THE SEAMY SIDE OF CHINESE LIFE
Some of the moral aspects of the Chinese--Their religion takes no
cognizance of men's lives--Heaven looks after great moral
questions--Objectionable features of Chinese
society--Unchaste--Foul-mouthed--Passion for gambling--Instances
given--Lawless classes numerous--Opium vice--Evil results.
The comparatively elevated moral condition of Chinese society is very
often a source of pleasure and at the same time of perplexity to strangers
who have lived long amongst them, and who have narrowly watched them in
their social and domestic life. This state of things has not been produced
by the popular form of religion that is practised amongst them, for that
never seems to influence their lives in the slightest degree. A man, for
example, of notoriously bad character will come and make the most lavish
offerings to a certain idol in whom he has the most implicit faith. He
will stand in a most reverent manner before it, and he will beseech it to
bestow blessings upon him and his home, and to save him from calamity and
suffering, and when he turns to go home he is just the same man as he was
before he came into the temple.
The idols are not supposed to have anything to do with character. The
thief, and the prodigal, and the gambler join in the crowd that wind their
way up the hillside to the shrine, say, of the Goddess of Mercy, and they
burn their incense and make their offerings to the benevolent-looking
idol, whilst she, with a smile that seems to be struggling through her
gentle features, looks apparently with complacency upon them all alike,
and the hardened sinner and the shy, shrinking young wife are both treated
as though they were the same in her eyes.
There are two forces, quite outside of any of those that are supposed to
exist in the common religion of the people, that exercise a tremendous
influence for righteousness in all the various phases of Chinese life, and
are usually referred to as The Principles of Heaven. This phrase is used
whenever any question of morals is at stake, or perhaps some principle of
righteousness is involved, and it has a potency about it that nothing in
the whole range of Chinese thought could in any way equal.
An idol is never appealed to to confirm some statement about which there
may be a dispute, but Heaven is, and it is felt that when this is done,
the person who has dared to call upon that great name to be a witness as
it were to the truth of what has been said, he is not to be lightly
disbelieved. Heaven has eyes, it is commonly asserted, and when a person
recklessly holds up his hand to Heaven and asks it to attest to something
he knows to be false, it is confidently believed that ere long some signal
manifestation of its anger will be witnessed in the disasters that will be
hurled upon him and his family.
Any violations of the great law of justice or any injury done to another
man's character are things that Heaven is supposed to look upon with a
very jealous eye, and it is its part to see that due punishment shall be
inflicted upon the transgressor when the proper time comes. The writings
of Confucius and Mencius, the two great sages of China, have done much to
keep alive this idea, and as these really are a kind of Bible to the
nation, the influence they have exerted upon the scholars and thinkers of
each generation, and through them upon the people at large, has been on
the whole of a most beneficial kind.
Now it is very extraordinary, that whilst it is firmly believed that in
cases of conscience, or in matters that involve great moral questions,
Heaven always interferes to punish the wrongdoer, no one thinks that any
vices that a man may commit for his own personal gratification are looked
upon as improper by this great Power, or that it will take the trouble of
inquiring into his conduct and of meting out either rewards or punishment
for it.
The result is a very lax state of morality in regard to what may be called
the social virtues. Heaven is a great impersonal Power, that in some
mysterious way rectifies injustice, and avenges human wrongs, and at the
cry of a city pours down rain upon a district that has been parched and
dried up by drought. Life and death are decided by it, as well as the
wretchedness and happiness of mankind, but the fatherly instincts that are
deep in the heart of the true God are not considered to have any place in
this great and dread Force, and unless men come into collision with the
laws that it has established for the governance of the world, it leaves
them to work out their lives as best they may.
The passions of men, therefore, have a very wide scope for their
operations, and the consequence is the Chinese are anything but a highly
moral race of people. That they are less so than other Eastern peoples is
very seriously to be doubted, for wherever men feel themselves
unrestrained excepting by an impersonal Force that does not question too
closely the daily life of a man, the home virtues as practised by the true
Christian are sure to be neglected and ignored.
With regard to the Chinese, the facts above stated are abundantly verified
by the records of the hospitals that have been opened by foreigners
throughout the country for the treatment of the sick, and also by the
elaborate system that is in existence in every town and city, as well as
in the market places and even in the larger villages throughout the
Empire, to meet the social evil that everywhere exists.
There is one thing that mitigates somewhat the terrible tragedy of this
widespread disregard for chastity, and that is that it is sedulously kept
in the background, and the public gaze is never allowed to rest upon it.
Day or night one might pass throughout the public thoroughfares, and
along the less frequented side streets, or into the lowest slums of a
great city, and yet no sign of anything wrong either on the streets or in
the dwelling-houses could be discovered by the most critical eye.
One of the ideals of Chinese life is purity. It is sung about in their
ancient songs, and is the theme of the great poets who composed their
lyrics and their epic poems in the centuries that have fled. It is the one
element that goes to the making of a sage, and no man who is deficient in
this beautiful grace can ever hope to win the homage and respect of his
fellow-men. It is this ideal virtue that seems to permeate the atmosphere
in which men live with its impalpable touch that has made the nation
desire to hide the grossness of their lives from one another, and to put
on an air of innocence that they do not possess.
The immoral tendency of the Chinese mind is seen in a variety of ways. One
very offensive one to a person who is acquainted with the language is the
obscene character of the swearing that the people indulge in as a matter
of common usage. It is quite safe to say that everybody in China, learned
or unlearned, refined or unrefined, lady or gentleman, does habitually use
bad language, and it is particularly painful to have to listen to the
loathsome expressions that people hurl at each other when they are in a
passion and wish to cut into the very soul of the person with whom they
may be at variance. In passing along the street, one now and again comes
upon a group that has been attracted by a quarrel, say, between two women,
who, inflamed by passion, use the most degraded language, and for the time
being ignore their sex, and seem to be utterly regardless of the number of
people that are silent witnesses of their depravity.
Another insight that one gets into the unrefined character of the Chinese
mind is the kind of plays that are popular with the masses. As the
theatricals are performed on the streets, in front of some heathen temple,
or on some open space where the crowds can congregate to witness the
performance, one gets a lurid view of the workings of the Chinese mind by
observing the kind of pieces that most suit the popular taste, and which
will draw the largest audiences. It is an undoubted fact that, putting
aside the historical plays, which from their nature are the very purest
that are presented on the stage, the pieces that are most attractive and
most sought after are such as would never be tolerated in any of the
Western theatres. These seem to have a wonderful fascination for the
playgoers, and men and women will sit during the long hours of an evening
and right away past midnight, and will listen to the words of a play and
to the innuendoes of the actors that any person with a chaste mind would
fly from in utter loathing and disgust.
Another very objectionable feature in Chinese life is the passion that
every one seems to have for gambling. There are sections of people in
England who are as much addicted to this vice as are the Chinese, but
there are vast numbers who have never had anything to do with games of
chance, and who would be horrified if they were asked to do so. Now, in
this land there is no class of people similar to those. High and low, rich
and poor, seem to have the gambling spirit in their very blood, and, like
the craving in the opium smoker, that must be satisfied at all hazards, so
the cards and the dice must be fingered to allay the passion that is
burning within their hearts.
[Illustration: FRUIT-SELLERS GAMBLING.
_To face p. 327._]
That this vice affects not simply certain classes within the Empire is
evident from the fact that the wealthy men who have no need to increase
the huge fortunes they have at their command are amongst the most
determined gamblers in the community. Gain is not the sole purpose of such
men, when they spend days and nights with the cards in their hands, and
everything else is forgotten in the mad excitement that the varied
fortunes of the game brings to the players. Not long since, the chief
mandarin of a district that contained several large counties, and who was
immensely rich, became so enthralled with the gambling mania that he
utterly neglected his official duties, and spent his whole time with a
number of wealthy men in playing the various games of chance that are so
well known to the Chinese. The Viceroy of the province got to know in some
way or another of his disgraceful conduct, and not only dismissed him from
his office, but also got the sanction of the authorities in Peking to
decide that he should never be allowed to hold any position under the
Government in the future, and so his official life came to a sudden and
disastrous termination. That this ignominious close to the ambitions of a
life will have any effect in delivering him from the craving for
excitement that has got such a grip upon him, is extremely improbable. His
curt dismissal and his reduction to the ranks of the common people will no
doubt have a beneficial effect upon the mandarins throughout the province,
for he was a well-known man, and was a member of a family that had within
it officials of the highest possible distinction.
This fatal tendency of the Chinese for gambling is fully realized by the
rulers of the country, and the most stringent measures have been adopted
by them to repress it. That they have been only moderately successful is
not to be wondered at, for the passion within the hearts of the people is
like a stream that has been dammed up, and that by and by scatters
everything before it, and carries destruction in its mad career. Wherever
a vigorous mandarin holds rule and the gambling laws are carried out with
a certain amount of strictness, the people are afraid openly to indulge in
the national propensity. Where, however, an easy-going official and
perhaps a gambler himself holds the reins of office, then the people,
feeling the curb removed, plunge with wild excitement into the gambling
fray, and neglecting every other business in life, give themselves wholly
to the cards and the dice.
On one occasion, in a certain district, an opium-smoking mandarin whose
brains were dazed and muddled with his midnight orgies allowed the law to
be very loosely administered within his jurisdiction. His runners or
policemen took advantage of the situation to earn a little extra money by
receiving bribes from the owners of gambling houses, and to wink at the
trade that was being carried on by them. Immunity from police inspection
not only gave encouragement to these gentry, but at the same time struck
as if with a whip the slumbering passion in the hearts of the community
and roused it into a fury.
It soon became known that the Yamen was not to be feared, and that there
were no penalties against the infraction of the gambling statutes, for the
mandarin's soul was steeped in opium, and all his executive staff were
gathering in a golden harvest that prevented them from seeing how the
people were breaking the laws. One firm, having literally bribed every
official, including even the mandarin himself, had the audacity to open a
large gambling establishment, and to announce publicly that a particular
form of gaming was going to be carried on in it, and to invite the public
to come and purchase their tickets from them.
The system that was proposed was one that was exceedingly popular with the
Chinese, but it had been so demoralizing in its effects, that it had been
repeatedly suppressed at various times by the authorities. It consisted of
thirty-six well-known gambling words, one of which was selected by the
head of the concern and concealed within a series of small boxes, which
were to be opened in the presence of a committee, on a certain drawing
day, when all those who had tickets with the lucky word would be rewarded
by certain specified prizes in money, far in excess of the sums they had
originally paid for them.
The whole country for miles round was in the wildest excitement about this
lottery business. The great question with nearly every one was what word
should they speculate on, for with the gambling mania strongly aroused
within them, every one wanted to take his chance of gaining the coveted
prize. Soothsayers and fortune-tellers were consulted to see if by their
jugglery they could not reveal the word that had been hidden away so
carefully so that none should know its secret. Men and women in large
numbers visited the various idol shrines in the region and made vows to
gods of valuable offerings if they would but disclose to them the unknown
Chinese character that was going to bring wealth to those that should
purchase the lucky ticket.
There was one large temple, famous for the potency of the idols that were
enshrined in it, and every evening for weeks before the drawing hundreds
of men and women used to repair to it in the hopes that the idols would
reveal to them in their dreams during the stillness of the night which
word they should select as the right one. Singular to say, some declared
that they got such clear illuminations from the idols that they proceeded
to buy tickets which subsequently gave them the coveted prizes.
After a time society became so disorganized that the whole thing was put a
stop to, and gambling was more sternly forbidden than ever. The
Government, however, is conscious that it cannot be absolutely prohibited,
and so three days of grace are given, when every one is allowed to gamble
to his very heart's content without any fear from any one. The first
begins on the Chinese New Year's Day, when the whole of the Empire is
having a holiday. All work is suspended and the shops are closed, so that
for one day at least in the year the towns and cities have a genuine
Sunday look about them.
In all the public thoroughfares tables are set up, where the crowds may
gather and throw their dice and venture their cash, and look with their
solemn, unemotional faces upon the varying fortunes of the games, as
their money that they have hoarded up for the occasion passes into the
possession of the winner, and they are left penniless. The chances are all
in favour of the man that runs the concerns, but an occasional success
where ten times the amount risked is gathered in by the delighted winner,
so stirs the gambling instincts that they keep putting down their money on
the board, hoping in every throw of the dice to woo fortune to their side.
Another decidedly unpleasant feature about the Chinese is the hazy and
indefinite ideas they have generally with regard to _meum_ and _tuum_.
They are wanting in that straightforward honesty that is the
characteristic of the typical Englishman. There is no typical Chinaman
that corresponds to him. It is quite true that in certain business
relationships a Chinaman's word is as good as his bond, and that contracts
entered into by leading Chinese firms are faithfully carried out, even
though they may be large losers by the transactions. This is not the
result of a profound instinct for honesty, but rather the carrying out of
a commercial code of honour, the infraction of which would cause them to
lose face amongst business men, and thus imperil the credit of their
firms. These very men that would be willing to bankrupt themselves rather
than disavow some business engagement that had turned out badly, will
under other circumstances act very much like the rest of their countrymen
and take advantage of you for their own benefit, and fleece you
unmercifully.
The first and most practical experience one has of this deteriorated moral
character in the nation is with one's cook, who sets himself
systematically to cheat upon every article he has to buy for the home
use.[6] As he has the purchasing of everything required from the Chinese
market, it may easily be imagined what a field he has for gradually
making his fortune out of the unsuspicious foreigner. He will charge just
as much per cent. extra upon every article as he thinks he can safely do
without raising the ire of his employer. He does not call this stealing.
It goes under the more euphonious designation of earning, for to steal
would mean that he was a thief, and that he would never under any
circumstances consent to be. If you were to ask him if in his daily
purchases he earns anything upon them, a pleasant smile would flash over
his yellow countenance and he could deny that he did, but in such a way as
to confess in a shy and ingenuous manner that he did. If, however, you
were to ask him if he stole from his master, he would be filled with
indignation, and anger would flash from his eyes, whilst he would
indignantly repudiate the idea that he had ever stolen from any one in his
life. Universal custom and the inbred instinct of the Chinaman to earn an
honest penny whenever the opportunity may occur has given the nation
decidedly low ideas of morality, and has led the people into huge systems
of overreaching each other that have had the effect of dulling the
conscience and of lowering the moral standard.
The transition from stealing in what might be called a legitimate and
recognized way into downright theft and burglary is not a very difficult
one. The fabled days of the times of Confucius have long since passed away
when no man needed to shut his door at night when the family retired to
rest, and no one felt any concern about his purse that he may have
accidentally dropped on the road, since he would simply have to go back
over the way he had travelled and he would find it on the exact spot where
it had accidentally fallen from him. The nation has fallen upon degenerate
times since then, for locks and bars and bolts and walls that would seem
to be meant to act as fortifications are now all required by those who
have any property that would be worth the carrying off.
This fact is most conspicuous in the houses of the rich, who are apt to
keep considerable sums of money in them, and who thus tempt the cupidity
of the thieves in the neighbourhood, and even of those that live at a
distance, who will come suddenly one dark night in considerable force and
in one fell swoop carry off all the valuables in them.
The pawn shops, that are known to contain all kinds of precious property
that are held as pledges for money lent on them, have to be built strong
enough to resist the organized attack of desperate bands of robbers. They
are in fact miniature fortresses, with walls of granite slabs that would
resist a battering-ram, and iron plated doors, and jingals placed inside
the doors ready to resist an onslaught of the thieving mob of ruffians. As
these are under the special protection of the mandarins, it shows the
lawless character of the Chinese robber fraternity, that they dare to
assemble in such numbers to attack such formidable buildings as they are,
and yet such things are by no means uncommon.
One stormy, cloudy night when the inmates have retired to rest, and there
is no suspicion of anything unusual going to take place, the sudden
barking of dogs, that seem mad with excitement, arouses the sleepers from
their slumbers. Peering through the narrow stone slits of the windows
upstairs, they catch a glimpse of a large number of dark figures moving
restlessly about. Immediately the whole establishment is alive. The place
is going to be attacked, and now with cries of terror and alarm every one
hastens to his post to repel the onslaught of these midnight marauders.
The battle is sharp and fierce, and there is none to bring aid to the
defenders, for the neighbours, though they hear the sounds of firing, and
the shouts of the ruffians and the screams of the terrified women inside
the pawn shop that startle the midnight air, dare not come to the rescue,
for the robbers are not in a mood to spare any one that dares to interfere
with the carrying out of their plans.
After some hours of conflict, the main door is battered in with axes and
the robbers intent only on plunder decamp with their huge spoils, that
will enable them to gamble to their hearts' content, and to steep their
senses in opium for many a long day to come. They have so effectually
concealed their identity that all investigations made by the mandarins or
by detectives specially employed by the firm, fail entirely to discover
who the midnight thieves were that so successfully raided the wealthy
establishment.
The processes of law are so uncertain in China that there is a positive
temptation to the criminal classes to indulge in all manner of nefarious
schemes that are for the detriment of society. The mandarin of a certain
county, who is declared, in the poetic language so often employed by the
Chinese, to be "The Father and Mother of his People," happens to be a
weak, vacillating character, or his few senses have been saturated with
opium so that he is quite incompetent to see to the government of his
district.
The lawless characters within it, who might have been restrained by a firm
and vigorous hand, now assert themselves, and the large clans with their
powerful followings domineer and oppress the weaker ones. Travellers are
stopped on the highways, or carried off and shut up and tortured until
they are redeemed by their friends by the payment of a heavy ransom.
The river that may run through this unhappy region is infested with
pirates who sally out at night and capture the trading junks that may be
lying at anchor in some snug bay where they have taken refuge for safety.
They also land their men at the villages along the banks and raid and
plunder the defenceless inhabitants, and when the morning comes there is
despair in the hearts of those who have been deprived of their all, for
they know that no redress will ever be obtained from the mandarin, who is
the cause of the lawlessness that prevails on the land and along the
streams and away down to the river's mouth, where it pours its waters into
the ocean.
Wherever there is an efficient executive, the men who prey upon society
are compelled for the time being to take to honest courses to earn a
living for themselves and their families. It is very interesting to watch
how a whole district may be kept in order and laws obeyed and confidence
restored by the action of one vigorous mandarin. On one occasion a certain
region was in a most disturbed condition. Travellers passing through it
did so at the greatest risk of being seized and held to ransom. They were
compelled to go in companies for the sake of the protection that numbers
would give them, and even then they had to pay the headmen of a certain
large and turbulent village stipulated fees for passes that would carry
them for a few miles on their journey without being molested by other
blackmailers. Even the very poorest in going from one place to another
were called upon to pay a few cash before they were allowed to proceed,
and men were stationed outside the village to collect the toll from every
one that passed by.
There were loud grumblings and complaints at this distressing state of
things, but no steps were taken by the local authorities to put an end to
it. The lawbreakers were rich enough to bribe the mandarins and every
member of their Yamens, so that the story of their misdeeds was quietly
ignored and they were allowed to grow rich on their illegal exactions.
After a time a new general was appointed to take military charge of the
whole district. He was an exceedingly active and intelligent official, and
had the reputation of being impervious to a bribe. A tremor of excitement
ran through the ranks of the blackmailers when they heard of his
appointment, but they contented themselves with the idea, that if he could
not be reached by money, his subordinates, whose livelihood depended upon
such perquisites as they were prepared to give them, would certainly not
refuse the liberal sums they could have for the asking.
The general soon found what a disgraceful condition his district was in,
and he quietly took measures to restore law and order in it. He knew that
he could get no reliable information from the members of his own Yamen, so
he used to go out every evening after dark in various disguises and mingle
with the people. He would sit in the tea shops and hobnob with coolies, or
he would enter the restaurants and converse with the more staid and
respectable citizens and glean from their conversation information upon
all manner of subjects that would be serviceable to him in his government
of the people.
He found that the greatest disorders existed and that it would require
very stern and decided measures to put an end to them. He got a complete
history, too, of the particular village that had become so notorious for
its exactions, with the names of its leading men and all their cruelties
to the victims that had been seized in order to extract large sums out of
them. He knew that these very men had spies even in his own Yamen who were
ready to report any action that he might be going to take with respect to
them, and therefore he had to keep his plans a profound secret even from
his most confidential advisers.
At length after weeks of patient waiting, during which the suspicions of
the lawbreakers were lulled to sleep, he decided upon immediate action. He
had not informed any of his officers what he was going to do, neither had
any of his troops the slightest suspicion that anything special was going
to take place. Rousing the camp at midnight, he ordered five hundred men
to prepare for instantly marching to a destination that he would reveal to
no one. Taking the lead, the troops, who had been commanded to keep the
most profound silence, glided like spectres through the dark and gloomy
streets till they reached one of the great gates of the city. These were
thrown open at the command of the general, and the soldiers trooped along
the high road wondering what was the meaning of this midnight march and
what scheme was working in the fertile brain of their leader.
Ten miles had been travelled and darkness still lay upon the land, and the
trees and the houses, as they suddenly loomed up, looked like ghosts that
had wandered out of "The Land of Shadows," and were waiting for the dawn
to return to their dreary abodes in that sunless world. Suddenly the order
was whispered through the ranks to halt, and in tones of stern command the
soldiers were ordered to surround the village that lay in the profoundest
stillness at their side. They were to see that no one of its people were
allowed to escape, and that for every one that managed to do so the life
of the soldier on guard would have to pay the forfeit. The men knew too
well the temper of their general to imagine that this was an idle threat.
With noiseless tread each man took up the station assigned to him by his
officer, and the whole command stood in breathless silence until the dawn
in the east lifted up the curtain of the night and revealed the village to
them. A detachment of men were marched into it, and half-a-dozen of the
leading men of the clan were seized and marched to an open space outside
of it, where the general was standing with some of his officers. The
executioner with bared arm and gleaming sword awaited but the word of
command, and six heads rolled on to the ground and the tragedy was over.
The bugles sounded and the men fell into their ranks, and almost before
the whole of the village had time to rub their eyes to assure themselves
that they were awake, the avengers of law were hurrying back to the city
they had left at midnight.
The effect of this stern act of justice was perfectly magical in its
effects. The news spread with the rapidity of lightning through the length
and breadth of this famous general's jurisdiction. With the fall of those
heads, every trace of lawlessness vanished from the great clans that had
been terrorizing society. Men could now travel freely without any danger
of molestation, and even in the darkness of the night no one dared to lay
his hand upon a member even of the weakest of the clans. The fear of the
general was in the hearts of the transgressors, for conscience made
cowards of them all, and stories were circulated about the almost
supernatural knowledge that he had of men's doings, and which every one
implicitly believed in.
And so during the term of his office there was an end to blackmailing, and
the region became as peaceful as though the gamblers had burnt their cards
and had taken to reading religious books, and the opium smokers had become
reformed, and the passion for unlawful gains had died out of the hearts of
the men who had made it impossible for honest men to travel freely either
for business or for pleasure very far from their own doors. But whilst
this was the case, there was no real reformation in the hearts of a single
one of those who had made society unsafe for men and women who wished to
live a law-abiding life. They were simply afraid of the man that had the
instant power of life and death, and who without trial of judge or jury,
and without the fear of any superior court to call in question his
decisions, could hand over a person at a moment's notice to the man who
held the gleaming sword, and who with one stroke of it could decide in two
seconds a matter that lawyers in England would wrangle over for months.
The lawless classes in China form a considerable percentage of the whole
population. They are ruthless and cruel, and in the carrying out of their
fell purposes they show but little consideration for the lives or property
of those whom they may select to be their victims. There is a general
impression in Western lands that the idolatrous races of people living in
the East are a simple-minded folk, with but few passions and generous and
tender-hearted to each other. They are supposed to lead a sunny life, and
imitating the luxuriance of nature that the great sun continually spurs
into action by his fiery heat, to have the widest sympathies with
everything human. This is an ideal picture that could only have been drawn
by the vivid forces of imagination. China is no Eden of this kind, and it
may be accepted as a general truth that where men have lost the knowledge
of God, and are not drawn into a noble life by an impression of His purity
and tenderness which He wishes reproduced in the lives of the world, men's
own conceptions of what a noble life ought to be will always fall far
short of the Divine.
The best days for China were in the ancient past, according to the sacred
books of the nation, when God and Heaven were the prominent words in the
religious life of the people, and when the idols had not yet come from
India to lower the conceptions of the Divine. With the gradual
disappearance of God, as a personal Power, from the thinking of the people
there came the lower standard of morality that has its legitimate
successor in the types we see in modern life.
We are told that three centuries after Confucius wrote his lofty system of
ethics, though even he began to give evidence that he was losing touch
with a personal God that the illustrious sages whose writings he professed
to be editing undoubtedly had, the nation had practically adopted the
worship of nature, and made their offerings to the spirits of the
mountains and of the streams that flowed through the land and brought
fertility in their train. Morality, however, had in the meanwhile
degenerated, and one has but to read the history of China[7] to see how
the baser passions that influence men in the present day were very much
in evidence in those primitive times.
An incident in the life of one of the most famous Emperors that lived two
centuries before Christ will confirm my statement on this head. Some time
before his death he had a tomb built for himself that was constructed on a
royal and a magnificent scale. It was really an underground palace and
furnished in a style that suited the exalted ideas of the man who was
designing it. It was furnished with every necessary for a luxurious life,
and vast stores of gold and silver and precious jewels were deposited in
strong rooms that no robber bands could break into.
Magnificent suites of apartments were constructed that were fit to
entertain a kingly company, for the Emperor when he died and was buried in
this great sepulchre did not mean to be the only occupant of it. He had
planned that some of his favourites from his harem should accompany him,
and that men-servants and maid-servants and hosts of attendants should be
shut up with him in the gloomy underground mansion. He could not bear the
thought of being alone. He desired that life in some mysterious way should
be continued in "The Land of Shadows" very much as it had been in the one
he was forced to relinquish.
His one concern in the midst of all this preparation for another life was
the feeling that the great wealth that he had stored in the new palace
would excite the cupidity of the thieves and the gamblers and blackmailers
that had begun to exist in that early stage of the nation's history. He
accordingly called in the cleverest and the most cunning artificers in
brass and iron and asked them to make locks of such ingenious and subtle
designs that no housebreaker would ever be able to open them. They were
also to construct full-sized figures of men in metal, standing with bow
and arrow in hand in front of the door by which the palace was to be
entered. A touch of the intruder's foot on a secret spring would cause
the mechanism of these dumb sentinels to work, and in a moment the deadly
arrows would be shot into his body and he would fall lifeless on the very
threshold. The safeguards against invasion of the tomb after the Emperor
was laid to rest in it were complete, for none knew the secret of the
locks or of the silent figures that stood ready with their arrows to slay
the robber but the artificer that designed them, and in order to secure
that none should ever learn it from him, he was quietly put to death one
morning after he had fully explained to the Emperor the details of his
wonderful invention.
Another feature about Chinese life that is sadly illustrative of its seamy
character is the prevalence of the opium habit, and the saddest feature
about this is the fact that it is not a native vice, one indigenous to the
soil, that has grown up as the result of some peculiarity of temperament
of the Chinese, but is an import that was first brought into the country
and made an article of trade by an English company of merchants, viz. the
East India Company.
One of the most unfortunate days for this old Empire was that on which the
ships of that famous Company sailed up the Pearl river with their
consignment of a drug that was to prove more disastrous and more fatal to
its people than all the revolutions that during the past centuries have
deluged this land with blood, or all the epidemics that have at various
times swept like destroying angels through the ranks of society.
People who have been jealous of English honour have tried to prove that
the opium was in common use amongst the Chinese before the ships of
England appeared before Canton with their deadly cargoes, but this is an
absolute mistake. Isolated travellers from India may have brought some for
their own individual consumption, but the drug was unknown and unused by
the Chinese people. That this statement is true is proved by the fact that
there is no word in the language of this people for opium, for the only
one that has ever existed is the one that attempts to give the sound of
the foreign name that those who produced it in other lands gave it. If the
thing had been an indigenous product, the Chinese would have had a name
for it that would have had no flavour of a foreign land.
It has been a most disastrous thing for China that the one nation that has
championed opium and has made treaties for its sale in this land, and that
in the interests of its merchants and for the sake of its Indian revenue,
insisted upon these treaties being carried out, should be England. If it
had been a smaller Power the Chinese Government might have successfully
resisted the attempt to force upon it a trade that was inevitably bound to
degrade and demoralize its people. But England, the mighty power of the
West, whose guns had thundered over Canton, and had waked the echoes of
the Yangtze, and had even sounded through the capital of the Empire, was
one that China dared not contend with, and so it has come to pass that the
country that has always professed to be the refuge of the oppressed and
the freer of the slave, has been the one to bind the shackles of opium on
a people that, whilst they have fallen under its spell, yet feel the
profoundest indignation against the Power whose legislation has helped to
enslave them.
Opium in China is sometimes compared to the drinking habit in England, and
terrible though the latter is, men have become so accustomed to the sight
of it, that it is apt to be looked upon with considerable leniency. People
in the highest positions in the land have drink upon their tables, without
any one commenting unfavourably, except perhaps the members of the
temperance party. Clergymen, highly respectable heads of families,
philanthropists, and men who are prominent in society for their
benevolence, all feel that they are doing no wrong by using in moderation
wines and spirits themselves, and by offering them to their friends or
guests who may be visiting them. Many honestly believe that a moderate use
of wine is not only allowable, but is also highly beneficial for the
health, an idea that is largely believed in by the medical faculty, who
are apt to recommend their patients to use it, whenever their health
becomes impaired.
Now, supposing that the moderate and daily use of liquors for, say six
months, would so enchain and bind a man or woman that they must, at all
costs, have their daily allowance of drink that they have been accustomed
to, and that if they were denied it they would be mad with pain, and so
racked with agony that they could neither rest nor sleep until the awful
craving had been dulled by a draught of wine or spirits, how would society
look upon the use of beverages that in so brief a time would bring about
so terrible a tragedy? It is quite safe to say that in a vast number of
homes where to-day they are used with the utmost lightheartedness, they
would be excluded with the most feverish and jealous care as enemies with
whom there could be no compromise.
Let us suppose, for example, a family of six, the father and mother, two
sons and two daughters. Every day, twice a day, at lunch and at dinner,
one or two glasses of wine are drunk at each meal. This goes on steadily
for six months, and then it is proposed that for the future there shall be
no more drinking. This is agreed to; but, as the evening advances, it is
found that a strange and mysterious restlessness has taken possession of
the whole family. They cannot sit long, but are impelled to move about.
Gnawing pains rack the bones and render life intolerable.
Retiring to rest for the night is absolutely useless, for it is found
impossible to remain for more than a few minutes quiet; and besides, the
mental faculties are so active and the eyes so wide awake, that sleep is
the very last thing that the imagination can think of. It is soon
discovered that the only thing that will restore the normal tone to both
body or mind is a copious draught of wine or a bumper of brandy and soda;
when, after a few minutes, the restlessness gradually vanishes, the pains
and aches slowly subside from the bones and muscles of the body, and a
perfect peace reigns where before mind and body were both racked in a
fierce conflict with an unseen foe.
Now this is an imaginary and highly impossible picture with regard to the
effects of alcohol, but it is one that is extremely applicable to the
opium smoker. Let a Chinaman steadily smoke opium for six months and he
can no longer call his life his own. He cannot let a single day go by
without taking the amount that will relieve the tension and the strain
that are put on his physical forces at a certain hour every day when the
craving for the drug creeps over him. He must then have the pipe to inhale
its fumes, or the agony and oppression will be so great that he will be in
the greatest torture.
There is no such a thing as temperance in opium as there is in the
indulgence of intoxicating liquors. Unless a man is a confirmed drunkard
he can abstain for a longer or a shorter time from them without any very
serious inconvenience, but such liberty is never accorded to the opium
smoker. After a daily use for six months, he may never have a day off, but
as the hours pass by he is reminded by the enemy that creeps over him, and
that fills him with pains and languor, that he must light his pipe.
Sometimes in cases of severe illness his usual dose must be doubled before
his torture is relieved, and when it comes to pass that he does not wish
to smoke, it is then known that a stronger than opium is going to claim
him as its victim.
If a man has plenty of means he lays in a supply, and when the time comes
round for him to take it, which it does with the inflexibility and cruelty
of fate, he reclines on a couch and fills and refills his pipe, and draws
in one volume of fume after another until the pains that have gripped
every bone in his body loose their hold, and the craving that has brought
a shadow over his life, and blotted out sun and moon and stars, and that
has shut out of his heart his home and his wife and his children, and has
given him a vision only of his own wretched self, slowly disappears, and
he finally drops into a childlike sleep. He rises perfectly free from pain
or weariness, but he is oppressed with the thought that twice every day he
has to go through this terrible experience, and that never as long as he
lives will he ever be a free man again. There is a release for every one
that desires it; but the price to be paid is so great and the agony to be
endured so intolerable that but very few of those upon whom opium has laid
its grip would dare to attempt to free himself from its shackles.
If the opium smoker is a poor man, then indeed the lot of the home is a
miserable one. At all costs he must have his pipe at the regular time, no
matter who else may suffer. His wife and children may go without food, but
he must be supplied. One article after another is sold to buy the opium,
until the house is so bare that there is nothing left to be disposed of.
Then one of the children disappears, for a childless man in another part
of the city has bought it, and it now belongs to him. One after another
vanishes in the same way, till no one is left except his wife. At last
when all the funds have gone and there are no more little ones to dispose
of, negotiations are entered into with a middle-woman, and his wife too is
no longer to be found in her wretched home, for she has become the spouse
of another man, and the miserable opium smoker is left alone, content with
the thought that for the present, at least, he has got the funds to enable
him to satisfy the craving and to keep off the horrors that would make his
life one long torture.
In the middle classes where the husband is an opium smoker, and where the
means are at hand to supply the daily needs of this cruel and exacting
tyrant, things go on tolerably smoothly, for opium does not send men into
wild and insane fits such as alcohol does, but it deadens the senses and
puts them to sleep, and it tends on the whole to repress the fighting
passions of a man.
The indirect influence of opium is very disastrous in its results, for it
is in a large measure the producer of some of the dangerous classes that
prey upon society. When a man has spent all and sold any little property
that he may have possessed, he then joins the ranks of the thieves and of
the gamblers, and henceforth he seems to live only for the one great
purpose of grasping from any quarter that may be ready to his hand, the
means of satisfying the inexorable craving that comes upon him twice every
day.
This terrible evil exists throughout the length and breadth of the Empire,
and there is no power outside of Christianity that seems to be able to
cope with it. Human affection, and sense of honour, and pride of race, all
succumb before the touch of opium. The Church of Christ in China alone
possesses the one motive that will enable the victim to bear the agony of
giving up the habit, or that will restrain the man that is tempted from
indulging in it, and that is supreme affection and fidelity to Christ his
Saviour. The same mysterious power that has touched the men of other lands
into the most intense and unwavering devotion to Him, has in countless
instances kept men in this old Empire of China from the seductions of the
pipe, and has made them bear heroically and without flinching the bitter
pains that opium makes its victims endure before it will loose its grasp
upon them.