interred alive, in the course of a year, is differently stated by
different authors, some making it about ten and others thirty thousand
in the whole empire. The truth, as generally happens, may probably lie
about the middle. The missionaries, who alone possess the means of
ascertaining nearly the number that is thus sacrificed in the capital,
differ very materially in their statements: taking the mean, as given by
those with whom we conversed on the subject, I should conclude that
about twenty-four infants were, on an average, in Pekin, daily carried
to the pit of death where the little innocents that have not yet
breathed their last are condemned without remorse,
"----to be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die."
This calculation gives nine thousand nearly for the capital alone, where
it is supposed about an equal number are exposed to that of all the
other parts of the empire. Those, whose constant residence is upon the
water, and whose poverty, or superstition, or total insensibility, or
whatever the cause may be that leads them to the perpetration of an act
against which nature revolts, sometimes, it is said, expose their
infants by throwing them into the canal or river with a gourd tied round
their necks, to keep the head above water, and preserve them alive until
some humane person may be induced to pick them up. This hazardous
experiment, in a country where humanity appears to be reduced to so low
an ebb, can only be considered as an aggravation of cruelty. I have seen
the dead body of an infant, but without any gourd, floating down the
river of Canton among the boats, and the people seemed to take no more
notice of it than if it had been the carcase of a dog: this, indeed,
would in all probability have attracted their attention, dogs being an
article of food commonly used by them; the miserable half-famished
Chinese, living upon the water, are glad to get any thing in the shape
of animal food, which they will even eat in a state of putrefaction.
Yet, little scrupulous as they are with regard to diet, I am not
credulous enough to believe the information of a Swedish author[9] to be
correct in his statement of a cure for a certain disease, though "he has
no reason to doubt of the fact," _per [Greek: teknophagian] alternis
diebus, alternis jejunio--by eating children every other day!_
[9] Mr. Torreen.
A picture so horrid in its nature as the exposing of infants presents to
the imagination is not to be surpassed among the most savage nations.
The celebrated legislator of Athens made no law to punish parricide,
because he considered it as a crime against nature, too heinous ever to
be committed, and that the bare supposition of such a crime would have
disgraced the country. The Chinese, in like manner, have no positive law
against infanticide. The laws of the rude and warlike Spartans allowed
infanticide, of which, however, the parents were not the perpetrators,
nor the abettors. Nor, among these people, were the weak and sickly
children, deemed by the magistrates unlikely ever to become of use to
themselves, or to the public, thrown into the [Greek: apothêkê], or
common repository of the dead bodies of children, until life had been
previously extinguished, we will charitably suppose, by gentle and the
least painful means.
The exposing of children, however, it must be allowed, was very common
among the ancients. The stern and rigid virtues of the Romans allowed
this among many other customs, that were more unnatural than amiable,
and such as in civilized societies of the present day would have been
considered among the most atrocious of moral crimes. A Roman father, if
his infant was meant to be preserved, lifted it from the ground in his
arms; if he neglected that ceremony, the child, it would seem, was
considered as doomed to exposure in the highway. Thus, in the Andrian of
Terence, where, though the scene is not laid in Rome, Roman customs are
described, "quidquid peperisset, decreverunt tollere." "Let it be boy or
girl they have resolved to lift it from the ground." Nor indeed is
secret infanticide unknown in modern Europe, although it may be owing to
a different principle. In such cases, the sense of shame and the fear of
encountering the scorn and obloquy of the world have determined the
conduct of the unhappy mother, before the feelings of nature could have
time to operate. For I am willing to hope that none who had ever
experienced a mother's feelings and a mother's joy would consent by any
means, direct or indirect, or under any impression of fear of shame, of
scorn, or biting penury, to the destruction of a new-born babe. And I
may venture to say with confidence, that a British cottager, however
indigent, would divide his scanty pittance among a dozen children rather
than consent to let some of them perish, that he and the rest might fare
the better, were even our laws as tacit on this subject as those of
China.
Some of the Christian missionaries, in their accounts of this country,
have attempted to palliate the unnatural act of exposing infants, by
attributing it to the midwife, who they pretend to say, from knowing the
circumstances of the parents, strangle the child without the knowledge
of the mother, telling her that the infant was still-born. Others have
ascribed the practice to a belief in the metempsycosis, or
transmigration of souls into other bodies, that the parents, seeing
their children must be doomed to poverty, think it is better at once to
let the soul escape in search of a more happy asylum, than to linger in
one condemned to want and wretchedness. No degree of superstition, one
would imagine, could prevail upon a parent to reason thus, in that most
anxious and critical moment when the combined efforts of hope and fear,
of exquisite joy and severe pain, agitate by turns the mother's breast.
Besides, the Chinese trouble themselves very little with superstitious
notions, unless where they apprehend some personal danger. Nor is it
more probable that the midwife should take upon herself the commission
of a concealed and voluntary murder of an innocent and helpless infant,
for the sake of sparing those feelings in another, of which the
supposition implies she could not possibly partake; and if she should be
encouraged by the father, whose affections for an infant child may be
more gradually unfolded than the mother's, to perpetrate so horrid an
act, we must allow that to the evidence of unnatural and murtherous
parents must be added that of hired ruffians; so that Chinese virtue
would gain little by such a supposition.
It is much more probable that extreme poverty and hopeless indigence,
the frequent experience of direful famines, and the scenes of misery and
calamity occasioned by them, acting on minds whose affections are not
very powerful, induce this unnatural crime which common custom has
encouraged, and which is not prohibited by positive law. That this is
the case, and that future advantages are not overlooked, will appear
from the circumstance of almost all the infants that are exposed being
females, who are the least able to provide for themselves, and the
least profitable to their parents; and the practice is most frequent in
crowded cities, where not only poverty more commonly prevails, but so
many examples daily occur of inhumanity, of summary punishments, acts of
violence and cruelty, that the mind becomes callous and habituated to
scenes that once would have shocked, and is at length scarcely
susceptible of the enormity of crimes.
I am afraid, however, it is but too common a practice even in the
remotest corners of the provinces. A respectable French missionary, now
in London, who was many years in _Fo-kien_, told me that he once
happened to call on one of his converts just at the moment his wife was
brought to-bed. The devoted infant was delivered to the father in order
to be plunged into a jar of water that was prepared for the purpose. The
missionary expostulated with the man on the heinousness of an act that
was a crime against God and nature. The man persisted that, having
already more than he could support, it would be a greater crime to
preserve a life condemned to want and misery, than to take it away
without pain. The missionary, finding that no argument of his was likely
to divert him from his purpose, observed "that, as a Christian, he could
not refuse him the satisfaction of saving the infant's soul by baptism."
During the ceremony, as the father held the infant in his arms he
happened to fix his eyes on its face, when the missionary thought he
perceived the feelings of nature begin to work; and he protracted the
ceremony to give time for the latent spark of parental affection to
kindle into flame. When the ceremony was ended; "Now," says the
missionary, "I have done my duty in saving a soul from perishing." "And
I," rejoined the man, "will do mine, by saving its life," and hurried
away with the infant to deposit it in the bosom of its mother.
How very weak then, in reality, must be the boasted filial affection of
the Chinese for their parents, when they scruple not to become the
murderers of their own children, towards whom, according to the
immutable laws of nature, the force of affection will ever be stronger
than for those whom the laws of China, in preference, have commanded to
be protected and supported when rendered incapable of assisting
themselves. The truth of this observation, which I believe few will call
in question, is a strong proof that, as I have already remarked, filial
piety among the Chinese may rather be considered in the light of an
ancient precept, carrying with it the weight of a positive law, than the
effect of sentiment.
It is right to mention here (what however is no palliation of the crime,
though a diminution of the extent of it) a circumstance which I do not
recollect to have seen noticed by any author, and the truth of which I
have too good authority to call in question. As every corpse great and
small must be carried to a place of burial at a considerable distance
without the city, and as custom requires that all funerals should be
conducted with very heavy expences, people in Pekin, even those in
comfortable circumstances, make no hesitation in laying in baskets
still-born children, or infants who may die the first month, knowing
that they will be taken up by the police. This being the case, we may
easily conceive that, in a city said to contain three millions of
people, a great proportion of the nine thousand, which we have supposed
to be annually exposed, may be of the above description. According to
the rules of political arithmetic, and supposing half of those who died
to be exposed, the number would be diminished to about 4000. The expence
attending a Chinese funeral is more extravagant than an European can
well conceive. A rich Hong merchant at Canton is known to have kept his
mother near twelve months above ground, because it was not convenient
for him to bury her in a manner suitable to his supposed wealth and
station.
I am informed also that foundling hospitals do exist in China, but that
they are on a small scale, being raised and supported by donations of
individuals, and their continuance is therefore as precarious as the
wealth of their charitable founders.
These unfavourable features in the character of a people, whose natural
disposition is neither ferocious nor morose; but, on the contrary, mild,
obliging, and cheerful, can be attributed only to the habits in which
they have been trained, and to the heavy hand of power perpetually
hanging over them. That this is actually the case may be inferred from
the general conduct and character of those vast multitudes who, from
time to time, have emigrated to the Philippine islands, Batavia, Pulo
Pinang and other parts of our East Indian settlements. In those places
they are not less remarkable for their honesty, than for their peaceable
and industrious habits. To the Dutch in Batavia they are masons,
carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, shopkeepers, bankers, and, in short,
every thing. Indolence and luxury are there arrived to such a height
that, without the assistance of the Chinese, the Dutch would literally
be in danger of starving. Yet the infamous government of that place, in
the year 1741, caused to be massacred, in cold blood, many thousands of
these harmless people who offered no resistance; neither women nor
children escaped the fury of these blood-hounds.
In these places it appears also, that their quickness at invention is
not surpassed by accuracy of imitation, for which they have always been
accounted remarkably expert in their own country. Man is, by nature, a
hoarding animal; and his endeavours to accumulate property will be
proportioned to the security and stability which the laws afford for the
possession and enjoyment of that property. In China, the laws regarding
property are insufficient to give it that security: hence the talent of
invention is there seldom exercised beyond suggesting the means of
providing for the first necessities and the most pressing wants. A man,
indeed, is afraid here to be considered as wealthy, well knowing that
some of the rapacious officers of the state would find legal reasons to
extort his riches from him.
The exterior deportment of every class in China is uncommonly decent,
and all their manners mild and engaging; but even these among persons of
any rank are considered as objects worthy the interference of the
legislature; hence it follows that they are ceremonious without
sincerity, studious of the forms only of politeness without either the
ease or elegance of good-breeding. An inferior makes a sham attempt to
fall on his knees before his superior, and the latter affects a slight
motion to raise him. A common salutation has its mode prescribed by the
court of ceremonies; and any neglect or default in a plebeian towards
his superior is punishable by corporal chastisement, and in men in
office by degradation or suspension. In making thus the exterior and
public manners of the people a concern of the legislature, society in
many respects was considerably benefited. Between equals, and among the
lower orders of people, abusive language is very unusual, and they
seldom proceed to blows. If a quarrel should be carried to this
extremity, the contest is rarely attended with more serious consequences
than the loss of the long lock of hair growing from the crown of the
head, or the rent of their clothes. The act of drawing a sword, or
presenting a pistol, is sufficient to frighten a common Chinese into
convulsions; and their warriors shew but few symptoms of bravery. The
Chinese may certainly be considered among the most timid people on the
face of the earth; they seem to possess neither personal courage, nor
the least pretence of mind in dangers or difficulties; consequences that
are derived probably from the influence of the moral over the physical
character. Yet there is perhaps no country where acts of suicide occur
more frequently than in China, among the women as well as the men: such
acts being marked with no disgrace, are not held in any abhorrence. The
government, indeed, should seem to hold out encouragement to suicide, by
a very common practice of mitigating the sentence of death, in allowing
the criminal to be his own executioner. The late viceroy of Canton,
about two years ago, put an end to his life by swallowing his stone
snuff-bottle, which stuck in the oesophagus; and he died in excruciating
agonies.
In a government, where every man is liable to be made a slave, where
every man is subject to be flogged with the bamboo at the nod of one of
the lowest rank of those in office, and where he is compelled to kiss
the rod that beats him or, which amounts to the same thing, to thank the
tyrant on his knees for the trouble he has taken to correct his morals,
high notions of honour and dignified sentiments are not to be expected.
Where the maxims of the government commanding, and the opinions of the
people agreeing, that corporal punishment may be inflicted, on the
ground of a favour conferred upon the person punished, a principle of
humiliation is admitted that is well calculated to exclude and
obliterate every notion of the dignity of human nature.
A slave, in fact, cannot be dishonoured. The condition itself of being
dependent upon and subject to the caprice of another, without the
privilege of appeal, is such a degraded state of the human species, that
those who are unfortunately reduced to it have no further ignominy or
sense of shame to undergo. The vices of such a condition are
innumerable, and they appear on all occasions among this people
celebrated (rather undeservedly I think) for their polished manners and
civilized government. A Chinese merchant will cheat, whenever an
opportunity offers him the means, because he is considered to be
incapable of acting honestly; a Chinese peasant will steal when ever he
can do it without danger of being detected, because the punishment is
only the bamboo, to which he is daily liable; and a Chinese prince, or a
prime minister, will extort the property of the subject, and apply it to
his private use, whenever he thinks he can do it with impunity. The only
check upon the rapacity of men in power is the influence of fear,
arising from the possibility of detection: the love of honour, the dread
of shame, and a sense of justice, seem to be equally unfelt by the
majority of men in office.
It would be needless to multiply instances to those already on record of
the refined knavery displayed by Chinese merchants in their dealings
with Europeans, or the tricks that they play off in their transactions
with one another. They are well known to most nations, and are
proverbial in their own. A merchant with them is considered as the
lowest character in the country, as a man that will cheat if he can, and
whose trade it is to create and then supply artificial wants. To this
general character, which public opinion has most probably made to be
what it is, an exception is due to those merchants who, acting under the
immediate sanction of the government, have always been remarked for
their liberality and accuracy in their dealings with Europeans trading
to Canton. These men who are styled the _Hong_ merchants, in distinction
to a common merchant whom they call _mai-mai-gin_, _a buying and selling
man_, might not unjustly be compared with the most eminent of the
mercantile class in England.
But as traders in general are degraded in all the state maxims, and
consequently in public opinion, it is not surprising they should attach
so little respect to the character of foreign merchants trading to their
ports, especially as several knavish tricks have been practised upon
them, in spite of all their acuteness and precaution. The gaudy watches
of indifferent workmanship, fabricated purposely for the China market
and once in universal demand, are now scarcely asked for. One gentleman
in the Honourable East India Company's employ took it into his head that
cuckoo clocks might prove a saleable article in China, and accordingly
laid in a large assortment, which more than answered his most sanguine
expectations. But as these wooden machines were constructed for sale
only, and not for use, the cuckoo clocks became all mute long before the
second arrival of this gentleman with another cargo. His clocks were now
not only unsaleable, but the former purchasers threatened to return
theirs upon his hands, which would certainly have been done, had not a
thought entered his head, that not only pacified his former customers
but procured him also other purchasers for his second cargo--he
convinced them by undeniable authorities, that the cuckoo was a very odd
kind of bird which sung only at certain seasons of the year, and assured
them that whenever the proper time arrived, all the cuckoos they had
purchased would once again "tune their melodious throats." After this it
would only be fair to allow the Chinese sometimes to trick the European
purchaser with a wooden ham instead of a real one.
But as something more honourable might be expected in a prince of the
blood, a grandson of the Emperor, I shall just mention one anecdote
that happened during my abode in the palace of _Yuen-min-yuen_. This
gentleman, then about five-and-twenty years of age, having no ostensible
employment, came almost daily to the hall of audience, where we were
arranging the presents for the Emperor. He had frequently desired to
look at a gold time-piece which I wore in my pocket; one morning I
received a message from him, by one of the missionaries, to know if I
would sell it and for what price. I explained to the missionary that,
being a present from a friend and a token of remembrance, I could not
willingly part with it, but that I would endeavour to procure him one
equally good from our artificers who I thought had such articles for
sale. I soon discovered, however, that his Royal Highness had already
been with these people, but did not like their prices. The following
morning a second missionary came to me, bringing a present from the
prince consisting of about half a pound of common tea, a silk purse, and
a few trumpery trinkets, hinting at the same time, that he was expected
to carry back the watch in return as an equivalent. I requested the
missionary immediately to take back the princely present, which he did
with considerable reluctance, dreading his Highness's displeasure. The
poor fellow happened to have a gold watch about him, which he was
desired to shew; and the same day he had a visit from one of the
prince's domestics to say, that his master would do him the honour to
accept his watch; which he was not only under the necessity of sending,
but was obliged to thank him, on his knees, for this extraordinary mark
of distinction. He told me, moreover, that this same gentleman had at
least a dozen watches which had been procured in the same honourable
way.
In the list of presents carried by the late Dutch Embassador were two
grand pieces of machinery, that formerly were a part of the curious
museum of the ingenious Mr. Coxe. In the course of the long journey from
Canton to Pekin they had suffered some slight damage. On leaving the
capital they discovered, through one of the missionaries, that while
these pieces were under repair, the prime minister _Ho-tchung-tang_ had
substituted two others of a very inferior and common sort to complete
the list, reserving the two grand pieces of clock-work for himself,
which, at some future period, he would, perhaps, take the merit of
presenting to the Emperor in his own name.