but the method of operation of those departments is among the things
they do not reveal to the public. I have only learned a few general
facts on the subject. The corporations intervene, I have been told,
in the disputes of the members and to prevent dishonest dealings and
attempts to cheat one another, but I have not learned that they have
any real judiciary authority. Their treasury is sustained by means of
assessments and fines, and loans may be contracted on its account, for
the salt merchants of Tientsin are still paying interest on a number of
debts contracted by the corporation in the last century.
Great differences might be expected to exist between the corporations
in respect to these points and many others. They have been constituted
at different epochs, independently of one another, and are similar only
in their essential features. The minimum price fixed by the assembly
is not equally imperative in all. Thus, the price fixed by the fur
merchants at the beginning of the winter does not bind the members.
In most branches of commerce all the houses composing the corporation
are on a footing of substantial equality, though, of course, the large
banks prevail over the small brokers, but there is no unlikeness in
the business or the situation. The policy of the tea trade is mainly
controlled in Peking by the houses of the families Fang and Oou. They
fix the price, determine the equivalence of weight (the standard is a
pound of four ounces instead of sixteen), and lead the corporation.
In fact, the retail dealers use their capital in the decoration of
their shops with gilding and sculpture, at a cost of between sixteen
hundred and two thousand dollars, while the goods are lent them by
one of the importers, who holds the decoration as security, so that
the whole corporation is in the hands of these two families. This is
a special condition, and there is nothing else like it, even among
other importers of southern products. While most branches of trade
are independent of official action, slaughter houses, of which there
are only five in Peking, have to be authorized by the Government.
A religious motive may be at the bottom of this restriction, the
large cattle being reserved for the imperial sacrifices. Moreover,
the killing of animals has been interdicted at different times, and
even now the slaughter houses are ordered closed, as an act of public
penitence, in times of drought.
The loan houses also need an official authorization. They pay a tax
on their operations to the local authorities, and are divided into
three classes, according to the importance of their business. Those
of the first class receive deposits from the authorities of various
sums, on which they pay interest, the administration reasoning that
by helping them increase their capital and enlarge their business it
will be doing a philanthropic work and assisting the people. These loan
offices are not at all like our pawnbrokers’ shops, but are a credit
institution, to which the middle class as well as the poor Chinaman has
constant recourse. Being conducted on equitable terms and serving their
convenience in various ways, they render great services to the Chinese
people, and have become necessary to their life, and this explains the
departure of the Government from its usual policy of non-interference
to supervise and favor them. China has, further, large and small
capitalists, and numerous credit establishments very much like ours.
They may be classified as exchange offices, banks, and banks of
discount. The last are at Peking, where they were founded a few decades
ago by some men from Chan-Si. Their single industry is trading notes in
all China and some of its dependencies. They have no monopoly, for some
of the larger banks and more important traders were all doing the same;
but they have regulated the business, extended it to more places, and
have almost entirely suppressed the transportation of money in bulk.
The banks of exchange perform a variety of functions on a restricted
scale, charging two per cent for exchanges, issuing notes without any
supervision, and lending money at two per cent a month in normal times.
They are not, however, always able to pay their notes at sight, and
it is well, therefore, not to keep them too long. In the provinces a
bank usually accepts only its own notes. In Peking some well-known
signatures are accepted everywhere after examination by an expert, who
places his seal on the note he declares good, charges a fee for each
verification, and is responsible for his mistakes.
The large banks, by accepting or refusing the notes of any house or by
throwing money or _sapiques_ on the market, rule in the corporation
and have the whole fate of the market in their hands. The four Hengs,
by the amount of their reserve, the solidity of their credit, and
the number of their branches or correspondents, have no rivals in
north China. All exchange operations are carried on in the money
market, which is held every day in the south-eastern part of the
city, on the street, near the Tauist Temple, where all the houses in
Peking are represented, and every one takes care to be so, lest he
be thought in default. When the rate is fixed the news is dispatched
by couriers, pigeons, etc., to all whom it concerns. The couriers of
the corporation, who communicate with the brokers and bankers, are
also the confidential agents of the syndics, are acquainted with the
amounts of the emissions of each house, know whether a certain patron
is really ill or only feigning, and by their reports decide who shall
be boycotted or declared insolvent. All this goes on in full liberty,
without surveillance by the state, without any tax on the transactions,
and without any other interference than the prohibition of fictitious
dealings. The corn market is in the same way the almost exclusive
domain of the corn corporation, the state never interfering except in
the case of a famine in the region.
Besides the merchants’ corporations, there exist also corporations of
artisans. The embroiderers, the makers of _cloisonné_, the tanners,
and the carpenters have theirs. The carriers and the boatmen, who,
before the opening of the railway, had the monopoly of transportation
between Peking and the provinces without forming associations, met
at their respective inns and established rules and rates for their
business. Informal organizations, varying among the different towns in
their degrees of development, exist among the barbers--who at Peking
meet every year for a sacrifice and a banquet--the chair-bearers,
and the _jinrikisha_ men, and so every city has its corporations and
associations which are not like those of the next city.
Some branches of trade have no corporations, and the peasants, when
they come to town to sell their produce, trade on their own account,
for the best terms they can get, and have to accept, in the market,
an organization the origin of which is forgotten. Every year, on the
appearance of each sort of crop, the _King ki_ of the market, having
agreed with the dealers, fixes the minimum price of the commodity for
the season. He also polices the market. The function of _King ki_ is
the property of the person who exercises it, who has bought it from his
predecessor and will sell it to his successor by private contract, and
nobody contests his right. In the market for _azaroles_ the position
is hereditary. The monopoly of the corporations is often complicated
with a provincial question. The Chinaman regards every man who was born
in another district as a foreigner--still more if he is of another
province. Those who are of the same local origin, on the other hand,
stand by one another. Hence it has come to pass that some trades have
been monopolized by the people of some one province. Most of the
bankers were originally from Chan-Si; all the great merchants came
from Anhoei. The people of Chan-tung have three special occupations in
Peking. They have the exclusive privilege of killing pigs and retailing
meat. They are the only water carriers, each one having his well on
the public highway, his watering place for horses and mules, and his
district where he sells water without permitting the people to provide
for themselves elsewhere. Such privileges are consecrated by usage and
zealously defended by their holders, and respect for them is enforced,
when necessary, by the authorities. Associations are formed, also, even
among the coolies who work on the docks.
These details show by how great a variety of forms all the corporations
assure the same result--the organization of labor. We see also how they
extend beyond commerce. The Chinaman is in fact a social being bound
closely to his fellows--of the family, province, trade, or class--by
every tie and in every sphere of life. He is never a man living by
himself and for himself, and is not accustomed to independence. Hence
the authority of the corporation, instead of seeming strange, is a
necessity to him. Consequently the corporation has the right, by
universal consent, to exact obedience from its members, and to compel
those who would stay out to come into it.--_Translated for the Popular
Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes._
* * * * *
M. L. Azoulay suggests, in the _Revue Scientifique_, that the
invitation given to Señor Rámon y Cajal, the celebrated Spanish
neurologist, to visit the United States and attend the celebration
of the tenth anniversary of Clark University, furnishes a good
example for France to follow. “It causes grievous chagrin to
me to think,” he says, “that while Germany, England, Austria,
Switzerland, and the United States are regularly accustomed
to invite to their scientific ceremonials, of which there are
more than one every year, students of other countries who have
illustrated any branch of human knowledge, France, formerly so
hospitable, refuses these international appeals.”
* * * * *
At the recent meeting of the British Archæological Association,
at Buxton, Dr. Brushfield described the prehistoric circle of
Arbor Low as, upon evidence which he cited, the earliest neolithic
monument in Britain. There are thirty-two stones in the circle, all
now lying prostrate, but they must originally have been erect. The
dolmen in the center is now level with the ground. The mound and
ditch--the latter being inside, between the mound and the stone
circle--are in a very perfect condition, notwithstanding the lapse
of time. The work has two openings--on the northeast and southwest.
Editor’s Table.
_SCIENCE AND DOGMA._
After many uncomfortable turnings in his narrow theological quarters,
the eminent biologist, Professor St. George Mivart, seems to have made
up his mind that he may as well, before he dies, know what it is to
enjoy the air of liberty. For many years he has been pining for this,
and almost inviting the authorities of the Church to give him his
passports. The Church was not anxious, however, to quarrel with a man
of recognized ability and wide knowledge, and therefore writings which
might well have been expected to give serious umbrage were allowed to
pass unnoticed. The professor then made a most audacious raid upon
the venerable doctrine that there remains for the majority of mankind
a place of unutterable and eternal misery. He ventured to speak of
The Happiness in Hell, maintaining that, while the inhabitants of
that abode would always have a profound and harrowing sense of having
missed the supreme happiness of heaven, they would still be able to
occupy themselves in a variety of ways which would give them a certain
amount of happiness, just as in this world a man may carry a profound
sorrow in his heart and yet, under the stimulus of business or society
or intellectual study, have his attention happily diverted for many
hours every day. At this point the authorities drew the line. It is
related of an old Scotch lady that, referring to the Universalists,
she said, “Those people say that all men will be saved at last, but
_we_ hope for better things.” Whether this was the point of view of
the ecclesiastical powers or not, certain it is that they refused to
sanction the notion of any happiness, of howsoever humble an order,
in the abode of gloom, and gave a peremptory order to the professor
to take it all back. Well, he took it back as a matter of submission
to those whom he regarded as his lawful spiritual guides, but the
submission did not give him rest. If ecclesiastical authority was
entitled to respect on one side, science was urging even stronger
claims on the other. In August last, as we now learn, the professor
wrote to the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Index,
explaining how he wished his submission to be understood, and as he and
the prefect could not come to an agreement about it, he withdrew the
submission altogether. Then he resolved to relieve his mind. It took
two articles in two separate magazines to do it--one in the Fortnightly
and one in the Nineteenth Century--but then it was done in a manner
admitting of no recall. No sooner had these articles appeared than
Cardinal Vaughan drew up an iron-clad declaration affirming the falsity
of every position the writer had taken, and required him to sign it.
Too late! The biologist and evolutionist in Professor Mivart had
finally triumphed over the theologian, and he met the cardinal’s demand
with a flat refusal. Thereupon his Eminence issued an order excluding
the recalcitrant _savant_ from the sacraments of the Church.
Mr. Mivart now knows where he is. He occupies the broad ground of
scientific truth. He breathes the free air of intellectual and moral
liberty. He still professes loyalty to the Church according to his
own conception of it, but he will no longer bow down to an authority
that assumes to prescribe his opinions in matters which he is quite
capable of judging for himself. He has arrived at the conclusion that
even as regards the interpretation of Scripture the Church is just as
liable to err as the humble layman. He quotes most persistently the
case of Galileo, in which the Church, in the most formal and official
manner, declared that Scripture taught what for nearly a century now
it has admitted Scripture does not teach. If the highest organs of
ecclesiastical authority could make such a blunder in Galileo’s day,
what blunders may they not commit in our day? But if the Church can err
egregiously in what is its own peculiar province--if anything is--how
great is likely to be its inaptitude when it undertakes to deal with
scientific questions!
“God has taught us,” says Mr. Mivart, “through history, that it is
not to ecclesiastical congregations but to men of science that he
has committed the elucidation of scientific questions, whether such
questions are or are not treated of by Scripture, the Fathers, the
Church’s common teaching, or special congregations or tribunals of
ecclesiastics actually summoned for the purpose. This also applies to
all science--to Scripture criticism, to biology, and to all questions
concerning evolution, the antiquity of man, and the origin of either
his body or his soul or of both. For all ecclesiastics who know nothing
of natural science it is an act necessarily as futile as impertinent to
express any opinion on such subjects.”
The opposition of the rulers of the Church to the true theory of
the solar system in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is
paralleled, according to Mr. Mivart, by their opposition to the
doctrine of evolution to-day. He refers to the fact that two Catholic
professors who had ventured to give a partial support to the doctrine
in question--one of them Father Zahm, who contributed an article,
as many of our readers will remember, to this magazine a couple of
years ago--had both been compelled to retract and disavow what they
had published on the subject. Professor Mivart draws a distinction,
however, between the rulers of the Church and the Church. The latter
he idealizes--and we by no means dispute his right to do so--as a
vast organization the office of which is to keep alive man’s sense
of spiritual things, and to bear eternal testimony in favor of those
truths of the heart which do not admit, like intellectual truths, of
logical demonstration. Though cut off by authority from participation
in the rites of the Church, he feels himself still one in sympathy with
all who in the Church are aspiring to a higher life. We look upon his
case as a very instructive one, affording as it does clear evidence of
the absolute incompatibility between any authoritative system of dogma
and the free pursuit of truth. It has taken Professor Mivart a long
time to arrive at his present standpoint, but it is well that he has
got there at last. His example, we believe, will encourage not a few
to assert in like manner their right to think freely and to utter what
they think.
_A MORE EXCELLENT WAY._
When our article of last month, entitled A Commission in Difficulties,
was written we had not seen the paper by Mr. Theodore Dreiser, in
Harper’s Magazine for February, describing the important educational
work which the Western railways are doing with a view to promoting the
prosperity of the agricultural regions through which they pass. In
our article we observed that “the more interference there is between
parties who, in the last resort, are dependent upon one another’s good
will, the less likely they are to recognize their substantial identity
of interest.” What Mr. Dreiser clearly shows is how great the community
of interest is between the railroads on the one side and the farming
community on the other, and how fully that community of interest is
recognized by the railways at least. The freight agent of a given line
is charged with the duty of developing to the utmost--in the interest,
primarily, of his road, it may readily be granted--the agricultural
resources of the country through which it runs. He has his assistants,
who look after different branches of the work, such as crop-raising,
cattle-grazing, dairying, poultry-raising, etc. “Through this
department,” the writer says, “the railroads are doing a remarkably
broad educational work, not only of inspecting the land, but of
educating the farmers and merchants, and helping them to become wiser
and more successful. They give lectures on soil nutrition and vegetable
growing, explain conditions and trade shipments, teach poultry-raising
and cattle-feeding, organize creameries for the manufacture of cheese
and butter, and explain new business methods to merchants who are slow
and ignorant in the matter of conducting their affairs.” An agent of
the railway will visit every town along the line a certain number of
times every year to see what he can do to quicken trade. Finally, in
the great centers there are special agents who “look after incoming
shipments, and work for the interests of the merchants and farmers by
finding a market for their products.” Examples are given showing how
the railways are able to impart, and do impart, information of the
highest value to the farmers, such as puts them in the way of getting
greatly improved returns from their land.
Of course, the railways want business, but it is eminently satisfactory
when one party who wants business uses his best efforts on behalf of
another in order that by making him prosperous he himself may prosper.
When things get into this shape they are all right, as the phrase is.
The accepted definition of a perfect action is one which benefits
all who are parties to it. Things are on a much better foundation
when people are mutually benefiting one another, each primarily in
his own interest, than when it is all philanthropy on one side and
passive acceptance of benefits on the other. Philanthropy is an
uncertain thing, and its effects are uncertain. Its quality will take,
in general, a good deal of training; but business, on an honest and
reciprocally helpful basis, is good all through.
It is a happy circumstance that there are natural laws and forces at
work which tend to produce a healthful social equilibrium. The true
statesman is he who is on the watch to discern these forces and these
laws, resolved that if he can not aid their operation he shall at least
throw no obstacle in the way of their activity. The amount of harm
that is done by coming between people who would be certain to arrange
their business relations satisfactorily, if they were only left to do
it without interference, can hardly be estimated. Man is fundamentally
a social animal, and he wants, if he can possibly get it, the good
opinion of his fellows. This is a principle which legislation too much
overlooks, but it is one on which, as we believe, the future progress
of society depends, and which, in spite of the blunders of legislators,
will more and more assert itself as the years go on.
Fragments of Science.
=Religious Suicides.=--Suicides from religious fanaticism, which are
still prescribed by some sects, are compared, as having a common
origin, with propitiatory or expiatory human sacrifices, by Herr Lasch,
in an article of which we find a review in the _Rivista Italiana di
Sociologica_. Voluntary sacrifices, which abound in the history of
ancient peoples, had nearly always in view the removal of perils or the
cessation of public calamities by appeasing the anger of the divinity
through the offering of a human victim. Thus Macaria, the daughter of
Hercules, at Athens during the Peloponnesian war, and Codrus and the
Athenian youth Cratinus voluntarily offered their lives to aid their
country by the sacrifice. The consul Decius gave himself up to assure
victory to his legions, and Adrian’s favorite Antinous to save his
imperial protector. Spontaneous offerings of human victims to appease
offended divinities are mentioned in the traditions of the ancient
Germans, and it was usually their chief or king who suffered for the
good of the people. Offerings of this sort are far from infrequent
among barbarous and half-civilized peoples. Among some tribes in China
a man is sacrificed every year for the public welfare. Such voluntary
renunciations of life to acquire merit with the divinity, to gain
favors, to atone for sins, and fulfill vows are very common in India,
particularly where Brahmanism is most influential. Special methods were
pointed out in the Hindu laws for performing such sacrifices as would
be sinful for a Brahman, but not for a Sutra, who, before abandoning
life, should make gifts to the Brahmans. A favorite method was to
drown one’s self in the Ganges, and particular spots in the river
were designated for this act. The sacred books mention five methods
of performing sacrifice to assure a better fortune in the next life:
Starving to death, being burned alive, burial in snow, being eaten by a
crocodile, and cutting the throat or being drowned at a particular spot
in the Ganges. In fulfillment of vows, sons would sacrifice themselves
for their mothers by jumping from a rock. To keep up the courage of
the victim, the Sivaitic rituals promised many beatitudes to him who
courageously met death for his sins, and threatened eternal punishment
to one who performed the sacrifice in a base manner. And when the
suicide had been decided upon they allowed no retreat or repentance,
but forced its consummation. A special apparatus for suicide formerly
existed in some of the villages in central India, consisting of a
guillotine which the victim himself set in action. Casting one’s
self under the wheels of the car of Juggernaut was another method of
religious suicide. Some philosophical schools prescribed subjection of
the body to various pains for the purification of the soul; and the
books of Manu, which also impose the destruction of human sensibility,
have contributed much to preserve this idea in India and spread abroad,
especially in the Malay Archipelago, the usage of voluntary sacrifice
to the divinity. The aborigines of the Canary Islands have employed
voluntary sacrifices on the coming of an epidemic, and the ancient
Mexicans and Peruvians observed them in honor of the divinity.
* * * * *