dancing and of exercising themselves in feats of activity which, in
Europe, are attended with the happy effects of shaking off the gloom and
melancholy that a life of constant labour or seclusion from society is
apt to promote. They have not even a fixed day of rest set apart for
religious worship. Their acts of devotion partake of the same solitary
cast that prevails in their domestic life. In none of the different
sects of religion, which at various times have been imported into, and
adopted in China, has congregational worship been inculcated, which, to
that country in particular, may be considered as a great misfortune.
For, independent of religions considerations, the sabbatical institution
is attended with advantages of a physical as well as of a moral nature;
and humanity is not less concerned than policy in consecrating one day
out of seven, or some other given number, to the service of the great
Creator, and to rest from bodily labour. When the government of France,
in the height of her rage for innovation, fell into the hands of
atheistical demagogues, when her temples were polluted and every thing
sacred was invaded and profaned, the seventh day was considered as a
relic of ancient superstition and the observance of it accordingly
abolished; and, about the same time, it became the fashion among a
certain description of people to use specious arguments against its
continuance in our own country; as being, for example, a day for the
encouragement of idleness, drunkenness, and dissipation. Such a remark
could only be applied to large cities and towns; and in crowded
manufacturing towns the mechanic, who can subsist by working three days
in the week, would be at no loss in finding opportunities, were there no
sabbath day, in the course of the other four to commit irregularities.
And who, even for the sake of the mechanic and artificer, would wish to
see the labouring peasant deprived of one day's rest, out of seven,
which to him is more precious than the wages he has hardly earned the
other six? What man, possessed of common feelings of humanity, in
beholding the decent and modest husbandman, accompanied by his family in
their best attire attending the parish-church, does not participate in
the smile of content which on this day particularly beams on his
countenance, and bespeaks the serenity of his mind? Having on this day
discharged his duty to God, refreshed his body with rest, enjoyed the
comfort of clean clothing, and exercised his mind in conversing with his
neighbours, he returns with double vigour to his daily labour; having,
as Mr. Addison observes in one of his Spectators, rubbed off the rust of
the week.
The first of the new year in China, and a few succeeding days, are the
only holidays, properly speaking, that are observed by the working part
of the community. On these days the poorest peasant makes a point of
procuring new clothing for himself and his family; they pay their visits
to friends and relations, interchange civilities and compliments, make
and receive presents; and the officers of government and the higher
ranks give feasts and entertainments. But even in those feasts there is
nothing that bears the resemblance of conviviality. The guests never
partake together of the same service of dishes, but each has frequently
his separate table; sometimes two, but never more than four, sit at the
same table; and their eyes must constantly be kept upon the master of
the feast, to watch all his motions, and to observe every morsel he puts
into his mouth, and every time he lifts the cup to his lips; for a
Chinese of good-breeding can neither eat nor drink without a particular
ceremony, to which the guests must pay attention. If a person invited
should, from sickness or any accident, be prevented from fulfilling his
engagement, the portion of the dinner that was intended to be placed on
his table is sent in procession to his own house; a custom that strongly
points out the very little notion they entertain of the _social_
pleasures of the table. It is customary to send after each guest the
remains even of his dinner. Whenever in the course of our journey we
visited a governor or viceroy of a province, we generally found him at
the head of a range of tables, covered with a multitude of dishes, which
invariably were marched after us to the yachts. Martial, if I mistake
not, has some allusion to a similar custom among the Romans. Each
carried his own napkin to a feast, which being filled with the remains
of the entertainment was sent home by a slave; but this appears to have
been done more out of compliment to the host, to shew the great esteem
in which they held his cheer, than for the sake of the viands; for the
Romans loved conviviality.
The Chinese also, like the ancient Egyptians as exemplified in the
enormous mess which Joseph gave to little Benjamin above the rest of his
brothers, testify, on all occasions, that they consider the measure of a
man's stomach to depend more upon the rank of its owner than either his
bulk or appetite. The Embassador's allowance was at least five times as
great as that of any person in his suite. In this particular, however,
these nations are not singular, neither in ancient nor in modern times.
The kings of Sparta, and indeed every Grecian hero, were always supposed
to eat twice the quantity of a common soldier; and the only difference
with regard to our heroes of the present day consists in their being
enabled to convert quantity into quality, an advantage for which they
are not a little indebted to the invention of money, into which all
other articles can be commuted.
Whatever may be the occasion of bringing together a few idlers, they
seldom part without trying their luck at some game of chance for which a
Chinese is never unprepared. He rarely goes abroad without a pack of
cards in his pocket or a pair of dice. Both of these, like almost every
thing else in the country, are different from similar articles
elsewhere. Their cards are much more numerous than ours, and their games
much more complicated. Nor are they at any loss, even if none of the
party should happen to be furnished with cards or dice; on such an
emergency their fingers are employed to answer the purpose, which are
all that is required to play the game of _Tsoi-moi_, a game of which the
lower class of people is particularly fond. Two persons, sitting
directly opposite to each other, raise their hands at the same moment,
when each calls out the number he guesses to be the sum of the fingers
expanded by himself and his adversary. The closed fist is none, the
thumb one, the thumb and forefinger two, &c. so that the chances lie
between 0 and 5, as each must know the number held out by himself. The
middling class of people likewise play at this game when they give
entertainments where wine is served, and the loser is always obliged to
drink off a cup of wine. At this childish game two persons will
sometimes play to a very late hour, till he who has had the worst of the
game has been obliged to drink so much wine that he can no longer see
either to count his own or his adversary's fingers. I have thus
particularly noticed the Chinese _Tsoi-moi_, on account of the
extraordinary coincidence between it and a game in use among the Romans,
to which frequent allusion is made by Cicero. In a note by Melancthon on
Cicero's Offices it is thus described. "_Micare digitis_, ludi genus
est. Sic ludentes, simul digitos alterius manus quot volunt citissime
erigunt, et simul ambo divinant quot simul erecti sint; quod qui
definivit, lucratus est: unde acri visu opus est, et multa fide, ut cum
aliquo in tenebris mices." "_Micare digitis_, is a kind of game. Those
who play at it stretch out, with great quickness, as many fingers of one
hand each, as they please, and at the same instant both guess how many
are held up by the two together; and he who guesses right wins the game:
hence a sharp sight is necessary, and also great confidence when it is
played in the dark."
The Chinese have certainly the _acer visus_, but I doubt much whether
they have faith enough in each other's integrity to play at the game of
fingers in the dark, which, in the opinion of Cicero, was a strong test
of a truly honest man. The same game is said to be still played in Italy
under the name of _Morra_.[8]
[8] Adam's Roman Antiquities.
The officers about Yuen-min-yuen used to play a kind of chess, which
appeared to me to be essentially different from that game as played by
the Persians, the Indians, and other oriental nations, both with regard
to the lines drawn on the board, the form of the chess-men, and the
moves, from which I should rather conclude it to be a game of their own
invention, than an introduction either from India or by the army of
_Gengis-khan_, as some authors have conjectured.
The spirit of gaming is so universal in most of the towns and cities,
that in almost every bye-corner, groupes are to be found playing at
cards or throwing dice. They are accused even of frequently staking
their wives and children on the hazard of a die. It may easily be
conceived that where a man can sell his children into slavery, there can
be little remorse, in the breast of a gamester reduced to his last
stake, to risk the loss of what the law has sanctioned him to dispose
of. Yet we are very gravely assured by some of the reverend
missionaries, that "the Chinese are entirely ignorant of all games of
chance;" that "they can enjoy no amusements but such as are authorized
by the laws." These gentlemen surely could not be ignorant that one of
their most favourite sports is cock-fighting, and that this cruel and
unmanly _amusement_, as they are pleased to consider it, is full as
eagerly pursued by the upper classes in China as, to their shame and
disgrace be it spoken, it continues to be by those in a similar
situation in some parts of Europe. The training of quails for the same
cruel purpose of butchering each other furnishes abundance of employment
for the idle and dissipated. They have even extended their enquiries
after fighting animals into the insect tribe, in which they have
discovered a species of _gryllus_, or locust, that will attack each
other with such ferocity as seldom to quit their hold without bringing
away at the same time a limb of their antagonist. These little creatures
are fed and kept apart in bamboo cages; and the custom of making them
devour each other is so common that, during the summer months, scarcely
a boy is seen without his cage and his grasshoppers.
I have already had occasion to observe that the natural disposition of
the Chinese should seem to have suffered almost a total change by the
influence of the laws and maxims of government, an influence which, in
this country more than elsewhere, has given a bias to the manners,
sentiments, and moral character of the people; for here every ancient
proverb carries with it the force of a law. While they are by nature
quiet, passive, and timid, the state of society and the abuse of the
laws by which they are governed, have rendered them indifferent,
unfeeling, and even cruel, as a few examples, which among many others
occurred, will but too clearly bear evidence; and as the particular
instances, from which I have sometimes drawn an inference, accorded with
the common actions and occurrences of life, I have not hesitated to
consider them as so many general features in their moral character; at
the same time I am aware that allowances ought to be made for particular
ways of thinking, and for customs entirely dissimilar from our own,
which are, therefore, not exactly to be appreciated by the same rule as
if they had occurred in our own country. The public feasts of Sparta, in
which the girls danced naked in presence of young men, had not the same
effect on the Lacedemonian youth, as they might be supposed to produce
in Europe; nor is the delicacy of the Hindoo women offended by looking
on the Lingam. Thus the Chinese are entitled to our indulgence by the
peculiar circumstances under which they are placed, but I leave it in
the breast of the reader to make what allowance he may think they
deserve.
The common practice of flogging with the bamboo has generally been
considered by the missionaries in the light of a gentle correction,
exercised by men in power over their inferiors, just as a father would
chastise his son, but not as a punishment to which disgrace is attached.
However lightly these gentlemen may chuse to treat this humiliating
chastisement, to which all are liable from the prime minister to the
peasant, it is but too often inflicted in the anger and by the caprice
of a man in office, and frequently with circumstances of unwarrantable
cruelty and injustice. Of the truth of this remark we had several
instances. In our return down the _Pei-ho_, the water being considerably
shallower than when we first sailed up this river, one of our
accommodation barges got aground in the middle of the night. The air was
piercing cold, and the poor creatures belonging to the vessel were busy
until sun-rise in midst of the river, using their endeavours to get her
off. The rest of the fleet had proceeded, and the patience of the
superintending officer at length being exhausted, he ordered his
soldiers to flog the captain and the whole crew; which was accordingly
done in a most unmerciful manner and this was their only reward for the
use of the yacht, their time and labour for two days. The instance of
degrading an officer and flogging all his people, because the meat
brought for our use was a little tainted when the temperature was at 88°
in the shade, I have already had occasion to notice.
Whenever the wind was contrary, or it was found necessary to track the
vessels against the stream, a number of men were employed for this
purpose. The poor creatures were always pressed into this disagreeable
and laborious service, for which they were to receive about six-pence a
day so long as they tracked, without any allowance being made to them
for returning to the place from whence they were forced. These people
knowing the difficulty there was of getting others to supply their
places, and that their services would be required until such should be
procured, generally deserted by night, disregarding their pay. In order
to procure others, the officers dispatched their soldiers to the nearest
village, taking the inhabitants by surprize and forcing them out of
their beds to join the yachts. Scarcely a night occurred in which some
poor wretches did not suffer the lashes of the soldiers for attempting
to escape, or for pleading the excuse of old age, or infirmity. It was
painful to behold the deplorable condition of some of these creatures.
Several were half naked and appeared to be wasting and languishing for
want of food. Yet the task of dragging along the vessels was far from
being light. Sometimes they were under the necessity of wading to the
middle in mud; sometimes to swim across creeks, and immediately
afterwards to expose their naked bodies to a scorching sun; and they
were always driven by a soldier or the lictor of some petty police
officer carrying in his hand an enormous whip, with which he lashed them
with as little reluctance as if they had been a team of horses.
The Dutch Embassy proceeded by land to the capital, in the middle of
winter, when the rivers and canals were frozen. The thermometer was
frequently from 8 to 16 degrees below the freeing point, and the face of
the country was mostly covered with ice and snow; yet they were often
under the necessity of travelling all night; and the peasantry, who
were pressed to carry the presents and their baggage, notwithstanding
their heavy loads, were obliged to keep up with them as long as they
could. In the course of two nights, Mr. Van Braam observes, not less
than eight of these poor wretches actually expired under their burdens,
through cold, hunger, fatigue, and the cruel treatment of their drivers.
It had been the practice of some of the gentlemen of the British
embassy, in their return through the country, to walk during a part of
the day, and to join the barges towards the hour of dinner. One day an
officer of high rank took it into his head to interrupt them in their
usual walk, and for this purpose dispatched after them nine or ten of
his soldiers, who forced them in a rude manner to return to the vessels.
Our two conductors _Van_ and _Chou_, coming up at the time, and being
made acquainted with the circumstance, gave to each of the soldiers a
most severe flogging. One of these, who had been particularly insolent,
had his ears bored through with iron wire, and his hands bound to them
for several days. The viceroy of Canton was at this time with the
embassy, and being in rank superior to the offending officer, he ordered
the latter to appear before him, gave him a severe reprimand, and
sentenced him to receive forty strokes of the bamboo as a _gentle
correction_. Our two Chinese friends were particularly pressing that the
gentlemen insulted should be present at the punishment of the officer,
and it was not without difficulty they could be persuaded that such a
scene would not afford them any gratification. It happened also, in the
Dutch embassy, that an inferior officer was flogged and disgraced by
their conductors for not having in readiness a sufficient number of
coolies or porters to proceed with the baggage, and to carry the sedan
chairs in which they travelled.
The tyranny that men in office exercise over the multitude, and each
other, is perfectly agreeable to the systematic subordination which the
law has sanctioned. But as authority is a dangerous deposit in the hands
of the wisest, and leads sometimes the most wary to
"Play such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep,"
what must the effects of it be when vested in an illiterate Chinese or
rude Tartar who has no other talent or recommendation for his authority
than the power alone which his office allows him to exercise?
Several instances however occurred in the course of our journey through
the country, which seemed to mark the same unfeeling and hard-hearted
disposition to exist between persons of equal condition in life, as in
men in office over their inferiors. One of these afforded an
extraordinary trait of inhumanity. A poor fellow at Macao, in the employ
of the British factory there, fell by accident from a wall and pitched
upon his skull. His companions took him up with very little appearance
of life and, in this state, were carrying him away towards the skirts of
the town, where they were met by one of the medical gentlemen belonging
to the embassy. He interrogated them what they meant to do with the
unfortunate man, and was very coolly answered, they were going to bury
him. Having expressed his astonishment that they should think of putting
a man into the grave before the breath was out of his body, they replied
that they were of opinion he never could recover, and that if they
carried him home he would only be a trouble and expence to his friends
so long as he remained in a situation which rendered him unable to
assist himself. The man, however, by the humanity and attention of
Doctor Scott, was restored again to his family and to those friends who
knew so well to appreciate the value of his life.
The doctor however was not aware of the risk he ran in thus exercising
his humanity, as by a law of the country, which appears to us
extraordinary, if a wounded man be taken into the protection and charge
of any person with a view to effect his recovery, and he should happen
to die under his hands, the person into whose care he was last taken is
liable to be punished with death, unless he can produce undeniable
evidence to prove how the wound was made, or that he survived it forty
days. The consequence of such a law is, that if a person should happen
to be mortally wounded in an affray, he is suffered to die in the
streets, from the fear (should any one take charge of him) of being made
responsible for his life.
A striking instance of the fatal effects of such a law happened at
Canton lately. A fire broke out in the suburbs and three Chinese, in
assisting to extinguish it, had their limbs fractured and were otherwise
dreadfully wounded by the falling of a wall. The surgeon of the English
factory, with all the alacrity to administer relief to suffering
humanity, which characterizes the profession in Britain, directed them
to be carried to the factory, and was preparing to perform amputation,
as the only possible means of saving their lives, when one of the Hong
merchants having heard what was going on ran with great haste to the
place, and entreated the surgeon by no means to think of performing any
operation upon them, but rather to suffer them to be taken away from the
factory as speedily as possible; adding that, however good his
intentions might be, if any one of the patients should die under his
hands, he would inevitably be tried for murder, and the most mitigated
punishment would be that of banishment for life into the wilds of
Tartary. The wounded Chinese were accordingly removed privately, and, no
doubt, abandoned to their fate.
The operation of such a barbarous law (for so it appears to us) will
serve to explain the conduct of the Chinese in the following instance.
In the course of our journey down the grand canal we had occasion to
witness a scene, which was considered as a remarkable example of a want
of fellow-feeling. Of the number of persons who had crowded down to the
banks of the canal several had posted themselves upon the high
projecting stern of an old vessel which, unfortunately, breaking down
with the weight, the whole groupe tumbled with the wreck into the canal,
just at the moment when the yachts of the embassy were passing. Although
numbers of boats were sailing about the place, none were perceived to go
to the assistance of those that were struggling in the water. They even
seemed not to know that such an accident had happened, nor could the
shrieks of the boys, floating on pieces of the wreck, attract their
attention. One fellow was observed very busily employed in picking up,
with his boat-hook, the hat of a drowning man. It was in vain we
endeavoured to prevail on the people of our vessel to heave to and send
the boat to their assistance. It is true, we were then going at the rate
of seven miles an hour, which was the plea they made for not stopping. I
have no doubt that several of these unfortunate people must inevitably
have perished.
Being thus insensible to the sufferings of their companions and
countrymen, little compassion is to be expected from them towards
strangers. From a manuscript journal, kept by a gentleman in the suite
of the Dutch Embassador, it appears that, on their route to the capital,
the writer felt an inclination to try his skaits on a sheet of ice that
they passed by the road-side; he was also urged to it by the conducing
officers. Having proceeded to some distance from the shore, the ice gave
way and he fell in up to the neck. The Chinese, instead of rendering him
any assistance, in the absence of his own countrymen who had gone
forwards, ran away laughing at this accident and left him to scramble
out as well as he could, which was not effected without very great
difficulty.
But, if further proofs were wanting to establish the insensible and
incompassionate character of the Chinese, the horrid practice of
infanticide, tolerated by custom and encouraged by the government, can
leave no doubt on this subject.--I venture to say encouraged, because
where the legislature does not interfere to prevent crimes, it certainly
may be said to lend them its countenance. No law, however, allows, as I
observe it noticed in a modern author of reputation, a father to expose
all the daughters and the third son. I believe the laws of China do not
suppose such an unnatural crime to exist, and have therefore provided no
punishment for it. It is true, they have left a child to the entire
disposal of the father, concluding, perhaps, that if his feelings will
not prevent him from doing an injury, no other consideration will. Thus,
though the commission of infanticide be frequent in China, it is
considered as more prudent to wink at it as an inevitable evil which
natural affection will better correct than penal statues; an evil that,
on the other hand, if publicly tolerated, would directly contradict the
grand principle of filial piety, upon which their system of obedience
rests, and their patriarchal form of government is founded.
It is, however, tacitly considered as a part of the duty of the police
of Pekin to employ certain persons to go their rounds, at an early hour
in the morning, with carts, in order to pick up such bodies of infants
as may have been thrown out into the streets in the course of the night.
No inquiries are made, but the bodies are carried to a common pit
without the city walls, into which all those that may be living, as well
as those that are dead, are said to be thrown promiscuously. At this
horrible pit of destruction the Roman Catholic missionaries, established
in Pekin, attend by turns as a part of the duties of their office, in
order, as one of them expressed himself to me on this subject, to chuse
among them those that are the most _lively_, to make future proselytes,
and by the administration of baptism to such of the rest as might be
still alive, _pour leur sauver l'âme_. The Mahomedans who, at the time
that their services were useful in assisting to prepare the national
calendar, had a powerful influence at Court, did much better: these
zealous bigots to a religion, whose least distinguishing feature is that
of humanity, were, however, on these occasions, the means of saving the
_lives_ of all the little innocents they possibly could save from this
maw of death, which was an humane act, although it might be for the
purpose of bringing them up in the principles of their own faith. I was
assured by one of the Christian missionaries, with whom I had daily
conversation during a residence of five weeks within the walls of the
Emperor's palace at _Yuen-min-yuen_, and who took his turn in attending,
_pour leur sauver l'ame_, that such scenes were sometimes exhibited on
these occasions as to make the feeling mind shudder with horror. When I
mention that dogs and swine are let loose in all the narrow streets of
the capital, the reader may conceive what will sometimes necessarily
happen to the exposed infants, before the police-carts can pick them up.