
 been practiced commonly among the people for 
 centuries before he was born. He exhorted his 
 followers to the orderly observance of these rites, 
 but went no further. Though he believed himself 
 commissioned to restore the doctrines and usages 
 of the ancient kings — and he claimed no higher mis- 
 sion than this — he professed to know little or noth- 
 ing about the higher powers, and never taught that 
 man had a duty to a power higher than the head 
 of his family or of the State. When he was once 
 questioned about divinities, he said that he did not 
 understand much about the gods, and believed 
 that the duty of man lay rather in fulfilling his 
 obligations to his relatives and society, than in the 
 worship of unknown spirits. On another occasion,
 
 CHINESE RELIGIONS. II7 
 
 being (luestioned regarding sacrifice to spirits, he 
 said : " Not knowing life, how can we know 
 death ?" 
 
 Confucius was a moral phihjsoplier, not a re- 
 ligious leader. He was a sage, not a devotee. He 
 elaborated a system of ctliics which has stood the 
 test of the centuries, and has liad much to do with 
 the conservation of the Chinese nation. But it may 
 well be doubted whether he felt any serious personal 
 interest in the religious observances which he coun- 
 tenanced. If so, his interest lay rather in their 
 antiquity than in any faith in their efticacy. The 
 whole burden of his teachings was in behalf of 
 moderation, order, and what may be termed the 
 lower grades of virtue. He never got beyond the 
 negative form of the golden rule ; and it is ex- 
 tremely probable that he intended not so much to 
 advise the practice of any religious rites as that, 
 if practiced, it should be in a decorous and digni- 
 fied manner. 
 
 Two and a half centuries had passed after his 
 death before the Chinese came to recognize his 
 wisdom in any practical way. Confucius was born 
 B.C. 551, and died b.c. 479. Yet, so far as the his- 
 torical records show, Kao Tsu, the first emperor 
 of the Han dynasty, was the first to show special 
 reverence and regard for the sage by offering sac- 
 rifice at his tomb, about r..c. 200. And it was not 
 until the first year of the Christian era that a 
 temple was erected to his memory by imperial com- 
 mand. Such places of worship and sacrifice must 
 now be numbered by thousands. His menn)ry is 
 veneriited by every Chinese, and liis wonl is law
 
 ii8 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 throughout the empire. It is astonishing how 
 glibly he is quoted by prince and pauper, whether 
 in the discussion of some grave international ques- 
 tion or as an incentive to almsgiving. His word 
 settles street wrangles and determines the policy 
 of the State. He is sometimes quoted under cir- 
 cumstances that render any reference to him gro- 
 tesque and amusing, and the phrase quoted may 
 not have the faintest apparent bearing upon the 
 question at issue, but it has weight. He is the 
 great arbitrator, authority, and peacemaker of the 
 empire. 
 
 The system of so-called religion to which his 
 name has been given was evolved by his disciples 
 and successors from a few obscure phrases in his 
 writings. It is pure materialism, making all things 
 to have originated from the " first element," the 
 primary microbe. This, operating upon itself, pro- 
 duced the dual powers of nature, the male and 
 female elements, and from these, b)' a process of 
 evolution, all existent forms have sprung. With 
 reference to any creative agency, any God, or any 
 divinities or spirits, one of his most celebrated 
 commentators said : " Sufficient knowledge was 
 not possessed to say positively that they existed, 
 and he saw no difficulty in omitting the subject 
 altogether." He has nothing to say concerning 
 the immortality of the soul or future rewards and 
 punishments. There is little to interest an intelli- 
 gent student of religious systems in these elabora- 
 tions of the supposed Confucian idea, or to reward 
 him for his labor. They are, in the main, confused 
 and meaningless repetitions of words whose thought
 
 CH IXF.sk KELIGIOXS. 119 
 
 is either uncertain or absent. And it must be 
 borne in mind that tliey do not represent what he 
 said — for he said little or notliing— but the more or 
 less fanciful conjectures of his followers, some of 
 whom lived many hundreds of years after him, as 
 to what he probably believed. 
 
 What is known as the religion of Confucius 
 among foreigners is called, by Chinese, by a term 
 which may be translated as meaning the doctrine 
 of philosophers. The idea is essentially that con- 
 veyed by the name " Illuminati," applied to classes 
 of persons at different times in Europe. The 
 rites prescribed by it are the worship of heaven and 
 earth and the worship of ancestors. Essential, 
 though less important, is the worship of the sun 
 and moon. To these has been added, in compara- 
 tively modern times, the worship of Confucius. 
 The practice of the last-named rite is confined to 
 officials, actual or expectant, literary graduates, and 
 students. All members of these classes are re- 
 quired to do homage at his shrine. The worship 
 of heaven and earth is practiced by all classes and 
 both sexes. It is an essential part of the wedding 
 ceremonies and other equally important events. 
 
 The most elaborate and interesting of all re- 
 ligious structures in China is the Temple of Heaven, 
 at Peking. It has two high altars, one covered 
 and the other open. The most gorgeous and im- 
 pressive ceremonial in the empire is that which 
 takes place when the Emperor, as son and sole 
 high-priest of Heaven, goes there twice each year 
 to worship. In this service he has neither assistant 
 nor substitute. He prepares himself for this solemn
 
 120 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 duty by a period of retirement and fasting in a hall 
 within the enclosure specially devoted to that pur- 
 pose. Without going into the details of the rite, 
 it may be said, in passing, that it bears a most 
 striking resemblance, both in its general features 
 and detail, to the Mosaic ritual as found in the 
 Bible. One feature, however, is peculiar. Ranged 
 in a circle about each altar are large iron crates, 
 shaped like enormous baskets. In these are de- 
 posited, at the time of the winter sacrifice, slips of 
 paper, each bearing the name, crime, and other de- 
 tails of some Chinese offender whose life has been 
 taken during the preceding year for offense against 
 the laws. In this way the Emperor makes report 
 to Heaven of the administration of affairs, so far as 
 it has involved the death penalty. 
 
 One peculiar feature of the worship at this im- 
 perial structure is worthy of notice. Though men 
 and women alike throughout the empire worship 
 heaven and earth, no place is allowed to females in 
 the grand pageant and solemn ceremonial referred 
 to above. Not only are they excluded from all 
 participation in it, but their presence on any part 
 of the grounds at any time is held to be a pollution 
 of the sanctuary. If one of the native guards of 
 the temple should even carry a female infant in liis 
 arms into the beautiful park which surrounds and 
 forms the outer enclosure to it, he would be most 
 severely punished. 
 
 When General Grant, in the spring of 1879, visit- 
 ed Peking, this temple, for the first time in its his- 
 tory, was ofTicially thrown open. To a Chinese 
 mind it was one of the highest honors that could 
 
 I
 
 CIIINKSE KEIJGIONS. I2I 
 
 be paid to hiin. Some fori'i<^ii ladies, having 
 learned in advance that the gates were thus to be 
 opened for this distinguished American, took ad- 
 vantage of the fact and made their w^ay into the 
 enclosure, riglitly conjecturing that the timid and 
 ignorant guards would imagine that they belonged 
 to the General's party, and hence would not dare 
 to bar the way. As this courtesy had been extend- 
 ed to my guests through me, I felt bound to take 
 an early opportunity to explain the facts to Prince 
 Kung, and to express my regret at the intrusion. 
 He replied at once : " I know all about it. But 
 don't mention the subject, even in a whisper. If it 
 came to be generally known, there would be serious 
 trouble." 
 
 The respect, amounting to reverence, which the 
 Chinese feel for education and literature, shows 
 itself in a peculiar adjunct to the worship of Con- 
 fucius. In every city and large town in the empire 
 the graduates of the literary examinations are or- 
 ganized in a guild or association. They place 
 boxes at street corners, in shops, and other fre- 
 quented places, upon which is painted the advice : 
 "Have respect for the written character." In 
 these boxes all persons are requested to carefully 
 deposit any scraps or pieces of waste paper which 
 contain printed or written matter. They also 
 sometimes employ men, provided with a basket and 
 a bamboo rod with a sharp nail at the end, to patrol 
 the streets and gather up any such paper that may 
 have been dropped. The contents of these various 
 receptacles are gathered together, and at stated 
 intervals the members of the guild march with
 
 THE REAL CIIIXAMAN. 
 
 them in solemn procession, preceded by a band of 
 music, to the Temple of Confucius. An essential 
 feature of the courtyard of the temple is a small 
 shrine or oven, an illustration of that in Peking 
 
 OVKN FOR BURNING PAPER, IN CONFUCIAN TEMPLE, PEKING. 
 
 being given herewith. The papers are deposited 
 in this shiine and l)urned, while these devotees of 
 literature prostrate themselves in worship. Per- 
 haps no one thing gives tlic educated Chinese such
 
 CI/IXESE REIJGIOXS. 123 
 
 a low opinion of foreign culture iind refinement as 
 the careless, indifferent, and, in their eyes, disre- 
 spectful way in which we treat printed or written 
 paper. They cannot understand how any person 
 of genuine education would show such lack of re- 
 gard for the source of all his learning. 
 
 The worship of ancestors is literally universal in 
 China. There are no exceptions to the practice 
 except in case of Christianized Chinese, and on no 
 other ground do these receive so much criticism 
 and abuse, amounting in individual cases to perse- 
 cution, as for their neglect of this solemn duty. 
 So far as can be discovered, the worship is as old 
 as the race. It is the most deeply rooted of all 
 forms of religion in the very fibre of the Chinese 
 character, and, beyond a question, it will be the 
 last of all forms of false faith to die out from 
 among them. 
 
 Whatever may be the theoretical idea in the wor- 
 ship of ancestors — and there has been much dispute 
 upon the question — the practical belief under which 
 it holds the hundred of millions of Chinese to ob- 
 servance of the rite is substantially as follows : The 
 masses believe that the spirits of the departed re- 
 main near the home occupied by them during life, 
 and the grave in which the body rests. They be- 
 lieve that these spirits are powerful to work good 
 or ill to their descendants, and that hence they 
 must be propitiated by offerings. The more igno- 
 rant classes, at least, believe that they are actually 
 supported, fed by the sacrifices placed before their 
 tombs, and that the sham money burned in the 
 ceremony is by some unexplained process trans-
 
 124 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 muted into coin current in the world of spirits, and 
 there serves to pay their expenses. Gross ideas 
 these, beyond a doubt ; but they exist and form an 
 animating motive of the worship of ancestors as 
 practiced by a large portion of the people of China. 
 There may be, probably is, an element of filial de- 
 votion in the service. But there is also a large ele- 
 ment of fear, an anxiety to stand well with the 
 gods, and to secure for themselves the favoring 
 influences which their departed relatives are be- 
 lieved to possess. 
 
 This worship makes clear one point of Chinese 
 belief which otherwise might be in doubt. It 
 shows conclusively that they believe in the con- 
 tinued existence of the soul after death. And it 
 makes plain the logic of their conduct in certain 
 other matters, showing that the course so uniform- 
 ly taken by them is more of a necessity than any 
 mere choice. It explains why there are no bache- 
 lors in China. Every man must marry and rear 
 sons to perform this rite, essential to his eternal 
 happiness, at his grave. He must have sons, not 
 daughters, for a double reason. Wliile all mem- 
 bers of a given family participate in the ceremo- 
 nies, tlie active part of the service must be rendered 
 by sons. And, further, a daughter, when married, 
 ceases to concern herself in the affairs of her own 
 parents, but is absorbed in the family of her hus- 
 band. This service explains why the Chinese go 
 and come between foreign lands and China, or re- 
 mote i)arts of their own country, but practically 
 never colonize, and why such intense stress is laid 
 upon the return of a dead l)0(ly from no matter
 
 CHINESE RELIC IONS. 125 
 
 how great a distance for burial in the ancestral 
 ground. It is there that this ceremony is observed, 
 and there the body must be to receive tlie l)enefit 
 of it. If buried elsewhere, the soul of the depart- 
 ed is doomed to wander in cold, hunger, and deso- 
 lation. 
 
 The ancestral tablet, as it is called, is found in 
 every Chinese home, and, theoretically at least, 
 obeisance before it is made daily. This tablet is a 
 strip of wood set into a wooden base, painted gen- 
 erally red, and having an inscription in gilt upon 
 it to show its purpose. It is generally enclosed in 
 a small shrine more or less carved and ornamented. 
 But the formal sacrifice occurs semi-annually at the 
 tombs. It is elaborate and expensive according to 
 the means of the celebrants. The grave mounds 
 are carefully cleared of grass and weeds, and round- 
 ed into shape. A table is spread before the en- 
 trance to the place of burial, and upon it the offer- 
 ings are placed. These ordinarily consist of baked 
 meats of different kinds, pigs and ducks being most 
 common, rice, cakes, wine, and strips of silk, with 
 which the spirits are supposed to clothe themselves. 
 Firecrackers, those universal attendants of all Chi- 
 nese forms of ceremony, are discharged in large 
 quantities, and large sums of imitation money are 
 burned, thus being transmitted and transmuted 
 for spiritual use by fire. 
 
 The Chinese are nothing if not economical. This 
 liberal display of food and drink \'~, presented \.o an- 
 cestors, but, after they have gained whatever sus- 
 tenance may be available in it for tliem, it is eaten 
 and drank^ down to the last crumb and drop, by
 
 126 THE REAL CHIXAMAN: 
 
 the surviving members of the family. Thus the 
 day is made a holiday in the true sense of the word. 
 Instances have been known in which families too 
 poor or too economical to purchase the materials 
 for such a feast have hired them for the day, to be 
 returned in good order at night. Others buy imi- 
 tation roast pigs and ducks made of coarse paste- 
 board and painted. They appear to believe that 
 disembodied spirits are more easil}^ imposed upon 
 than are the living. 
 
 In order to secure an intelligent conception of 
 the place which the three great religions of China 
 occupy in the minds of the people, it is best to ac- 
 cept the fact that the entire mass of the population 
 — always excepting Christian converts — are believ- 
 ers in Confucianism. That is to say, giving that 
 name to a system of religious practice which he did 
 not originate, and of which he really had very lit- 
 tle to say, and understanding its essential features 
 to consist of the worship of heaven and earth and 
 of ancestors, with the worship of the sage himself 
 added later for scholars only, then every true Chi- 
 nese is a Confucianist. That is the one original, 
 universal, indigenous religion of China. The other 
 two, yet to be described, are, so to speak, supple- 
 mentary and subordinate. It will do much to free 
 the mind of the reader from confusion if this fact 
 is kept in view. 
 
 There has been much discussion whether Tao- 
 ism was a native or an imported religion, with the 
 balance of opinion inclining toward the latter. Its 
 founder was a Chinese who traveled in other parts 
 of Asia, and all his teachings beiir the ear-marks of
 
 CnrXESE REIJCIOXS. 127 
 
 Brahminisin. He was contemporaneous with Con- 
 fucius, tliougli a few years his senior, and met him 
 at least once. Tlie name Taoism, or the ism of 
 Tao, gives more than a liint as to the nature of 
 that belief. Tao is a Chinese word, whose first 
 meaning is " road" or " way," and the professed 
 object of the founder of the system was to explain 
 the relations existing between the universe of mind 
 and matter and this Tao. A sentence or two from 
 his writings will show, amusingly perhaps, how 
 easily he set about his task. And they will also 
 most likely give the reader all that he cares to 
 know in detail of this form of belief. Here they 
 are : ' ' All material visible forms are only emanations 
 of Tao or reason ; this formed all beings." Again: 
 " Reason has produced one, one produced two, 
 two produced three, and three made all things. 
 All beings repose on the feminine principle, and 
 they embrace, envelop the male principle ; a 
 fecundating breath keeps up their liarmony." 
 His theories remind the student of nothing so 
 much as of a dog chasing its tail. And they are 
 nearly as devoid of sense. 
 
 Theoretically Taoism, at least in its original 
 form, did not favor idolatry — that is, the worship 
 of visible objects ; but now it has all imaginable 
 forms of idols, and may almost be said to make 
 new ones to order. Originally it taught asceti- 
 cism, or at least that the study of pure reason and 
 the mortification of bodily desires formed the sole 
 duty of man. Ijut all this has long since been 
 changed. Taoist priests are the jugglers, astrolo- 
 gers, fortune-tellers, and general mountebanks of
 
 128 THE REAL CI/EVAAfAN'. 
 
 China. The fountain of eternal youth, the elixir 
 of life, and the plant of immortality which grows 
 in some fabulous Eastern isles — these are the stock 
 phrases upon their lips, and ideas springing out of 
 them form the burden of their teaching. They 
 have also adopted (if they did not originate) that 
 old European humbug, and profess to be able to 
 transmute base metals into gold. 
 
 It is, to say the least, significant that the official 
 establishment of Confucius as an object of national 
 worship, the birth of Christ, and the introduction 
 of Buddhism into the Chinese Empire should have 
 occurred at about the same time. There is a 
 legend among the Chinese to the effect that, about 
 the time of the birth of the Saviour, the reigning 
 emperor was several times warned in a dream that 
 a wise man would shortly be born in the West, and 
 he was advised to send an embassy to invite him to 
 China. Another legend recites that the emperor 
 dispatched an embassy because of a remarkable 
 expression of Confucius five hundred years earlier, 
 to the effect that " the people of the West have 
 a sage." This much is certain : an embassy was 
 sent to the West about the time of the birth of 
 Christ to seek for a new faith. It wandered into 
 India, and the result was the introduction of Bud- 
 dhism into the empire. 
 
 Buddhist temples are a feature of every land- 
 scape in China. The}^ are to be found by scores in 
 the larger cities, by tens in the smaller, and by 
 twos and threes in every market town and village, 
 while no hamlet is so insignificant as to be without 
 its mud god, not unfrcquently in a most shocking
 
 CHWESE liEL/G/O.VS. 129 
 
 condition of disrepair. In general, they are built, 
 rc[)aire(l, and maintained by private subscription, 
 in which public sentiment forces eacli mi-mber of 
 the community to bear his share. Some, however, 
 are supported by annual grants from the govern- 
 ment, or by endowment. Those receiving aid 
 from the State are distinguishable by yellow-tiled 
 roofs — yellow being the imperial color, forbidden 
 to the people. 
 
 In addition to what may be called formal temples 
 for the worship of Buddha, there are an innumer- 
 able number of wayside shrines to be met with all 
 over the country, devoted either to the worship of 
 that deity in person or to some subordinate inferior 
 god in the Buddhist pantheon. Once, when trav- 
 eling in the province of Shansi, and about half-a- 
 dozen miles distant from a sacred Buddhist spot 
 called Wu Tai Shan, I came across such a wretched 
 little shrine, built of mud, about the size of a dog- 
 kennel, which was dedicated to " The one thou- 
 sand two hundred and forty-nine unnamed local 
 divinities of the earth, air, and sea." Here was a 
 veritaMe omnium gatherum of a shrine. The big 
 gods have each his own place of worship ; but it 
 had occurred to some devout-minded Chinese that 
 there might be a considerable number of little dei- 
 ties left unnoticed yet deserving of attention. He 
 had numbered them all, and consecrated this mud 
 shrine to their service. It was thoughtful, but 
 grotesque. 
 
 While the first and fifteentli of the moon and cer- 
 tain feast days are more particularly days of wor- 
 ship, the temples are always open, day and night,
 
 130 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 throughout the year ; a priest is always in attend- 
 ance to conduct the worship, and a wick floating in 
 a cup of oil furnishes a faint but perpetual light 
 before the images. The worship is always indi- 
 vidual, there being no such thing as joint or con- 
 gregational service known. The ordinary form is 
 very simple, and occupies but a moment. A wor- 
 shiper comes in, buys for a few cash several sticks 
 of incense from the priest, who lights them for him 
 at the sacred flame. These aie handed to the wor- 
 shiper, who places them in a bronze incense-burner 
 upon a table in front of the image of Buddha. He 
 then prostrates himself upon a rug before the idol 
 three times, each time knocking his head three 
 times upon the floor, the priest meanwhile beating 
 a huge drum or bell to attract the attention of 
 Buddha. This done, the worshiper rises and goes 
 about his business. This is the usual form of wor- 
 ship in all Chinese temples. It is simple, inexpen- 
 sive, and interferes with neither business nor pleas- 
 ure. In larger temples, to which a number of 
 priests and neophytes are attached, they are re- 
 quired to be " on watch," much like sailors on ship- 
 board, and at regular periods, night and day, per- 
 form this ceremony. The priests are, as a class, 
 notorious for their ignorance and vicious habits. 
 They are not allowed to marry, and probably not 
 one tenth of them can read or write. They learn 
 the exceedingly limited vocabulary of the ritual, 
 which consists of barely more than one or two 
 Sanscrit words, by having it repeated to them. 
 
 There is a regularly graded Buddliist hierarchy, 
 culminating with one wlio mav be termed, for lack
 
 CHINESE RELIGIONS. 131 
 
 of a better name, an archbishop. He is supposed 
 to be subordinate only to the Grand Llama in 
 Thibet in ecclesiastical affairs. I exchanged calls 
 with such an archbishop at Wu Tai Shan, a sacred 
 resort already mentioned. He was a very pleasant- 
 faced, mild-mannered old gentleman, aged about 
 seventy, not a Chinese, but a Thibetan. In conse- 
 quence he spoke poor Chinese, but we managed to 
 get on very well in our conversation. He set out 
 some very choice tea to drink, to which he added 
 cream (which Chinese never use) and salt. It was 
 not at all unpalatable. The old man was some- 
 thing of a gossip, manifested the utmost curiosity 
 and the densest ignorance about all foreign mat- 
 ters, and in the course of a long conversation be- 
 came very frank and confidential. He informed 
 me that archbishops were chosen by ballot by the 
 bishops, from among their own number, for a term 
 of six years. He had been elected three terms, and 
 a new election would occur in a few months. He 
 added naively that he doubted whether he would 
 seek another term. He was rather tired of the 
 monotony of the post, was getting on in years, 
 and besides // cost too much to secure the election. 
 The honor, pay, and perquisites were not worth it. 
 In addition to the regular hierarchy of the priest- 
 hood, there is an anomalous and comparatively 
 modern creation known as a " living Buddha." 
 He is supposed to be an incarnation of the original 
 Buddha, has no part in the councils of the organi- 
 zation, is of course sacred, and his most unfortu- 
 nate lot in life is to sit upon a lotus-leaf throne and 
 be worshiped. Theoretically he never dies, but
 
 132 THE REAL CHINAMAN: 
 
 goes away, and then is sought for and always found 
 reincarnated in some young boy. With a certain 
 amount of inconsistency, while there was but one 
 original Buddha, there are four modern incarna- 
 tions of him : one at Lhassa and three at three dif- 
 ferent and rival sacred centres of the faith in China. 
 
 Buddhism has manifestly taken on certain addi- 
 tional ideas, with their corresponding phrases and 
 terms, by being brought into contact and contrast 
 with Christianity. Certain of the most important 
 expressions in Buddhism as taught to-day are not 
 to be found in the original theories of existence 
 and of rewards and punishment. Early Buddhism 
 says nothing about heaven or hell, a personal devil, 
 or a goddess of mercy. Such a figure as that re- 
 produced, and which represents a Buddhist priest 
 treading Satan under his feet, would not have been 
 understood by primitive Buddhists, nor would 
 Quan Yin, the Buddhist Madonna, of whom an 
 illustration is also furnished. 
 
 It strikes a Western man oddly, as he passes 
 along the streets of a Chinese city, to see upon the 
 walls, which are as thickly plastered with adver- 
 tisements of all sorts as those of any city in this 
 land, unless, indeed, the Chinese warning, " I'ost no 
 Bills," has been put up — it strikes him oddly to 
 read, among flaming notices of quack remedies, 
 the words, " Ask and ye shall receive," or, " To 
 him who asks in faith shall be given." At first he 
 imagines that the American crank has a Chinese 
 l)r()ther who is imitating him in placarding texts of 
 Scripture in unseemly places. Such, however, is 
 not the fact. These are simply headlines to ad-
 
 BUDDHIST PRIEST TRAMPLING SATAN UNDER FOOT.
 
 ¥
 
 CHIXESE KKLIGIOXS. 1 35 
 
 vertisements of Buddhist temples, posted with the 
 desire to secure the prayers, and Jicncc the cash — for 
 no pay, no pray, is the ruki — of worshipers. They 
 are posted as a matter of business. 
 
 Tlie number of mendicant or tramp priests in 
 Cliiiia must be enormous. They are encouraged 
 and fostered ; by a rule of the order, any priest is 
 entitled to receive, free of cost, a night's lodging and 
 a meal at any temple to which he may apply. The 
 miijority of them are professional beggars, and, in 
 order to increase the force of their appeal, which 
 is ordinarily for some imaginary temple at a great 
 distance, adopt artificial deformities, or make spe- 
 cial effort to intensify their naturally repulsive ap- 
 pearance. To one such whom I met on the street 
 I offered what was a considerable sum of money to 
 him for the finger-nails of his left hand. He as- 
 sured me that they had not been cut in ten years, 
 and, judging from appearance, they had not been 
 cleaned in even a longer period. They were fully 
 eiglit inches in length, curved like a bird's claws, 
 and the thumb-nail stretched like a long arch over 
 and bej^ond tlie others, until it ended outside the 
 back of his hand. He was obliged to carry his 
 hand palm uppermost and slightly closed in front 
 of his breast. Those nails would have made a 
 unique curiosity, but the offer made was indig- 
 nantly declined. With his hair, which, contrary 
 to priestly rule, grew long, under a vow, as he de- 
 clared, and which, he said, had not been dressed in 
 a decade, which also seemed probable, those nails 
 formed a valuable stock-in-trade. 
 
 There is another class of priests who may be
 
 136 THE REAL CHINAMAN: 
 
 called " professional money-getters." They are 
 attached to no temple, but their services are en- 
 gaged when extensive repairs or other special 
 emergencies calling for money in unusual sums 
 arise. I saw one of this class in Peking, through 
 whose cheeks circular holes had been cut, and the 
 upper and lower teeth opposite these openings 
 knocked out. Through the path thus made was 
 thrust an iron rod as large as a middle finger, pro- 
 jecting an inch beyond either cheek. A half circle 
 hoop of iron was loosely fastened to either end of 
 the rod and passed around the back of his head. 
 Fastened to this was an iron chain, such as is called 
 a log chain, of sufficient length to drag on the 
 ground for several feet behind him as he passed 
 along the street. He also wore the beggar's robe 
 of a hundred patches , a priestly garment made 
 from small bits of cloth of the utmost possible 
 variety and contrast of color. He was engaged to 
 go from house to house soliciting contributions for 
 the repair of a well-known temple. He was a 
 brazen, bold-faced scoundrel, for whom there was 
 not even a faint call for sympathy. The rod, chain, 
 and ragged garment were his artistically prepared 
 stock-in-trade. He could even simulate bleeding 
 at those circular holes in his cheeks. He received 
 from the temple priests who employed him regular 
 monthly wages, and a fixed percentage of all sums 
 collected. 
 
 Another peculiar mode of raising funds for tem- 
 ple repairs deserves notice. A small, box-like 
 structure, jonly large enough to contain a person 
 standing, is placed in front of the temple. A
 
 GODDESS OF MERCY
 
 1 
 
 i
 
 CHINESE REI.ICIOXS. 139 
 
 priest — and there is a class with whom tliis form of 
 begging is a specialty — is placed in the box, wliich 
 is securely fastened. Then sharp-j^ointed spikes 
 are driven through every available inch of space in 
 the surface of the box — driven in until they come 
 into close contact with every part of the priest's 
 body, and he cannot move an inch in any direc- 
 tion. Only his right hand and forearm are left 
 free, in order that he may, by means of a cord, 
 strike the temple bell, and thus call the attention of 
 passers to liis sad condition. A price is then put 
 upon each spike, the sum total, of course, being 
 the amount of money which is needed. The value 
 of each spike is fixed according to its position op- 
 posite the priest's body, those opposite the eyes 
 and vital parts being most expensive. The theory 
 of this comedy is that passers-by, seeing the piti- 
 able plight of the holy priest, will be anxious to 
 aid in releasing him. This they can do by buying 
 the spikes which compass him so closely. A priest 
 stands in attendance to extract the spikes as they 
 are paid for and deliver them to the buyers, who 
 have thus lasting souvenirs of their benevolence. 
 Theoretically the imprisoned priest stands in his 
 kennel without relief or interruption, day and 
 night, until every spike has been withdrawn. 
 
 Space will allow of only a single incident in illus- 
 tration of the self-inflicted cruelties and hardships 
 which Buddhism demands of its votaries. One 
 intolerably hot and dusty afternoon I was resting 
 at a wayside tea-house to the southwest of Peking, 
 when I saw a man and a woman approaching and 
 stirring the deep dust of the highway in a very
 
 140 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 peculiar manner. The man would take one long 
 step forward from a certain point, measure his 
 length, face downward, in the road, then place 
 his feet at the spot marked in the dust by his fore- 
 head, take another step, measure his length again, 
 and so proceed, one step and one prostration, as 
 the Chinese call it. At each prostration he knocked 
 his head three times in the dust. The procedure 
 reminded me of the measuring worm of childhood. 
 In answer to my questions, he said that a year be- 
 fore, when his only son was very ill, he had made 
 a vow that, if Buddha would restore the young 
 man to health, he would make a pilgrimage to Wu 
 Tai Shan and back to his native village, making 
 the entire journey in the manner above described. 
 The distance was nearly two thousand miles, and 
 he could measure about three miles a day. As he 
 was seventy-eight years old, frail in appearance, 
 and about worn out, it was easy to see that he 
 would not live to fulfill his vow. A callous lump as 
 large as an ^^'^ had formed upon his forehead. 
 Yet this man was shocked and angry at a sugges- 
 tion that he should abandon his useless pilgrimage, 
 and passed out of sight measuring the road with 
 his feeble body. 
 
 The male Chinese is much like his Western 
 brother : he is less religiously inclined in times of 
 prosperity than in seasons of adversity. When the 
 storm arises, then he runs to shelter. Ilence, ordi- 
 narily women and children form the large majority 
 of the devout at Buddhist shrines. Even they 
 adopt it as a supplementary sort of belief, and 
 habitually disregard some of its most vital tenets,
 
 ciiixKSE Ki:i.n:io.ys. 141 
 
 Thus, for example, eatin|n^ animal food or takinc^ 
 life in any form is strictly forbidden to all Bud- 
 dhists. One of the tests of devout Buddhism 
 among the common people is shaped into the famil- 
 iar, if somewhat disagreeable expression that a 
 true Buddhist will not destroy the vermin found 
 on his own body. Yet one would travel more than 
 one day's journey in China to find a Buddhist who 
 would refuse to eat meat when offered to him. 
 The Chinese common people refrain from animal 
 food not from principle, but from poverty. The 
 same is true regarding the proliibition of wine- 
 drinking. x\nd if we turn to the commandment 
 against lying as a test, there is not a good Bud- 
 dhist in all China. 
 
 At the same time, when trouble comes, it is aston- 
 ishing how this form of belief appears to reassert a 
 secret hold upon the Chinese mind. Men of really 
 great intellectual grasp, of clear and commanding 
 intellect, degrade themselves to the most puerile 
 and ridiculous performances, and spend large sums 
 upon the priests in order to gain some material 
 advantage, or to change a tide of ill-fortune into 
 good. For example, a distinguished Chinese states- 
 man, whose name and presence are known in Eu- 
 rope, and who for this reason shall be nameless 
 here, having been most unjustly degraded from 
 office, and having in vain pulled every wire of 
 family or political influence to secure reinstatement, 
 finally devoted an entire year and a good part of a 
 large fortune to a tour of worshiji at each one of 
 the numberless temples and shrines in and near
 
 142 THE REAL CHIN AM AX. 
 
 Peking, approaching and leaving each by the " one 
 step and one prostration" just described. 
 
 The Chinese as a nation have too much intel- 
 lectuaHty and practical good sense to accept very 
 seriously the mass of absurd fanfaronade which 
 constitutes modern Taoism. But unfortunately 
 Buddhism appeals more directly and in a less ab- 
 surd degree to the weaker side of the Oriental — his 
 superstitious side. x\nd it is because of this that 
 it is so popular and so injurious. That it is an 
 awful force, active in the debasement and deterio- 
 ration of the national character, no sane man, who 
 has seen it and lived in the midst of it, can doubt. It 
 can only be idealized and beatified in verse or prose 
 by one who knows nothing about it. As a system in 
 practical working, it is a charnel-house of corrup- 
 tion, a whited sepulchre full of dead men's bones. 
 
 While the Emperor of China is in person tlie 
 high-priest of Confucianism, and requires that all 
 office-holders, either in fact or prospect, should 
 conform to that faith, tlae government is practically 
 tolerant of all forms of religious belief. In the 
 case of Buddhism and Taoism, His Imperial Maj- 
 esty goes a step further, and patronizes these faiths. 
 He supports a large number of their priests and 
 temples, and on rare occasions visits in state one 
 or more of tlie latter. But he goes there as a 
 patron, not as a worshiper. lie kneels and knocks 
 his head upon the ground at the Temple of Heaven 
 or before the shrine of Confucius, but he merely 
 bows before the image of Buddha or the chief of 
 the many idols tliat litter his way in a Taoist 
 shrine.
 
 cnrx/'.sE Ri-j.iGioxs. 
 
 143 
 
 And in the northern and northwestern provinces 
 of China there are millions of Mohammedans, very 
 proud of the fact that they are Persian and not 
 Chinese in origin, who adhere to their own fiuth 
 and form of worship, yet iov centuries have lived 
 unmolested an^.ong the Chinese. There are twenty- 
 four Mohammedan mosques in Peking alone. 
 
 Strangest of all, in the centre of the province of 
 Honan, which is to say, nearly in the centre of the 
 Chinese Empire, is a single village of Jews, who 
 have manifestly occupied substantially their pres- 
 ent location since the dispersion of the tribes. 
 Through all the centuries they have quietly pre- 
 served their ancient ritual and all the other essen- 
 tial forms of their national identity.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CHINESE SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 To any one desirous of study- 
 ing the effect of superstition 
 upon the human mind, China 
 probably affords a field as choice 
 as any on earth. The entire 
 mental fabric of the nation ap- 
 pears to be saturated with superstitious notions. 
 They pla)^ an important part in the daily life of 
 every Chinese, control his plans, whether of business 
 or pleasure, further or thwart his wishes, affect the 
 value of his property, determine whom and when he 
 shall marry, interfere with his relations to his chil- 
 dren, sometimes shorten his existence, and always 
 regulate the time, place, and manner of his burial. 
 They pervade all classes, from the highest to the 
 lowest, influence every act in life, distort the rea- 
 soning faculties, and make mischief with logic. 
 They are not merely potent in the domestic affairs 
 of private individuals. Grave questions of State, 
 affecting the prosperity if not the very existence 
 of the empire, have in many an instance been decid- 
 ed by them. To a clear-headed foreigner resident 
 in China and associating familiarly with the people, 
 these superstitious notions give an impression as if 
 the entire atmosphere were full of cobwebs, against
 
 cinxKSE suPF.KSTrTioi^s. 145 
 
 which he is constantly rnshing, sometimes to his 
 amusement and often to his annoyance. But to 
 the Chinese they are no spiders' threads, but un- 
 breakable wires of steel. 
 
 In the category of supcrstilit)ns are included 
 none of the forms or features of either of the Chi- 
 nese religions which have already been described. 
 They apparently have no connection with religious 
 belief. Were not their influence upon Chinese life 
 so active and decided, one would be inclined to say 
 that they are to religion what fog is to water. But 
 their power is universal, constant, and positive 
 where religion is often only negative. They lack 
 the consistency and symmetrical outlines possessed 
 by even a false religion. They are the vagaries of 
 belief, the isolated, nondescript odds and ends of 
 faith. They are like miscellaneous material left on 
 hand after the completion of a system of super- 
 natural religion, but practically more potent and 
 influential than the system itself. A Chinese will 
 watch complacently the destruction of a mud Bud- 
 dha, but will refuse to set out on a journey until 
 an astrologer has been consulted and named a lucky 
 day. He will revile all the gods in the Taoist sys- 
 tem, and refuse permission to a neighbor to build 
 even a low chimney. 
 
 There is one large class of Chinese superstitions 
 that has a sort of topographical character. They 
 relate to locality, and are grouped under the na- 
 tive term as feiig sJiiti. There fortunately is no 
 English equivalent to this word, since, if we had 
 the word, we should have the thing. It literally 
 means " wind and water," and may be explained
 
 14^ THE REAL CHINA MAX. 
 
 sufficiently for our purposes as follows : Each par- 
 ticular spot of ground in the empire has its own 
 spiritual forces or influences. These are inherent 
 in the spot, and are affected by any change in the 
 contour or condition of it, and also by all changes 
 in the circumstances of surrounding localities. 
 Modify in any way or to any extent the environ- 
 ment of a particular plot of ground, and the geo- 
 mantic forces of the plot are affected for better or 
 worse, but generally, as observation shows, for 
 worse. 
 
 These spiritual influences — that is, this f^'ig shiii 
 — may be friendly to one person and hostile to an- 
 other. Thus one Chinese may build a house or a 
 place of business upon a particular spot of earth, 
 and the fcng shut being favorable to him, pros- 
 perity will come to him and his ; but if another 
 Chinese should construct the same building, for 
 the same purpose, upon the same location, he 
 would only meet with disaster, because the local 
 influences were hostile to him. His children would 
 die, his business be ruined, and the curse of evil 
 spirits would involve him in hopeless destruction. 
 Upon the other hand, if this second Chinese should 
 construct a different style of building, or the same 
 building for another purpose, the local powers 
 might be satisfied not to annoy him. It may be 
 safe to open a meat market at some spot where the 
 spirits of the locality will not allow dry-goods or 
 hardware to be sold in peace. To take another 
 illustration, Brown may bury his mother in a cer- 
 tain spot and the old lady will rest quietly, her 
 spirit reposing undisturbed and undisturbing in the
 
 TOMB OF THE EMPEROR YUNG LO (l)IEl) A.l). I425),
 
 CJIIXKSK SUrKRSTITIOXS. 149 
 
 coffin. But suppose Smith, instead of Brown, were 
 to huiy his mother in the given spot. The old 
 lady miglit distress and annoy him day and night. 
 Or the mother of either may be quiet there for a 
 while, when something done by Jones in the neigh- 
 borhood arouses her ire, and her spirit comes forth 
 and allows no one to rest until some action has 
 been taken to (juiet her soul and to restore the 
 disturbed fcng shiii. Only a few years since a 
 number of high Chinese officials united in a peti- 
 tion to the throne, asking that a stop be put to 
 mining coal and iron at a point forty miles distant 
 from the imperial tombs, upon the plea that this 
 mining would disturb the bones of the empress, 
 who had recently been buried. A few years earlier 
 the viceroy at Foo Chow formally reported to the 
 Emperor that p(n-mission ought not to be granted 
 to certain foreigners to erect buildings upon the 
 slope of a hill within the walls of the city. He 
 based his objection upon the asserted fact that a 
 great dragon rested underneath Foo Chow and sup- 
 ported the foundations of the city ; that at the spot 
 named the veins and arteries of the dragon came 
 near to the surface, and hence that the weight of 
 the buildings, if constructed, would impede his 
 circulation. 
 
 Tung Chih, the Emperor next preceding the 
 present, died in January, 1875. He was not buried 
 until tlie following October, as no place could be 
 found in which his remains could be deposited 
 without disturbing the fi'/ig s/iiii. In order to 
 preserve the balance of spiritual influences, the 
 present dynasty had provided two imperial ceme-
 
 15<^ THE REAL CHlXAMAiV. 
 
 teries, one about one hundred miles east of Peking, 
 and the other at the same distance to the west. 
 Imperial remains are placed alternately in these 
 abodes of the dead. As Hsein Feng, the father of 
 Tung Chih, had been buried in the eastern ceme- 
 tery, the young man himself, according to rule, 
 should have been laid to rest in the western. But 
 the court astrologers declared, as a result of their 
 divinations, that no place could be found there 
 where he might lie without injury to the State, and 
 hence that he must be buried elsewhere. Months 
 of investigation, repeated references to different 
 boards and departments of the public service, and 
 numerous commands from the new Emperor fol- 
 lowed, until, after nine months of effort, it was 
 finally decided that he positively could not be in- 
 terred in the western cemeter}-, where he belonged, 
 but with certain precautionary and conciliatory 
 measures he might be put under ground in the 
 eastern. This was done as the lesser of two evils. 
 The whole empire had been stirred up over the ques- 
 tion ; it had been the vital question at numerous 
 councils of State, and a large sum of money, esti- 
 mated at $250,000, had been expended, all to de- 
 termine at what spot the remains of a wortliless 
 and vicious )^oung man might be put out of sight. 
 The irreverent person is found in Cliina, as else- 
 where, and there were those who asserted in tea- 
 houses and other places of public assemblage that 
 the difficulty was only the result of a combination, 
 a sort of corner on eligible lots, formed by the as- 
 trologers. They did not too often have the oppor- 
 tunity of controlling the question of an imperial
 
 cniNl-isK srpi-:ksTiTiON<;, 151 
 
 place of burial, and did not propose to decide the 
 question in this case so long as there was any 
 money to be gained by the creation of difficulties 
 and obstructions. There is, however, no reason to 
 believe that such was tlie case. If a census of the 
 coffins occupied but unburied within the limits of 
 the empire of China to-day could be taken, the re- 
 sult would be startling. They are more commonly 
 deposited in temples, but are to be found in pri- 
 vate houses, in workshops, and are often seen cov- 
 ered by mats in open fields. Lack of time for the 
 elaborate funeral exercises, or of funds to meet the 
 extravagant expenses dictated by custom, is in some 
 instances the cause of the delay, but in a vast 
 majority of cases it is caused b}' trouble about the 
 feng shiii. Every family in tlie country has had 
 its own experience of this sort. The remains must 
 rest, for religious reasons, as shown in another 
 chapter, in the ancestral burying-grounds of the 
 family. The fortune-tellers are invariably consult- 
 ed upon this and other details of the last rites, and 
 they point out that the spirits interpose certain ob- 
 jections. Then arises a fresh question : By what 
 rearrangement of the ground, change in its con- 
 tour, or readjustment of surroundings can these 
 objections be removed .'' In a majority of cases the 
 trouble is easily adjusted, and by some absurdly 
 trivial and inconsequential act, such iis the planting 
 of a tree at a particular spot in the cemetery, or 
 perhaps the removal of a shrub or a stone. But 
 in many instances the spirits are obstinate, and the 
 question remains unsolved for months and even 
 years. In the mean time, he would be indeed a
 
 152 THE REAL CH IX AM AX. 
 
 brave Chinese who would venture to ignore the 
 feiig shut and bury his dead. It ought to be 
 said that this delay is not objectionable on the 
 score of health, as might be expected, since Chi- 
 nese coffins as a rule are hermetically sealed. 
 
 Beyond a question, in the enormous class of pro- 
 fessional astrologers and diviners in China there 
 are many rapacious frauds. There are quack doc- 
 tors and disreputable attorne3's in the land. But 
 these are exceptions, not the rule. This feng 
 shui delusion holds the entire Chinese nation in 
 subjection, and the professors of the art of divina- 
 tion are, as a class, as sincerely its victims as are 
 those who employ them to solve its tangled mys- 
 teries in their own affairs. To refer again to the 
 burial of Tung Chili, a large number of the ablest 
 officials of the empire made no effort to conceal 
 their anxiety as to the effect of his being placed in 
 the eastern cemetery. And when, in subsequent 
 years, famine, flood, and other disasters came upon 
 the nation, some of these were bold enough to 
 point out in written memorials to the throne that 
 these calamities came as a result of violated fciig 
 shiiiy as punishments for the interment of the late 
 Emperor in a spot where he did not properly be- 
 long. 
 
 A volume could be written composed entirely of 
 illustrations of the power which this fcng shut, 
 this topographical superstition, has upon the minds 
 of the nation. It is recognized in the statutes of 
 the empire. A Chinese may sue and recover dam- 
 ages at law against another for any action which 
 can be shown to the satisfaction of the judge to
 
 Cn/XKSE SL-rJ'.RSTlTJONS. 153 
 
 have unfavorably affected the fi'ii^:; shut of his 
 house or phice of business. A chimney or a win- 
 dow overlooking his premises would at once be ac- 
 cepted as a valid cause of action. And the number 
 of lawsuits based upon this class of complaints is 
 very considerable. Years ago the Secretary of the 
 Chinese Treasury, who was also a celebrated poet, 
 refused to permit a well-known American who re- 
 sided next door to him, and wlio was in the service 
 of the Chinese Government, to build any chimneys 
 to his house, as they would affect the fcn^^ sliui 
 of the secretary's residence. In consequence, the 
 American could have no adequate fires in his rooms 
 during the cold winters, and was forced to depend 
 upon charcoal brasiers and outside clothing. Later, 
 the construction of a high chimney for some gas 
 works in the capital reduced by more than one half 
 the value of all structures within a mile of the ob- 
 jectionable work, except such as could be moved 
 away. Church towers and spires are an indiscretion 
 in China, if not a positive menace of danger to those 
 who construct them, since, in the minds of the peo- 
 ple, their effect upon the locality is liable to be so 
 injurious in a great variety of supernatural ways. 
 
 The effect of such a system upon the lives of 
 those who accept it can hardly be realized. That 
 it must interfere with business, check enterprise, 
 and hamper that individual freedom of action which 
 is essential to healthy development — all this is evi- 
 dent. But it goes far be3'^ond this. It makes men 
 by turns crazy fanatics and senseless cowards. 
 And no cowardice is so damaging and hopeless as 
 that which fears intangible, unseen dangers — dan-
 
 154 THE REAL C//IXA.VAy. 
 
 gers which a man cannot struggle against, and 
 from which he cannot run. It can easily be imag- 
 ined that such a system, with its innumerable 
 ramifications and varieties of application, might 
 absolutely block the wheels of organized social 
 and business life, and bring all things to a stand- 
 still. Perhaps it would were not the Chinese re- 
 markable for their capacity of adjustment and for 
 the patience and success with which they manage to 
 evade difficulties and to compromise where they 
 cannot readily conquer. Were they less phleg- 
 matic, good-natured, and practical, the existence of 
 this universal superstition must long since have 
 driven the entire race into lunacy. 
 
 They have a great variety of methods of placat- 
 ing the spirits of any locality, of so adjusting and 
 rearranging local influences as to ward off evil and 
 invite good. In any given case the diviner is the 
 man who points out the danger, and he also fur- 
 nishes the prescription by following which it may 
 be avoided. In passing through the streets of a 
 Chinese city it is not unusual to see, set in the face 
 of a brick wall, a square stone, upon which is cut 
 four characters which read : " This stone, from 
 Mount Tai, is worthy," or, " This stone, from 
 South Mountain, can overcome," as the case may 
 be. The explanation is simple. " Mount Tai" 
 and " South Mountain" are two famous sacred 
 spots in China. Stones from tliem have been 
 brought, often at no slight expense, cut as de- 
 scribed, and set into walls at particular points as a 
 prescribed corrective of some imaginary evil influ- 
 ences. They are more commonly seen placed in
 
 CHINESE SUPERS TITIONS. 
 
 '55 
 
 the wall of a building exactly opposite the end 
 of a street which opens into but does not cross the 
 street (hi which tlie building stands. In such case 
 the theory is that they will cause any evil spirits or 
 
 PACODA AT YU CHUAN SUAN (iMl'KRIAL SUMMER PAI.ACK). 
 
 influences which may come down this street to 
 turn at right angles and proceed, whereas but for 
 the presence of these sacred stones they would 
 penetrate the wall and work mischief to the inmates
 
 156 THE REAL CHEXAMAX. 
 
 of the building. Another simple and inexpensive 
 method of securing good fortune is to write upon 
 a strip of red paper four Chinese characters which 
 mean, " May he opposite me receive happiness," 
 or, " May he opposite me secure wealth." Thus 
 written, tlie slip is posted on the wall opposite to the 
 main entrance to the residence or office of him for 
 whose benefit it is intended. As the word " me" 
 in either sentence refers to tlie slip of paper itself, 
 it will at once be seen to apply to the Chinese 
 across the street, by whom it was posted. 
 
 A considerable number of the pagodas which 
 add beauty to the Chinese landscape have been 
 constructed with a view to the permanent adjust- 
 ment of these spiritual influences. The Chinese 
 appear to believe in " luck in odd numbers," since 
 they must always contain an odd number of stories. 
 That her^e repi'oduced is one of the most beautiful 
 in the empire. It is built upon the summit of " The 
 Hill of the Jade Foirntain," in the enclosure of the 
 Summer Palace, about eight miles west of Peking. 
 
 Small shrines are also built for this same object 
 at prescribed points. These are seen upon the 
 roofs of houses in evei'y city. In such cases they 
 are only suitable for sparrows' nests in point of 
 size, and are put in place to correct some disturb- 
 ance of the fciig s/iui. Far more pretentious 
 structures have been built ir[)()n river-banks by im- 
 perial command to placate the local deity, the 
 " river dragon," who in some fit of anger, or pos- 
 sibly ill order to attract attention, had undermined 
 a dyke, or in soni(> otlu-r way caused a flood and 
 llnis devastated the surrounding country.
 
 CHIl^ESE SUPERSTITIOXS. 157 
 
 There are innumerable forms of supernatural 
 influences courted or feared by the Chinese other 
 than that known as fcn^ shuL There are fortu- 
 nate and unfortunate times and seasons. If land 
 is to be purchased, a lucky day must be discovered 
 upon which the transfer may be made. If a new 
 house is to be occupied, the family can safely enter 
 it only upon a lucky day. If a merchant is to open 
 a new place of business or an official take up a new 
 post of duty, the one may open his store and the 
 other take the seals of office only upon a lucky day. 
 The dates of weddings and funerals are invariably 
 fixed in the same way. The diviner is consulted, 
 furnished with certain data, and with these as a 
 basis, a routine of hocus-pocus is gone through 
 with and a suitable date announced. In the case 
 of a prospective wedding, the fortune-teller goes a 
 step further. He is given two slips of paper con- 
 taining the family and given names of the two 
 matrimonial candidates, the year, month, day, and 
 hour of the birth of each, and from these he deter- 
 mines whether a matrimonial alliance between 
 them would be fortunate. If he decides in the 
 negative, the scheme is dropped at once. There is 
 no thought of appeal from his judgment, and no 
 Chinese would be bold enough to marry in the face 
 of it. As there is never any affection existing be- 
 tween the two persons, the abandonment of the 
 alliance involves no sorrow. 
 
 There are many varieties of Chinese geomancj'. 
 Space will not allow a description of them, nor are 
 they of sufficient interest or peculiarit}^ to warrant 
 it. It is enough to remark, in passing, that in
 
 158 THE REAL CHIXAMAN: 
 
 some of their features they bear a very close fam- 
 ily resemblance to similar methods of learning or 
 forecasting the future and the decrees of fate 
 which were -in vogue in Europe more than a cen- 
 tury ago. Neither Asiatic nor European may have 
 borrowed from the other. They either came from 
 a common original source, or their strong resem- 
 blance shows that the human intellect is essentially 
 the same throughout the earth. 
 
 Times of distress appear to bring to the surface 
 the superstitious ideas of the Chinese, much as they 
 are said to develop the religious feeling of nominal 
 Christians. In seasons of drought the inhabitants 
 of Peking go by tens of thousands to a particular 
 spot in the old Mongol wall of the city, several 
 miles outside of the present enclosure, and there 
 burn incense and pray for rain at an abandoned 
 fox-hole. They literall}' pray to the hole, and not 
 to the fox. His ancestors doubtless misunder- 
 stood the devotional tendencies of their visitors — 
 perhaps thought that they came for blood rather 
 than water — and hence moved away generations 
 ago. 
 
 This may seem a traveler's fox story, but it is a 
 fact. The course of the Imperial Government in 
 times of lack of rain is not far removed from it in 
 absurdity, and may render the conduct of the 
 populace more credible. In such times of distress 
 the first act of the Emperor is to prohibit the kill- 
 ing of beef. I have never been able to secure an 
 intelligent explanation of this act. It probably has 
 some connection with the fact that bullocks are 
 offered as sacrifices upon tlie altar of Heaven, and
 
 CHINESE SCl'ElxSJTnONS. 159 
 
 hence are supposed t<j have a semi-sacred char- 
 acter. This measure failinjj^ to produce rain, the 
 Km[)eror goes to tlie altar just mentioned, and 
 there, on behalf of himself and the nation, sacri- 
 fices to Heaven and ])rays for rain. If relief fiiils 
 to come, he may repeat tlu; sacrilice and prayer, 
 and possibly go a third time. But if his priiyers 
 at the Temple of Heaven prove unavailing, he re- 
 sorts to extreme measures. Several hundred years 
 ago a piece of iron was found in a well in a temple 
 enclosure several hundred miles to the southwest 
 of Peking. It was declared to have dropped into 
 the well from Heaven, and has since been kept as 
 a sacred relic in the temple. The Emperor sends 
 a commission headed by an imperial prince to the 
 temple to receive this bit of rusty iron from the 
 priests and carry it to the capital. There it is de- 
 posited with elaborate ceremonies in a temple, and 
 on a day named in advance by proclamation, the 
 Emperor proceeds to this temple, prostrates him- 
 self before the bit of iron, and prays to it for 
 rain. 
 
 It is not often that the spirits which, in his im- 
 agination, fill the atmosphere about every Chinese, 
 which he fears and consults — it is not often that 
 they are shaped by his hands into visible forms 
 and worshiped in temples. Occasionally he does, 
 however, find an object of worship ready-made by 
 nature, and he makes haste to propitiate and court 
 its favor by offerings and prayers. Thus a little 
 south of the centre of the province of Shan Hsi is 
 a city called Ling Shih Hsien (the City of the Spir- 
 itual Stone). Within the walls of the city is the
 
 l6o THE REAL CIIIXAMAX. 
 
 ' ' Temple of the Spiritual Stone, ' ' a small but beau- 
 tiful and well-kept temple, with a staff of priests, 
 sleek, well fed, and manifestly well cared for. I 
 visited it in 1874 and saw this " Spiritual Stone," 
 which has been worshiped for centuries, and 
 which has not only its shrine and staff of servitors, 
 but has given a name to a city and a district in the 
 government of China. It is a dark-colored stone, 
 some four or five feet in diameter, of a spherical 
 shape, yet quite irregular in outline, worn smooth 
 and glossy by the kissing of many generations. 
 The most wonderful stories were poured into my 
 ears regarding its power and kindly disposition by 
 the priests who attended me. T was invited to be- 
 lieve that before me at last lay the potent source 
 of all good, and the sure guard against evil. It 
 was a panacea for all diseases, a balm for every 
 sorrow. Near it lay a small hammer, and the skep- 
 tical Avere allowed to strike the stone and thus 
 prove its spiritual qualities. Having expressed my 
 doubts of this curious divinity to the priests, the 
 hammer was given me, and I was invited to use it 
 and prove whether his spiritual highness would re- 
 spond. I did so, and gave the stone a rather sharp 
 rap, when a clear, bell-like tone was heard in re- 
 sponse. The priests were triumphant, and I was 
 entirely convinced that their wonderful rock god 
 was either a meteorolite or a fine specimen of na- 
 tive iron ore which abounds in that section of the 
 country. 
 
 In a similar way peculiar spiritual powers are 
 sometimes supposed to exist in old trees. Altars 
 are erected in front of them, and the trunk and
 
 CHINK SE S I 'PER S TI'I 'IONS. 1 6 1 
 
 limbs are luing tliick with native offerings, These 
 consist mainly of bits of board upon which are 
 written sentences of praise for the virtues which 
 the tree is supposed to possess, and the benefits 
 derived from prayer to it. I saw many such in a 
 long journey made in 1874. I saw one standing in 
 a wheat field about five miles from the capital of 
 the province of Shan Hsi, a gnarled, weather- 
 beaten locust, evidently hundreds of years of age. 
 The natives insisted that it dated back to the Yao 
 dynasty, which would make it more than four 
 thousand years old. While making all due allow- 
 ance for devotional exaggeration, it may be said 
 that this locust has a wide reputation, not merely 
 for its spiritual properties, but as being the oldest 
 and most venerable tree in the empire. It has 
 been worshiped for many generations. When I 
 saw it it was quite overburdened with tablets of 
 all sorts, containing such inscriptions as " Praise 
 for benefits received," " Tiianks for healing mer- 
 cies," "Ask and ye shall receive," etc. It had 
 a special reputation for curing diseases of the 
 eye, and, in consequence, viewed at a distance, it 
 resembled a ragged beggar, covered as it was with 
 strips of cloth upon which a pair of eyes had been 
 painted. These had been prepared by those whose 
 vision had, as they believed, been improved by a 
 pilgrimage to the tree, one end of the cloth being 
 nailed to it, and the strip left to sway and flutter 
 in the wind. 
 
 There are an immense variety of whimsical and 
 amusing superstitions touching nearly every event 
 in the ordinary life of the Chinese, yet less impor-
 
 1 62 THE REAL CHI XA MAN. 
 
 tant than those described. No person of the female 
 sex is allowed, under any circumstances, to ap- 
 proach a well that is in the process of being dug. 
 A red flag is hoisted when the first spadeful of 
 earth is removed, and that flag is the warning for 
 all females to keep their distance. I could never 
 discover the rationale of this practice. No matter 
 how formal or prolonged a dinner may be — and I 
 have attended one consisting of seventy-eight 
 courses and lasting twelve hours — the Chinese do 
 not allow the plates of any persons at the table to 
 be changed from the beginning of the feast to the 
 end. On one occasion, being the guest of honor 
 at a dinner in the most fashionable restaurant of 
 Peking, my host, who was a high official as well 
 as an intimate friend, remarked : " I have been 
 your guest and you have been mine many times. 
 We each understand well the customs of the other. 
 I have noticed at foreign tables that the plates are 
 removed and clean ones placed after each course. 
 You have undoubtedly noticed that we never 
 change ours. Do you know the reason why we 
 require our guests to use the same plate from the 
 beginning of a feast to the end ?" As I had always 
 supposed that the only reason was a lack of tidi- 
 ness on the part of the Chinese, but, in politeness, 
 could not say so, I found it more convenient to 
 reply tliat I did not know. My host appeared to 
 read my thoughts, for he continued : " You may 
 have charged it to untidiness, but that is not the 
 explanation. We have a very old superstition, 
 which is expressed in the saying, ' Huan Chia huo 
 sz hsi fu erh ' " ("Change the plates and the
 
 CniXKSE SI 'I'l-.RS '/■/ /•/( ).\'.S-. I 65 
 
 housewife will die"). Tlicsi; arc oivcn as samples 
 of an unmimbered host. 
 
 No sketch of the superstitions currL-nt among the 
 Chinese wouki be just and accurate if it failed to 
 include the darker shades of the picture, or, in 
 other words, to point out the inhuman conduct 
 and horrible cruelty wliicli follow ihem as an in- 
 evitable result. Enough has already been said in 
 these pages to show that family affection has at 
 least a normal degree of development among the 
 Chinese. They are not lacking in regard for those 
 who are related to them by ties of blood. On the 
 contrary, they make a boast of their love of kin- 
 dred, and the most offensive and disgraceful adjec- 
 tive they can apply to an enemy is one implying 
 that he is lacking in this regard. Yet nev'er, if it 
 can possibly be avoided, will tliey allow a relative, 
 no matter how near and dear he may be, to die 
 quietly in bed. At the last moment, perhaps at 
 the instant when life is passing from the body, it 
 must be removed from the bed and stretched upon 
 a board. When sufficient warning is given of ap- 
 proaching dissolution, this is done witli the utmost 
 gentleness and care. But at all costs it must be 
 done before life is extinct, and hence is often effect- 
 ed with such haste and inevitable harshness as to 
 increase suffering, if not to hasten the end. This 
 course is the result of a superstition that if a per- 
 son dies in bed his soul takes possession of and re- 
 mains in the bed, and renders both it and the room 
 uninhabitable by other persons. In all cases where 
 death occurs before this removal has been effected, 
 the bed must be torn down and destroyed and the
 
 l66 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 entire room renovated before it can again be 
 used. 
 
 Charges of infanticide have, from the beginning 
 of our knowledge of the Chinese, been brought 
 against them. Intelligent foreigners, long resident 
 in the empire, have positively insisted that it was a 
 common practice. Others, equally reliable and 
 well qualified to speak upon the subject, have 
 with equal earnestness denied its existence. Dr. 
 S. Wells Williams, than whom no more competent 
 and careful authority exists, says of the practice in 
 Southern China : " Investigations have been made 
 about Canton and evidence obtained to show that 
 it is comparatively rare, and not at all counte- 
 nanced by public opinion, though by no means un- 
 known nor punished by law when done." There 
 certainly is no evidence to show that it is, in any 
 fair meaning of the word, a practice in the northern 
 parts of the empire. 
 
 But a foreigner resident in, say, Peking, if he be 
 of an observant disposition, will soon be struck 
 with one strange fact. He sees an abundance of 
 children playing about the streets, of all ages and 
 sizes. He can readily see, from the manner of 
 life of the people and the entire absence of trained 
 physicians, that the death-rate among the young 
 must be at least as great as in any Western cit}^ ; 
 yet he never sees a child's funeral. He will puzzle 
 over this problem for a time, perhaps ask an ex- 
 planation from a native friend, and receive no sat- 
 isfactory answer, since it is both impolite and un- 
 Inck}' in Chinese ideas to discuss such a topic. 
 Then, if lie happens to be upon the street very
 
 CiriNESF. Sl'Pl-.RSTITIOyS. 167 
 
 early some morning, lie will find t!ie hideous ex- 
 planation of his puzzle. He will meet, as I have 
 many a time, the dead cart, a large covered vehicle 
 drawn by two oxen, having a sign across the front 
 stating its horrible office ,and piled to the brim with 
 the bodies of children. I have seen at least a hun- 
 dred in the cart at once, thrown in as garbage, 
 nearly all of tliem naked, a few tied up in old 
 reed baskets, and fewer — never more than one or 
 two — in cheap board coffins. These carts go about 
 the streets each night, pick up these pitiable re- 
 mains, some of them mutilated by dogs ; they are 
 thrown in like so much wood, and taken to a pit 
 outside of the city walls, into which tliey are 
 dumped and there covered with quicklime. Small 
 wonder that a theory of infanticide was deemed 
 necessary to account for such an unutterably hid- 
 eous custom ! 
 
 And yet, so far at least as North China is con- 
 cerned, these unfortunate bits of humanity are sel- 
 dom the victims of intentional infanticide ; but they 
 are the victims of one of the most cruel and revolt- 
 ing superstitions that ever found lodgment in a 
 human brain. When a child sickens, it has, ac- 
 cording to the means and intelligence of the par- 
 ents, the same anxious care and medical attend- 
 ance that would be given among us ; but if all 
 remedies fail of effect, and death is apparently near, 
 the situation changes at once. The little thing is 
 stripped naked and placed on the floor, which is 
 either of mud or l^rick, just inside the outer door 
 of the room. The parents leave it there, and watch 
 the issue. If, which is seldom the case, it survives
 
 l68 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 the ordeal, it is a true child of their own flesh and 
 blood ; if it dies, then it never was their child, but 
 an evil spirit seeking admission to their hearth- 
 stone in order to work them mischief and ruin. 
 Hence, it is thrown into the street to be gathered 
 up by the dead-cart, as already described. No 
 power could induce them to give it proper burial 
 in the family resting-place for the dead. That 
 would mean its adoption by them, and what sane 
 Chinese would adopt an evil spirit into his family ? 
 This is the theory, and this the way they argue and 
 act ; and the dead-cart, with its freight, is the fear- 
 ful result. Evidently such treatment kills many 
 young children who under other circumstances 
 would recover, and the results of this superstition 
 are great enough to fully account for a theory of 
 willful infanticide. 
 
 This theory and line of conduct is common to all 
 classes of the Chinese. The military governor of 
 Peking, an officer of the highest rank and a man 
 of unusual intelligence, was granted leave for a 
 number of weeks. While still absent from duty, 
 he called upon me one afternoon. I was shocked 
 at his wretched appearance, and inquired if he had 
 been ill. His reply is given in his own words : 
 " No, I have not been ill, but have seen a great 
 deal of trouble. I have been niiirried many years, 
 and have several daughters. You know how anx- 
 ious we Chinese are for male offspring, and so can 
 imagine how proud and happy I was when, tliree 
 years ago, a son was born to me. He was a rugged, 
 bright boy, and never ill a day until about two 
 months ago, when he began to pine. I called our
 
 Cll IXF.se si 'I'KRSri J-JOXS. I 69 
 
 native physicians, but lie <^\\'\\ worse, and at last, 
 about two weeks ago, as a last resort, I called one 
 of your foreign doctors. Vou can conceive how 
 anxious I was that he should live by my consent 
 to that ; but he could not help the little fellovv, 
 and one night last week I 'icas obliged to tliroic //is boilv 
 outside the door.'' 
 
 Another case came even more directly under my 
 personal knowledge. A young missionary lady 
 went earlier than usual one Sunday morning to 
 the Chinese chapel, in order to have lime before 
 the service to inquire after the grautlson of the 
 chapel-keeper or janitor, who, she had been told, 
 was ill. There was an obstruction against the 
 door of the janitoi's room, but she managed to 
 enter, and saw, lying on the mud floor of the room, 
 and partly against the door, the naki'd b(«ly of the 
 little boy after whose health she wished to inquire. 
 The parents and grandparents sat the farther side 
 of the room, showing deep grief, but making no 
 effort for the dying child. There was no fire in 
 the room, though it was late in November, and a 
 raw, cold wind blew through many holes in the paper 
 window^s. With a scream of horror the young lady 
 snatched her shawl from her shoulders, wrapped 
 the little body in it, and tried to bring back the 
 nearly departed breath. She sent the father for hot 
 water, had a fire made, and at last succeeded in 
 restoring some semblance of life. Then, leaving 
 strict charge to keep the child well wrapped in her 
 shawl and near the fire, and seeing no reason to 
 fear that the little fellow would die, she went into 
 church. Returning after an hour, she found the
 
 lyo 
 
 THE REAL CIIIXAMAX. 
 
 same obstruction against the door, and this time 
 she came too late The child was too far gone to 
 be called back to life, and died in her arms. The 
 instant she left the room to attend service it had 
 again been stripped and placed upon the floor, in 
 order to determine whether it was a true child or a 
 fiend. No threats or persuasions could move the 
 parents to give it burial in the family cemetery. 
 They at last consented to place it in a cheap coffin, 
 carry it out of the city at dawn, and bury it in 
 some field. 
 
 This was an only child. The parents and grand- 
 parents were Christians, and had for years lived 
 lives consistent with their profession. In no otTier 
 way did they subsequently show themseh^es unfit 
 to be regarded as such. It is necessary to state 
 these facts in order to show what a terrible grip 
 this fearful superstition has upon the Chinese 
 mind.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CHINESE (^ U E U E S, 
 
 One of the most marked 
 and striking points of differ- 
 ence between Oriental and 
 Western races is found in 
 the hair. Oriental hair is al- 
 ways coarse, straight, and a true jet black. That of 
 the people of Europe emd America is softer, silkier, 
 often inclined to curl, and of every variety of color- 
 ing, except the dead black of the raven's wing. That 
 is rarely found. In many years of residence in the 
 East I have never seen upon the head of a pure- 
 blooded Chinese, Japanese, Corean, Mongolian, 
 Manchu, Malay, or Indian any other shade of hair 
 than black, excepting, of course, those heads on 
 which age had bleached the covering to gray or 
 white, and one family of Chinese Albinos, whose 
 eyes were pink and whose hair was like driven 
 snow in color. 
 
 Another and equally marked point of difference 
 is found in the growth of hair upon the face. No 
 amount of coaxing or cultivation ever yet enabled 
 an Asiatic to grow more than a most scanty beard 
 or mustache. At the most one may see a Chinese 
 or other Oriental with a few straggling hairs upon 
 his chin or upper lip, or what is more common, an
 
 rilE REAL CIIIXAMAX 
 
 utter absence of mustache and whiskers, with three 
 or four lonp^ hairs growing from a mole on his 
 cheek or chin. For these the proud possessor car- 
 ries a special comb, and they are combed, fingered. 
 
 TEDDLING KRUrf, 
 
 and generally cared for with the utmost attention, 
 as precious, if scanty, signs of manhood. 
 
 The foreigner's whiskers form the one mark of 
 b(;auty which makes him an object of envy to his 
 Chinese neighbors. They do not admire the color 
 of his hair, nor admit that, short and l)ushy as it 
 is, it at all compares with their glossy, straight 
 braids. They vote his large nose ugly, dislike his
 
 CIIIXESE QUF.UE^. 1 73 
 
 pale complexion, criticise tlie color of his eyes, and 
 object to the angle at which they are set. They 
 draw unfriendly comparisons between his ears and 
 those found on their donkeys ; but in the matter 
 of whiskers they regard him as, indeed, highly 
 favored of Heaven. 
 
 Many of them do not limit their idea of the 
 capacity of foreigners to develop beard and whis- 
 kers to one sex. In the autumn of 1874 I traveled 
 for several months in the far interior of China, 
 where foreigners had seldom if ever been seen, 
 with two American gentlemen as companions. 
 One of these was exceedingly short of stature and 
 slight, but he had all the marks of manhood about 
 him, including a distinctively piercing male eye 
 and an abundant beard, which reached well down 
 over his chest. To our surprise, and the unmeas- 
 ured disgust of the victim of Chinese misunder- 
 standing, this gentleman during a large part of 
 our travels was taken by the Chinese to be a woman, 
 and my wife. It is impossible to explain the ab- 
 surd mistake, except upon the ground of his very 
 slight figure and small stature. In one city of 
 perhaps one hundred thousand people, all of whom 
 apparently came to stare at us, I overheard the 
 following conversation between two of the well-to- 
 do residents of the place. Said Ah Hsin, pointing 
 to my companion, who was standing near me on 
 the street : " That is a womem." " Impossible," 
 returned the other; " onh' look at his beard." 
 "Ugh!" grunted Ah Ilsin, "you don't know 
 much. In their country the wcmien have beards 
 exactly the same as the men." Doubting Thomas
 
 174 THE REAL CIIIXAMAN. 
 
 gave vent to an ejaculation of astonishment at 
 the fact and of admiration at the broad range of 
 his neighbor's information, and the conversation 
 ended. 
 
 The queue is more than the badge or mark of a 
 Chinese, it is the symbol of Chinese manhood. In 
 infancy and childhood the head is either clean shav- 
 en and kept as smooth and shining as a billiard-ball, 
 or patches of hair are left to grow in circles, helter- 
 skelter, upon its surface, and from each arises a 
 little tuft or braid, as though the blood, in an ex- 
 cess of vitality, was sending out the sprouts of half- 
 a-dozen queues. It is only when the boy reaches 
 the age of tliirteen or fourteen that these *' baby 
 sprouts" are shaved off, and he is formally in- 
 vested with the sober and dignified queue of man- 
 hood. 
 
 But the queue, although the symbol of Chinese 
 manhood, is not originally Chinese. It is a for- 
 eign importation, and compared with other fashions 
 in the empire, is a modern and recent innovation. 
 It is Tartar or Mongolian, and was introduced only 
 about three hundred years ago by the present rul- 
 ing family, which is itself foreign. It may be 
 added, in passing, that this style of dressing the 
 hair is about the only thing adopted by the Chiner<e 
 from the Manchus. Prior to the present dynasty, 
 the Chinese did not shave the head, and dressed 
 their hair much as we do ours. When the throne 
 was seized by the ancestor of the present ruler, a 
 decree was issucfl by the new Emperor command- 
 ing all good subjects to shave the head and adopt 
 the queue. This at once aroused intense excite-
 
 GROUP OF CHILDREN.
 
 CHINESE QUEUES. 177 
 
 ment and bitter opposition throughout the empire. 
 To wear the queue was held to be degrading, and 
 a badge of slavery to a foreign tyrant. Mobs 
 and riots occurred, for a time there was much 
 trouble, and it appeared doubtful if the new fash- 
 ion could be enforced without another long and 
 bloody war. 
 
 The Tartar Emperor was, however, equal to the 
 occasion, and met the difficulty with that shrewd- 
 ness and tact which has made his name historical 
 in China as the wisest of all her rulers, ancient or 
 modern. He indulged in no threats, attempted 
 no coercion ; he quietly ignored the opposition, 
 and issued a further decree by which he forbade 
 persons convicted of crime to wear the qvieue, re- 
 quiring his officers to cut off this appendage from 
 all such persons, and not to allow them to shave 
 their heads. He thus made a shaven head and a 
 queue a mark of respectability, and his new sub- 
 jects were soon as eager to adopt the new mode of 
 dressing the hair as they had been determined in 
 opposition to it. To this day a full head of hair 
 and the absence of a queue are in China the badge 
 of a criminal. The Manchu Emperor went a step 
 further, and called to his aid the intense devotion 
 of the Chinese to the doctrine of filial piety. He 
 prescribed an unshaven head and a disheveled, un- 
 combed queue as one of the badges of mourning 
 the death of a parent. For a period of one hun- 
 dred days from such a loss no dutiful son will call 
 in the services of a barber or allow his hair to be 
 arranged, no matter how slovenly in appearance it 
 may become.
 
 178 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 The queue has now become an object of almost 
 superstitious reverence among the Chinese. It is 
 combed and dressed with the greatest care, en- 
 larged and lengthened with horsehair or silk, 
 wound about the head at times, and neatly covered 
 to protect it from the dust. It is universally treated 
 as an object of dignity and honor. The Chinese 
 boy longs for it as the American boy longs for 
 trousers with pockets in them. To pull it is an 
 insult and to cut it off a grave offense, severely 
 punishable by law. 
 
 The etiquette of the queue is as exacting and 
 particular as that of any other portion of the cos- 
 tume or the manners of the Oriental. It is the 
 mark of a rowdy to wear it loosely braided. The 
 strands must be drawn tight and snug. It is ordi- 
 narily bound with a black silk cord and tassel at 
 the end, but — white being the Chinese mourning 
 color — when a Chinese is in mourning, the black 
 cord must be exchanged for a white one. If a 
 person, traveling upon a dusty road, has coiled 
 and wrapped up his queue to keep it clean, and 
 thus meets a friend or acquaintance, he must, be- 
 fore recognizing or addressing him, sweep the 
 queue down from its coil and see that it hangs 
 behind him in a straight, decorous fashion. Un- 
 der a similar rule of propriety no servant may be 
 allowed to appear in the presence of his master or 
 mistress with his queue coiled. It would be con- 
 sidered as serious an act of rudeness as if he came 
 half dressed. 
 
 Such and so intense being the regard of the 
 Chinese for this national mode of dressing the
 
 *^*-- 
 
 CHINESE BARBER.
 
 CHINESE QUEUES. i8i 
 
 hair, it is not surprising to one who knows their 
 intensely superstitious temperament that nearly 
 every year, in some section (jf the empire, a per- 
 fect whirlwind of excitement should suddenly 
 spring up with no apparent cause over what is 
 commonly called " tail-cutting." As a rule, no 
 one knows how it began, what occasioned it, or 
 how it may end. It comes and goes as unexpect- 
 edly and with as little warning as the cyclone upon 
 a Western prairie. In some instances, however, it 
 has been willfully aroused by malicious Chinese of 
 the educated class to gratify their hatred of for- 
 eigners, and in such cases care is taken, of course, 
 to direct suspicion against them as the authors of 
 the mischief. More than once in recent years the 
 lives of unoffending foreigners have been placed 
 in actual peril by such absurd reports. 
 
 In such a fever, the entire mass of the popula- 
 tion, the most intelligent as well as the most igno- 
 rant, go wild with excitement and fear. The ab- 
 surdest stories are circulated and believed. Here 
 are samples, taken from the actual experience of 
 the writer. Such a Chinese was walking along 
 the street when his queue suddenly dropped off 
 and vanished. No human being was near him at 
 the time. Such another man put up his hand to 
 coil his queue, and discovered that he had none. 
 Such another experienced a sensation of cold in 
 the back of his neck, and thus discovered that his 
 queue had departed. This man fell into conver- 
 sation with a stranger upon the street, who sud- 
 denly vanished, and the man's queue followed. 
 Another glanced at a foreign child, when the child
 
 162 THE REAL CHINAMAN 
 
 gazed steadily at him, and his queue at once 
 faded out of sight, leaving only an odor of burnt 
 hair. 
 
 These are specimens of the stories told every- 
 where in times of this excitement, and universally 
 believed. Argument or appeal to common sense 
 are utterly useless. It is idle to reason that hair 
 can only be cut by shears or a similarly sharp in- 
 strument, which must be operated by human hands. 
 The Chinese believe implicitly in magic arts and 
 evil spirits, and, as these specimen stories show, 
 they credit much if not all of the " tail-cutting" 
 to such influences. Indeed, it is wiser for foreign- 
 ers in such periods of frenzy not to attempt argu- 
 ment even with their nicest familiar Oriental friends 
 or servants, but rather to preserve a discreet silence 
 upon the subject. One never knows in such times 
 whether a thoughtless word upon the subject may 
 not direct suspicion against the speaker, nor what 
 the consequences of such a word may be. 
 
 It would naturally be expected that, in such 
 mental typhoons, the officials would concert meas- 
 ures to suppress the excitement and reassure the 
 populace. They do nothing of the sort. In all 
 matters of superstition or belief in magic they are 
 hardly more enlightened than those whom they 
 govern. I have seen, first and last, at least a dozen 
 proclamations, issued by magistrates of Peking, in 
 times of this sort of excitement, and every one was 
 directly calculated to increase rather than lessen the 
 disturbance of the public mind. They commonly 
 began by warning the people that these were days 
 of danger, when every person should stay closely
 
 CIIIXKSE QUEUES. 1 83 
 
 at home and attend to his own affairs. They ad- 
 vised all to avoid strangers, see that their doors 
 and windows were carefully closed at all hours, on 
 no account to be out after dark, and to look after 
 tlieir children. Some of them concluded by fur- 
 nishing a sovereign protection, a sort of patent- 
 niedicine recipe for securing the queue from harm. 
 This recipe in most cases was very simple. In one 
 proclamation it meiely directed that a red and 
 yellow cord be braided in with tlie hair ; in another 
 it prescribed a medicine to be taken internally, 
 and in another, which also prescribed a medicine, 
 one half was to be swallowed and the other half 
 thrown upon the kitchen fire. 
 
 One of these prescriptions, which I w^ell remem- 
 ber, was issued by the mayor of Peking in January, 
 1877. It directed tliat a sort of monogram, com- 
 posed of three Chinese characters intertwined in a 
 certain manner, should be written in b'ack ink 
 upon three squares of a fixed size of i\ peculiar 
 yellow paper. One of these squares must be 
 burned, the ashes carefully saved and swallowed 
 in a cup of tea ; the second must be worn braided 
 into the strands of the queue ; and the third must 
 be pasted upon the outside of the door-frame, ex- 
 actly over the centre of the door. Thus defended, 
 the mayor assured his people that they might rest 
 safely and defy the malignant spirits that roamed 
 about day and night, seeking opportunities to rob 
 the faithful Sons of I Ian cf their badges of man- 
 hood and nationality. The prescription was mod- 
 estly stjded " The Universal and Infallible Queue 
 Protector."
 
 1 84 THE REAL CinXAMA.V. 
 
 It should be added that in none of these " tail- 
 cutting excitements" was there the least tangible 
 evidence that even one Chinese had suffered the 
 loss of a single hair from his head. Every man's 
 mouth was full of stories such as have been de- 
 scribed, the people were utterly demoralized, busi- 
 ness was at a standstill, and yet not one curtailed 
 Chinese could be produced. Those who, with 
 bated breath and frightened face, related the vari- 
 ous instances, had seen none of them, their inform- 
 ants had seen none ; and, in fact, in all these 
 troubles I never saw a Chinese who had seen an- 
 other who had lost his queue in any such inexplica- 
 ble manner. The basis of every one of the stories 
 was hearsay ; and each such excitement was an 
 unaccountable but dangerous epidemic of super- 
 stitious fear. 
 
 During the height of such a fever in Peking, and 
 shortly after the mayor had issued his proclama- 
 tion and prescription, as given above, I was called 
 from bed early one morning to see an American 
 missionary, who came to report that during the 
 preceding night a Chinese, while sleeping in the 
 chapel under his charge, had been deprived of his 
 queue. Knowing well that, in the excitement then 
 raging, if a rumor of tlie fact got abroad the 
 chapel would be destroyed in an hour by a howl- 
 ing mob, and perhaps human lives be lost, the mis- 
 sionary had, with great prudence, locked the suf- 
 ferer in a room by himself, and hurried at day- 
 break to the Legiition for advice and assistance. 
 Having sent a hasty note to tlic military governor 
 of the city asking for an interview at a later hour
 
 CIIIXESK QUKL'ES. 1 85 
 
 in tlie day, giving no reason for the request, but 
 tlie object being to secure, if necessary, a bod)' of 
 soldiers to guard the chapel from a mot), I went to 
 the spot to investigate the affair. 
 
 The facts were very simple. It was an actual 
 case of " tail-cutting," the first and last that I ever 
 saw, except in numerous instances where criminals 
 had been deprived of their queues under due proc- 
 ess of law. The despoiled Chinese was a " man 
 from the country," who had come to Peking to 
 study Christianity, and who had been kindly al- 
 lowed by the missionary to remain for a few days 
 and nights with two native Christians in a small 
 room at the back of the chapel building. As he 
 was a stranger, it was at least possible that he had 
 been sent by malicious Chinese to the chapel, and 
 having secured a footing there under pretense of 
 interest in Christianity, had cut off his own queue, 
 hoping in this way to raise a disturbance against 
 foreigners ; but under the closest questioning he 
 told a perfectly straiglit and consistent story, and 
 this suspicion was abandoned. 
 
 He had gone to bed the evening before, in the 
 room where I found him, at nine o'clock, and the 
 other two men had followed him shortly after. He 
 awoke at about two in the morning, and, feeling 
 queer about his head, put up his hand and found 
 his queue gone. Frightened nearly out of his 
 wits, he cried out and awoke his companions, who, 
 not less alarmed than he, lighted a candle, and the 
 three sat up and trembled until nearly daj'break, 
 when one of them called the missionar}'. On 
 going out for this purpose he found the missing
 
 1 86 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 queue on the snow in the yard, where it had evi- 
 dently been thrown. 
 
 Such were the facts developed by close ques- 
 tions. It puzzled me greatly. The two men who 
 were in the room through the night with the coun- 
 tryman were well known, and above suspicion. 
 They confirmed his statement so far as they knew 
 anything about the affair. The yard where the 
 queue was found was surrounded by a high wall 
 which could not be scaled. The doors and win- 
 dows of the room had been carefully fastened the 
 evening before, and no one could have entered 
 without the knowledge of the occupants. The 
 queue had been cut off. That was evident. There 
 ii was in my hand. It had been cut with shears, 
 about an inch from the head, with a single clean, 
 sharp stroke. It was unusually thick, and must 
 have required a strong wrist, keen shears, and 
 great caution to have severed it from the head 
 without disturbing its owner. 
 
 After a long investigation, devoid of the least 
 result, I asked, as I had many times before : 
 
 " Was there no person but you three in the room 
 at bedtime ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 Was there no one else here earlier in the even- 
 ing ?" 
 
 One said " No," but another, after a moment's 
 thought, said : " Yes, early in the evening Ah 
 Hsin [not his real name] was here, but he left be- 
 fore we went to bed." 
 
 " What was he doing ?"
 
 CHINESE QUEUES. 1S7 
 
 " He was fastening some foreign paper together 
 into a book." 
 
 " What tools had he ?" 
 
 " Some twine, a needle, and -a pair of shears." 
 
 " Were there, or had there been recently, another 
 pair of shears in the room ?" 
 
 " No, not for a long time." 
 
 " Did Ah Hsin take the shears away with him ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Further questions brought out tlie facts that Ah 
 Hsin did not leave the room until after the coun- 
 tryman was in bed and asleep, and that he sat at 
 his work of bookbinding in such a position that 
 the head of the sleeper was close at his right hand, 
 while the other two Chinese were at some dis- 
 tance, on the other side of a table, busily engaged 
 in reading. Under these circumstances nothing 
 could have been more easy than for Ah Hsin, with- 
 out even turning his body, to have seized the queue 
 of the sleeper and cut it off with his shears without 
 attracting the attention of the others. If either of 
 them chanced to look up at the critical moment, 
 the table, being considerably higher than the head 
 of the victim, would have screened the operation 
 from his view. 
 
 Ah Hsin had formerly been in the service of a 
 friend. I had known of him as a young Chinese 
 scapegrace, equally handsome and mischievous, 
 and hence had little doubt that he could explain 
 this tail-cutting episode if he chose. The mission- 
 ary was, therefore, requested to go in person for 
 Ah Hsin, who was employed in a printing-office 
 connected with the mission establishment, and to
 
 1 88 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 bring him at once before me, with no hint as to the 
 purpose for which he was wanted. Ah Hsin soon 
 appeared, bright-faced, frank, and smiling, and, 
 having made the usual salutation, calmly stood 
 awaiting my pleasure. Without prelude of any 
 sort, I asked him why he had cut off the country- 
 man's queue the previous evening. He stoutly de- 
 nied having done so, showed natural astonishment 
 at the fact that it had been cut, and wondered who 
 could have been guilty of the act. He admitted 
 having been in the room, having shears, and hav- 
 ing been seated as the others had described. Un- 
 der close questioning he confessed that the paper 
 which he had been sewing into book form had been 
 stolen by him from the printing-office. That, he 
 said, was a small affair, stealing a ream or two of 
 paper, but to cut off a Chinese queue was a very 
 serious matter, deserving heavy punishment, and 
 he never, never could have been guilty of such an 
 act. 
 
 Thus he answered all questions for more than an 
 hour. It was impossible to trip him at any point. 
 He was more profoundly impressed with the grav- 
 ity of the offense than I was. Blandishment and 
 persuasion could not move or trap him. When I 
 assured him, for example, that of course it was 
 plain that he meant no harm, but only used the 
 shears as a boyish freak, overcome by temptation 
 for a lark, when he saw the sleeping man's queue 
 hanging over the edge of the bed so conveniently, 
 he corrected me at once. He was a Chinese him- 
 self, and knew better than to meddle with a man's 
 fpicue, even in sport. Whoever cut that tail^ cut
 
 ClflNESE QUEUES. 189 
 
 it not in mischief. It was a serious business. As- 
 surances that no harm should come to him if he 
 confessed had no effect. As he had not done the 
 deed, how could he confess ? 
 
 It is easy in this way to recite the general sub- 
 stance of the conversation, and to show its utter 
 failure ; but neither pen nor pencil could paint the 
 innocent, boyish face, the calm, quiet eye, the 
 ready, positive, but courteous tones of his voice, 
 and, in general, the absolute lack of any trace of 
 guilt. If Ah Hsin was guilty, then all signs fail 
 with the Chinese, as they sometimes do. A friend, 
 who was remarkably successful in detecting Chinese 
 thieves, once stated that his secret lay wholly in 
 suddenly asking the suspected person the question 
 why or when he stole the missing articles, and then 
 closely watching his throat. If he was guilty, he 
 inYa.r\a.h\y s^cHillowcd h&iore. making reply. But Ah 
 Hsin did not even swallow. 
 
 At last, wearied and out of patience, yet fully 
 convinced that he cut the queue, I said : " Very 
 well. You deny the act. I am none the less cer- 
 tain that you are guilty. I came here and sent for 
 you, not to get you into trouble, but to help you 
 out of it. I hiive no desire to see you punished, 
 and, as I have repeatedly assured you, would 
 gladly do any possible thing to save you from it. 
 You are guilty. You cut that queue. You know 
 better than I do what the Chinese officials will do 
 in these days of excitement with any person who 
 is even suspected of tail-cutting. That queue was 
 cut last evening in this room with a pair of shears. 
 You were in the room, had the only pair of shears
 
 19° THE REAL CHINAMAN: 
 
 in it, and, by your own admission, they did not 
 pass out of your possession the entire evening. I 
 shall hand you over to the Chinese authorities with 
 a statement of the facts, and leave them to decide, 
 as is their duty, whether you are innocent or 
 guilty." 
 
 Even this did not move him. So, turning to a 
 servant who had accompanied me, I directed him 
 to take my card to a police station near at hand, 
 and ask that two officers be sent to me at once. 
 Ah Hsin heard this, still he stood with apparent 
 unconcern until the servant was passing through 
 the door, when, quick as a flash, his manner 
 changed, and he said : 
 
 " You need not do that. You were quite cor- 
 rect. I did cut off the queue after the man was 
 asleep, and exactly as you supposed, and dropped 
 it on the snow outside the door when I went home. 
 I did it to plague and frighten him, he is such a 
 very green countryman." 
 
 Knowing how little mercy the boy would receive 
 for his thoughtless iict at the hands of the native 
 authorities, I agreed with the missionary not to 
 report the case to them, but to make some excuse 
 for the request iox an interview with the military 
 governor. The missionary promised, on his part, 
 to send Ah Hsin out of the city without an hour's 
 delay, and to keep the curtailed countryman in 
 solitary confinement for the day ; then he, too, 
 was to be escorted out of town by two discreet 
 Chinese and sent home with a small present. This 
 plan was successfully carried out, and no hint of 
 the one genuine case of tail-cutting got abroad.
 
 CIIJXKSE QUEUES. 
 
 191 
 
 The sequel to this incident will illustrate how 
 seriously the highest otFicials in China legard the 
 offense of tail-cutting. A week later, Prince Kung, 
 then Prince Regent of the empire, came to the 
 Legation with the members of the Cabinet to make 
 a New Year's call. In the course of conversation 
 he inquired what I wished of the military governor 
 that day when I first asked to see him, and then 
 withdrew the request. It appeared that they had 
 only found him with much difficulty, and had but 
 just notified him of my appointment when it was 
 canceled by the second note. In reply I recited 
 the facts of the case, adding that the queue was 
 cut off in a mere boj'ish freak, which it had seemed 
 best to overlook ; but the prince failed to view it 
 in that light. He became much excited, said that 
 the Chinese boy knew well what he was about 
 when he cut off the queue, that he had forfeited 
 his life, and insisted upon being furnished with his 
 name and place of residence. Fortunately I did 
 not know either Ah Hsin's family name or where 
 he had been sent, and hence was unable to put the 
 authorities upon his trail. There is little doubt 
 that the boyish freak would have cost him his life 
 had he fallen into their hands at that time.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CHINESE COURTS OF LAW. 
 
 In the centre of the main en- 
 trance to the official residence 
 of every Chinese magistrate is 
 a low wooden platform, about 
 ten feet square, carpeted with 
 red felt. Upon this are placed 
 a table and an imposing mag- 
 isterial chair, both draped in 
 red. Upon the table are writ- 
 ing materials, while on the wall near at hand hang 
 whips, bamboo rods, and other instruments of 
 punishment. At one side of the platform are sus- 
 pended a gong and a bell, with the usual wooden 
 hammer for beating either of them. 
 
 This constitutes the primitive Chinese hall of 
 justice, and is an arrangement as old as the em- 
 pire. While practically all cases are tried within 
 walls and many behind closed doors, yet theoreti- 
 cally this remains the court, public to all who may 
 come and open to Heaven. Any Chinese subject 
 having a complaint against another may come at 
 any hour of the day or night and beat the gong. 
 Thereupon the magistrate is bound by law to put 
 on instantly his official robes, come forth, seat him- 
 self in the chair of judgment, and then and there.
 
 CHINESE COURTS OF LAW. 193 
 
 in the presence of whoever may choose to be pres- 
 ent, to hear and determine the case without fear, 
 favor, fee, or reward. This is the Chinese exem- 
 plification of the old saying that " the eye of jus- 
 tice never sleeps." In theory, at least, Chinese 
 justice is speedy, inexpensive, and sure. 
 
 The judicial system of China is probably the 
 oldest in tlie world, and appears to have under- 
 gone no serious changes in many centuries. It is 
 simple, and bears evidence of careful effort to pro- 
 tect all who have occasion to use it, whether as 
 accusing or accused, against injustice or extortion. 
 Numerous checks, such as appeals to higher courts, 
 and a final revision by the Emperor himself, are 
 provided in certain cases. There is one system of 
 courts, established at an early day in the history 
 of the empire, especially intended for the protec- 
 tion of the very poor, and in which no fees or ex- 
 penses of any sort could be exacted under any ex- 
 cuse or pretext. The meanest beggar may, by 
 taking the prescribed steps, be assured in theory 
 that his cause will come before His Imperial Maj- 
 esty in person, and judgment be entered upon it 
 by nothing less august and final than the " ver- 
 milion pencil." 
 
 This last-named court, or system of courts, is 
 unique in its organization and range of duty. It 
 is known in Chinese as the " Tu Cha Yuan," or 
 " The Metropolitan Department of Investigation." 
 The title is ordinardy translated as " The Cen- 
 sorate," which substantially indicates its duties. 
 These are to hear all judicial cases which may be 
 brought to its notice absolutely without tax, fee.
 
 194 
 
 THE REAL CHIA'AMAN. 
 
 or compensation of any sort, and to review, exam- 
 ine, and criticise the conduct of all officials of every 
 rank, grade^ or duty in the empire. Not an indi- 
 vidual, no matter what his position, is either too 
 high or too low to be free from the scrutiny of the 
 officers of this department. The Emperor himself 
 is often censured by them. When Kuang Hsu, 
 the present occupant of the throne, was on his way 
 
 I 
 
 ENTRANCE TO IMPERIAL CEMETERY. 
 
 to attend the funeral of the preceding emperor, a 
 censor placed in his hands a report protesting 
 against his accession to imperial power, and then, 
 to mark the earnestness of his conviction, took his 
 own life in the presence of the new monarch, who 
 was a mere child, three years of age. In 187 1 a 
 censor in Peking boldly defied Prince Kung, who 
 was tlicn at the he;id of affairs, and the latter found
 
 CHiXKSE couirrs of law 
 
 195 
 
 it more safe to violate his own word, pledged to 
 the American Minister, than to nndertake the task 
 of controlling a native official who was very mnch 
 below him in rank. 
 
 The code of laws, which dates back twenty cen- 
 turies, and is revised frequently, is, as has been 
 pointed out in another chapter, upon the whole 
 wise, moderate, and humane. It prescrit)es, with 
 great minutia;, various kinds and grades of punish- 
 
 APPROACU TO MING TOMBS. 
 
 ment for the varying circumstances of crime. It 
 provides for an increasing severitv of i^unishmcnt 
 for repetitions of a given offense, in mucli the same 
 manner as our own laws. A large number of 
 minor penalties may be legally coinpromised by 
 the payment of a fine. Thus an offender sentenced 
 to receive a hundred blows may avoid the penalty 
 by the payment of five ounces of silver. Other 
 provisions are more humane than would lie ex- 
 pected. Thus, if any criminal under sentence of
 
 196 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 death has parents or grandparents who are infirm 
 or above the age of seventy, and who have no 
 other son or grandson to care for them, his case 
 must be brought to the notice of His Imperial 
 Majesty. Women who are sentenced to receive a 
 flogging must be allowed to retain their under-gar- 
 ments when the punishment is inflicted, and no 
 punishment, except for treason or rebellion, can 
 be visited upon persons under seven and over 
 ninety years of age. Some of the provisions of 
 the code are amusing and grotesque. Thus, as- 
 tronomers who have been sentenced to banishment 
 may submit to a hundred blows instead, unless 
 they have been guilty of certain enumerated crimes. 
 Why astronomers should thus receive peculiar 
 favor not conceded to other people does not ap- 
 pear. If a son, at a distance from home, enters 
 into a marriage contract in ignorance of an engage- 
 ment which his father may have made for him at 
 home, he must give up his own choice, and marry 
 the person chosen by his parents. An official may 
 not marry the daughter of any one living under 
 his jurisdiction. Marriage within certain degrees 
 of consanguinity is not only strictly forbidden, but 
 persons of the same surname who marry are liable 
 to have the contract canceled and the wedding 
 presents confiscated to the government. At first 
 thought this provision may appear to work no 
 practical hardship, but as there are only four hun- 
 dred and eight surnames among the four hundred 
 millions of the Chinese, the law is more likely to 
 interfere with matrimonial engagements than in 
 other lands, where no limit is fixed to family names. 
 
 i
 
 CHINESE COURTS OE LAW. 197 
 
 One provision of the code might well be copied in 
 the statutes of every people. When a marriage 
 engagement is proposed, it must be made clear to 
 the families of the bride and bridegroom, that 
 neither of them is " infirm, diseased, or over or 
 under age." Deception upon any of these pcnnts 
 is severely punished. 
 
 With a system of laws on the whole so moderate 
 and reasonable, and an ample arrangement of 
 checks and precautions against injustice, it might 
 be expected that wrong would seldom go unpun- 
 ished and innocence never fail of recognition. Yet 
 the practical workings of Chinese courts of law 
 show that bribery, extortion, and cruel injustice 
 are not merely possible, but easy and common 
 under the most elaborate system that can be de- 
 vised. There are no juries, and lawyers are un- 
 known. Cases are decided not so much by direct 
 reference to the law as by precedents. This prac- 
 tice has called into existence a class of unofficial 
 hangers-on about the courts who are called " search- 
 ers." They have no recognized standing, have 
 been denounced again and again by high officials, 
 and their employment by magistrates forbidden by 
 the Emperor ; yet they continue to exist and to 
 pursue their calling throughout the empire. It is 
 their business, when any particular case is to come 
 up for adjudication, to examine the records and 
 find a similar or parallel case which may serve as 
 a model or guide for the adjustment of that before 
 the court. It is easily seen that with records run- 
 ning back almost to the beginning of time, any 
 sort of a precedent maybe found to suit the wishes
 
 198 THE REAL CHI X AM AX. 
 
 of the " searcher ;" and it is just here that bribery, 
 extortion, and blackmail are most commonly levied. 
 No matter whether the accused be innocent or 
 guilty, the searcher must be " seen" and his favor- 
 able report secured by a liberal fee. When it is 
 added that these harpies have no other compensa- 
 tion than that secured from persons before the 
 court, and that they are almost invariably wealthy, 
 the whole story is told. It is believed that a Chi- 
 nese magistrate seldom accepts a bribe directly. 
 When he receives one, it is by a private commer- 
 cial arrangement with these hangers-on of his 
 court. 
 
 Great and dangerous latitude is given to Chinese 
 magistrates as to the means which they may legally 
 employ to extort the truth from parties to a case 
 or from witnesses. An oath is rarely administered, 
 and never relied upon. Perjurj^ as a crime, is 
 unknown. The Chinese act upon the theory that, 
 if a man will lie in any case, no oath will make 
 him truthful. In fact, no Chinese judge expects 
 either party or any witness to tell the exact truth. 
 This is to be got at, first, by examining all parties 
 separately, and by shrewd cross-questions in case 
 the evidence is conflicting, as is invariably the case. 
 If this fails, the persons whose stories fail to agree 
 are confronted with each other, and each made to 
 repeat his evidence in the other's presence, the 
 judge carefully studying the countenance and gen- 
 eral demeanor of each, and by these and other 
 signs deciding which is telling the truth ; and they 
 become very expert at this practice. 
 
 When these modes fail, the magistrate is allowed
 
 CHINESE COURTS OF /.III'. 20 1 
 
 to order the persons suspected of false testimony 
 to be beaten in order to extort the truth. It is not 
 uncommon for a judge to pause in the midst of his 
 questions, and order the person under examination 
 beaten across the mouth with a bamboo switch 
 until the blood Hows. Then, after a warning that 
 worse will come if he persists in his untruths, the 
 examination continues. They may also cause even 
 a witness to kneel for hours upon chains, to be sus- 
 pended by the tliumbs, or to be confined for a long 
 period with little or nothing to eat or drink. Other 
 tortures still more severe and not authorized by 
 law are on rare occasions employed. 
 
 Great importance is laid upon securing a confes- 
 sion from a person accused of crime. Tortures 
 too horrible for description are sometimes made 
 use of to accomplish this end, and often the pris- 
 oner confesses to a crime which he never com- 
 mitted, in order to secure a short respite from un- 
 endurable cruelty. I once saw three Chinese, who 
 had been accused of theft, urged to confession in 
 the following manner. Each man's arms were 
 brought behind his back and tightly lashed to- 
 gether at the wrists. A rope was then fastened to 
 this lashing, the other end thrown over the limb 
 of a tree, and the men in this manner were hoisted 
 from the ground and allowed to hang for three 
 hours in a blazing sun. When letdown, they were 
 insensible. Their arms were dislocated at the 
 shoulders, black, and frightfully swollen. Brought 
 to consciousness, they renewed their denials of 
 guilt, but on preparations being made for a re- 
 newal of the torture, they were as eager to confess
 
 202 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 as they had been to deny their guilt. It is need- 
 less to add that such tortures are strictly prohib- 
 ited by law, or that when subordinate officials re- 
 port cases to the higher tribunals, if measures like 
 these have been resorted to to procure an admis- 
 sion of guilt, they invariably fail to report the im- 
 portant fact. 
 
 It must not, however, be inferred that such hor- 
 rible scenes are the rule in Chinese trials. They 
 are exceptional. The majority of magistrates are 
 upright and humane, even if ignorant, narrow- 
 minded, and superstitious. It is amusing and yet 
 not surprising to find certain antiquated and ab- 
 surd methods practiced by them, which are identi- 
 cal in both idea and form with those in use in the 
 courts of Europe two centuries ago. In coroners' 
 inquests and trials for murder this is strikingly 
 true. A suspected murderer is brought into the 
 presence of the victim and made to touch the body, 
 when, if he is guilty, the wounds will bleed afresh. 
 In inquests where poison is suspected as the cause 
 of death, a silver needle is thrust into the body. 
 If poison was administered, the needle on being 
 withdrawn will have a greenish color. The bones 
 are also examined in cases of suspected poison, and 
 they are supposed to show the presence of the 
 fatal drug by a similar cliange from their natural 
 appearance. 
 
 The administration of justice in China, like the 
 entire governmental system, is based upon the pa- 
 rental idea. The magistrate seldom forgets that he 
 is theoretically the father of the people living under 
 his jurisdiction ; and it is not at all unusual for
 
 CIILYF.SE CO CRTS OF /..III'. 203 
 
 him to mingle the examiiialiun and cross-examina- 
 tion of witnesses or principals in any given case 
 with exhortations and admonitions to tell the truth. 
 He will cajole, entreat, threaten, and advise a re- 
 calcitrant perscjn all in one breath, quote Confucius 
 to him, ask him irrelevant questions, and assure 
 him of his fatherly regard, and through it all 
 watch him with the utmost keenness, ready to 
 catch any word that may furnish a clew to what 
 he is, through all this rigmarole, in search of — the 
 truth. 
 
 It was once my fortune to sit on the bench with 
 a Chinese magistrate in the trial of seven men ac- 
 cused of being the ringleaders in the attack of a 
 mob upon an American citizen. The men were 
 coal-miners, and had beaten the foreigner with 
 small rope mats well saturated with coal-dust, 
 which they wore as pads upon their shoulders in 
 bringing lumps of coal out of the pit. The coal- 
 dust made these mats as dangerous as sand-bags, 
 and had they hit the American a single heavy blow 
 upon the head, would have killed him. There 
 was no possible doubt of the guilt of the persons. 
 The attack was made at uoon in the central square 
 of the city, and a hundred witnesses could be 
 brought to identify them. The examination was 
 conducted much as follows. After asking the 
 names of each of the accused, the magistrate, a 
 venerable and pleasant-faced man of seventy years, 
 turned to one of them and said, in a familiar way : 
 
 " You tell us all about it now. Wliat did you 
 beat the American for ? Tell us the whole story." 
 
 " But I did not beat him, your Excellency," said
 
 204 THE REAL CIIIXAMAJV. 
 
 the man ; " I wasn't there. Besides, I am a good 
 man. A thousand times ten thousand it is true 
 that I never touched him." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! We know all about that," rejoined 
 the official, returning to the charge. " Such a 
 good Son of Han as you are wouldn't harm a baby ; 
 but, all the same, what made you do it? Don't 
 you know that Confucius declares that all men 
 within the four seas are brethren ? Why should 
 you wish to harm your brother ? Of course we 
 know you did not do it ; were, in fact, in bed and 
 asleep when the deed was done. At the same time 
 we know that you did do it, and it will save us a 
 lot of bother if you confess. Of course you did 
 not mean any harm ; we are sure of that. You 
 wanted a little fun, and had heard some talk about 
 the streets that if some one would only frighten 
 the foreigner, or give him a drubbing, he would 
 leave town and never return ; and so you thought 
 you would try it. Certainly you were not there, 
 but you beat him just the same as though you 
 were. Now, look at this gentleman on the bench 
 here with me. He has come all the distance from 
 Peking to attend to this business. He is a United 
 States officer, and I shall punish you exactly as he 
 desires. He has found out all about it, gave me 
 your name, and asked me to have you arrested ; 
 but you can see by his face that he is good-natured. 
 You tell us all about it, and he will let you off 
 easily. Besides, he is in a hurry to get back to 
 Peking, and has promised that if we finish this 
 business to-day he will dine with me to-morrow. 
 You would not put him to delay and inconvenience,
 
 CIIIXKSE COCA'VS OF /..IIT. . 205 
 
 now, would you? lie knows all about it. Meet 
 him half-way, now, and confess." 
 
 Thus the garrulous old man ran on for more 
 than an hour, (juizzing, bantering, and persuading 
 the accused, who, whenever an opening gave him 
 chance to be heard, reiteiated his innocence, but 
 in tones noticeably grcnviiig fainter and less posi- 
 tive. At last he said : " IJut I did not hit him as 
 hard as some of the others did." Quick as a flash 
 the magistrate retorted : " You did hit him, then ? 
 Come, now, tell us about it." And then the pris- 
 oner, with his head hanging down and with the air of 
 a school-boy caught sticking pins into the master's 
 chair, said : " Well, if I must, I must. Perhaps 
 I did give him a shove." 
 
 " That is right," said the judge, " we knew you 
 did ; but it is always right to confess." Then 
 turning to me, he asked : " What punishment shall 
 I give this man ?" I named what seemed a proper 
 penalty, and sentence was at once given. The 
 other prisoners admitted at once their share in the 
 offense, and the remainder of the trial did not 
 occupy ten minutes. 
 
 A member of the Prison Reform Society would, 
 undoubtedly, be shocked beyond expression at 
 what he might see in the best prison within the 
 limits of the Chinese Empire. And they are loath- 
 some, horrible dungeons, often the scenes of cruelty 
 and barbarism too fearful for description ; yet two 
 important facts must be kept in mind regarding 
 them. In the first place, any prison, in order to 
 serve the purpose of its establishment, must be an^ 
 object of terror to the lower and criminal classes
 
 2o6 THE REAL CHI X AM A. Y. 
 
 in the country where it is located. Residence 
 within its walls must mean actual suffering and 
 hardship ; and any person who is at all familiar 
 with the manner in which the poorer classes of 
 the Chinese live in their own homes, will at once 
 realize the fact that a prison in that land must, 
 indeed, be a horrible place if it is to have any re- 
 straining influence. The fact is, that if the worst 
 prison in the United States were duplicated any- 
 where in the Chinese Empire, at least one half the 
 population entitled to accommodations in it would 
 hasten to commit such crimes as would entitle them 
 to a cell, and would exercise anxious care that the 
 offense should be of such a nature as to secure to 
 them the privileges of a long residence in it. 
 
 In the second place, imprisonment is not a legal 
 punishment for crime in China. Prisons are merely 
 houses of detention for witnesses, persons accused 
 of offense against the laws of the empire, and crim- 
 inals under sentence, but awaiting the infliction of 
 the prescribed penalty. No such thing is known 
 in Chinese courts as a sentence to a term of im- 
 prisonment. This fact renders the horrors and in- 
 famous cruelties of these prisons more inexcusal:)le, 
 since they are perpetrated upon persons charged 
 with no offense, such as witnesses and other per- 
 sons accused but innocent ; and there are few con- 
 ceivable horrors that have failed to be realized in 
 these houses of death. The native who wrote the 
 Chinese word for " hell" upon the door of a Peking 
 prison employed only a very moderate term of 
 description. 
 
 There are five forms of piinishrnent recognized
 
 CIJINESE COURTS OF LAW. 207 
 
 in Chinese law. These are flojrojincr, wearing tlie 
 "kang," branding, banishment, and death. Of 
 these only the second needs a description. The 
 kang, as prescribed in the penal code, is " a square 
 frame of dry wood, three feet long, two feet nine 
 inches wide, and weighing in ordinary cases thirty- 
 three pounds." Its weight may be increased, in 
 proportion to the gravity of the offense, up to one 
 hundred and twenty-five pounds. It is made in 
 two parts, which are hinged together at one side 
 and provided with a lock at the other. In the 
 centre is cut a circular opening the size of a per- 
 son's neck. Its manner of use is apparent. It is 
 opened, adjusted about the neck of the person con- 
 demned to wear it, and then closed and locked. 
 A strip of paper is pasted on either side of the head 
 of the wearer. One states his name, age, and 
 place of residence ; the other, his crime and the 
 number of days he is to wear this unwholesome 
 collar. It cannot be removed, night or day, dur- 
 ing the prescribed term. The wearer cannot reach 
 his mouth, and hence must be fed by others. He 
 is daily led about the streets, and at night locked 
 in prison. lie cannot lie down, but must sleep in 
 an upright position. 
 
 There are three forms of inflicting the death 
 penalty. That considered least disgraceful is by 
 strangulation ; ne.xt is decapitation ; last and most 
 degrading is by slicing, in whicli the victim is 
 slowly cut in pieces. This last is only inflicted as 
 a punishment for high treason and for that gravest 
 of all crimes according to the Chinese idea of the 
 sacredness of the parental relation, for the crime
 
 2o8 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 of murder of parent or grandparent. Strangula- 
 tion is performed by slipping a rope loosely about 
 the victim's neck, a stick is thrust within it at the 
 back of the head, and the executioner twists this 
 until death ensues. Decapitation is effected by a 
 heavy two-handed sword. The criminal is placed 
 upon his knees, his hands being lashed together 
 behind his back ; his head is drawn forward, and a 
 single blow given upon the back of the neck severs 
 the head from the body. 
 
 As Confucius taught that it was the first duty of 
 every person to return his body to his ancestors as 
 complete in all its members as when he received it 
 from them, large sums of money are sometimes 
 paid by the friends of decapitated criminals for the 
 privilege of sewing the head upon the body before 
 burial. While this privilege can be secured, it is 
 always accompanied with one condition. The head 
 must be reversed — that is, sewn on back side fore- 
 most. It may be said, in passing, that tliis doc- 
 trine of Confucius leads many Chinese to suffer 
 death rather than to consent to the loss of any part 
 of the body by a surgical operation. 
 
 A peculiar form of favor is sometimes shown to 
 high officials, and especially to members of the 
 imperial family, who may have been condemned to 
 the death penalty. Suicide being considered less 
 disgraceful than any form of death at the hands of 
 the public executioner, the victim receives a hand- 
 some lacquer box wrapped in silk of the color 
 sacred to the Emperor. Upon opening the box a 
 white silken cord is found, neatly coiled, lying 
 within. This is a silent l)ut stern suggestion to
 
 CHINESE COURTS OE LAW. 209 
 
 the recipient to take his own life by means of the 
 rope thus provided. If he fails to act upon the 
 hint within twenty-four hours, the public execu- 
 tioner claims him. 
 
 The foreign observer in a Chinese court of law 
 remarks, first, its total unlikeness to anything in 
 foreign lands. The only person seated is the mag- 
 istrate. Officers of the court and all spectators are 
 required to stand. Prisoners and witnesses must 
 be upon their hands and knees, and remain there 
 so long as they are in the presence of the court. 
 This rule sometimes gives rise to awkward and yet 
 amusing controversies. 
 
 In the winter of 1873 two American residents of 
 Peking became involved in a difficulty with a 
 Chinese contractor, who, having secured in ad- 
 vance a considerable sum of money, refused to 
 complete a building according to agreement. As 
 a result of correspondence between the United 
 States Legation and the Foreign Office, the matter 
 was referred to a member of the latter body and 
 myself for adjustment. The contractor and the 
 two Americans having been summoned to appear 
 before us, a grave question arose at once as to the 
 position to be taken by these parties while in court. 
 As the entire proceeding was informal, I proposed 
 that they should come in and sit down. My Chi- 
 nese colleague was horrified at the suggestion. He 
 should require the Chinese to get upon his hands 
 and knees, and as all parties manifestly ought to 
 receive the same treatment, the Americans must 
 assume the same attitude. Where was the dig- 
 nity of the court, if sup])liants could swagger into
 
 2IO THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 its presence and be treated as its equals ? He 
 would be laughed and ridiculed into retirement 
 if he allowed a Chinese to sit in court, and if 
 Americans were allowed that privilege he should 
 decline to go on with the case. 1 was so much 
 amused at the idea of requiring two free American 
 citizens, both my seniors, and one gray-headed, 
 and at the brilliant success I should achieve if I 
 made such a preposterous demand upon them, 
 that I found some difficulty in replying connectedly 
 to the argument of my Chinese associate. How- 
 ever, I managed to say that no such custom was 
 known in America, where the worst criminal was 
 only required to stand when addressed by his 
 judges ; that what he insisted upon was by us 
 regarded as degrading, and could not be considered 
 for a moment. 
 
 After a long and heated discussion it was finally 
 agreed that each officer should follow the practice 
 in vogue in his own country — that is to say, he 
 should r-equire the Chinese contractor to kneel, 
 and I should request my fellow-citizens to I'emain 
 standing while in our presence ; and the case was 
 heard and satisfactorily adjusted upon that basis. 
 
 A similar l)ut far more serious case arose at 
 Foochow in 1877. It became my duty, in con- 
 junction with the Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 Court of the province, to examine a large number 
 of Chinese witnesses in a case of bribery. Near 
 the close of the investigation it appeared important 
 to have the evidence of a Chinese subject, who 
 was an officer in the United States Consulate, and 
 held a letter of appointment from the Secretary of
 
 CHI X USE COURJ-S OF LAW. 211 
 
 State at Washington. In tliis peculiar position lie 
 was not amenable to Chinese law except by our 
 consent, and could only be summoned by me. At 
 the request of the Chief Justice I agreed to pro- 
 duce him, but with the express condition that he 
 should be treated like an American witness. This 
 was distinctly agreed to, and the next day this wit- 
 ness appeared. 
 
 As soon as he came into court the Chief Justice 
 called out : " Get down upon your hands and 
 knees." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said I, " but this witness 
 was not to be required to kneel." 
 
 " I don't care anything about that," replied the 
 Chief Justice ; "he is Chinese, and must obey 
 Chinese law. Kneel down." 
 
 " You are violating a positive promise," said I ; 
 " the witness shall not kneel." 
 
 " Kneel down," said the Justice. 
 
 " Stand up," said I. 
 
 " Get down upon your knees," screamed the 
 Justice. 
 
 " Leave the room," said I. 
 
 The frightened and bewildered witness obeyed 
 me, and fairly ran from the room. Much sharp 
 talk followed, the result of wdiich was that the 
 Chief Justice apologized, whereupon the witness 
 was recalled and examined standing. 
 
 This case illustrated the extreme point to which 
 injustice and brutality can go in a Chinese court 
 of law. The only parties guilty of wrongdoing 
 were a Chinese merchant and the interpreter to 
 the United States Consulate. The former was not
 
 2 12 TTtE I-;EAL CHINAMaN. 
 
 placed on trial at all. He had arranged matters 
 to his own satisfaction with the Chinese authori- 
 ties, and appeared in court as the friend and con- 
 fidential adviser of the Chief Justice ! The inter- 
 preter, though Chinese by birth, was a naturalized 
 British subject, and hence equally free from all 
 responsibility to either American or Chinese law. 
 He was summarily discharged from office, but be- 
 yond that could not be touched. 
 
 The only sufferers were some thirty ignorant na- 
 tive fishermen, all innocent of any offense against 
 the law, at least so far as the evidence showed. It 
 was in August, the heat intense, and the city fairly 
 reeking with cholera, yet these men had been 
 thrown into a prison indescribable in its horrors, 
 and beaten, tortured, and starved for months be- 
 fore they were brought into court. They all bore 
 marks of fearful suffering, and of the thirty, only 
 twenty-three lived to give evidence at the trial. 
 One of these was brought into court like a log by 
 four constables, who endeavored to prop him up 
 upon his hands and knees ; but he was so nearly 
 dead that he fell over on his face, and was finally 
 examined lying at full length upon the floor. He 
 could speak only in a whisper, and a word or two 
 at a time. 
 
 During the examination I noticed him feebly 
 fumbling in the bosom of his tattered garment, 
 and presently the end of a bit of folded paper 
 showed itself between his fingers. An attendant 
 of the Chief Justice sprang at once to seize it, but 
 my attendant, to whom I had cjuietly spoken, was 
 quicker, and secured it. The paper jiroved to be
 
 ClIIXESE cor NTS OF LA IF. 
 
 213 
 
 a petition to me for help and protection. It de- 
 tailed a record of hideous torture, from the effects 
 of which seven men had died, though no crime 
 was proved or charged even against any one of 
 them. But, so far as the Chinese parties in the 
 case were concerned, I was absolutely powerless, 
 and could oidy look on with disgust and horror at 
 the fearful injustice disclosed. Any attempt at 
 interference would have been resented, and would 
 have reacted upon the poor wretches who appealed 
 for help. It is but just to say that in many years 
 of varied experience in Chinese courts, this was 
 the only instance of outrageous brutality that came 
 within my knowledge. 
 
 One ancient rule of Chinese court procedure, 
 not now generally followed, is amusing, and yet 
 contains more grains of wisdom than at first 
 thought may appear. It provided that whenever 
 two litigants appeared before a magistrate, he 
 should, at the very outset, and prior to hearing 
 any statement of the case at issue or examining 
 either of the parties, order each, with absolute im- 
 partiality, " to be flogged witli thirty blows of the 
 small bamboo." The purpose was to warn tliem 
 not to rush lightly into litigation, or trouble the 
 magistrate without grave cause.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OFFICIALS AND PEOPLE. 
 
 The relationship existing between the 
 Chinese and their local authorities fur- 
 nishes a most curious, interesting, and 
 perplexing study. It presents many ap- 
 parent and startling contradictions, and 
 really exhibits a new and distinct phase 
 of the national character. No man is 
 more cautious, shrewd, and exact in his 
 business affairs than the average Chinese 
 merchant. He knows his own, and ex- 
 <,rj acts it down to the last fraction. He will 
 ' argue and quarrel with a business associ- 
 
 ate for half a day over the hundredth part of a cent, 
 and year after year readily and cheerfully pay taxes 
 in a dozen different forms to the collector, knowing 
 Avell that in each item the amount which he pays 
 is very considerably larger than the law demands. 
 He will submit to other forms of official injustice 
 without protest or murmur, and come to blows 
 with a neighbor or lifelong friend over some trivial 
 breach of etiquette which, in his opinion, affects 
 his dignity or honor. I have known two brothers 
 to quarrel bitterly because one called the other by 
 his given name instead of addressing him as " Ven- 
 erable Elder Brother," and each of them had been
 
 OFFICIALS AXn PEOPl.F. 215 
 
 the victim of officiiil cruelty and injustice without 
 thouglit of comphiint. 
 
 This peculiarity cannot be explained by the as- 
 sumption that the people are either ignorant of or 
 indifferent to their rights. Nor are they stolid 
 and heedless, lacking nerves, as some have as- 
 serted. Nor, again, is it generally fear of the 
 authorities, dread cjf punishment, which leads them 
 to submit. They speak of the Emperor, it is true, 
 with bated breath ; but no such reserve affects their 
 ideas or their speech in regard to the local authori- 
 ties. They are very democratic in their criticisms 
 of them, realize that they all are of the people, like 
 themselves, and are quite free with their praise or 
 censure. They are very fond of slang names, and 
 generally dub each official by such as in their opinion 
 fits some peculiarity of speech, appearance, or con- 
 duct. Even the very highest officials are not ex- 
 empt from these pet names. Prince Kung is in- 
 differently called by the people qf Peking " Head 
 Clerk Number 6," because he was at the head of 
 the government and the sixth son of a former Em- 
 peror, or " Devil Number 6," because he was sup- 
 posed to be friendly toward foreigners, for whom 
 " Devil" is the ordinary slang name. A certain 
 member of the Cabinet was practically never 
 spoken of by his proper name or title, but invari- 
 ably by the Chinese name for the measuring-worm, 
 with which every one is familiar ; and on one occa- 
 sion a member of the Privy Council spoke to me 
 of the Emperor as " our Boss." 
 
 With all his superstitious notions, fads, and fan- 
 cies, the Chinese is essentially a practical man of
 
 2l6 THE REAL CHI X AM AX. 
 
 business. He indulges little in sentiment. He is 
 more of a philosopher than an enthusiast, and sel- 
 dom enters upon a path to which the end is invisi- 
 ble. This element in his character has, undoubt- 
 edly, much to do with his quiet submission to real 
 or fancied injustice. He will not revolt against 
 any moderate extortion until fully convinced that 
 such action will pay. If, in his judgment, it will 
 cost him more to secure his rights than the com- 
 mercial value of those rights, it is idle to appeal to 
 him. He will not move. He knows by experience 
 or observation the worry, expense, and possible 
 danger of active opposition to the local authori- 
 ties, and prefers to bear the ills that he sees rather 
 than fly to those he knows not. 
 
 Another important factor in the question needs 
 notice. The nominal salaries of Chinese officials 
 is notoriously inadequate. In the majority of cases 
 the sum specified as compensation is not enough 
 to provide the underlings, clerks, and other sub- 
 ordinates which the magistrate is not only obliged 
 to have, but also to pay. When we bear in mind 
 that a distinguished Secretary of State at Washing- 
 ton paid his entire official salar)-- to his butler, and 
 remember that in few or none of our diplomatic 
 establishments in Europe is the salary of a Secre- 
 tary of Legation sufficient to pay the rent of a de- 
 cent house in a decent locality, we can appreciate 
 the difficulties under which Chinese officials labor 
 in this regard. The government so far recognizes 
 this fact as to make to each official an allowance 
 from the "anti-extortion fund." Tliis allowance 
 is, in some instances, as mucli in amount as twenty
 
 THE GREAT WALL.
 
 OFFICIALS AND P FOP IF. 219 
 
 or twenty-five times the salary, and still both com- 
 bined are not sufficient to support the official with 
 a decent show of dignity. 
 
 This fact is universally known and recognized. 
 From it has sprung the idea commonly accepted, 
 that every official has a right to receive a fair 
 amount of extra compensation for every service 
 rendered to the people. If they trouble him with 
 legal cases, he has a right to expect pay for it. If 
 he collects the taxes, it is only fair that he should 
 receive and reserve a commission for himself. His 
 salary is a merely nominal affair. He looks to the 
 residents within his jurisdiction for his support. 
 The validity of such a claim is admitted in every 
 district in the empire, and no complaint is ever 
 made against it unless the sum demanded is ex- 
 orbitant in amount, or exacted for services not 
 properly rendered. To a Western mind the evils of 
 such a system are far too plain to need comment 
 or explanation ; yet a Chinese would fail to see 
 any approach to bribery or corruption in it, and 
 stoutly defend the practice as only reasonable and 
 business-like. 
 
 A modification of this plan is in force between 
 officials of various grades, from the lowest even to 
 those about the very presence of the Emperor. A 
 titled Chinese, who represented his government 
 for many years with distinguished ability abroad, 
 once told me that cm tlie occasion of his first call 
 in Peking upon one of the members of the im- 
 perial family, his attLMidant carried a present of 
 one hundred ounces of silver, which was delivered 
 to the officer on duty at the door where the call
 
 2 20 THE REAL CHLVAMAy. 
 
 was made, and that on each subsequent visit half 
 that sum was taken. He added that there was a 
 regular scale of " presents," graded according to 
 the rank of the visitor upon him of princely blood, 
 and that what he had taken was the amount fixed 
 for persons of his rank. Another official, upon his 
 return from a post of duty, applied to the Court 
 Chamberlain for the customary audience with the 
 Emperor, and was informed that the usual present 
 for persons of his rank was five thousand ounces 
 of silver. He demurred at the amount, and offered 
 one half. This being refused, he withdrew his re- 
 quest for audience, although by this course, as he 
 well knew, further official employment was ren- 
 dered impossible. Being a strictly honest servant 
 of the State — and there are many such in China — 
 he had not and could not procure so large a sum. 
 A leading jeweler of Peking, on one occasion, 
 showed me a hundred satin-lined and richly lac- 
 quered trays, each divided into ten compartments, 
 each compartment fitted to receive a block of silver 
 bullion weighing ten ounces. They were being 
 prepared and were to be filled upon the order of a 
 certain high official, who proposed to send a pres- 
 ent of ten thousand ounces of silver in this elegant 
 form to one of the princes. 
 
 One phase of this system of giving and receiving 
 gifts is not without a certain redeeming feature. 
 It has a practical value in enforcing the main- 
 tenance of peace and order. Under Chinese law 
 tlieri^ is no i)r()vision for the infliction of a fine in 
 punishment for any class of offenses, tliough there 
 are certain lesser penalties which the law allows to
 
 OFFICIALS AND PEOPLE. 221 
 
 be commuted by payment of a specified sum ; and 
 there is a large number of cases which are quietly 
 condoned upon receipt of an amount of money 
 generally in close approximation to the ability of 
 the offender to pay. Probably none of this money 
 finds its way into the public treasury, though cases 
 have been known in which it was expended upon 
 some much-needed public improvement ; but there 
 is a generally recognized class of fines or money 
 penalties levied upon subordinate officials by their 
 superiors for failure or neglect of duty, in case of 
 any complaints being made against them, and, in 
 general, for any bother or trouble to those above 
 them for which they are responsible. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the abstract honesty of 
 such a system, it cannot be doubted that the direct 
 result is to make those who are liable to its penalties 
 both vigilant in the maintenance of order and cau- 
 tious in their exactions from the people. If a dis- 
 trict magistrate understands — and he does — that 
 any complaint of extortion made against him will be 
 at once followed by a demand, from the governor 
 of the province, that he " divide" with him, he 
 will be less shrewd than the average Chinese if he 
 fails to guide his course by the plain reasoning 
 that it is better to exact two thirds of a given sum 
 and retain it all, than to collect the whole and be 
 obliged to share half or more of it with those above 
 him. In a similar way, any remissness in official 
 duty sufficiently grave to provoke complaint is 
 certain to be expensive to the offending official, 
 even in cases where the complaint is really trivial 
 or not well founded. A single illustration will
 
 22 2 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 show what is meant. I once had occasion to re- 
 port a case of theft to the police magistrate near 
 the United States Legation in Peking. The bur- 
 glar had entered the rooms of the Chinese copyist 
 employed in the Legation, and stolen a few silver 
 ornaments worth not more than twelve or fifteen 
 dollars. Liberal promises were made by the mag- 
 istrate, but nothing was accomplished, and the 
 affair passed out of sight. Three months later a 
 thief entered my own house, and escaped with 
 property of more value. The same magistrate 
 was sent for, and under the pressure of threats of 
 being reported to the military governor of the 
 city, he secured the thief and every stolen article 
 within twenty hours of the robbery. Some weeks 
 later the magistrate asked for an interview, and 
 upon being admitted, placed upon my desk the 
 silver ornaments stolen from the copyist, not one 
 being missing. I expressed my surprise and grati- 
 fication, whereupon the following conversation 
 took place : 
 
 " They have made me a great deal of trouble 
 and cost me much money. If you had only warned 
 me before you complained to the General of the 
 Nine Gates (the military governor), I would have 
 recovered them for you and saved the expense." 
 
 " But I made no complaint to the governor about 
 this case." 
 
 " You must have done so, since he knew all 
 about it." 
 
 " No. I never laid a complaint against you be- 
 fore him about this or any other case. I warned 
 you that I would do so if you did not act promptly
 
 OFFICIALS AXD rilOPLE. 223 
 
 in securing the thief who entered my own house ; 
 but your course was so satisfactory in that affair, 
 and the vahie of these articles so trivial, that I de- 
 cided not to press the matter ; and, in fact, had 
 forgotten all about it." 
 
 " But did you say nothing to the General of the 
 Nine Gates about this theft ?" 
 
 " Only indirectly. Of course I was obliged to 
 see him a number of times regarding the punish- 
 ment of the other thief whom you arrested. In 
 the course of conversation I praised you for your 
 prompt and satisfactory course, wiiich, to be en- 
 tirely frank, I told him was surprising as well as 
 agreeable, since in an earlier but unimportant case, 
 which I had referred to you, you had promised 
 much and done nothing." 
 
 " That makes it all clear. He ordered me to 
 appear before him, told me how pleased you were 
 with my action, then forced me to tell him all 
 about the first case, fined me one thousand ounces 
 of silver, and warned me that if within a month 
 I failed to secure this property and deliver it to 
 you, he would fine me another equal amount and 
 remove me from office. You need never complain 
 again. No thief will disturb your Legation in 
 future." And none did. 
 
 It may appear surprising, in view of what has 
 preceded, that few nations have such a complete 
 civil service as China, or one in which the checks 
 and guards against injustice, oppression, and every 
 form of maladministration have been so carefully, 
 and with such apparent wisdom, wrought out. 
 Yet such is the case. The regulations calculated
 
 2 24 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 to secuie the people against official wrongdoing 
 are elaborate, exhaustive, and minute in detail. 
 Faithfully enforced under intelligent popular press- 
 ure — and any civil service is worthless without that 
 — they would produce an ideal public service. 
 Mention has already been made of the censorate, 
 that body of independent watchdogs of the public 
 welfare, whose eyes are supposed to be fastened 
 in close scrutiny upon every official, no matter 
 what his rank in the empire, and through whom 
 the meanest subject may carry his wrongs, free of 
 fear or expense, to the Emperor in person. 
 
 Some of the regulations governing appointments 
 to office, and the conduct of those appointed, are 
 worthy of recital, both as showing practical wis- 
 dom, and also the evils against which the central 
 government has found it necessary to guard. No 
 officer can occupy a post within the province where 
 he was born. He cannot employ any relatives in 
 any position, however menial. He cannot take a 
 wife or a concubine from among the people over 
 whom he has authority. No two persons related 
 as closely as second cousins can hold office within 
 the same province. Hardly a year passes without 
 transfers being made under this rule. The fore- 
 going are manifestly intended as guards against 
 favoritism or injustice growing out of family influ- 
 ence. Another regulation to which the Chinese 
 attach great importance limits the retention of any 
 post to three years. At the termination of that 
 period the officer is removed to some other point, 
 and, theoretically at least, is given a more or less 
 desirable position, as his record may warrant. On
 
 OFFICIALS AND PEOPLE. 225 
 
 rare occasions, and in response to popular demand, 
 he is given a second term at the same post, but, on 
 tlie wliole, the rule of change is faitlifully en- 
 forced. The manifest intent of this provision is to 
 preclude the formation of either such strong per- 
 sonal friendships or corrupt combinations as w^ould 
 affect the even-handed administration of affairs. 
 
 Much has been written, and many amusing, 
 though perhaps apocryphal stories told regard- 
 ing the sale of offices in China, and the absurd and 
 grotesque conduct of those who have thus secured 
 position and power. The author is convinced that 
 these statements are not borne out by the facts, 
 but are the natural result of the confusion of two 
 distinct and different honors, each of which is 
 eagerly sought after by the people. Undoubtedly 
 the right to use an official title and to wear the 
 button which represents it upon the hat has been, 
 in times of special stress, sold to a very large ex- 
 tent. Such honors are also not infrequently granted 
 by the Emperor to public-spirited individuals who 
 have contributed funds to build bridges, repair 
 roads or dykes, or rendered conspicuous service 
 in other directions. Such honors cairy with them 
 certain legally defined special privileges, but they 
 never confer the right to hold office. The author 
 has known many Chinese who had thus bought or 
 earned official title, but he has never met one who 
 was an office-holder, nor, as the result of an in- 
 quiry of considerable length, has he found a Chi- 
 nese who knew or had heard of any official above 
 the rank of village constable who had secured a 
 position by such means. Titular honors and dig-
 
 226 
 
 THE REAL ClIIXAMAX. 
 
 nities can be purchased, but the road to office lies 
 exclusively through the educational examinations, 
 controlled and conducted by the government. It 
 
 riHNi.si: lu.ccvR. 
 
 would not !)(■ ('(lually sate Id deny that nu)ney hiii 
 sniDiilhi'd the path Id pi'DinDtioii when once tliose 
 examinal ions have; been successfully passetl.
 
 OFFICIALS AND FEOFLE. 227 
 
 Public opinion plays i\n essential part in the 
 control of the conduct of Chinese ofificials. Any 
 magistrate who ignores it, or outrages the feelings 
 of the people, is certain, sooner or later, to come 
 to grief. He has three duties to perform. He 
 must preserve peace and order, collect and remit 
 the amount of taxes apportioned to his district, and 
 see to it that no complaints are maile against him. 
 Within these three points he is practically left un- 
 trammeled. Ilis district is farmed out to him, and 
 few questions are asked concerning his methods, 
 so long as questions are not provoked by charges 
 of maladministration coming from those whom he 
 governs. The people, upon their part, have a far 
 more intelligent conception of what the proper 
 duties and liuthority of an official are than might 
 be expected. As has been stated, they allow him 
 a very liberal latitude beyond the strict letter of 
 the law, but are (juick to show their displeasure 
 when he goes too far ; and a record of an unpopu- 
 lar administration has a very damaging effect upon 
 a local magistrate when, at the close of the pre- 
 scribed three years' term of service at one post, 
 the question of his transfer arises. In this way 
 self-interest serves as a valuable check to what the 
 Chinese would regard as unreasonable excess of 
 authority. 
 
 Scattered throughout all parts of the empire is a 
 class of men known among foreigners as " the lit- 
 erati." They are the educated men of the com- 
 munities where they reside. They have completed 
 the necessary course of study, and have passed one 
 or more of the government examinations which
 
 2 28 THE REAL CHIXAMAN, 
 
 form the preliminary test to office-holding. As 
 near as any correspondences can be said to exist 
 between things Oriental and our Western ways, 
 the}' may be compared to college-bred men among 
 us who are not in official life. There is this essen- 
 tial difference, however. All of these Oriental 
 graduates pursued their course of study with a 
 direct view to office-holding as a lifelong career. 
 All are possible office-holders, and a majority are 
 hopeful and expectant of that distinction. 
 
 These are the influential men in every com- 
 munity, as would be expected. They have certain 
 legal privileges and immunities which no power 
 less exalted than the governor of a province can 
 curtail or remove. In a measure the}^ are, there- 
 fore, independent of the local authority. As they 
 consider it undignified to engage in labor or trade, 
 nothing but the sharp necessity of actual suffering 
 will drive them to work ; hence, as a rule, they 
 have abundant leisure in v/hich to watch those 
 into whose shoes they hope some day to step. 
 Since they esteem themselves as belonging to the 
 ruling class, they are generally moderate in their 
 criticisms of those in office ; but they mould, con- 
 trol, and guide public opinion. They are invariably 
 the arbitrators in the settlement of disputes among 
 the people, and in all questions at issue between 
 the people and their magistrates. They constitute 
 a sort of unofficial extra legal jury, always in ses- 
 sion. The central government manages to keep 
 in touch with them through the censorate, and, as a 
 rule, shows great deference to their opinions, which 
 it recognizes as the exponent of the popular will.
 
 OFFICIALS AND PEOPLE. 229 
 
 The controlling, moderating influence which such 
 a body of men must exercise upon an ofliciiii in- 
 clined eitlier to cruelty or greed must be readily 
 seen. They belong to his class in society, many 
 of them hope at some time to occupy a position 
 similar to his ; hence they are inclined to exercise 
 charity in their judgment of his acts. Upon the 
 other hand, their families, relatives, and friends 
 are among those who must suffer from his wrong- 
 doing, and they cannot be silent to their appeals. 
 Upon his part, tlie magistrate needs the moral sup- 
 port of this class in aid of his authority, and thus 
 they become a sort of balance-wheel or regulator 
 in every district in China. 
 
 As between officials and people, it may be readily 
 admitted that the intervention of the literati is 
 commonly in the interests of good government, and 
 beneficial ; but they are credited with the use of 
 their power in other directions, in which it has 
 worked great injury to the State, cost it large 
 sums in the way of indemnities, and, more than 
 once, brouglit it to the verge of war. The Chi- 
 nese literati arrogate to themselves the conserva- 
 tism of public morals and the preservation of the 
 ancient traditions and policy. Each of their num- 
 ber considers himself as a practical reincarnation 
 of Confucius, and as a depository of the wisdom 
 and infallibility of that sage. What he knew, they 
 know ; and anything beyond the bounds of their 
 learning is either inherently vicious or worthless. 
 Hence, opposition to progress centres itself in 
 them. They are bigoted and fanatical. The)' 
 are accused, on apparently good grounds, with
 
 230 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 Stirring up the people against foreigners and of 
 inciting many of the outbreaks of mob violence, 
 particularly those in which missionaries have been 
 the objects of attack. While they pride themselves 
 upon their conservative influence and power as a 
 body, the}', in fact, constitute a most serious men- 
 ace to the prosperity and well-being of the nation. 
 
 The Chinese people have some peculiar methods 
 of exhibiting their approval of the conduct of a 
 magistrate. A red silk umbrella, not to be carried 
 over the head, but by an attendant in advance of 
 the owner, is a sign of high official state. Such an 
 umbrella, provided by popular subscription and 
 inscribed with a complimentary phrase or two and 
 the names of the donors, is sometimes presented 
 with great parade to a magistrate who has earned 
 the approval of his people. A tablet or a silken 
 scroll, similarly inscribed, is also given as a mark 
 of appreciation. In June, 1S70, the prefectural 
 magistrate at Tientsin was presented with such an 
 umbrella, and also a tablet. The former bore the 
 inscription, " An umbrella of ten thousand names," 
 by which was meant that it was the expression of 
 the good-will of the entire city. The tablet was 
 inscribed, " A Buddha sprung from ten thousand 
 families." In this delicate way the recipient was 
 complimented as being the Buddha, the protector 
 of the people. 
 
 These particular gifts illustrate the dangerous 
 power exercised by the literati, and to which refer- 
 ence has just been made. They were, beyond a 
 doubt, presented to the official named by the lit- 
 erati as a reward for conduct on his part which
 
 OFFICIALS A.VD rEOPI.E. 233 
 
 directly caused the horrible massacre at Tien- 
 tsin, and which occurred oidy three days after 
 the presentation was niadc. In this instance it 
 may properly be said tliat llie action of the literati 
 and their irdluence with tlie people led directly to 
 this appalling result. It cost the lives of twenty- 
 three foreigners, most of whom were ladies, put 
 to death in a manner far too fearful to be de- 
 scribed. The magistrate paid for his umbrella 
 and tablet by hard labor for life as a prison con- 
 vict beyond the Amoor River. Twenty natives 
 were beheaded, a large number were punished in 
 other ways, and the Chinese Government further 
 atoned for the misconduct of its officials by an 
 indemnity of nearly $500,000 in gold, and a special 
 mission of apology to France. 
 
 As a traveler enters the gate of any Chinese city 
 he is liable to see suspended within the archway 
 several pairs of boots, in various stages of preser- 
 vation. These indicate another mode, and one 
 quite unique, by which the people indicate their 
 approval of the course taken by their magistrates. 
 When a popular official is about to lay down the 
 seal of office at the conclusion of his term of ser- 
 vice, he is waited upon by a deputation of leading 
 residents, who, with many flowery words of com- 
 pliment and praise, gravely request him to donate 
 to the city a pair of his official boots. The request 
 is esteemed an honor, and is always granted. 
 They are taken in solemn procession, with music 
 and mucli parade, to tlie city gate and there sus- 
 pended, where they remain until they decay and 
 drop to pieces.
 
 234 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 That the people can and do successful!}- resist 
 injustice and extortion upon the part of their offi- 
 cials is being constantly shown. An incident 
 within my own knowledge which illustrates this 
 fact, shows their peculiar methods, and exhibits 
 the forbearance and moderation with which they 
 made use of their victory, may well close this 
 chapter. 
 
 The land tax is fixed by imperial decree — that is, 
 by law — at a certain number of decimal parts of an 
 ounce of silver on each Chinese acre. As individ- 
 ual land-holdings are small, and the amount of the 
 tax in each case insignificant, it is almost invariably 
 paid in copper cash. The equivalent of an ounce 
 of silver in cash varies a few pieces from day to 
 da3% but it stands substantially at two thousand 
 pieces of cash per ounce. This fluctuation in the 
 value of silver, slight as it is, furnishes the magis- 
 trate with an opportunity, of which he rarely fails to 
 take advantage, to exact more cash in payment of 
 the land tax than the market value of the bullion 
 will warrant. In a certain district city less than 
 a hundred miles from Peking the magistrates had 
 for many years collected this ta.x in cash at the 
 rate of four thousand pieces for an ounce of silver 
 — a profit to themselves of nearly one hundred per 
 cent. This was paid willingly and without any 
 question. As has been pointed out, the people 
 realized the fact that the officials must live. A 
 new incumbent increased the rate to five thousand 
 pieces, and this was quietly paid. Misunderstand- 
 ing the temper of his constituency, after a few 
 months he raised the rate of exchange to six thou-
 
 orriciAi.s Axn i'f.ople. 235 
 
 sand. Then they grumbled, but they paid. A 
 further increase to seven thousand provoked talk 
 of organized opposition, but nothing practical re- 
 sulted from it. Before the llrst half of his term 
 of office had expired he raised the rate again, de- 
 manding eiglit thousand cash for an ounce of sil- 
 ver, or about four times the legitimate amount. 
 
 This brought matters to a crisis. A mass-meet- 
 ing was held, at whicli it was decided to present a 
 petition to the Emperor, through the censorate, 
 setting forth tlieir grievances and asking for the 
 immediate disgrace of the rapacious magistrate. 
 Being within easy reach of Peking, it was decided 
 at the meeting to send a deputation thither with 
 their memorial and complaint, in order to hasten 
 the redress of their wrongs. The documents were 
 accordingly prepared and a committee of three in- 
 fluential literati carried them to the capital, and 
 there presented them to the Supreme Court of the 
 censorate. 
 
 Now the regulations prescribing the form, shape, 
 and style in which all classes of official documents 
 must be prepared in China are exceedingly rigor- 
 ous and minute in detail. They must be written 
 upon a peculiar quality of paper, of a particular 
 shade of color. Certain characters must be ele- 
 vated just so many points and no- more above 
 their fellows. The document must be folded to 
 exactly so many inches in width, endorsed, sealed, 
 enveloped, and superscribed in absolute conform- 
 ity to a specified plan. 
 
 Unfortunately for the deputation, their memorial 
 failed in one or two unimportant details of being
 
 236 THE REAL CHI.YAMAy. 
 
 in exact conformity to regulations. It was returned 
 to them unread, they were each favored with fifty 
 blows of the bamboo, and fined a small sum for 
 contempt of court. They returned home sore and 
 crestfallen, and the local magistrate, in too great 
 haste as the event pioved, signalized his victory 
 by increasing the official rate of exchange to nine 
 thousand pieces of cash for an ounce of silver. 
 
 He knew little of Chinese human nature. An- 
 other meeting was at once called, papers were 
 more carefully drawn up, to which another count 
 in the indictment of the magistrate was added, 
 and another deputation bore them to the capital. 
 This time they were successful. The offending 
 official was degraded, stripped of his rank, and 
 forbidden to apply for future official employment ; 
 and a magistrate having an exceptionally good 
 record was sent to them. He at once, upon as- 
 suming office, called a meeting of the people, at 
 which the question of a fair official rate of exchange 
 between silver and cash was fully and freely dis- 
 cussed, and it was agreed with entire unanimity 
 that five thousand cash should be the rate. A 
 granite slab was prepared, upon which was cut the 
 statement that at a meeting held that day it was 
 agreed and understood between the magistrate 
 and people that, for all future time, taxes might 
 be paid in cash at the fixed rate of five thousand 
 per ounce of silver ; and this memorial and evi- 
 dence of the agreement was formally set up in the 
 great square at the centre of the town.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EDUCATION AND I.ITKRATURE. 
 
 NiEN shu, tso kuan" is a phrase heard 
 from the lips of every parent and every 
 male child in the Chinese Empire. It 
 means " secure an education and become 
 an official," and indicates, what has al- 
 ready been said, that the object of all study 
 in China and the supreme ambition is offi- 
 cial life. Every boy who goes to school goes with 
 this purpose, at least when he is old enough to 
 have any thought about the matter, and all par- 
 ents who seek education for their sons do it with 
 this hope and desire in mind. 
 
 The history of the nation justifies this ambition. 
 For many centuries the practical government has 
 been in the hands of those who have sprung from 
 the common people, and who, starting from the 
 general level, have, by means of an education, 
 climbed step by step up the ladder of influence 
 and honor, until they stood at the very top. While 
 we have our list of poor boys who have become 
 great men, such as Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, and 
 others, they have a similar list vastly longer, as 
 their country is older than ours. There is a count- 
 less number of school-boys in China to-day who 
 are inspired and stimulated by these names, and
 
 238 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 by the possibilities which such careers open to 
 them. Their examples are as well known and as 
 widely honored as are ours. They all know that 
 only a few years since a Chinese Prime Minister 
 died who was a poor farmer's son, was himself 
 poor all his life, yet of whom the Emperor said in 
 a decree announcing his death : " He truly was 
 my right arm and strong heart." And they all 
 know, too, that the Emperor sent a prince of the 
 blood, with ten of his own body-guard, to watch by 
 the coffin of the deceased statesman so long as it 
 remained in Peking, and directed the viceroy of 
 the province of which the dead man was a native 
 to attend the burial in person, in order to show 
 the respect and honor in which he was held. 
 
 Those who have a vague idea that China is a 
 heathen country of vast population, entirely given 
 up to the practice of cruel and debasing super- 
 stitions, will find in Chinese books much to en- 
 large and modify their opinion of that empire. 
 They will be astonished at the amount of sound 
 instruction, pure morality, and wise, judicious 
 counsel of a type so elevated that it well might be 
 taught to Western children, as, indeed, it is, which 
 they will find in the books prepared for use in the 
 schools of China. A distinguished commentator 
 upon the writings of Confucius prepared a volume 
 adapted to primary instruction some seven hun- 
 dred and seventy-five years ago, which is still used, 
 unrevised and unchanged, in every school-room in 
 the land. In the introduction a plan of life, so to 
 speak, is marked out. The writer siiys that, when 
 they are able to talk^ " boys should be instructed
 
 EDUCATION AXD LITERATURE. 239 
 
 to answer in a quick, bold tone, and girls in a 
 slow and gentle voice." What follows refers to 
 boys only. " At seven they should be taught to 
 count and name the cardinal points, but should 
 not be allowed to sit upon the same mat nor eat at 
 the same table with their elders. At eight they 
 must be taught to wait for their superiors, and 
 prefer others to themselves. At ten they must 
 be sent abroad to private tutors, and there remain 
 day and night, studying writing and arithmetic, 
 wearing plain apparel, learning to demean them- 
 selves in a manner becoming their age, and act- 
 ing with sincerity of purpose. At thirteen they 
 must attend to music and poetry, at fifteen they 
 must practice archery and horsemanship. At the 
 age of twenty they are to be admitted to the rank 
 of manhood in due form, learn additional rules of 
 propriety, be faithful in the performance of filial 
 and fraternal duties, but must not affect to teach 
 others, though possessed of extensive knowledge. 
 At thirty they may marry and commence the con- 
 duct of business. At forty they may enter the ser- 
 vice of the State ; at fifty be promoted to the rank 
 of ministers, and at seventy they must retire from 
 public life." 
 
 Other advice given in this text-book is as fol- 
 lows : " Let children always be taught to speak 
 the simple truth, to stand erect and in their proper 
 places, and listen with respectful attention." 
 " The way to become a student is, with gentleness 
 and self-abasement, to receive implicitly every 
 word the master utters. The pupil, when he sees 
 virtuous people, must follow them ; wlien he hears
 
 240 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 wise maxims, conform to them." " He must keep 
 his clothes in order." " Every morning he must 
 learn something new, and rehearse the same every 
 evening." It hardly appears credible that a vol- 
 ume containing such wise advice and of so true a 
 tone could have been in use as a text book in the 
 schools of China three and a half centuries before 
 Columbus discovered America ; yet such is the 
 fact. 
 
 Another volume of equally high standard and of 
 general use is called " The Complete Collection 
 of Family Jewels." It contains a careful detail of 
 the course to be pursued by all who would be thor- 
 ough students. The keynote of the work is found 
 in the sentence : " Better little and fine than much 
 and coarse." The beginner is advised to form a 
 fixed resolution to press forward in his studies, 
 setting his mark as high as possible, and under- 
 standing everything as he goes along. The author 
 also recommends all persons to have two or three 
 good volumes lying upon their tables, which they 
 can take up at odd moments, and to keep common- 
 place books, in which they can write down sen- 
 tences worthy of being remembered. And a Chi- 
 nese proverb, more ancient even than these books, 
 yet everywhere quoted, declares that " three days 
 without study renders a man's conversation in- 
 sipid." One ceases to wonder at the permanence 
 of Chinese institutions when he finds their educa- 
 tional system resting upon so high a level. 
 
 Sounder counsels and wiser maxims tlian tliese 
 can be found in no country or age. Yet it must 
 not be inferred that the Cliinese course of study is,
 
 EDUCATIO.V A.yj) LITER A TURK. 243 
 
 as a whole or in part, so wisely chosen as these 
 extracts might be supposed to indicate. Dr. S. 
 Wells Williams has expressed the opinion in his 
 work, "The Middle Kingdom," "That the great 
 end of education among the ancient Chinese was 
 not so much to fill the head with knowledge, as to 
 discipline the heiirt and purify the affections." 
 This may be true. If so, the end of education 
 among the modern Chinese must be held to be 
 the same, since the course of study has undergone 
 no change for nearly a thousand years. But ad- 
 miration for the wise moral sayings and good 
 counsel is soon changed to utter astonishment 
 when the course of study prescribed by govern- 
 ment as competent to prepare men to fill the high- 
 est offices in the land is examined. It contains a 
 sufficient amount of sound morality, as has been 
 seen. Aside from that there is considerable super- 
 stitious teaching, many political maxims of more 
 or less doubtful utility, bits of Chinese history 
 and tradition, a smattering of local geography, 
 and nothing else. Of these the history, whether 
 exact or traditional, and the scraps of geography, 
 are learned incidentally. They are not taught as 
 distinct studies. Their accuracy, and hence their 
 value, may be justly measured by the fact that 
 they are found in the Confucian classics, which 
 were written several hundred years before Christ. 
 
 Leaving out of sight the moral instruction, whose 
 merits have been fully admitted, and taking the 
 most favorable view possible of the Chinese system 
 of education, it can only claim to' accomplish the 
 following residts. It teaches reading and writing.
 
 544 THE REAL CHINAMAN; 
 
 versification, composition and style, and develops 
 the memory to a marvelous extent. No people 
 in the world have such mnemonic power as the 
 Chinese. 
 
 The course of study is easily described. When 
 the boy enters school, at five or six years of age, a 
 book called the " Three-Character Classic" is given 
 him. It is in rhyme — a sort of doggerel — and is 
 made up of moral sayings and stories calculated to 
 illustrate their excellence, by which he is taught to 
 honor his father and mother, worship his ancestors, 
 fear the Emperor, avoid bad company, attend to 
 his books, and to practice other similar virtues. 
 He is expected to commit this volume to memory 
 — it is small — to learn the meaning and pronuncia^ 
 tion of each character, and to write each correctly. 
 When this task is completed he is given the " Book 
 of the Hundred Family Names." This is also in 
 rhyme, and is utterly devoid of sense, being noth- 
 ing other than a list of the allowable surnames in 
 the Chinese Empire. He must also commit this to 
 memory, and learn to pronounce and write each 
 character in it. This is followed by the " Lesser 
 Instruction Book," or " The Complete Collection 
 of Family Jewels," from both of which quotations 
 have been made. These mastered in the same 
 thorough manner as those which precede them, 
 then comes the great and crowning task of student 
 life. The nine volumes of the Confucian classics 
 are spread before the pupil. These must be treated 
 as were the others, memorized, and each character 
 identified and written. 
 
 Exercises in versification and in composition are
 
 EDUCATION AND LITERATURE. 245 
 
 given in connection witli tlie study of Confucius. 
 Some fine poetry has been written in Ciiina ; and 
 it is only fair to say tliat many of her scliolars are 
 perfect masters of style. Tlie language is concise, 
 flexible, capable of expressing delicate shades of 
 thought, and hence favors a high degree of attain- 
 ment in this direction. I have seen and translated 
 an official communication written by a noted Chi- 
 nese scholar, the English version of which covered 
 nearly a hundred pages, and, in the whole of the 
 original text, not a single character could have been 
 withdrawn or changed without affecting the sense. 
 The Confucian writings have already been suffi- 
 ciently described. They contain a large amount 
 of unimportant and valueless trash ; and it must 
 also be said that they contain a great deal more 
 which no man of modern times, be he Chinese or 
 foreign, can in the least understand or explain. 
 Those parts may have been the supremest wisdom 
 when written, but in the m.any centuries since, 
 whether from tlie entire change in the meaning of 
 the characters, or in the use of words, or from 
 some other unknown cause, no idea of any sort 
 can be gained from them to-day. They are sim- 
 ply unsolved riddles, unguessable conundrums. I 
 quote one sentence of this sort — an easy one — taken 
 at random from the volume known as " The Book 
 of Changes" : " The Great Man, assuming the 
 appearance of the Tiger, refers to his luminous 
 excellence." What can be made from such sheer 
 nonsense as this ? Yet it is as good as, or possibly 
 better than a large percentage of the contents of 
 those nine sacred books, every character of which
 
 246 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 must be memorized and explained in some way by 
 the student ; and this completes the Chinese sys- 
 tem of education. 
 
 Schools are found in everj^city, village, and ham- 
 let in the empire. The public sentiment in favor 
 of education is universal, and it is a reproach to 
 any parents, however poor, if they neglect to send 
 their sons to school. These are supported, not 
 by the government, but by subscription or tuition 
 fees, and the master, who must always have passed 
 the official examinations, receives but small com- 
 pensation, running from less than $75 a year in 
 small villages to $150 a year in the larger towns 
 and cities. Private tutors, who make a specialty 
 of cramming young men for the examinations, and 
 have a reputation for success in such work, often 
 receive large sum»* 
 
 The fittings of the school- rooms are primitive 
 and meagre in the extreme. A square table, on 
 which is placed a tablet of Confucius, and a chair 
 beside it for the teacher, are the most important 
 articles of furniture. Beside these there is a 
 smaller table and a bench, such as would be called 
 a carpenter's horse, for each pupil. These com- 
 plete the furniture of the rooni. Each scholar has, 
 besides his l)Ook, a few sheets of paper, an inkstone 
 and stick of India ink (so called because it is made 
 in China), a cup containing a little water with 
 which to mix his ink, and a camel's-hair brush 
 (so called because it is never made of camel's-hair). 
 These complete his outfit. The master is com- 
 monly provided with a bamboo rod and an enor- 
 mous pair of spectacles, the first as corrective medi-
 
 ED r CAT/ ox AX J) IJTKRA TU RE. 247 
 
 cine, with which boys in all hinds are familiar, and 
 the second as emblems of and aids to the essential 
 dignity of his position. 
 
 The child makes his first appearance at school 
 iit the age of five or six, sometimes even younger, 
 and attends nine hours a day, seven days in the 
 week, until he has completed the course of study 
 already described. This is generally accomplished 
 by the time he is eighteen years old. Upon enter- 
 ing and leaving the room he must always make 
 his obeisance to the tablet of Confucius and to the 
 master. He is given a lesson in writing each day, 
 and a portion of the book to commit to memory. 
 He accomplishes this latter task by shouting it 
 out, character by character, over and over again, 
 at the top of his voice. If he is quiet, the bamboo 
 rod is called into use. A tlioroughly studious 
 Chinese boy will almost raise the roof with the 
 power of his lungs, and a well-ordered school-room 
 makes itself known to a great distance. A factory 
 or boiler-shop is quiet as a churchyard compared 
 with it. 
 
 The instruction is entirely individual. Each 
 pupil pursues his own studies, makes his own 
 progress, quite independent of every other. When 
 any one has learned the assigned task, he marches 
 up to the master, hands him the book, then turns 
 about and, with his l)ack to the teacher and his 
 hands folded behind him, recites his task. From 
 this peculiar attitude is derived the Ciiinese idio- 
 matic phrase, equivalent to the English word reci- 
 tation, which means, literally translated, "to back 
 the book."
 
 248 77/7? REAL CIIIXAMAN: 
 
 There is no lack of evidence to demonstrate the 
 fact that the Chinese, as a nation, possess a high 
 average of intellectual ability. Their writings 
 prove this ; and a considerable number of recent 
 tests show that they have no occasion to fear the 
 results of direct competition, as students, with the 
 young men and women in Western schools. A 
 Chinese boy, who was given preliminary instruc- 
 tion in mission schools at Macao and Hongkong,' 
 and afterward sent to this country by the charity 
 of the missionaries to complete his education, took 
 the first prize in English composition at Yale Col- 
 lege years ago. More recently a Chinese beggar 
 girl, literally fished from a gutter in Peking one 
 December night, where she had been thrown by 
 her mother, and who had been sent to this country 
 to complete her studies, graduated with first honors 
 at one of our best female colleges. The Chinese 
 boys sent to this country by their government for 
 education according to the Western, or modern 
 idea, furnish a striking proof of tlae high average 
 of intellectual ability possessed by their race. 
 These students were one hundred and twenty in 
 number, and were sent here at the average age of 
 eleven. All could read and write, but none of 
 them knew any English, and not a half dozen had 
 spent a day in any other than the ordinary Chinese 
 school, already described. None of them were 
 the sons of dukes and princes, as the American 
 girls fondly imagined. They all came from mid- 
 dle-class families, reckoning from the native stand- 
 point — that is, from families the head of which 
 had an income of from $200 to $500 a year. Hardly
 
 EDUCATrO.V AXJ) JJ J-ERAT UKE. 249 
 
 a single case of either persistent misconduct or 
 mental inability developed in the entire number. 
 They mastered English, the third most difficult 
 language- in the world, with astonishing rapidity. 
 They took hold of jin entirely unfamiliar course of 
 study with remarkable aptitude, and throughout 
 the entire course, in primary, academic, collegiate, 
 and technical schools held rank among the upper 
 half of the students in their classes. Their deport- 
 ment was simply unexceptionable. The author 
 spent twenty-five days with fifty-one of these stu- 
 dents upon crowded steamships crossing the Pacific, 
 and he believes it impossible that the same num- 
 ber of American boys and young men from tlie 
 same schools which these had attended could have 
 been kept together so long and under circum- 
 stances so disagreeable, and shown such unquali- 
 fied right to be regarded as gentlemen. They 
 were under no surveillance, had no tutor or person 
 of any authority in their company. Each was ab- 
 solutely his own master. The president of one of 
 the largest of American universities recently in- 
 formed the author that five Chinese students — 
 three boys and two girls — had been examined for 
 admission into the collegiate department of the 
 institution under his charge. None of them had 
 had any preliminarj'- education in this country, 
 but had fitted for college in Cliinese mission 
 schools. Among several hundred candidates for 
 admission, the Chinese boys took the highest per- 
 centage in Latin, and the girls in mathematics. 
 
 Much has been written and many estimates made 
 regarding the average of illiteracy in China. All
 
 250 THE REAL CHINAMAN'. 
 
 such estimates are purely conjectural, and hence 
 worthless. There are no data available upon which 
 to base reliable calculations. It can only be said 
 in a general way that the proportion of persons 
 who can read and write varies greatly in different 
 sections of the country. As might be expected, 
 education is far more general in large towns and 
 cities than in rural and remote districts. There is 
 only one fact bearing upon this question which is 
 fixed and certain. Female education is unknown. 
 There are, practically, no schools for girls in the 
 empire, excepting the mere handful supported and 
 controlled by foreign missionaries. Hence, in any 
 estimate of illiteracy, the entire female population, 
 or fifty per cent of the whole, may at once be 
 placed among the absolutely uneducated. 
 
 The government exercises no control or super- 
 intendence over the schools. It cannot be deter- 
 mined that the course of study was originally fixed 
 by the authorities, as, if such was the case, it was 
 done so long ago that the official record of the 
 fact is lost in the obscurity of ages. All that can 
 be asserted is that an Emperor of the Tang Dy- 
 nasty, some nineteen hundred years ago, inaugu- 
 rated the present plan of preparing and selecting 
 officials by means of study and literary examina- 
 tions. The system has not been essentially modi- 
 fied since. Like nearly all things else Chinese, it 
 appears to have sprung into full form at once, and 
 to have known neither growth nor decay. 
 
 There are certain classes of persons in the empire 
 who, while not debarred from attending school, 
 are fcjrbidden, with their descendants to the fourth
 
 EDUCATIOy AXD IJTERAJ'i'RF.. 251 
 
 generation, from competing at the examinations, 
 and, as a consequence, are incapable of holding 
 oflfice. These are persons convicted of crime 
 against the State, tlieatrical performers and prosti- 
 tutes, lictors, or persons who inflict punishment 
 for crime, undertakers, barbers, table waiters, and 
 body servants. A serious punishment is inflicted 
 upon any person not more than four generations 
 removed from either of these interdicted classes, 
 who may have the temerity to enter his name upt)n 
 the lists of candidates at any examination. 
 
 Wiiile some of these discriminations may seem 
 plausible, even though unjust, others must strike 
 the reader as utterly absurd and amusing. Thus 
 a cook or any of his descendants may take a de- 
 gree, and the path to the highest civil honors in the 
 State lies broad and open before hini ; but that path 
 is closed and barred to him who places the food, pre- 
 pared by the cook, upon the table, and to his chil- 
 dren down to the fourth generation. The artist 
 who dresses and decorates the head, with his pos- 
 terity, is placed under the ban. The gentleman 
 who attends to the feet — the chiropodist — and his 
 offspring are more fortunate, and may rise to any 
 height of power and influence. Grotesque as these 
 discriminations may appear, the Chinese, who sel- 
 dom lack a reason for anything, have one here 
 which is entirely satisfactory to them, however it 
 may appear to Western minds. They insist that 
 the butler and valet pursue menial callings, since 
 each must stand in the presence of his master and 
 in the performance of his duties. The cook is not 
 thus degraded. Again, they maintain that since a
 
 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 barber must stand and his customer sit while the 
 former plies the razor or shears, hence he follows 
 a servile calling, and is not fit for literary or official 
 
 ■' ^-^^.J^ 
 
 A illlNl-.SK srri>l''NI. 
 
 honors. " But," tliey add triumphantly, " the 
 toe-nail artist must sit when performing his duties, 
 even in the presence and upon the person of the 
 PImperor himself."
 
 EDUCATION AND LITERATURE. 253 
 
 There are three regular degrees conferred upon 
 successful candidates at the government examina- 
 tions. The lowest gives the title of " Hsiu Tsai," 
 or " Budding Talent ;" the second, of " Chu 
 jr-n," or " Promoted Man ;" and the third, that 
 of "Chin Shih," or "Entered Scholar." They 
 are sometimes compared with the Western titles; 
 A.B., A.M., and LL.D., but there is absolutely no 
 basis on which to establish any parallelism. There 
 are three examinations which must be successfully 
 passed in order to secure the lowest degree. These 
 are held in the district and departmental cities. 
 The examination for the second degree is held at 
 the capital of the province, and occurs annually. 
 That for the highest degree occurs but once each 
 three years, and is held only at Peking. The ex- 
 aminations must be taken in order, and no candi- 
 date can enter for a higher degree until he has won 
 the lower. He may try as often as he pleases, 
 spend his entire life, as many do, in attempts and 
 failures to secure the coveted degrees ; but he 
 must take them in order, and is never debarred ex- 
 cept for violation of some of the more serious of 
 the numerous regulations under which the exami- 
 nations are conducted. 
 
 The receipt of the lowest degree entitles its owner 
 to be entered upon the list of prospective office- 
 holders ; but if he has ambition for anything better 
 than a subordinate position, he continues his studies 
 either alone or under a coaching tutor, and seeks 
 the highest literary honors before making any 
 effort to enter political life. As has been said, 
 many thus strive for a lifetime, and fail at last.
 
 254 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 In every triennial examination at Peking — that at 
 which the final honor is conferred — there is always 
 a considerable sprinkling of old men. In one, the 
 lists of which I saw, there was one candidate who 
 was eighty-six years of age, and six who were more 
 than seventy. In another, a candidate died in the 
 course of the examination from fatigue and ner- 
 vous excitement. He was eightj'-eight years old. 
 A posthumous degree was conferred upon him as 
 a reward of persistency and virtuous ambition. 
 By a special act of grace the Emperor confers the 
 highest degree upon all candidates of good moral 
 character who have won each degree but the last, 
 and have tried for that and failed each three years 
 until they have reached the age of ninety ! It is 
 hardly necessary to add that a degree thus con- 
 ferred carries with it no right to an official appoint- 
 ment. 
 
 A lengthy article could be written upon the pro- 
 visions and regulations under which these examina- 
 tions are held. The most absolute care has been 
 taken to render cheating, collusion, or any sort of 
 trickery impossible. There are three separate sets 
 of government ofificials connected with every ex- 
 amination. Before the first — the Board of Regis- 
 tration, as it may be called — the candidate is re- 
 quired to present himself, satisfy them that he is 
 entitled to enter for that particular degree, and 
 furnish them with a sealed envelope which contains 
 a fictitious name which he has chosen, and which 
 he is to endorse upon the essays written by him in 
 the course of the test. When the candidates pre- 
 sent themselves at the appointed hour to the sec-
 
 EDUCATIOjV A/VD T.TTERATURE. 255 
 
 ond board — that having direct charge of the test 
 — each one is subjected to a close personal search, 
 and if a scrap of paper containing so much as a 
 single written character is found upon him, he is 
 at once bundled out of the enclosure in disgrace, 
 and forever debarred from competition. Each is 
 shut into a tiny cell, taking with him a few sheets 
 of paper, writing apparatus, and a theme for an 
 essay, which is handed him at the last moment. 
 He is allowed to remain there about twenty hours, 
 and is constantly watched by sentries to see that 
 he has no communication with any other person. 
 The preparation of several of these upon various 
 themes, all selected from the Confucian classics, 
 constitutes the examination. The papers are hand- 
 ed to a third body — the Board of Criticism — who 
 make out the list of successful candidates by the 
 fictitious names found upon each paper. Of course 
 the writers are identified by means of the sealed 
 envelopes deposited with the registrars. Theoreti- 
 cally the names of unsuccessful candidates are 
 never known. 
 
 The examinations are conducted in the same 
 manner and upon the same classes of topics for 
 all the degrees. That they are rigid and exacting 
 is shown by the fact that the average number who 
 present themselves for each triennial examination 
 at Peking is not far from fourteen thousand, while 
 the average of those who pass is below fifteen hun- 
 dred. As a rule, not more than ten per cent of 
 those entered at any test secure the coveted de- 
 gree. It is said that the scrutiny of the papers is 
 mainly devoted to penmanship, literary style, or-
 
 256 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 thodox Confucian ideas, and that any evidence of 
 independent thought is sure of condemnation. 
 They are certainly very severe upon the first two 
 points named. A single error of the pen will 
 cause a man to lose his degree, while a clear, con- 
 cise style, combined with beautiful penmanship, is 
 certain to bring high praise and rapid official pro- 
 motion. 
 
 Where so many fail, it is not surprising that suc- 
 cess is a matter of great congratulation to the for- 
 tunate man and his family. Feasts are given and 
 much rejoicing is heard. After an examination 
 large bills are placarded all about the streets of 
 the city or town by successful candidates or their 
 friends resident there, of one of which the follow- 
 ing is a free translation : " Good news ! Mr. Wang 
 has the happiness to announce that his son, Ah Sin, 
 by the grace of His Imperial Majesty, has been 
 named number 169 in the list of successful can- 
 didates for the degree of Master of Arts at the re- 
 cent provincial examinations. Rejoice ! Rejoice !" 
 And every one of Mr. Wang's and Ah Sin's friends 
 go and call. 
 
 Little need be said here regarding Chinese lit- 
 erature. It is more voluminous than valuable, 
 though, when the factor of false religious thought 
 and superstitious idea is eliminated from it, the 
 better portion of Chinese writing is found to rest 
 upon a high moral basis. But those Oriental au- 
 thors, however intellectual and talented they may 
 have been, appear to have preferred to take some 
 small theme and elaborate it to an infinitesimal 
 point rather than to select a great subject and de-
 
 EDUCATION AXD LITERATURE. 259 
 
 velop it grandly. Their power lies in minuteness 
 of detail. This is not surprising when it is remem- 
 bered that the writings of Confucius form at once 
 the centre, model, and type of all Chinese literary 
 effort, and that any departure from these discredits 
 and injures the author. There are a few excellent 
 Chinese novels, but the bulk of their works of 
 fiction is trash, and trasli of the kind that is sup- 
 pressed by the police. 
 
 Still the Chinese mind is full of wise and admira- 
 ble sayings, quotations from their ancient and mod- 
 ern authors. Some of these bear a striking resem- 
 blance to familiar sayings in our own tongue. 
 
 Here are three or four of them : 
 
 ** The poor are happy, the rich have many 
 cares." 
 
 " If your children are wise, money will corrupt 
 them ; if foolish, it will magnify their vices." 
 
 " Keep down the temper of the moment, and 
 you will save a hundred days' anxiety." 
 
 " To the man who cares not for the future, 
 troubles are nigh at hand." 
 
 " Consider the past and you will know the fu- 
 ture." 
 
 " Riches spring from small beginnings, and pov- 
 erty is the result of unthriftiness. " 
 
 " Nine women in ten are jealous." 
 
 " Backbiting goes on from morning until night, 
 but be deaf and it will die." 
 
 " Be friends with an official, and you will get 
 poor ; with a merchant, and you will get rich ; 
 with a priest, and you will get a subscription- 
 book."
 
 26o 
 
 THE REAL CHINA MA iV. 
 
 " There is no permanent feast on earth." 
 
 " The wise man is not talkative, nor the talker 
 
 a sage." 
 
 " Study is the liighest pursuit a man can follow." 
 If your fields lie fallow, your granaries will be 
 
 empty ; if your books are not studied, your children 
 
 will be fools."
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 ETIQUKTTK AND CEREMONY, 
 
 Among the Chinese, etiquette may 
 cUmost be said to tiike precedence of 
 morality in importance. So far as 
 rigid adherence to outward forms may 
 go, as a nation they excel all others 
 in the art of politeness. It is true that 
 much of it has degenerated into mere manner- 
 ism. Still, the form survives, and makes up by 
 the minuteness of detail and the rigidity of exac- 
 tion what it lacks in spirit. The observance of 
 these forms is practically universal. Cart-drivers 
 on the streets, ragged and foul beggars by the 
 roadside, country rustics and city fops — all alike 
 practice and exact compliance with them. One 
 may call a Chinese a liar, and, under many circum- 
 stances, he will accept the epithet as a well-deserv- 
 ed compliment ; but either accuse him of a breach 
 of etiquette or neglect any of the proper forms of 
 speech due to liim, and a quarrel will be the imme- 
 diate result. 
 
 As might be expected in such an ancient country 
 as China, the system of etiquette is not only thor- 
 oughly crystalized and fixed, it is also very com- 
 plicated and tedious in its forms. It enters into 
 the most minute detail of action and speech. To
 
 262 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 a large extent it deprives conversation of all fresh- 
 ness and originality by dictating a set form through 
 which it may flow, and so covers simple questions 
 between friends with a varnish or lacquer of ex- 
 travagant adjectives and bombastic nouns, with 
 fulsome compliment and intense but meaningless 
 self-depreciation, as to render it absurd and silly. 
 Take, for example, the following short dialogue, 
 which is an exact translation of the invariable con- 
 versation which occurs between two gentlemen, or 
 beggars for that matter, who meet for the first 
 time : 
 
 " What is your honorable cognomen ?" 
 
 " The trifling name of your little brother is 
 Wang. ' * 
 
 " What is your exalted longevity ?" 
 
 " Very smalL Only a miserable seventy years." 
 
 " Where is your noble mansion ?" 
 
 " The mud hovel in which I hide is in such or 
 such a place." 
 
 " How many precious parcels [sons] have you ?" 
 
 " Only so many stupid little pigs." 
 
 Of course in such a dialogue the various facts 
 sought, all very simple, are given correctly ; but 
 the formula of each question must be carefully 
 preserved in this stilted fashion, and to omit a 
 single flattering or depreciatory word would be 
 noted as a breach of politeness, and hence as offen- 
 sive. It is true that the spirit underlying such a 
 conversation — that of deference — is good. It is 
 that which leads each to prefer the other to himself ; 
 but there is reason to believe that tlie spirit is gone 
 from it, and that it is a mere shell of language, a
 
 E7-JQr/:'J'JE AXD CEREMONY. 263 
 
 form of words. Were this not the case, by such 
 gross exaggeration it is made ridiculous and inane. 
 
 Among equals in China it is a gross breach of 
 politeness to call a person by his given name. 
 There are no exceptions to this rule. Between the 
 closest friends or the nearest relatives the rule 
 holds good. A Chinese would be angry if his twin 
 brother addressed him in that manner. It must 
 either be " Venerable elder brother" or " Vener- 
 able younger brother," as the facts warrant, and 
 sons of the same mother have more than once been 
 known to fall instantly to blows for no other reason 
 than violation of this rule. They have a curious 
 way of distinguishing the various sons in a family 
 by numbers. Thus the eldest son of Mr. Jones 
 would be called " Big Jones ;" the second, " Jones 
 number 2 ;" the third, "Jones number 3." Per- 
 sons of equal rank or station, outside the family, 
 may either address them by the titles mentioned 
 above, or as " Venerable Big Jones" or " Vener- 
 able Jones number 2," as the case may be. This 
 is esteemed quite the correct thing ; but to address 
 either of them by the family and given name 
 would certainly give offense. 
 
 On the other hand, their superiors are expected, 
 or at least are at liberty to use the given name, 
 and are esteemed ignorant or boorish if they use 
 the same form of address that their equals would 
 employ ; and this fact furnishes the explanation to 
 the peculiar etiquette mentioned above. The use 
 of the given name is an offensive assumption of 
 superiority. These minute discriminations, end- 
 less in number, often cause foreign residents to
 
 264 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 make absurd blunders in addressing their Chinese 
 servants. One gentleman brought upon himself 
 the ridicule of all the natives about him by invaria- 
 bly calling his porter by the title " Venerable elder 
 brother." Knowing not a word of the language, 
 and hearing other servants address the man by 
 that title, he had, very naturally, concluded that 
 it was his name. A member of a legation in Pe- 
 king was seriously complained of because he had 
 addressed the head of the Chinese Foreign Office 
 as " Prince Kung" instead of " Venerable Prince," 
 as he should have done according to Chinese 
 etiquette. These blunders are sometimes more 
 unfortunate than amusing, since by the Oriental, 
 to whom the form of politeness is often more im- 
 portant than the substance, the foreigners who 
 make them are regarded as boors and barbarians, 
 and thus they may at times seriously affect impor- 
 tant business. 
 
 Generally speaking, questions of etiquette have 
 played a far more important part in the foreign 
 relations of China, have produced more friction 
 and misunderstanding than can readily be con- 
 ceived. Chinese officials are exceedingly tenacious 
 of their dignity. They have a minute and exact 
 line of ceremony of intercourse among their own 
 officials of varying ranks, and they strongly object, 
 and perhaps naturally, to the payment of higher 
 honors to a foreign official than would be conceded 
 to a native of the same or corresponding rank. 
 Thus, by way of illustration, the main entrance to 
 every government office in China is provided with 
 three doors : a central large door of two leaves and
 
 ETIQUETTE A XL) CEKKMOXY. 267 
 
 a smaller one of a single leaf on either side. It is 
 a fixed rule among native officials that the great 
 central door can only be opened for the passage 
 of a person equal in rank with the head of the 
 office. The consular representatives at Canton 
 for many years had no interviews with the viceroy 
 there because he declined to open the central door 
 to his palace, and they declined to enter at either 
 side door. Confessedly they were far below him 
 in personal rank, but they insisted that it would 
 be an affront to the dignity of the governments 
 which they represented if they entered by any other 
 than the great door. The question developed 
 much vexatious diplomatic discussion, interfered 
 for years with the transaction of business, but was 
 finally disposed of by the concession of the point 
 by the viceroy. 
 
 In a similar way the question of audience, about 
 which so much has been written, and which was 
 finally settled in 1873, after a discussion carried on 
 almost daily for six months, was not a question of 
 seeing or not seeing the Emperor. It was purely 
 a question of ceremony. The Chinese never raised 
 an objection to the interview, but they insisted 
 that it should take place in accordance with the 
 native ritual. From time immemorial, whenever 
 a high officer of State, not excepting princes of 
 the imperial lineage, have audience with the Em- 
 peror, they are required to perform what is known 
 in the " Code of Etiquette" as the " three pros- 
 trations and nine knockings," commonly called 
 the "ketow." It consists in going upon the 
 hands and knees three times, and each time knock-
 
 268 THE REAL CIIIXAMAN. 
 
 ing the forehead upon the floor three times. Not 
 a very dignified or elegant ceremony, it must be 
 confessed. Tlie foreign representatives rightly re- 
 fused to submit to this requirement of Chinese 
 etiquette, upon tlie ground that it was alike de- 
 grading and unbecoming, since they were the offi- 
 cial representatives of governments equal in rank 
 and position with that of China, and also because 
 it required of them the performance of an act to 
 which they had never been asked to submit when 
 presented to the rulers of their native lands. They 
 would not render a greater act of subjection to a 
 foreign ruler than they had ever granted to their 
 own. The Chinese insisted upon the " ketow" 
 for nearly six months, and only yielded upon being 
 shown, by the American Minister, instructions 
 directing him, in case the Chinese persisted, to 
 break off relations and await further instructions, 
 " which would be in accordance with the gravity 
 of the situation." Then His Imperial Majesty 
 gracefully yielded the point, and contented himself 
 with the receipt of three profound bows. Two 
 other minor points caused some discussion. The 
 Chinese objected to the sword which forms an 
 ornamental but useless part of every diplomatic 
 uniform, since it is a most serious breiich of pro- 
 priety for a person bearing a wcajwn of any sort 
 to enter the imperial presence. They also success- 
 fully attacked one of the representatives, who was 
 practically Ijlind when deprived of his eye-glasses. 
 They appealed to his well-known good nature, and 
 begged him to leave his spectacles at home, since 
 it was grossly improper, iwnw a Chinese stand-
 
 ETIQ_UKTTli AXD CKRKMONY. 269 
 
 point, for any person to appear before the \i\r\- 
 peror wearing them. He consented, and only 
 found his way into the audience chamber by cling- 
 ing to the arm of a colleague. 
 
 The etiquette surrounding the receipt and con- 
 sumption of a cup of tea, simple as it may appear, 
 has caused more than one foreigner to stumble, 
 and, in one instance at least, produced vexatious 
 results. An American gentleman had occasion to 
 call upon a Chinese official about a matter of busi- 
 ness, when it was very desirable that a good im- 
 pression should be made. He was received with 
 the most formal and ceremonious courtesy. Tea 
 was brought in at once by a servant, and the offi- 
 cial, taking a cup in both hands, raised it to his 
 head, and tlien presented it in a most deferential 
 manner to tlie foreigner. The Chinese host then 
 seated himself, and a second cup was placed before 
 him by the attendant. The guest, being thirsty 
 after a long and dusty ride, seized his cup and 
 swallowed the contents at a single draught. The 
 manner of the Chinese official changed instantly, 
 and from being most scrupulously polite and cour- 
 teous, he became rude and insolent, would hear 
 nothing about the business in hand, and the for- 
 eigner was sent out of his office almost as though 
 he were a servant. 
 
 The guest had been guilty of two breaches of 
 etiquette, both trivial in Western eyes, yet serious 
 from a Chinese standpoint. In the first place, he 
 should have received the cup of tea standing, when 
 brought to liim by his host. What was far more 
 Important, lie should not have touched his tea, no
 
 2 70 THE REAL CI/IXAMAX. 
 
 matter how thirsty he might have been, until his 
 host urged him to do so and set him the example, 
 and he should have made that the signal of his de- 
 parture. This part of the etiquette of tea-drinking 
 is peculiar. Had the caller been equal or superior 
 in rank to the host, he might have quenched his 
 thirst whenever he saw fit ; but being inferior to 
 him, he was at liberty, according to Chinese rule, 
 only to follow the motions of the host, who, on his 
 part, would touch the tea when he wished the in- 
 terview to end. 
 
 The official had never before met a foreigner, 
 and hence was peculiarly on the watch to discover 
 whether, from the Chinese point of view, he was a 
 gentleman. The episode of the tea proved that he 
 was not, and in consequence his visit was resented 
 as an unwarranted and inexcusable intrusion. 
 
 It is impossible to overestimate the importance 
 which the Chinese, of all ranks and classes, attach 
 to these trifling details of etiquette, which indeed 
 they consider as being essential parts of propriety 
 of demeanor. It is easy to ignore them, but un- 
 wise if a person wishes to stand well with these 
 Orientals, and doubly so if he desires to transact 
 any important business with tliem. They measure 
 the quality of a man by these apparently minute 
 and trifling standards. They are taught to every 
 school-boy, are as old as the nation, and as fixed 
 as the hills. We may laugh at them, find tliem 
 tedious and absurd, as, indeed, many of them are ; 
 yet they are an inherent part of the nation, and 
 conformity to them, except in such as involve un- 
 dignified or degrading acts, is essential to good-
 
 ETIQUETTE AXD CEREMO.VV. 271 
 
 fellowship with tlie Chinese and to the successful 
 accomplishment of any business to wliich they are 
 parties. A volume mit^ht be written dedicated ex- 
 clusively to illustrations of the evil results wliich 
 have come from ignorant or willful violation of 
 these rules of propriety, which, as has been said, 
 are esteemed of equal or superior authority to the 
 code of morals. 
 
 I once had occasion to dispatch a consul of the 
 United States to the capital of an interior province 
 to adjust some public business with the governor. 
 The gentleman sent was the proud owner of a 
 Mexican saddle, with its numberless and volumi- 
 nous accoutrements. It may have been an article 
 of beauty upon a large horse, but spread over the 
 average undersized Chinese pony, it left little of 
 the unfortunate animal visible except his begin- 
 ning and end, his nose and tail. Tlius fitted out, 
 and provided with Mexican boots and spurs, a 
 sombrero and a heavy riding-whip, the consular 
 representative of the government of the United 
 States reached the city of his destination in safety, 
 having excited the animosity of every dog en route 
 and the awe and superstitious fear of every celes- 
 tial, who saw in him a new specimen of the iinimal 
 creation. Half an hour after his arrival at the 
 provincial capital, with a jiromptness highly com- 
 mendable, if speed liad been tlie only object de- 
 sired, with the dust of a week's journey still upon 
 his person, he sprang upon his pou}', rattled over 
 the paved streets of tlie city to the gate of the gov- 
 ernor's palace, threw his bridle-rein, or his lariat, 
 whichever it should be called, over a post, banged
 
 2 -12 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 upon the great gate with the butt of his whip, and 
 thrust his card into the hand of the dignified but 
 astonislied attendant. The governor refused to 
 see him. He waited a week in the city, denied an 
 opportunit}' to discuss his business with any offi- 
 cial, and then set out on his return. He was 
 mobbed in a city upon his homeward journey. 
 Tlie business entrusted to him was very seriously 
 complicated by this unseemly performance, and 
 dragged on the wearisome round of diplomatic 
 correspondence for three more years. In order to 
 complete the illustration, and to show the impor- 
 tance of conformity to Chinese etiquette, it ought 
 to be added that at the end of that time I visited 
 the same city upon the same errand. I was re- 
 ceived with excessive courtesy and kindness by the 
 same governor, and concluded the business to my 
 entire satisfaction at the first interview. The con- 
 sul could have done the same had he shown a rea- 
 sonable degree of deference to Chinese rules of 
 propriety. The difference hiy not in the men, but 
 in the manner. 
 
 Whenever two Cliinese acquaintances, cither 
 riding on horseback, being driven in carts, or car- 
 ried in chairs, meet, each is expected to dismount 
 and miike his salutations to tlie other. Each must 
 hasten to be first upon tlie ground, eacli must urge 
 the other not to alight, and each must insist that 
 the other shall be the first to remount. And they 
 do all tliis with tlie greatest apparent eagerness 
 and sincerity ; yet it is only rigmarole and play- 
 acting. Each knows whicli should descend and 
 which remount first, and woe betide the other if
 
 ETIQ ('/■:■/'■/'/■: A. YD c/:A'K.]/o.yy. 273 
 
 he yields to his friend's show of entreeity, and 
 either fails to dismount first, or returns to his car- 
 riage while his superior in years or station is stand- 
 in<^ in the street. His acquaintances would fail to 
 recognize him, and his reputation as a gentleman 
 would be gone forever. 
 
 Yet there is much human nature left in the cul- 
 tivated Chinese, and with them, while a tedious 
 or inconvenient rule of polite conduct is never 
 openly ignored or violated, it is almost uniformly 
 evaded ; and the direct result of tliis cumbersome 
 ceremonial is that Cliinese gentlemen, wlio never 
 walk, always fail to see their friends uj)on the 
 street. If in carts or chairs, the curtains are 
 closely drawn ; if on horseback, they are always 
 looking in another direction, I have known a 
 Cliinese official to bow most politely to me as we 
 met, and at the same moment to fail to recognize 
 an Oriental friend and associate, whom he had 
 met almost daily for forty years. They were close 
 friends ; but while he was at liberty to follow the 
 foreign style of recognition with me, he was bound 
 by another and more laborious code of etiquette 
 regarding the other. Hence the difference in his 
 conduct toward us. 
 
 There is the same tedious and absurd formula to 
 be observed whenever several persons enter or 
 leave a room together, or seat tliemselves at table. 
 Each knows perfectly his own place, fixed by his 
 rank relative to the others, and hence he knows 
 which will finally enter or leave the room first, 
 have the higher seat at the taijie, and take and 
 leave that first. The rule is absolute and univer-
 
 2 74 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 Siilly understood, and no deviation from it would 
 be tolerated ; yet each one crowds back and urges 
 another to take the precedence, and the friendly 
 struggle must last for several minutes before the 
 various members of the party accept their proper 
 places. If time were of any importance in China, 
 as it never appears to be, the loss involved in these 
 fictitious contests would amount to something 
 quite serious. Take, as a specimen, a visit to the 
 Chinese Foreign Office. I went there one day to 
 speak with the ministers. Two were present when 
 I arrived, and received me. We struggled about 
 the doorway before we could enter in proper order, 
 and again at the circular table, at which business 
 is always transacted, before we could take our 
 seats. During the interview, five other ministers 
 came in, one at a time. With each arrival those 
 already present hurried outside the door and strug- 
 gled in again, and then quarreled kindly for the 
 lowest seat at the table. A considerable amount 
 of time was wasted in this farce, and the order of 
 the persons about the table was changed five times 
 in two hours. 
 
 Much of the falsehood to which the Chinese as 
 a nation are said to be addicted is a result of the 
 demands of etiquette. A plain, frank " no" is the 
 height of discourtesy. Refusal or denial of any 
 sort must be softened and toned down into an ex- 
 pression of regretted inability. Unwillingness to 
 grant a favor is never shown. In place of it there 
 is seen a chastened feeling of sorrow that unavoid- 
 able but quite imaginary circumstances render it 
 wholly impossible. Centuries of practice in this
 
 ETIQUETTE AXD CEREMONY. 275 
 
 form of evasion liave made the Chinese match- 
 lessly fertile in tlie invention and development of 
 excuses. It is rare, indeed, that one is caught at 
 
 THE DONKEY. 
 
 a loss for a bit of artfully embroidered fiction with 
 which to hide an unwelcome truth. 
 
 The same remark holds good in regard to all
 
 a ^6 THE REAL CI/IA^AMAN'. 
 
 manner of disagreeable subjects of conversation. 
 They must be avoided. Any number of winding 
 paths may be made around them, but none must 
 ever go directly through. A Chinese very seldom 
 will make an intentionally disagreeable or offen- 
 sive remark. If he is dissatisfied he does not say 
 so, but leaves the person to infer the dissatisfac- 
 tion and to search out the cause, while he is listen- 
 ing to some tale which has been invented with a 
 view to accomplish the same purpose which an ex- 
 pression of the bare fact would secure, but by more 
 pleasant means. If a Chinese servant is not pleased 
 with his work or wages, he never complains. That 
 would be excessively rude ; but he at once kills 
 his father or stretches his brother upon a bed of 
 sickness, all in his imagination, and announces 
 the sorrowful tidings as a cause for leaving ser- 
 vice. If his master is a foreigner, and not well 
 versed in Oriental ways, he probably accepts the 
 statement as true, condoles with him, mucli to his 
 disgust, and, perhaps, loses a valuable servant ; 
 but if he is accustomed to the Chinese methods of 
 indirection, beyond expressing regret at the mis- 
 fortune recited to him, he takes no action until he 
 has learned from another employe the actual cause 
 of dissatisfaction. Then he deals with it accord- 
 ing to circumstances, always, however, keeping up 
 the farce of the fictitious aflliction. To bring the 
 negotiation down to the basis of fact would cause 
 his servant to " lose face," to be put to shame, 
 and then no increase of wages would persuade 
 him to remain. 
 
 The extent to which the Chinese will gcj in order
 
 kTiqUETTK A.\'j:> CERKAlONY. 277 
 
 to cover up disagreeable truths, and the efforts 
 they will make to disguise their real feelings and 
 motives, are simply astonishing. This is equally 
 true of all grades and classes. The highest officials 
 or the most cultivated scholars are not more expert 
 or uniform in their olx-diencc to the exactions of 
 this rule of propriety tlian the meanest coolie. If 
 they are obliged to announce an event unwelcome 
 t(3 them, it is done in a tone and manner meant to 
 carry the impression that they regard it as utterly 
 trivial and unimportant. I have known a Chinese 
 to mention the death of his only son with a laugh, 
 as though it was of not the least consequence ; 
 yet, as a matter of fact, it was in his opinion the 
 greatest misfortune that could have befallen him. 
 Only in private, and to his closest friends, would 
 his sense of dignity and the demands of etiquette 
 allow him to uncover his heart and slu)w his actual 
 grief. 
 
 This hai)it of repression and misrepresentation 
 of feeling has given the outside world the idea 
 that, as a nation, the Chinese are stolid, indiffer- 
 ent, and lacking in nerves. Such is not the case. 
 They are keenly sensitive, proud, and passionate. 
 As might be expected, when, under a provocation 
 too great for endurance, they give way to their 
 feelings, the result, whether it be grief or anger, 
 is as extreme and unre^isonable, from our stand- 
 point, as their ordinary suppression of emotion is 
 absurd and unnecessary. It is dillicult, perhaps 
 unfair, to judge them in this regard, since their 
 standard is absolutely different from ours. They 
 have covered themselves with a lacquer of courtesy
 
 278 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 and etiquette so thick and highly polished that 
 the real fibre of character lying underneath is dis- 
 covered only upon very rare occasions. Half the 
 world believes that the lacquer covers nothing 
 valuable, or containing the finer qualities of man- 
 hood. The fact that his intense exhibitions of 
 passion are called out by what are to us trivial 
 causes, only serves to intensify this mistaken opin- 
 ion. A Chinaman is grossly insulted, and he 
 laughs. A moment later some one carelessly treads 
 upon his toe, and, in an instant, he gives way to 
 an uncontrollable fit of rage. His anger seems 
 childish, and his reception of the insult unmanly. 
 While both of these adjectives may be justly ap- 
 plied in particular cases, it is, after all, only when 
 we know the laws of self-restraint, the canons of 
 propriety, which hav^e governed him for ages, and 
 judge him by those laws, that we can reach any 
 fair estimate of him as a man to-day. 
 
 Nothing so confuses and disconcerts the Chinese 
 as the blunt and outspoken way in which Western 
 people, especially Americans and the English, ex- 
 press their opinions, or seek to accomplish any de- 
 sired object. They cover up their designs as 
 closely and as modestly as we do our bodies. We 
 expose ours naked ; and if, in intercourse with 
 them, we are often puzzled to the point of exasper- 
 ation to discover what it is, so carefully wrapped 
 and concealed, that tlic}' actually desire, they, on 
 the other hand, are not infrequently misled by 
 our frankness, and give us what we wish, chuckling 
 with the mistaken thought that it was not what we 
 wanted, but that our apparently naked purpose
 
 ETIQUETTE AND CEREMONY. 279 
 
 was, after all, only a cloak covering another and 
 quite different design. 
 
 The following incident illustrates another phase 
 or bremch of the complicated system of Chinese 
 etiquette. In January, 1881, the butler employed 
 by the writer, and who had been in his service 
 some ten years, informed him that he must leave 
 his position. Upon being asked for his reason, he 
 stated that on the previous evening he had gone 
 out after dinner, and had thoughtlessly locked the 
 room which he and the fireman occupied together, 
 and had taken the key with him. The fireman 
 was also out, and, upon coming home about 
 eleven o'clock, was, of course, unable to enter his 
 room. 
 
 He could easily have gone into a room with 
 another servant for the night, but refused to 
 do so, because very angry, and going to the res- 
 idence of the butler's family near by, he had 
 worked himself into a violent passion, raved and 
 stormed up and down the street, calling the 
 butler's wife and mother all manner of evil 
 names, and had effectually roused the entire neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
 Having performed in this manner for about an 
 hour, he returned to the Legation and went to bed 
 with another servant, as he ought to have done in 
 the first place. The butler added that the offense 
 was so serious and so public, that he had decided 
 to " take the law" to the fireman, and as it would 
 Qot be decent to take such a step when both re- 
 mained in the master's service, he must beg to be 
 released.
 
 28o THE REAL CI/IXAMA.V. 
 
 I pointed out to him, in the first place, that no 
 Chinese court could take notice of his complaint 
 so long as the fireman remained in the service of 
 an officer of the Legation ; hence, it would be 
 idle for him to give up his position unless the fire- 
 man were also discharged. In the second place, 
 I pointed out to him that to take the matter into 
 the courts would only serve to let five hundred 
 people hear the bad words used, when not more 
 than fifty people had heard them in the first instance. 
 I promised to look into the matter carefully, and 
 if the facts were as stated, to see that the fireman 
 was properly dealt with. I urged the butler not 
 to leave his place, and not to take any further steps 
 until I had made an effort to settle the ditificulty. 
 To this, after some hesitation, the butler con- 
 sented. 
 
 The writer then sent for the fireman, and asked 
 for his side of the story. Strangely enough, it 
 agreed entirely with what the butler had said. 
 The fireman admitted that he weis entirely in the 
 wrong, said he was very much ashamed of what 
 he had done, and promised to submit to any pun- 
 ishment which the master saw fit to inflict. He 
 was spoken to very sharply about his offense, and 
 told plainly that had he been a foreigner, his words, 
 if used toward the family of another foreigner, 
 would possibly have cost him his life. 
 
 After allowing the matter to rest two or three 
 days, the butler and fireman were summoned before 
 the master and their fellow-servants. The master 
 recited the facts, which botli admitted to be cor- 
 rect.
 
 ETIQUETTE AND CEREMONY. 283 
 
 The fireman then confessed his fault, and went 
 upon his hands and knees before the butler, knock- 
 ing his head three times upon the floor by way of 
 begging pardon. He was then sent with the butler 
 and another servant to the butler's house, where 
 he made a. similar apology to the wife and mother 
 whom he had insulted. This was the Chinese way 
 of settlement, and with it the writer supposed the 
 trouble had ended, as the injured party said he 
 was satisfied. 
 
 But two days later the butler came to his master 
 again to say that while he and his family were 
 satisfied with the apology made, yet the insulting 
 words had been shouted in the ears of all the 
 neighbors, who knew nothing about the fireman's 
 confession and apology, and that the neighbors 
 were already looking askance at him, and, to quote 
 the exact words used by him, " unless he could 
 find some way to repaint his front door" — that is, 
 find some way to make the fireman's apology pub- 
 lic — the neighbors would refuse to have an)^thing 
 to do with him, and might drive him out of the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 The writer admitted the force of this point, and, 
 after a moment's thought, said : 
 
 " Well, I think you are right ; and I will fine tlie 
 fireman half a month's wages, and pay you the 
 money. Then you can tell your neighbors thiit I 
 have done so. Here is the money, and 1 will take 
 it out of his wages at the end of the month." 
 
 Three tlollars were handed to the butler. 
 
 But he refused tliem, saying : " Oh, no ; I can't 
 do that. It wt)uld onlv make the matter worse.
 
 2 84 THE REAL CHINAMAy. 
 
 The neighbors would then say that I had allowed 
 my family to be insulted for three dollars." 
 
 " Well, what shall I do with the case ?" 
 
 The butler replied : " Give the money to one of 
 the other servants, telling him what it is for, and 
 he will know how to use it." 
 
 This was done. The money was given to the 
 groom, who was told to use it in whatever manner 
 he thought best, to satisfy the neighbors of the 
 butler that the fireman had made due reparation. 
 The writer presumed that the money would be 
 spent for a feast, to which the neighbors would be 
 invited, and at which the fireman Avould publicly 
 repeat his confession and apology. 
 
 But three days later the groom came to his mas- 
 ter and said : 
 
 " I have attended to that matter which you gave 
 me. I paid a dollar and forty cents for paint, and 
 a dollar for a painter. The work has been done, 
 and I have sixty cents left. What shall I do with 
 it?" 
 
 The writer, astonished beyond measure, said : 
 
 " I don't understand you. What do you mean 
 about paint and a painter ?" 
 
 The groom explained then that the butler luul 
 meant literally what he had said about " repaint- 
 ing his front door ;'' that it was a custom in Peking 
 that, in similar cases of insult to the members of a 
 family, the front door should be freslily painted 
 at the expense of the person guilty of the insult, 
 as a public act of apology and retraction. Hence, 
 he had caused the butler's door to have; a new coat 
 ( f paint, and thus public opinion w;is satistied and
 
 K TIQ i '/■: TTK AXD CEREMOX Y 
 
 285 
 
 the insulted dignity iind wounded lioncjr of the 
 butler were avenged ! 
 
 The groom was directed to return the sixty cents, 
 cash balance in hand, to the fireman.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MERCHANTS AND TRICKS OF TRADE, 
 
 While there is no such thing as 
 caste in China, and few class dis- 
 tinctions more fixed and permanent 
 than those current in the United 
 States, the entire population is di- 
 vided and ranked in public estima- 
 tion according to the occupation of 
 each individual. This gradation is 
 expressed in the phrase, " Shih, 
 nung, kung, shang, " which every Chinese uses, 
 and which expresses exactly the comparative esti- 
 mation in which the various callings are held, be- 
 ginning witli the highest and grading downward. 
 Translated into English, it runs thus : " Scholars, 
 farmers, artisans or laborers, merchants." 
 
 This arrangement is not so unphilosophic as 
 may at first sight appear. Scholars rank highest 
 in the social order, since the brain is better than 
 the body. The producer comes next in honor, 
 because he alone is able to develop something out 
 of nothing, or, at least, approximates as closely to 
 that result as any human being can. The artisan 
 or laborer ranks third, since he, by hand and brain, 
 transforms a less valuable article into one of more 
 general utility and adapted to a higher range of
 
 Af/':A'(7/.INTS AND 'J'RICk'S OF TRAnE. 2<S7 
 
 service. The merchant stands at the bottom of 
 the list, for the reason that he neither produces 
 nor increases the inherent vahie or usefulness of 
 anything. He trades upon the labor and the needs 
 of others. He is simply a medium of interchange. 
 Right or wrong, this is the Chinese view ; and the 
 four words are used in a broad generic sense. 
 The first comprises all educated men, thus embrac- 
 ing all officials ; the second embraces all tillers of 
 the soil ; the third, all forms of skilled and un- 
 skilled labor ; and tlie fourth, the entire and im- 
 mense variety of commercial occupations. 
 
 However Chinese merchants may be catalogued 
 in the social grades of tlieir native land, they have 
 no occasion to fear the results of comparison with 
 their fellows in other parts of the world. They 
 are shrewd, sagacious, enterprising, and, as a 
 class, upright and honoral)le. They realize fully 
 the importance of a reputation for commercial in- 
 tegrity, and scrupulously maintain their credit. 
 As has been justly said by a recent English writer, 
 " The merchants and traders of China have gained 
 the respect and won the admiration of all those 
 who have been brought into contact with them." 
 A few years since the manager of the largest for- 
 eign banking house in the most important commer- 
 cial centre of the East said, in speaking upon this 
 point : "I have referred to the high commercial 
 standing of the foreign community. The Chinese 
 are in no way behind us in that respect — in fact, 
 I know of no people in the world I would sooner 
 trust than tlie Chinese merchant and banker. I 
 may mention that for tlie last twenty-five years
 
 288 THE REAL CHINAMAN: 
 
 the bank has been doing a very large business 
 with Chinese, amounting to hundreds of millions 
 of taels (ounces of silver bullion), and we have 
 never yet met with a defaulting Chinaman." And 
 it ought to be added that no man in either the 
 Eastern or Western world was so well qualified to 
 express an opinion upon this point as the gentle- 
 man whose remarks are here quoted. 
 
 Many causes have combined to pn)duce this de- 
 sirable result, one of which deserves especial men- 
 tion. There are three " settling days" in each 
 year for all classes of business transactions in the 
 Chinese Empire. Accounts may, by mutual con- 
 sent, be carried past two of these, and sometimes 
 are ; but on New Year's Day every transaction 
 must be put into exact shape, the books balanced, 
 and all debts paid. That this rule is on rare occa- 
 sions violated or compromised is doubtless true, 
 but not to any such extent as to render it less than 
 certain and imperative. In certain sections of the 
 empire money-lenders are required, if called upon 
 to do so, to rebate a certain percentage of the in- 
 terest accrued and payable if the debt is paid within 
 the last ten days of the old year ; l)ut this concession 
 is rarely claimed by any except the very poor, since 
 it lessens their ability to secure loans in the future. 
 Custom demands thati any respectable Chinese 
 having business out of doors after dark should 
 carry a lantern, no matter if there be a full moon 
 shining in a cloudless sky. As a result of this 
 peculiar t)adge of respectability, the streets of any 
 Chinese city present a curious sight upon New 
 Year's morning. Well-dressed Orientals may be
 
 MERCHANTS AND TRICKS OF TRADE. 291 
 
 seen hurrying about in the full blaze of the morn- 
 ing sun, carrying a bundle of bills in one hand 
 and a lighted lantern in the other. To them it is 
 theoretically New Year's h2vc. Only when the 
 last bill is paid or collected does the first day of 
 the new year dawn. Then the lantern is extin- 
 guished, and they recognize the existence of the 
 sunlight. 
 
 The Chinese are what may be termed natural 
 merchants. Possessing the commercial instinct in 
 a high degree, they are close, shrewd, and far- 
 sighted in their bargains, untiring in their efforts 
 to get the better of those with whom they deal, 
 and fertile to an iistonisliing degree in the " tricks 
 of the trade." They understand as well as the 
 sharpest Western merchant that a positive advan- 
 tage may sometimes be gained by selling an article 
 at less than its actual cost. A Chinese who kept a 
 small hotel in Peking — and he was a merchant in 
 the native sense of the word — once applied this 
 principle in a very peculiar fashion. He asked at 
 the United States Legation for information whether, 
 according to our laws, he could eject a non-paying 
 American boarder from his establishment, and 
 hold the debtor's baggage as security for his bill. 
 He was informed that he could, but advised, if he 
 decided to dismiss his unprofitable guest, to allow 
 him to take his property away, since it could not 
 be worth more than " two dollars and a half." 
 
 " That may be true," he replied, " but two dol- 
 lars and a half is more than nothing. The fact is," 
 he added, " when this man first came to me I 
 agreed to let him have board and lodging for a
 
 < 
 
 292 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 dollar a day. He remained six months with me 
 upon those terms, but paid me nothing. Then 
 I reduced the price to half a dollar a day in order 
 that I might not lose so much by him." This inci- 
 dent is given rather as an Oriental vagary than as 
 an example of shrewdness. 
 
 There are some very essential differences be- 
 tween the Chinese retail merchant or trader, as 
 our British friends would call him, and his confrere 
 in the Western world. The foreign merchant 
 studies the cost of his merchandise, its quality, 
 the condition of the market, whether supply is in 
 excess of demand or the reverse, and fixes his price 
 accordingly. 
 
 The Chinese trader studies all these points with 
 equal care, but he also studies each customer. 
 He looks him over from head to foot, makes a 
 rapid but generally accurate estimate as to his 
 character, his closeness or generous hand in mak- 
 ing a bargain, his knowledge or ignorance of the 
 ruling price, and only when he has completed his 
 studies upon these points does he inform the pur- 
 chaser what tlie desired article will cost him. Tlius 
 the price depends quite as much upon the buyer 
 as upon the actual value of the merchandise. A 
 foreigner always pays more for any given article 
 than a Chinese, and a foreigner who cannot speak 
 the native tongue pays for his ignorance at the 
 rate of from ten to a liundred per cent increase in 
 the cost of anything he may purchase. 
 
 I stood once at a fair or market in tlie edge of 
 a circle of Chinese who were buying bunches of 
 violets from a wrinkled old Chinese gardener. He
 
 MERCHAXr^ AXD TRICK'S OF l-RADK. 293 
 
 was (lisposiiii^ of liis flowers (juitt; rapidly at luo 
 pieces of cash. After watching tlie scene for a 
 few moments, I made my way through the crowd 
 and asked the ohi man the price of his violets. 
 "Thirty-six pieces of cash a bunch," he replied, 
 without hesitating an instant. " You robber," 
 said I, " here you have been selling them for two 
 pieces of cash to these people, and now you wish 
 me to pay eighteen times as much !" "Oh," he 
 replied, " you speak Chinese, do you ? I did not 
 know that. Then you can have them for two cash, 
 the same as though you were a Chinaman." And 
 he joined heartily in the laugh of the crowd at 
 the failure of his little scheme to secure an ex- 
 orbitant price. 
 
 One peculiar result of this study of a customer 
 is seen in the fact that if a person enters ei store in 
 China, and, after examining several articles, asks 
 the price of any one of them, unless it is positively 
 known that he has spoken to but one clerk, no 
 answer will be made by him to whom the question 
 is put until every other clerk has been asked if he 
 has named a price for the article in question to 
 the gentleman. If, as very rarely happens, this 
 important precaution is neglected, the sums named 
 by different clerks will almost invariably be unlike, 
 thus showing that they fail to agree in their esti- 
 mates of the customer. 
 
 I once caught two clerks napping in this respect, 
 with the amazing result that the first asked five 
 dollars for an article barely worth two, and five 
 minutes later the second gravely declared that the 
 firm had decided to sell that particular piece of
 
 294 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 merchandise at a loss, and hence only charged 
 fifteen dollars for it ! 
 
 Another illustration of the fact that the Chinese 
 grade their charges according to their customers 
 would be found in an examination of the prices 
 paid by foreigners for such common articles of 
 food as beef and mutton. Every one pays more 
 than his Chinese neighbors — probably no two pay 
 exactly the same price ; or if the nominal rate per 
 pound is the same, the number of ounces given for 
 a pound will not be quite the same. The solitary 
 barber in Peking who understands the foreign 
 mode of hair-dressing charges a foreign minister 
 half a dollar ; a secretary of legation, twenty five 
 cents ; and an unofficial foreigner, ten cents. The 
 native pays about half a cent for the same service. 
 Water-carriers and scavengers grade their monthly 
 bills in a similar manner. 
 
 In passing through Japan I once had occasion to 
 employ a Chinese chiropodist residing there. His 
 charges, so he declared, were five cents to his fel- 
 low-Chinese, ten cents to an ordinary Japanese, 
 and half a dollar to all other foreigners. In the 
 course of the inevitable conversation which took 
 place, the Chinaman said : 
 
 " I hear that our Chinese minister came to this 
 hotel to-day. Do you know whom he came to see ?". 
 
 " Oh, yes," said I ; "he came to call upon me." 
 
 " Then you must be an official," said the China- 
 man, " otherwise he would not have visited you." 
 
 I modestly admitted such to be the fact. The 
 conversation then drifted to other subjects. When 
 his labors were concluded he demanded a dollar in
 
 MERCHANTS AND TRICKS OF TRADE. 295 
 
 payment, in the face of the assertion that his regu- 
 lar charge to all foreigners, excepting Japanese, 
 was fifty cents ; and he enforced his claim by this 
 argument in " pidgin English" : " Sposey that 
 China minister come see you, you b'long all same 
 he. You b'long same he, you makey pay one dol- 
 lar all same. That b'long ploper." 
 
 An essential feature of every Chinese commer- 
 cial transaction, no miitter how great or how triv- 
 ial, is the dicker. A bargain is, in fact, an intel- 
 lectual duel, entered upon with all the eager watch- 
 fulness and determination of the knights of old. 
 What eloquence, what vigor of expression, what 
 freedom of gesture one may there see expended 
 over the price or tveight of two pounds of cabbage, 
 a cold boiled sweet potato, or a cucumber ! Quo- 
 tations from the Confucian classics, impassioned 
 appeals to bystanders, arguments based on justice 
 and reason, and irreverent and uncomplimentary 
 allusions to the ancestors of the other man — all 
 these come in play over a question which involves 
 less than one cent. 
 
 Each is seeking an advantage over the other, 
 and frequently each is successful, the buyer pay- 
 ing less than the usual price and the seller balanc- 
 ing the account by giving him short weight or 
 measure. Hence each is happy. At a fish market, 
 for example, one may see a dignified, well-dressed 
 Chinese gentleman duly armed with steelyards, 
 the bar being graded to weigh three different sorts 
 of pounds, none exact, but each too heavy, en- 
 gaged in a bargain for a carp. The fish has been 
 selected from a dozen which were swimming about
 
 296 THE REAL CHEXAMAN. 
 
 in a tub of water. It has been weighed by the 
 buyer's steelyards, which are too heavy, and by 
 the fisherman's, which are too light. The first 
 display of eloquence arises over the weight, there 
 being, in a fair-sized fish, probably a difference of 
 a pound and a half between them. This is finally 
 adjusted by mutual compromise, subject, however, 
 to revision if they cannot otherwise agree upon 
 the price per pound ; and over this point the war 
 of words is renewed, and rages more furiously than 
 ever. Each has much to say about his concession 
 upon the point of the weight. Each assures the 
 other that it is really not a matter of any conse- 
 quence ; that the few cash involved would not cause 
 him to waste a moment or a single word, but that 
 the broad and eternal principles of justice are at 
 stake, and that he is their champion and defender ; 
 and appeals to righteousness, truth, and Heaven 
 fly thick and fast, until, each hoarse and out of 
 breath, some further compromise is reached, and 
 the bargain concluded. 
 
 And, after all, it is only fair to say that it is 
 more for the pleasure of the argument, the exer- 
 cise of the lungs and vocal organs, and, above all, 
 the satisfaction of having won a concession — it is 
 more for these than for the sum involved that 
 these contests are waged. A Chinese merchant 
 would be bitterly disappointed, and consider that 
 he had been defrauded of his just rights, if the 
 price named by him for any commodity were ac- 
 cepted without demur or debate ; and any China- 
 man who accepted the first ])rice would be held as 
 a fool bv his countrvmen.
 
 Mj-:/^:c//.iX7-s .1X1) /'A'/ca's of tkade. 297 
 
 It is consulered a breacli of good manners to 
 ask the price of an article witliout the intention of 
 making a purchase, and tMiually discourtef)us, upon 
 hearing the price named, to pass on without argu- 
 ment or remonstrance concerning it. 
 
 " What is the price of that piece of felt ?" asked 
 a passer-by of a merchant selling squares of the 
 article upon the street. 
 
 " Twenty-five tiao," replied the vendor. 
 
 " Ugh !" said the inquirer, who then walked 
 away. The mercliant gazed after him for a few 
 moments, and then suddenly broke out into a tor- 
 rent of most abusive language, calling the would-be 
 buyer and all his relatives by the foulest and most 
 offensive names. The obj.ect of this abuse walked 
 more slowly, then stopped, hesitated, turned about, 
 came back, and by the time he reached the felt 
 merchant he, too, was in furious anger, and a bat- 
 tle seemed imminent. 
 
 What do you mean by calling nic names ?' he 
 demanded. 
 
 " What do you mean l)y asking the price of my 
 goods and then going away witiiout a civil word ?" 
 retorted the merchant. 
 
 " What made you ask me such a price ?" 
 
 " Well, what if I did ? You are a good Son of 
 Han, and you ought to know that we don't do 
 business in any such way. If all men acted as you 
 did, no bargains would ever be made. You should 
 have expostulated with me, and then we would 
 have discussed the matter together. That is the 
 only proper wa}'. You know well enough that 
 the price first named never means anything."
 
 298 THE REAL CHINAMAN: 
 
 Thereupon the passer-by duly expostulated, the 
 pair were shortly in an excited discussion over the 
 proper value of the square of felt, and in a short 
 time a bargain was concluded. 
 
 It may be said, in passing, that this love for a 
 dicker is most deeply rooted in the Chinese char- 
 acter, and shows itself everywhere and at all times. 
 Whether it is a coolie buying a cucumber or the 
 heads of the government negotiating a treaty of 
 vast importance, less is offered than will eventually 
 be given, and more" is demanded than is seriously 
 expected or desired. Room is left upon both sides 
 for a concession ; and a certain amount of this by- 
 play invariably precedes the serious and practical 
 part of the transaction. The Emperor Kang Hsi 
 declared in the sacred edicts that the word "jang, " 
 meaning to yield, to concede, to compromise, was 
 the most important word in the Chinese language, 
 since it lies at tlie root of all harmonious and 
 kindly relations. The entire nation appears to 
 have absorbed this idea, and to put it into practice 
 in every phase and act of life. 
 
 The lack of laws, or of their enforcement for 
 standard weights and measures, goes far to open 
 opportunities for discussion as well as to allow 
 the practice of tricks and deceptions in every line 
 of business. Steelyards are regularly made and 
 sold in the markets, having two sets of pounds 
 measured upon them, one to be used in buying 
 and the other in selling. In various grades of 
 cotton-wool a varying number of ounces to the 
 pound is used. For the coarse grades the pur- 
 chaser receives sixteen ounces, or a full pound ; for
 
 MERCIIAXTS A. YD TA'/CA'S OF TRADE. 299 
 
 medium qualities, only twelve ounces, while in the 
 very finest he receives twenty-one ounces to the 
 pound. Cloths of all sorts are sold by the foot. 
 The merchant invariably uses one foot when he 
 buys, and a shorter one when he sells. The foot 
 used for cotton goods is longer than that for 
 woolen, which in turn exceeds that used in meas- 
 uring silk. Such variations, regularly established 
 by custom, necessarily counterbalance themselves, 
 since the price must be adjusted to suit the vary- 
 ing measure. Beyond serving as traps to catch 
 the unwary, and furnishing opportunities for dis- 
 cussion, they serve no purpose whatever. No 
 Chinaman has ever been discovered who could ex- 
 plain their origin or give any reason for their con- 
 tinuance save that one — which is all-powerful with 
 the Oriental — their antiquity. 
 
 To the Western mind these irregularities are as 
 absurd and irrational as many other customs which 
 exist in the Chinese Empire, and which are undis- 
 turbed and reverenced in spite of their inconven- 
 ience solely because the}^ date back to the begin- 
 ning of time. I was surprised in driving into an 
 inn-yard one day, in the western part of China, to 
 find several large stacks of second-hand cart-axles 
 scattered about. Inquiry as to their use developed 
 the fact that the gauge of the road changed at 
 that particular spot, being six inches wider west 
 of the inn than to the east of it. There was abso- 
 lutely no reason for the change in the topography 
 of the country or in any other condition of travel. 
 Yet there stood the inexplicable and unreasonable 
 fact that every wheeled vehicle, having come, per-
 
 300 THE REAL CIIIXA2E4A\ 
 
 haps, hundreds of miles upon the great imperial 
 highway, must, upon entering that insignificant 
 yard in a village of not fifty houses, exchange its 
 axle for one of broader or narrower gauge, accord- 
 ing as it was proceeding east or west ; and the 
 only explanation possible to be given was that 
 " carts always had changed axles at that inn." 
 The preservation of the antique is a ruling passion, 
 and a reason above reason and logic in the Chinese 
 mind. 
 
 It is evident that, with a varying system of 
 weights and measures, and a currency that is flexi- 
 ble and elastic rather than definite in value, a large 
 element of uncertainly must exist in all forms of 
 business. Exact bookkeeping is an impossibility, 
 and the merchant can only reach an approximate 
 estimate of his gains or losses in any particular 
 transaction or in his trade for a given period. But 
 the Chinaman is more of a philosopher than a 
 mathematician. He delights in broad generalities 
 rather than in accurate statements, and so long as 
 he is moderately prosperous in his enterprises, the 
 large increase of the speculative element thrown 
 into them by the peculiar features mentioned only 
 add charm and fascination to his calling. A bar- 
 gain ceases to be i\ dull, prosaic transfer of one 
 commodity in exchange for another. It is always 
 a contest of wits and often a battle royal, in which 
 the keenest mind wins the victory. A Chinese will 
 insist that any dolt can measure off so many exact 
 lengths of cloth and receive for them a specified 
 number of pieces of silver. To him such a trans- 
 action is dull, stupid, and flat, requiring neither
 
 MKRCHAXTS AXD TRfCk'S OF TRADE. 301 
 
 art, tact, nor bkill. Then he adds — and in this he 
 is right — that only a man can carry a bargain to a 
 successful conclusion in his country. 
 
 One interesting feature in tlie commercial world 
 of China is the co-operative sj'stem which is in 
 universal operation. Every member of an estab- 
 lishment, from the senior partner down to the boy 
 who furnishes each customer witli the inevitable 
 cup of tea, or who sweeps the floor and runs on 
 errands, has his share of the profits. The per- 
 centages are carefully graded to correspond with 
 the position of the various clerks and employes ; 
 but every one has a personal interest in enlarging 
 the business and in increasing its prosperity. As 
 a rule, partners and their subordinates live to- 
 gether, generally in the store or ofifice, eat at a 
 common table, and thus form one family. No 
 argument is needed to demonstrate the advantages 
 of such a system. The entire staff is bound to- 
 gether by a common purpose, which affects each 
 directly and personally. Distracting or unfriendly 
 influences are either destroyed or reduced to harm- 
 less proportions. 
 
 The co-operative principle has another and pecul- 
 iar form of application in China, which, though 
 less desirable, is of equally general application. 
 No chapter upon the commercial side of Chinese 
 life would be complete if it failed to describe the 
 most serious of all " tricks of trade," that com- 
 monly known among foreigners resident there as 
 " the squeeze." 
 
 The Chinese " squeeze" is not exactly the em- 
 brace of affection nor the close grasp of hands
 
 302 THE REAL CITIXAMAX. 
 
 joined in friendship. It is purely a business term, 
 and refers to a pressure exerted upon money in 
 any form by the fingers of every man through 
 whose hands it may pass, but to whom it does not 
 belong — a pressure which causes a portion of the 
 coin to remain in his possession. It is a recog- 
 nized but unallowed commission. Tlie sufferers 
 by the system call it stealing, while those who 
 profit by it regard the sums gained as entirely 
 legitimate perquisites, which they are fully entitled 
 to receive. 
 
 The Chinese in their dealings with each other 
 all suffer from and all practice it. The system is 
 as old as the empire, and is said to owe its origin 
 to an ancient custom under which household ser- 
 vants were paid no regular wages, but received 
 food, one suit of clothes each 3'ear, and a sum of 
 money provided in the following manner. From 
 the price of every article of whatever sort used in 
 the family, the porter at the gate retained one 
 piece of cash in every fifty. Three times a year 
 the amount thus secured was distributed among 
 the servants in proportion to their positions in the 
 service of the family. As all Chinese houses are 
 built in an enclosure surrounded by a high wall 
 with but a single entrance, at which a i)oiter is in 
 attendance at all hours, enforcement of such a 
 practice would be easy, and the man at the gate 
 would naturally act as collector. It is easy for 
 him to know all the purchases made in the " com- 
 jiouiul," as it is called ; and if a merchant declined 
 to pay the squeeze demanded, he would be refused 
 admission. Whether this explanatjiui is correct or
 
 ':^-K\ 
 
 CHINESE SERVANTS.
 
 MERCHANTS AND TRICKS OF TRADE. 305 
 
 not cannot be positively asserted. It is, however, 
 a fact that, in paying or receiving cash, one gives 
 or gets only forty-nine pieces for each nominal 
 fifty, unless a special agreement for " full cash" 
 has been made. 
 
 There is no incongruity in bringing Chinese ser- 
 vants into a chapter devoted to commercial affairs. 
 They make nearly all the purchases in every estab- 
 lishment with which they are connected, and are 
 merchants within the native meaning of that broad 
 and elastic word. As a class they are probably 
 the best in the world. They are quiet, prompt, 
 faithful, and attentive. They seldom complain of 
 late hours or hard work. They have a keen sense 
 of responsibility, and are exceptionally honest. 
 Table linen, silverware, jewelry, valuable bric-a- 
 brac, and money may be left in their charge with 
 confidence that every piece will be faithfully ac- 
 counted for. In fifteen years, with a large estab- 
 lishment of servants, I never had occasion to charge 
 one with theft, or with the loss through careless- 
 ness of any article. It is commonly and truly re- 
 marked that ladies who have lived in China are 
 spoiled for housekeeping at home by the excellent 
 service to which they have become accustomed. 
 
 But honest and faithful as they are in every 
 other respect, Chinese servants will squeeze, and 
 much of their diligence and promptness, much of 
 their good nature and patience under hard work 
 and late hours, is due to this practice. They never 
 complain of much company, extra labor, or any 
 unusual demands upon them. They simply 
 " charge it in the J^ill." They have, on the other
 
 3o6 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 hand, been known to leave situations because the 
 family lived too quietly and had too small an ac- 
 count at the grocer's. With all the varying expres- 
 sions of jollity, frankness, or stupidity seen upon 
 their faces, they are shrewd students of human 
 nature. Each could tell if he would all the foibles 
 and weaknesses of his master, and especially how 
 far he may safely be bled, and at what point the 
 squeezing process must stop. 
 
 The system of " the squeeze" is universal. All 
 sorts of devices and expedients have been resorted 
 to by foreign residents in China to put an end to 
 it, and all have failed. If one does his own market- 
 ing and makes all his purchases in person, he soon 
 discovers that his servants have quietly followed 
 him up and levied a commission upon every person 
 with whom he has dealt. He also discovers that, 
 allowing nothing for the time spent, his servants 
 can buy more cheaply than he, even when their 
 squeeze is added to the proper market price. Thus 
 he has lost not only time, but money, in his effort 
 at reform. 
 
 If he takes pains to inform himself upon the 
 proper prices of all articles used, the servant de- 
 ceives him in weight or measure, charging for five 
 pounds when he has bought only four. Then 
 perhaps the master provides himself with Chinese 
 scales and measures by which he tests every pur- 
 chase. He is then happy until he discovers that 
 his scales weigh only fourteen ounces to tlie pound, 
 and that he is consequenth' paying a squeeze of 
 twelve and one half per cent. Determined not t-) 
 be beaten, tlie employer procures a pair of steel-
 
 J/EKC//AXTS AXD Th'/CXS OF TRADE. 307 
 
 yards llial have been tested and found to be full 
 weight. Tliese are kept under lock and key, and 
 at last he is confident that the last chance for de- 
 ception has vanislied. Again he is mistaken. He 
 has, it is true, weighed his poimd of mutton, found 
 it full weight, and for it paid only the market 
 price ; but after this was done, and the master had 
 turned away, the cook cut off a good-sized pi(;ce 
 from the joint, which he returned to the butcher, 
 and for whicli lie received payment. 
 
 An acquaintance who had tried all the expedi- 
 ents given here, and who yet was suspicious that, 
 in some inconceivable way, he was still being cir- 
 cumvented, summoned his cook to the dining-room 
 one day and called his attention to the extremely 
 small size of the joint of roast mutton upon the 
 table. To this the cook, grave and dignified, with 
 the utmost deference in tone and manner, replied : 
 " Your Excellency is quite correct. The joint 
 does seem small ; but your Excellency should not 
 fail to make allowance for the fact that, in a dry 
 climate like Peking, mutton shrinks much more in 
 roasting than in your honorable country." 
 
 The dismissal of a servant found guilty of this 
 practice rarely serves any good purpose. It may, 
 indeed, be found later that his successor is worse, 
 not merely making his own modest profit, but pay- 
 ing a pension to the man discharged. In one of 
 the Legations in Peking years ago the minister de- 
 termined to suppress the practice, and dismissed 
 the porter, or gatekeeper, who, as has been said, is 
 an important actor in the system. Long after- 
 ward it was discovered that the other servants,
 
 3o8 THE REAL CHEVAMA.V. 
 
 headed by the new gatekeeper, had regularly paid 
 the discharged servant his usual wages up to the 
 day of his death, and had then buried him with 
 much ceremony and expense. They had a book- 
 keeper and an account at a bank where all 
 " squeezes" were deposited. Dividends were de- 
 clared three times each year. 
 
 Arguments with the Chinese to prove the essen- 
 tial immorality of this custom are useless. It is a 
 time-honored institution, which may be kept within 
 moderate proportions by a little care and watchful- 
 ness, but which cannot be wholly suppressed, at 
 least until the entire fabric of Oriental character 
 is changed. Chinese suffer from the practice far 
 more than foreigners, since the latter would never 
 hesitate to make proper inquiries as to prices of 
 articles in use ; but the dignity which surrounds a 
 Chinese official allows the exercise of no such 
 precautions. Hence he is simply a helpless vic- 
 tim, to be squeezed without limit or fear of re- 
 sults. 
 
 It may be said that the many devices and tricks 
 which have been hinted at rather than described 
 as characteristic of Chinese merchants are not at 
 all consonant with the high character for integrity 
 and upright dealing given them in the earlier part 
 of the chapter. An answer to such a criticism is 
 easily found. Human nature is much the same the 
 world over. China is not alone in the possession 
 of a large class of men who are scrupulous in the 
 performance of every business obligation — men 
 who may safely be trusted to any extent, whose 
 word has all tlie validity of an oath, and yet who
 
 MERCHAXTS AXD TA'/Ck'S OF TNAIIK. 309 
 
 will not hesitate to resort to the pettiest tricks and 
 schemes to increase tlieir profits. Men are often 
 great in great affairs, but fearfully small and mean 
 in little thin<js.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE POOR IN CHINA 
 
 The opinion, sometimes expressed, 
 that the Chinese are a very rich people 
 is quite erroneous. While the empire 
 is rich in undeveloped resources and 
 capabilities, the masses of the popu- 
 lation are poor vi^ith a poverty of 
 which we have only a faint conception. The 
 average of wealth to each person in the United 
 States is many times greater than in China. The 
 word " poverty" does not convey at all the same 
 idea in the two countries. In America a man 
 is called poor who has a family to support upon 
 earnings of, perhaps, two dollars a day. In Chi- 
 na such a man would be looked upon as living in 
 the very lap of luxury. Here, when the labor- 
 ing man cannot afford meat twice daily, he and 
 those dependent upon him are supposed to be 
 upon the verge of hardship and destitution. Meat 
 is cheaper there than here, yet a laborer there, re- 
 ceiving what he considers good wages, cannot 
 afford to eat a pound in a month. Poverty here 
 means a narrov/ and limited supply of luxuries. 
 There it means actual hunger and nakedness, if 
 not starvation within sight. 
 
 Of course in China, as in all otlier lands, there
 
 THE POOR IX CHINA. 31 1 
 
 is a close and necessary connection between the 
 cost of food and the price of labor. If wiiges are 
 very low, the cost of such articles of food as are 
 absolutely necessary to sustain life and furnish 
 strengtii to do a given amount of work must be 
 correspondingly reduced, or death from starvation 
 is the immediate result. The Chinese do not live 
 poorly because they desire nothing better. Like 
 all other men, tliey live as well as their earnings or 
 resources will allow. A wealthy Chinaman dresses 
 as expensively, though in a different style, has a 
 table as lu.xurious, though his taste may be es- 
 teemed peculiar, and generally maintains the same 
 elegance as his Western brother. There, as every- 
 where else, the income must control the expense. 
 Skilled laborers in China earn from ten to thirty 
 cents in silver eacli day, the average coming below 
 twenty. Unskilled laborers, or men who, in the 
 expressive language of the country, " sell their 
 strength," earn from five to ten cents each day, 
 the average not rising above seven. This meagre 
 sum, in a country where biichelors and old maids 
 are unknown, must furnish the entire support of 
 the man himself, and from one to four or five other 
 persons. I have often hired a special messenger 
 to travel a distance of thirty miles for eight cents. 
 Boatmen are regularly hired to track a native boat, 
 pulling it against the stream from Tientsin to 
 Tungcho, a distance of one liundred and twenty- 
 five miles, for fifty cents and their food one way. 
 They make the return journey on foot — that is, 
 they travel a greater distance than that separating 
 Boston and New York for fifty cents in silver and
 
 312 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 one half of their food. Countless multitudes of 
 Chinese earn a living by gathering offal on country 
 roads, and it is nothing unusual to see a lively 
 scrimmage between twelve or fifteen men and boys 
 for the possession of a heap of horse-manure. 
 This may serve to indicate what poverty means in 
 China. To an immense number of the people, fail- 
 ure of work for one day carries with it, as an in- 
 evitable sequence, failure of any sort of food for 
 the same period. 
 
 From the prices paid for labor, as given above, 
 it is not a difficult matter to estimate the extremely 
 narrow limits within which the daily expenditures 
 of a majority of the four hundred millions of Chi- 
 nese must be kept. The difficulty lies in discover- 
 ing how they live at all. Their daily food consists 
 of rice steamed, cabbage boiled in an unnecessarily 
 large quantity of water, and for a relish, a few bits 
 of raw turnip, pickled in a strong brine. When 
 disposed to be very extravagant and reckless of 
 expense, they buy a cash worth of dried water- 
 melon seeds, and munch them as a dessert. In 
 summer they eat raw cucumbers, skin, prickles, 
 and all, raw carrots or turnips, or, perhaps, a 
 melon, not wasting the rind. In certain parts of 
 the empire wheat flour, oat, or cornmeal takes the 
 place of rice. With this variation the description 
 answers with entire accuracy for the food consump- 
 tion of the great masses of the Chinese people — not 
 for the beggars or the very poor, but for the com- 
 mon classes of industrious workingmen and their 
 families, whether in the great cities or in the rural 
 districts.
 
 THE POOR IX ClflXA. 313 
 
 1 once had occasion to spend the night at a Bud- 
 dhist temple beautifully located in a ravine of the 
 mountains, about a hundred miles east of Peking. 
 It was in October, and the priests, though accus- 
 tomed to entertain Chinese guests, had no other 
 articles of food than raw chestnuts and delicious 
 water from a spring which bubbled from the rocks 
 within the temple enclosure. When I commented 
 upon this meagre fare, the aged abbot in charge 
 seemed surprised, and said : " But you don't know 
 how fine our chestnuts are. They are not at all 
 like ordinary fruit. Eat a pound of them and 
 drink plenty of water, and your hunger will be sat- 
 isfied." Doubtless it would. 
 
 Upon another occasion, while traveling in the 
 western part of China with some companions, we 
 reached, late one Saturday night, an inn where 
 the only article of food obtainable was wheat flour 
 moistened with water, then rolled flat and thin, 
 cut into strips, and thrown for a moment into a 
 kettle of boiling water. It was tasteless, tough as 
 leather, and as indigestible. The inn furnished 
 nothing else, nor could anything be procured in 
 the village, though after long search an obliging 
 native managed to provide us with some eggs. 
 The next day our servant discovered a Chinese 
 peddling meat upon the street, and, in spite of the 
 day, bought some, as we were really suffering from 
 hunger. It was already cooked, so he hastily 
 warmed up a large portion, which was placed be- 
 fore us. The flavor was so suspicious, that a sin- 
 gle mouthful satisfied our hunger and aroused our 
 curiosity. The servant said, in answer to ques-
 
 314 THE REAL CIIEVAMA.V. 
 
 tions, that, while he had not uiquired, he judged 
 the meat to be beef, and that he had purchased it 
 from an old man with a wheelbarrow load only a 
 short distance from the inn. We went in search 
 of the old man, whom we soon found, and with 
 whom the following conversation took place : 
 
 " How do you do. Venerable Sir ? How is trade 
 to-day?" 
 
 " Excellent. I had a heaping wheelbarrow load, 
 and have sold all but the few pieces that you see." 
 
 " What sort of meat are you selling ? Beef ?" 
 
 " No, it is not beef. I am a farmer living in a 
 village a few miles away. I had an old mule that 
 was taken sick and died. I could not afford to 
 lose it, so I sold the hide and cooked the carcass, 
 and have sold every pound of it except what you 
 see here." 
 
 Upon another occasion, while traveling in the 
 northwestern part of China with two companions, 
 we lost our way. We had walked on ahead of our 
 drivers, mules, baggage, and servants, had taker 
 the wrong road, and in consequence found our- 
 selves at dark on a bitter cold day in December in 
 an inn without our own attendants, and, as we 
 found upon counting and combining our resources, 
 with exactly one hundred pieces of cash — al)()ut 
 ten cents — with which to pay for food and lodging. 
 The inn was better than the averiige, and was sup- 
 plied with all the varieties of food which the region 
 afforded. We had supper, lodging, and break- 
 fast, as good in every respect as the inn or the vil- 
 lage could have furnished at any price, paid our 
 bill, with the usual gratuity to the servants, and
 
 THE POOR JX CHIXA. 315 
 
 had twelve cash remaining in hand. Six meals 
 and lodging for three men were furnished for less 
 than nine cents ! But, to tell the truth, the bill 
 of fare was wholesome, but simple in the extreme. 
 It consisted of Irish potatoes — tliere called earth 
 eggs — boiled and eaten with salt, and oatmeal 
 gruel seasoned in the same way. The bed was the 
 usual brick platform covered with a clean mat and 
 made warm by a good coal fire. There was no 
 bedding, as travelers in China always carry their 
 own, and ours was with our mules ; but arctic 
 overshoes did duty for a pillow, and for the rest, 
 we slept as we had traveled, and suffered no in- 
 convenience or discomfort. 
 
 These three incidents of personal experience 
 occurred at points distant many hundred miles 
 each from the other, in different sections of the 
 Cliinese Empire. Two of them were met with in 
 villages upon great highways of travel, where thou- 
 sands pass and are entertained every month, Tliey 
 are given to enforce the statements made regard- 
 ing the extremely simple habits and narrow range 
 of food of the poorer but comparatively well-to-do 
 classes among the Chinese. It is plain and frugal 
 in the extreme, and even then must be bought 
 meal by meal, as it is needed. An ordinary Chi- 
 nese workingman would be far less likely to be 
 able to purchase supplies for his family in any 
 quantity, than a man of the same rank of life here 
 would be to purchase several thousand dollars' 
 worth of bonds or otlier securities. One of the 
 most common sights in any city or town of China 
 is that of a boy or girl with three or four pieces of
 
 3l6 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 cash in one hand and a couple of dishes of coarse 
 pottery in the other going, with great dignity and 
 importance, to purchase the materials for the family 
 dinner, and the fuel with which to cook it. The 
 bill of expenditures would run somewhat as fol- 
 lows : Charcoal, one cash ; rice or flour, two cash ; 
 cabbage, one cash. On occasions of prosperity an- 
 other cash would be spent for oil or soy, and on 
 very rare and exceptional festive days still another 
 would be invested in purchasing about a teaspoon- 
 ful of weak alcohol, to be drank hot with the meal. 
 
 The clothing of the Chinese poor is as simple as 
 the diet. In the summer it consists of shoes and 
 stockings, both made of cotton cloth, and trousers, 
 unlined, of the same material. A jacket or blouse, 
 also of cotton, completes his apparel, but this gar- 
 ment is frequently omitted if the temperature will 
 permit. 
 
 In spring and autumn the poor man wears, if he 
 can afford them, garments of the same material 
 lined. In the winter, in a climate like that of New 
 York or Philadelphia, his trousers are wadded, 
 and his upper garment is either also wadded, or is 
 a sheepskin tanned with the wool on, which is 
 worn next the skin. He has no knowledge of un- 
 derclothing of any sort. One suit answers for all 
 hours, since he sleeps in the same clothes in which 
 he Avorks. Three dollars would be more than 
 sufficient to buy the entire summer wardrobe of 
 what may be called a comfortably poor Chinese — 
 that is, one at work on steady wages. Twenty-five 
 or thirty cents would be more than the value of 
 the rags worn by the very poor. One peculiarity
 
 THJ'. rOOK IX CHINA. 319 
 
 of the beggar class is worth}^ of notice. They in- 
 variably wear shoes. The usual covering of a 
 lusty Chinese beggar is a bowl with which to re- 
 ceive donations of food or money, and a pair of 
 shoes. He may not have the bowl, but his feet 
 are always covered. A barefooted Chinaman is 
 never seen. 
 
 The house of the poor man in China is built 
 either of sun-dried or broken brick laid up in mud, 
 and roofed sometimes with tiles, but more com- 
 monly with a mixture of lime and clay spread upon 
 reed mats. It is never more than one story in 
 height, and for a family of five or six persons sel- 
 dom consists of more than one room. It has a 
 floor of either mud or brick, never of boards, win- 
 dows of paper, and a door sufficiently open for all 
 purposes of ventilation. It has no chimney, and 
 no fire is used summer or winter, except the small 
 amount necessary for the family cooking. The 
 entire furniture consists of a table, a stool or two, 
 a wardrobe when it can be afforded, and a raised 
 platform of brick covered with a coarse mat of 
 reeds, which serves for the family bed. Flues run 
 underneath this, and the smoke and heat from the 
 fire used in cooking passes through them, thus 
 securing a small amount of warmth. In southern 
 China the brick platform is replaced by one built 
 of bamboo or some other inexpensive wood. 
 
 It is to be feared that men of Western lands, if 
 asked the question whether, under such circum- 
 stances and conditions, life is worth living, vvould 
 answer in the negative. And it could not be a 
 matter for surprise if such abject poverty de-
 
 320 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 veloped great selfishness, indifference to the suffer- 
 ings of others, and general disregard of the com- 
 mon obligations of humanity ; yet in simple justice 
 it must be said that such is not the fact. In China, 
 as elsewhere, it is not the wealthy but the poor who 
 are most prompt and liberal, in proportion to their 
 resources, to respond to the necessities of those 
 even more unfortunate than themselves. Much 
 might be written of the many pleasant phases of 
 Chinese life among the poor, which is developed 
 by their extreme poverty, their patience and quiet 
 endurance, their readiness to help each other, and 
 their faithful care, even when suffering the utmost 
 depths of want, of the aged and infirm. It should 
 also not be forgotten that from such homes have 
 come, in a very large measure, the distinguished 
 scholars and statesmen who have been the practical 
 rulers of the nation, and have given her a litera- 
 ture and a history of which, in some features at 
 least, she has no cause to be ashamed. Life has 
 some pleasant pictures, some lessons worthy to be 
 learned, even in the poverty and hunger of a Chi- 
 nese hovel. 
 
 China has for many centuries been confronted 
 with the exact reverse of the problem with which 
 the United States foi the greater part of its exist- 
 ence has had to deal. With us the practical ques- 
 tion has been, at least until recently, by what labor- 
 saving devices one man may be enabled to accom- 
 plisli the work of ten. The result here is what 
 might have been expected. Necessity has spurred 
 ingenuity, and Americans lead the world in the 
 invention of labor-saving machines of every sort.
 
 THE POOR IX CHINA. 
 
 321 
 
 In China the opposite question has been a subject 
 of constant and anxious study from a period far 
 antedating the discovery of tliis Western Conti- 
 nent. It may be stated in these words : With an 
 excessive population, how may any given piece of 
 
 MENDEK. OK TUBS. 
 
 work be so divided and subdivided as to furnish 
 the barest sustenance to tlie hirgest possible num- 
 ber of persons ? One result of the study of this 
 problem is also what might have been anticipated. 
 The Chinese are llie most economical race upon
 
 32 2 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 the face of the earth. If they lack in the broader 
 field of ingenuity, they are easily the ingenious 
 masters of the science and art of economics. 
 
 Absolutely nothing is wasted. The smallest 
 rags and shreds of cloth are saved, carefully pasted 
 together, and form the insole of shoes. Bits of 
 woods are ingeniously glued and dovetailed into 
 other bits, until a board or post is literally built 
 up. Half the houses in the city of Peking are 
 built of fragments of brick which have been in use 
 for centuries, and may continue to do duty for 
 centuries to come. A large business is done in 
 the capital in making lamps from the discarded 
 sardine, oyster, and other cans. In the country 
 the weeds and grass by the roadside are carefully 
 gathered by women and children, the entire sur- 
 face being scratched over and over again, and this 
 refuse does duty as fuel. The roots of corn and 
 other grains are carefully spaded up, the earth 
 beaten from then, and when dried in the sun they 
 serve the same useful purpose. 
 
 In many of these lines it is cheaper to us to waste 
 than to save, and what is true economy among the 
 Chinese would be false economy with us. But 
 there labor counts for little — is indeed the cheapest 
 article in the market ; hence its employment, even 
 where the results are of the most trifling nature, 
 is wise. 
 
 And among the poorer classes every one works. 
 The solitary exception is the infant too young to 
 walk, and he, safely deposited upon his back on a 
 mat, lies quietly doubling his fists and blinking at 
 the sun, whicti is liis part in the labors of the day.
 
 THE POOR l.V CI//.VA. 323 
 
 Certain processes in the preparation of tea and silk 
 are reserved exclusively for women and girls, who 
 earn from one to three cents a day by this labor. 
 The straw braid from which our hats are made 
 comes from one of the northern provinces of China. 
 It is woven by women and children, who rarely 
 can earn more than two cents a day in the work. 
 
 While the government of China makes no regu- 
 lar provision for the support of the pauper element 
 among its people, it tacitly recognizes begging as 
 a legitimate occupation. It never interferes with 
 or restrains it. Thus, if a crowd of fifty or a hun- 
 dred creatures, so filthy and diseased as to be hardly 
 recognizable as human beings, should beset the 
 entrance to a store or office, and refuse to move on 
 until their demands for money were granted, it 
 would be idle for the proprietor to appeal to the 
 police. He would be met with the answer, " Give 
 them what they ask. The amount is small, and 
 then they will go away." There is a shade of 
 reason in such a reply. Begging, like everything 
 else, is reduced to a system in China. Beggars 
 never go in crowds or even in pairs. Each has his 
 district, and only calls in others when he has been 
 repulsed, or, as he conceives, been treated with 
 scant courtesy. He never expects more than a sin- 
 gle cash. It is a mistake to give him this small 
 sum too promptly, for in such case he will come 
 again too soon. He must be kept waiting for it a 
 certain length of time, so as to earn it ; but it is a 
 far more serious mistake to insult him or send 
 him away empty-handed. He will come again the 
 day following with two or three companions, each
 
 324 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 more filthy than the other, and less than half a 
 dollar will fail to satisfy them. If they are again 
 refused, the place is soon fairly besieged with a 
 throng of a hundred or more, and at least a hun- 
 dred dollars must then be expended instead of the 
 single cash which would have satisfied the solitary 
 mendicant who first appealed for alms. 
 
 Many merchants and shopkeepers in the larger 
 cities pay a regular monthly allowance, agreed 
 upon. A sign, cabalistic but well understood by 
 the begging fraternity, is written upon the door- 
 posts of such as make this arrangement, and they 
 are only visited by tlie " collector" upon a fixed 
 day, who then receives and receipts for the com- 
 mutation or blackmail ; and those who decline to 
 enter into such an arrangement very rarely refuse 
 to give the single cash demanded, as they know 
 by experience the results which are certain to 
 follow. 
 
 Peking, like all Oriental cities, swarms with beg- 
 gars. They are met with everywhere, in every 
 condition of filth, and of real or counterfeit de- 
 formity or disease. They are of both sexes and 
 all ages. Begging is with thejm a business, a pro- 
 fession, to which they are trained from infancy, 
 and in which some attain great success. It is as 
 easy to distinguish a professional beggar from an 
 amateur — that is, from a man driven by misfortune 
 to ask relief — as it is to discriminate between a 
 horse and a mule. 
 
 Peking beggars have a regular guild or organi- 
 zation, presided over by a king and a queen. These 
 officers are elective, and hence, so far as I have
 
 77/y-; J'OOK /.V CIIIXA. 327 
 
 been able to learn, the mendicants of the capital 
 are the only Chinese in the empire who are per- 
 mitted to exercise the privileges of the ballot. 
 The king is said never to be seen by profane eyes, 
 but I have had a conversation with the queen, 
 who appeared to be a respectable, well-dressed 
 Chinese lady of sixty-five or seventy years of age. 
 The entire city is carefully divided into districts, 
 and no beggar is allowed to intrude upon the ter- 
 ritory of another. Still this calling, like all others, 
 has its black sheep. There iire tramp beggars, 
 not members of the guild, who roam everywhere 
 in city and country, bound by no limits, and heed- 
 less of the rights of others. They are regarded 
 with contempt as being guilty of unprofessional 
 and discredital)le conduct l)y those members of 
 the fraternity who confine themselves each to his 
 own vineyard and harvest field. 
 
 ' Chinese mendicants are past masters in the art 
 of simulating disease or deformity of every sort. 
 I was for a long time annoyed in my daily walks in 
 Peking by a young Chinese woman, who would 
 
 ; follow me, carrying one child and leading another. 
 
 \ While screaming out uncouth sounds at the top of 
 her voice, she indicated by gestures that she was 
 deaf and dumb, the two children keeping up a sort 
 of minor refrain by the wailing cry, " Have pity 
 and give a cash ! Have pity and give a cash !" 
 
 ' For some reason hard to define, I suspected that 
 the creature had the full natural use of both her 
 ears and mouth. In order to test tlie cpiestion, 
 one day, when she was more than usually annoy- 
 ing and was crying after me in the midst of a
 
 328 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 crowd, I turned suddenly upon her and said some- 
 thing which, while not improper, would, if she 
 could hear it, certainly make her angry. She re- 
 plied instantly in remarkably good Chinese with a 
 torrent of vile language, and then, amid roars of 
 laughter from the crowd, she suddenly realized 
 that she had betrayed herself, and slunk out of 
 sight. Thereafter she always recognized me pleas- 
 antly when we met, but never begged of me. 
 
 I well remember one case among all the wretch- 
 edness and revolting sights found in the beggar 
 class of Peking which moved my pity, and which, 
 as a solitary exception to my rule, was for several 
 months regularly relieved. It was an old man, 
 ragged and shivering with cold, who sat every day 
 by the side of the street. He was clothed in only 
 a few rags, and thrust out in front of him were his 
 feet, which were literally rotting off. They pre- 
 sented a sight too offensive for more detailed de- 
 scription. One day I missed the old man from his 
 accustomed place, but walking rapidly homeward, 
 I overtook him trudging along, and no signs of 
 frozen feet and decomposition were visible. 
 
 " Why," said I, walking along by his side, " how 
 can you manage to walk with those wretched 
 feet?" 
 
 " Oh," said the old man, " they are in my 
 bosom. It would spoil them to wear them home." 
 
 Then, without hesitation or sign of shame, he 
 thrust his hands into his bosom and drew out a 
 pair of socks padded with cotton in order to rep- 
 resent his feet as swollen and out of shape. They 
 were made of canvas, and so accurately painted
 
 THE POOR IX C///XA. 329 
 
 into the resemblance of feet with toenails dropping 
 off and the flesh a mass of putrefaction, that they 
 had deceived me in broad sunlight and on many 
 occasions. 
 
 Naturally I was furious, and said : "1 should 
 think that an old man like you would be ashamed 
 to swindle people in this way. Have you no trade, 
 or are you too lazy to earn your rice in any honest 
 fashion ?' 
 
 To which the venerable humbug replied as sim- 
 ply and frankly as though his recent deception had 
 been quite respectable and praiseworthy : " Oh, 
 yes, I am a shoemaker ; and I have been think- 
 ing about giving up this line of business, for my 
 feet are getting to be too well known, and it does 
 not pay as well as it did. After all, it is hard work 
 sitting there upon the ground all day and shouting 
 out, ' Have pity ! ' I believe that I will go back to 
 my old trade of mending shoes." 
 
 In a day or two he appeared with his kit of tools 
 and his bench, and asked permission to establish 
 himself quite near the entrance of the Legation, by 
 the side of the street, which was granted. There 
 he cobbled shoes for nearly ten years, when he 
 died ; and his son, who " succeeded to the title 
 and estates," asked assistance to bury the old man, 
 basing his plea upf)n the close intimacy which had 
 so long existed between us.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CHINESE FINANCIAL SYSTEM. 
 
 An ounce of refined silver bullion 
 constitutes the unit of money in the 
 Chinese Empire. Copper cash and 
 paper notes comprise the subsidiary- 
 currency in use among the people. 
 Mexican dollars are used to a con- 
 siderable extent in those parts of the country where 
 foreign trade has been developed, but they are in- 
 variably valued by weight, and a large proportion 
 of those imported soon find their way to the melt- 
 ing-pot, where they are refined, and whence they 
 reappear as bullion. A variety of causes have pro- 
 duced this apparently absurd treatment of coins 
 recognized as standard in weight and fineness 
 throughout all parts of the world except China. 
 
 The Oriental merchant and man of business has 
 a wonderfully accurate eye in determining the 
 quality of native bullion. The signs by which he 
 judges each piece are necessarily lacking in minted 
 coins, and he has no proof, save what is to him a 
 vague and unreliable assurance, that such coins 
 contain only an invariable amount of alloy. Hence, 
 he prefers to reduce them to the simpler primary 
 form to wliich he is accustomed, and in which 
 his keen eyes can determine at a swift glance
 
 CiriXKSE FINANCIAL SYSTEM. 331 
 
 their actual value. His own government has never 
 received, paid, or recognized any other form of 
 money than pure silver bullion. 
 
 A custom sprang up in the ports of southern 
 China, where Spanish and Mexican dollars were 
 first introduced, which, while intended to assure 
 the natives of the reliability of these coins, had the 
 inevitable effect to drive every one of them, sooner 
 or later, to the refiners. Native bankers adopted 
 the priictice of stamping their firm name, with a 
 steel die, upon the face of every dollar which 
 passed over their counters, thus making themselves 
 responsible for its redemption at full value. Thus 
 one firm after another would cut its name into the 
 face of a coin, and, under this process of authenti- 
 cation, the money speedily become battered out of 
 all shape or possibility of recognition, and was 
 literally punched full of holes. Then they ceased 
 to pass as dollars by couut^ but were still current 
 by weight for a time, tlieir final destiny always 
 being the melting-pot. 
 
 Some years ago a distinguished American lady, 
 while visiting Canton, desired to draw five hun- 
 dred Mexican dollars upon her letter of credit, 
 with which to make some purchases. Her banker 
 advised her not to take the actual coin, but to give 
 each merchant with whom she dealt an order upon 
 him for the amount of her purchase. He would 
 then deduct the sum total of her expenditures 
 from her letter of credit. As she declined to follow 
 this course, preferring to pay her own bills, the 
 banker brought her the required sum in a canvas 
 bag, and spread the money out that she might by
 
 332 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 count assure herself of its correctness. It resem- 
 bled nothing so much as battered bits and scraps 
 of old tin. There was not one piece in the lot 
 which could be counted as a dollar, or whose value 
 could be determined except by weight ; yet it was 
 the nearest approach to " clean Mexican dollars" 
 then obtainable at Canton. 
 
 The imperial government has its own standard 
 of weight, called the " treasury ounce," by which 
 it receives and disburses all sums, and it only ac- 
 cepts or pays bullion of ninety-eight per cent fine- 
 ness ; but it exercises no scrutiny over the com- 
 mercial transactions of its subjects. There are no 
 laws calculated to regulate the weight of an ounce 
 or the quality of bullion ; hence there is an utter 
 lack of uniformity in both of these essential par- 
 ticulars. Making no allowance for individual at- 
 tempts to get or give more or less than fair weight, 
 there are five different ounces recognized and in 
 daily use in Peking alone. These are the " two- 
 ounce" weight, as it is called, in which ninety- 
 eight ounces are reckoned as one hundred ; in 
 other words, it is two per cent short of true meas- 
 ure. This is the lightest of all. Next comes the 
 *' commercial ounce ;" then what is known as the 
 " official ounce ;" then the " treasury ounce," al- 
 ready mentioned ; and last, and heaviest of all, the 
 " customs ounce." This last is a modern innova- 
 tion, having been in use for less than thirty years. 
 It is the measure by which import and export duties 
 are levied and paid. For some inexplicable reason 
 it is heavier than the ounce adopted by the govern- 
 ment.
 
 CIIIXESE FIXAXCfAL SYSTEM. l^i, 
 
 The ounces in use in the capital differ, aj^ain, 
 from those used in other cities and districts of the 
 empire, which in turn differ among themselves. 
 There is no stanchird ounce weight in use every- 
 where for weighing silver, excepting the treasury- 
 weight, and that is only used in transactions with 
 the government. That such a lack of uniformity 
 should produce great inconvenience and no little 
 uncertainty in the results of business operations is 
 evident. Bankers and those who have occasion to 
 remit sums of money, either by drafts or in bulk, 
 from one point to another, are familiar with the 
 difference in the ounce weights between the two 
 cities, and make the necessary allowances. 
 
 Custom, in one of the peculiar freaks which it so 
 often exhibits in China, has established ii rule that 
 certain classes of transactions shall be paid in a 
 certain kind of ounce weight, if no particular 
 weight is named in the agreement. Thus, in 
 Peking, house rent may be paid in the lightest 
 ounce ; bills due to merchants or shopkeepers are 
 payable in the market, or " commercial" ounce, 
 while other accounts must be l)alanced with a 
 heavier measure. It is impossil)le to discover the 
 origin or reason of this rule of trade, nor does it 
 prevent a native entitled, according to its dictum, 
 to the lightest ounce, from claiming the heaviest. 
 It exercises a sort of moral restraint upon liim, willi 
 the result that, after a due expenditure of argu- 
 ment and expostulation, he will magnanimously, 
 and with great show of virtue, abate his original 
 demand and accept what this custom prescribes, 
 and all that he has at any moment, in the height
 
 334 THE REAL CHINAMAN. 
 
 of his vocal gymnastics, expected to receive. No 
 person exceeds the Chinaman in his belief in the 
 old saying that it never does any harm to try. 
 
 Government has nothing whatever to do with 
 refining silver bullion. This process is entirely in 
 the hands of private individuals or firms. It is 
 commonly cast into an oval form resembling in 
 some faint degree the shape of a Chinese shoe, and 
 hence known among foreign residents as a " shoe" 
 of silver. The more common size averages about 
 fifty ounces in weight, though smaller ingots of 
 about ten ounces are also cast. These regular 
 sizes are chopped or cut into smaller bits or frag- 
 ments in order to make the exact sum needed in 
 any payment. Refiners stamp their firm name 
 upon the surface of each block of bullion and a 
 mark indicating the purity of the metal, and in 
 the case of well-known firms this mark may be 
 safely accepted as correct. As has already been 
 said, Chinese merchants and men of business have 
 a marvelously keen eye and accurate judgment of 
 the fineness of any piece of bullion cast according 
 to their methods. The mould is made principally 
 of asbestos. The metal is poured into this, given 
 a single sudden shake, and then dumped. Upon 
 the surface of the " shoe" will be found a number 
 of tiny waves, and upon the sides and bottom a 
 number of pin-holes in tlie metal. These furnish 
 the two most important tests of tlie purity of the 
 metal. The greater the number and the less the 
 size of these waves and pin-holes, the higher the 
 grade of the silver. 
 
 An essential part of every business transaction
 
 CHINESE FEVAXCfAI. SYSTEM. 335 
 
 of any amount in China is the stipulation fixing 
 tlie weight of the ounce to l)e employed and the 
 quality of the bullion in which the specified sum is 
 to be paid or received. It was once my duty to 
 receive from the magistrate of a Chinese city sev- 
 eral hundred ounces of silver as indemnity for in- 
 juries received by certain American citizens at the 
 hands of a mob. A written agreement had been 
 duly executed in which it was specified that the 
 amount fixed upon should be paid in treasury 
 ounces of commercially pure bullion. At the time 
 set for payment, the sum was brought carefully 
 wrapped and scaled in parcels, each endorsed as 
 containing fifty ounces. 
 
 Knowing that some Chinese officials were fond 
 of driving sharp bargains, I had provided myself 
 with weights known to be accurate, and taking a 
 parcel at random, I opened and weighed it. It was 
 of poor silver — not more than third grade — and 
 weighed exactly forty-seven ounces. An examina- 
 tion of a second and a third parcel gave exactly 
 similar results. The entire amount was returned 
 to the underlings who had brought it, to be taken 
 back to their master, with the message that, if 
 within one hour he failed to fulfill his promise to 
 pay the sum agreed upon in pure silver of treasury 
 weight, our arrangement for the settlement of the 
 case would be canceled, and his conduct reported 
 to his superiors at Peking. My message was 
 promptly delivered, and brought an immediate re- 
 sponse in the shape of silver which, in weight and 
 fineness, more than fulfilled the terms of the agree- 
 ment.
 
 336 THE REAL CHEYAMAN: 
 
 On the afternoon of the same day, when I went 
 by invitation to dine with this magistrate, he met 
 me at the door with an open, hearty laugh, and 
 the remark, " I tried to cheat you with poor silver 
 and light weiglit this morning, because I thought 
 that you, being a foreigner, would not know the 
 difference, but I found that you knew even better 
 than I." Then he told me, as a huge joke, that 
 he had provided and weighed out the requisite 
 amount in each weight and quality of silver, and 
 sent the low quality and deficient weight first, 
 hoping that the trick would pass unnoticed, but 
 ready to make his promise good if it became neces- 
 sary to do so. 
 
 Chinese cash are cast in moulds, and not minted. 
 Their use as money dates back almost to the be- 
 ginning of time. The first cash is recorded and 
 described as having been made about 2300 B.C., 
 which would be about the time of the Flood. The 
 three specimens reproduced in the accompanying 
 cut were current more than two thousand years 
 ago. The largest, called a " sword cash" among 
 the Chinese, from its peculiar shape, was in use as 
 money at the time wdien tlie Great Wall of China 
 was built, or about 221 B.C. The circular specimen 
 was coined and used about the time that King 
 David reigned in Jerusalem. It represents in gen- 
 eral form and outline the cash used at the present 
 time, the only difference being in the raised figures 
 or characters, which give the name of the emperor 
 under whose reign it was coined, and a Chinese 
 phrase which may be translated " current coin of 
 the realm." The cultivated Chinese are enthusi-
 
 Sword Cash, B.C. 221. 
 Squakk Cash, A.D. i. 
 Round Cash, B.C. 1085
 
 CHINESE EEVAXC/AL SYSTEAf. 339 
 
 astic collectors of old coins, and genuine specimens 
 command high prices. Pieces which date back 
 not more than three or four hundred years are not 
 considered as antique, and will frequently be found 
 upon strings of cash in current use. It is no un- 
 common thing to find cash cast half a century be- 
 fore the discovery of America stUl passing from 
 hand to hand in the petty transactions of daily 
 life. 
 
 The theoretical cash is a disk of pure copper, 
 about three quarters of an inch in diameter, hav- 
 ing a square hole in the centre for convenience in 
 stringing. It weighs fifty-eight grains Troy, and 
 is equivalent in value to one thousandth part of a 
 standard ounce of refined silver bullion. Mints 
 for casting cash are established at Peking and in 
 each provincial capital under the supervision of 
 the treasury. Great care is taken to prevent coun- 
 terfeiting and private minting, and the men em- 
 ployed in the works are never allowed to leave the 
 premises, night or day, except at rare intervals 
 and under special precautions. The chief security 
 against counterfeiting, however, exists in the fact 
 that no coin resembling the genuine cash can be 
 produced at less cost, and hence there is little or 
 no profit in any imitation. 
 
 The government of China has, however, not been 
 wiser than its Western neighbors in attempts, in 
 past centuries, to manipulate its currency, to give 
 fictitious values to its coins, and, in general, to 
 create a valuable something out of nothing. Cen- 
 turies ago it tried the " fiat money" scheme, and 
 issued unlimited quantities of paper money. Three
 
 34^5 THE REAL CmA^AMAN: 
 
 hundred \-ears before the first bank-note was issued 
 in Europe — that is to say, in a.d. 1368 — the people 
 of China Avere called upon to use paper money- 
 made theoretically valuable by the will of the em- 
 peroi-. In an absolute autocracy such a scheme 
 ought to succeed, if anywhere ; yet it went the way 
 of all such schemes, and now a solitary specimen 
 of the issue is to be found in the British Museum, 
 having gained a value through age which it would 
 never have obtained in any other way. The nu- 
 merous brilliant discoveries in modern finance, 
 which are being exploited in so many quarters, 
 are veritable ancient history among the Chinese. 
 Every one of them has been tried, and every one 
 has failed. And the Chinese Government has long 
 since proved by repeated experiment that, among 
 its people at least, no promise will pass current 
 without a solid backing of fact, and that no human 
 power, whether it be imperial or common, can 
 force any article upon the people at a higher valu- 
 ation than its current market price. 
 
 The foreign traveler or student in China often 
 stumbles upon the relics of these financial experi- 
 ments, sometimes to his amusement, and more 
 often to the utter confusion of his cash account. 
 The experiments most in evidence at the present 
 day have been made with the cash. As has been 
 stated, in theory each piece should be equivalent 
 in value to one thousandth of an ounce of silver. 
 Reduction in the amount of copper contained in 
 each piece has invariably and immediately affected 
 their current value. To-day the average value of 
 the cash is eighteen hundred pieces to an ounce of
 
 CHIME SE FINANCIAL SVSTEM. 34! 
 
 silver, tliough the rate fluctuates from day to clay, 
 and each large city or commercial centre through- 
 out the empire has its Chamber of Commerce or 
 Board of Trade, which meets daily and determines 
 the exchangeable value of cash for silver for each 
 day's business. 
 
 One brilliant imperial financier, by a single 
 stroke of his vermilion pencil, doubled the amount 
 of money current in his empire. He decreed that 
 each piece of cash should be counted as two. The 
 will of the august son of Heaven was obeyed 
 throughout the greater portion of China, though 
 in some sections the people declined to be parties 
 to any such nonsense ; but wherever the doubling 
 process was accepted, it was carried a point beyond 
 the anticipations of the imperial mind. It re- 
 quired exactly twice as many nominal pieces of 
 cash to purchase an ounce of silver as before. In 
 traveling through the empire at the present time, 
 one ignorant of this bit of history may be perplexed 
 by finding that at one village he will be offered, 
 say, thirty-six hundred cash for an ounce of silver, 
 while at the next, perhaps distant less than a dozen 
 miles, he will be able to obtain only eighteen hun- 
 dred pieces for the same amount of bullion. If he 
 sells in each place and then counts his cash, he 
 will find that he received exactly the same number 
 of actual pieces in each. In the one village the 
 imperial process of doubling had been accepted, 
 but the price of every article of merchandise had 
 also been doubled, leaving the result of all mon- 
 etary transactions absolutely unchanged. In the 
 second village the sober minded, practical celes-
 
 ^42 THE REAL CHIXAMAX. 
 
 tials had quietly declined to lend their sanction to 
 an imperial absurdity. 
 
 Another emperor, in a time of financial strin- 
 gency, determined to coin cash of iron instead of 
 copper. These the people unanimously and stur- 
 dily refused to accept at any rate of exchange, 
 and the soldiers to whom they were paid simply 
 threw them away. There are points outside the 
 walls of Peking where a peck of these souvenirs of 
 imperial folly may easily be gathered. They lie 
 there in the sand, valueless even as curiosities. 
 
 This attempt to substitute iron cash for copper 
 has left a curious impression upon the monetary 
 SN'stem of certain parts of the empire — an impres- 
 sion which is worthy of notice, since it illustrates 
 the fact that in China the will of the people is the 
 final law, more commanding and decisive than the 
 dictum of any emperor, and the other fact that the 
 Oriental disposition is accommodating as well as 
 determined. In the districts referred to, a variable 
 number of cash is reckoned as a hundred. In one 
 market town I found that seventy-seven pieces 
 were counted as a hundred ; in another, eighty-five ; 
 in a third, seventy-two, and in a fourth, only sixty- 
 one. The explanation of this strange and perplex- 
 ing medley was very simple. When the iron cash 
 were issued, the people had refused to accept 
 them. Then followed a discussion and an ultimate 
 compromise between the people and the local au- 
 thorities. The authorities had proposed that out 
 of every hundred pieces, fifty of iron and fifty of 
 copper be included. This had been refused. A 
 dicker had followed, with the final result that,
 
 CHI?^ESE fI^!AMClAL SYSTEM. 343 
 
 while in not a single town were any iron cash 
 forced into circulation, the people had consented 
 to count seventy-seven pieces of copper cash as one 
 hundred in one town, eighty-five as one hundred 
 in another, and so on, the compliant spirit of the 
 people being exactly measured by the gap between 
 the nominal and actual hundred pieces of money ; 
 but here there was absolutely no other result ef- 
 fected than an added perplexit}' in keeping ac- 
 counts. If in selling silver bullion I was forced to 
 receive only seventy-seven cash for a nominal hun- 
 dred, I received in exact proportion more of those 
 nominal hundreds for each ounce of the precious 
 metal. On the other hand, in purchasing any arti- 
 cle, the price was gauged to correspond to this dif- 
 ference between name and fact. The Chinaman 
 who bought rice got only seventy-seven cash worth 
 for his nominal hundred cash. 
 
 The most recent attempt to tamper with Chinese 
 currency was an order directing the coinage of a 
 large piece, which should pass as equivalent to 
 twenty pieces of ordinary size. It was so stamped. 
 The Chinese found it to be equal to a trifle less 
 than four of the coins formerly in use. It has 
 never become current anywhere in the empire 
 except at the capital, and there it passes for its 
 actual, not its stamped value. 
 
 The small value of the cash, and the inconven- 
 ience of making payments in them or in silver, 
 have forced paper money into use in all Chinese 
 cities and towns of any considerable size. These 
 notes are issued by private bankers or " cash 
 shops," as they are called, have a purely local cir-
 
 344 THE REAL CHIXAMAN. 
 
 culation, and are neither guaranteed nor recog 
 nized by the government. They are redeemable 
 on demand in cash or bullion at the holder's option. 
 The authorities require security from all persons 
 who propose to issue such notes, and in case of 
 failure of a local bank of issue, proceedings are 
 taken against the proprietors for debt exactly as 
 would be \\\x\\ any other class of insolvents. Fail- 
 ures among these bankers are of comparatively 
 rare occurrence. The necessity of these notes 
 may be seen in the fact that bullion comes in 
 blocks weighing nearly four pounds each, and 
 worth about seventy Mexican dollars. Cash are 
 even more inconvenient, since a dollar's worth of 
 Peking cash would comprise nearly seven hundred 
 pieces, each the size of an American lialf dollar. 
 
 The illustration reproduces two Peking bank- 
 notes, the larger worth about two dollars, and the 
 sm.aller about forty cents. They are partly written 
 and partly printed from wooden blocks on thin, 
 coarse, but strong paper. As a safeguard against 
 counterfeiting, each note is laid upon the blank 
 page of a book kept for the purpose, and stamps 
 and written lines are placed at haphazard partly 
 upon the page and partly upon the bill. The page 
 is then numbered and dated to correspond to the 
 note. Crude as this method may appear, it has 
 been found so efficient that counterfeit notes are 
 almost unknown. 
 
 A curious vagary of Chinese financiering made 
 its appearance in Peking in 1883. A small panic 
 had been caused by the failure of two large banks. 
 One of the results of the general alarm was the un-
 
 CIIIXESE FIXA .yCVA I. S \ W TK.^f. 
 
 345 
 
 willingness of other bankers, whose standing was 
 above suspicion, to give as much for an ounce of 
 silver in their own notes as they would in cash. 
 
 PKKING BANK-NOTES. 
 
 They would pay as high as fifteen per cent more in 
 mone}^ than in their ]iromises to pay — promises 
 which they miglit not be called upon to redeem in
 
 346 THE REAL chinaman: 
 
 a year. No plausible explanation of this peculiar 
 state of affairs was ever given. The Secretary of 
 the Treasury confessed his inability to understand 
 it. It continued for fully two years, and was con- 
 sidered sufficiently serious to warrant the issue of 
 an order by the authorities directing bankers to 
 make no discrimination, in their offers for silver, 
 between giving their notes or cash in payment. 
 This order, like most others touching financial 
 questions, had no valuable effect. But it is only 
 in China that a man, in making payment for an 
 article purchased, is willing to give fifteen per cent 
 more in cash than in a promissory note. 
 
 Banks of exchange are common throughout 
 China, and remittances may be made by them to 
 all parts of the country. 
 
 Under the theory of the imperial government, 
 elsewhere given, all real and personal property 
 within the limits of the empire belongs to the Em- 
 peror as the father of his people, the head of the 
 Chinese family. What he needs he may take, 
 when, how, and of whom he will. Under this 
 theory the government has, and can contract, no 
 domestic debt, since a man cannot borrow what is 
 his own. In times of special necessity special 
 levies of so-called voluntary contributions are made, 
 and honorary titles and degrees are conferred upon 
 those loyal Sons of Han who contribute cheerfully 
 and largely to the needs of the throne. . 
 
 The nominal rate of taxation upon any particular 
 object is small, and not subject to sudden changes. 
 The land tax averages about twenty-five cents per 
 acre, and produces an annual revenue of more than
 
 CIIIXESE FINAXCIAI. SYSTEM. 347 
 
 $150,000,000. This is the largest amount received 
 from any one source. Salt is a government mo- 
 nopoly, and yields a large revenue. There is a 
 variety of other forms of taxation, and without 
 going into details it may be said that the imposts 
 are so arranged that, while under the terms of the 
 law they would bear heavily upon none, they reach 
 every person in the empire, and compel each to 
 bear his share in the support of the government. 
 
 It is, however, quite impossible to determine 
 what the total revenues may be. No person either 
 within or without the empire can fix the sum with 
 even approximate accuracy. That it is large is 
 evident ; how large is a cpiestion that cannot be an- 
 swered. The methods of collection, the division 
 of receipts between the central government and 
 local authorities, tlie percentages legally or ille- 
 gally retained by collectors, and a dozen other fac- 
 tors of uncertainty, vex the problem and render it 
 impossible of solution. 
 
 Certain of the taxes are payable in kind. The 
 rice-producing provinces, for example, send im- 
 mense quantities of this grain each year to Peking, 
 where it is stored in the imperial granaries, and 
 issued as a ration to the Manchu militiamen who 
 are quartered in and near the capital. The Grand 
 Canal, a national work, only less noteworthy and 
 of far more practical value than the famous Great 
 Wall, Wiis built to furnish an inland waterway for 
 this rice. It was commenced in the seventh cen- 
 tury and completed in the fourteenth. It extends 
 from Peking to Ilang Chow, a distance of nearly 
 seven hundred miles, though natural streams are
 
 348 THE kEAL CIIIXA.VAX. 
 
 utilized for a part of this distance. Wliile it is not 
 kept in proper repair, it is still in use, and large 
 fleets of grain-bearing junks traverse it each year. 
 It is also used to a very large extent for local and 
 private traffic. 
 
 Silk-producing provinces, in like manner, pay a 
 portion of their taxes in raw and manufactured 
 silk. The tea districts pay in tea, and the out- 
 lying provinces of Mongolia furnish horses for the 
 cavalry and for other lines of imperial service. 
 
 A large portion of the revenue is remitted to the 
 capital by bills of exchange, but from certain of 
 the provinces the bullion is brought in bulk, and 
 in a manner at once primitive and peculiar. Long 
 lines of open carts may be seen coming into the 
 city covered with the dust and grime of travel. 
 Each has a small triangular flag of imperial yellow 
 color flying over it, and a soldier as guard. Each 
 cart afppears to be loaded with the old-fashioned 
 wooden pump logs, each of which is banded spi- 
 rally from end to end with iron, and covered with 
 many strips of paper bearing Chinese seals and en- 
 dorsements. Each log is composed of two longi- 
 tudinal sections, and is hollow to within a few 
 inches of either end. This space is snugly packed 
 with fifty-ounce blocks of silver bullicm, which has 
 been brought in this manner many hundreds of 
 miles to its destination in the imperial treasury. 
 
 The grave point of weakness and danger in the 
 Chinese financial system, or lack of system, lies, 
 so far as the government revenues are concerned, 
 in the free opportunities which are afforded for 
 extortion, illegal exactions from the people, and
 
 CHIXESK FI.YA.VCIAL SYSTEM, 349 
 
 every form of official robbery. It is safe to say 
 that no tax is collected and paid over to the treas- 
 ury in the exact amount stipulated by law. The 
 subject invariably pays more than he ought, and 
 the Emperor as invariably receives less than his 
 due. And if the exact total of all sums collected 
 for public purposes from every source in any year 
 could be compared with the corresponding total 
 actually devoted to public purposes in the same 
 period of time, the enormous divergence between 
 the two sums would astonish tlie world. 
 
 The central government is aware, to some extent 
 at least, of the pressing need of a reform in this 
 direction, and has often expressed a desire to 
 adopt, for example, some exact system of coinage 
 which should protect both itself and its subjects 
 from the abuses so safely perpetrated at present. 
 The local officials are, almost to a man, opposed 
 to a change which would cut off a large part of 
 their revenue by rendering illegal levies dangerous, 
 if not impossible. In 1877 the diplomatic repre- 
 sentatives at Peking presented a joint memoran- 
 dum upon this subject to the Chinese Cabinet. 
 The paper was drawn with great care and distin- 
 guished ability. The Cabinet in response frankly 
 admitted the force of the arguments employed, 
 and expressed its anxiety to carry out the reforms 
 suggested. It, however, added that, in accordance 
 with the invariable rule of the imperial government 
 in dealing with questions affecting all parts of the 
 nation, the document must be referred to the vari- 
 ous provincial authorities for consideration and 
 their report, which would be communicated to the
 
 35° 
 
 THE REAL CHINAMAN". 
 
 several legations. In due time these reports were 
 so furnished, and they were, without exception, 
 hostile to any change. 
 
 The warmest friends of China, those who believe 
 with surest confidence in her future, wait with anx- 
 iety for a change in these matters, realizing, as 
 they do, that such a change is an essential pre- 
 liminary to any important development of the na- 
 tional life or power. 
 
 " NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
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