From Egypt to Japan Part 21

Besides the Street of Benevolence and Love, which might be considered the great highway of the Celestial City, there were streets which bore the enrapturing names of "Peace," "Bright Cloud," and "Longevity;" of "Early-bestowed Blessings" and of "Everlasting Love;" of "One Hundred Grandsons" and (more ambitious still) of "One Thousand Grandsons;" of "Five Happinesses" and of "Refreshing Breezes;" of "Acc.u.mulated Blessings" and of "Ninefold Brightness." There was a "Dragon street,"

and others devoted to "The Ascending Dragon," "The Saluting Dragon,"

and "The Reposing Dragon;" while other t.i.tles came probably a little nearer the plain fact, such as "The Market of Golden Profits." All the shops have little shrines near the door dedicated to _Tsai Shin_, or the G.o.d of Wealth, to whom the shopkeepers offer their prayers every day. I think I have heard of prayers offered to that divinity in other countries, and no one could doubt that these prayers at least were fervent and sincere.

But names do not always designate realities, and though we pa.s.sed through the street of a "Thousand Beat.i.tudes" and that of a "Thousandfold Peace," we saw sorrow and misery enough before the day was done.

One gets an idea of the extent of a city not only by traversing its streets, but by ascending some high point in the vicinity that overlooks it. The best point for such a bird's-eye view is the Five-storied PaG.o.da, from which the eye ranges over a distance of many miles, including the city and the country around to the mountains in the distance, with the broad river in front, and the suburb on the other side. The appearance of Canton is very different from that of a European city. It has no architectural magnificence. There are some fine houses of the rich merchants, built of brick, with s.p.a.cious rooms and courts; but there are no great palaces towering over the city--no domes like St. Paul's in London, or St. Peter's in Rome, nor even like the domes and minarets of Constantinople. The most imposing structure in view is the new Roman Catholic Cathedral. Here and there a solitary paG.o.da rises above the vast sea of human dwellings, which are generally of but one, seldom two stories in height, and built very much alike; for there is the same monotony in the Chinese houses as in the figures and costumes of the Chinese themselves. Nor is this level surface relieved by any variety of color. The tiled roofs, with their dead color, but increase the sombre impression of the vast dull plain; yet beneath such a pall is a great city, intersected by hundreds of streets, and occupied by a million of human beings.

The first impression of a Chinese city is of its myriad, mult.i.tudinous life. There are populous cities in Europe, and crowded streets; but here human beings _swarm_, like birds in the air or fishes in the sea.

The wonder is how they all live; but that is a mystery which I could not solve in London any more than here. There is one street a mile long, which has in it nothing but shoemakers. The people amused us very much by their strange appearance and dress, in both which China differs wholly from the Orient. A Chinaman is not at all like a Turk.

He does not wear a turban, nor even a long, flowing beard. His head is shaved above and below--face, chin, and skull--and instead of the patriarchal beard before him, he carries only a pigtail behind. The women whom we met in the streets (at least those of any position, for only the common work-women let their feet grow) hobbled about on their little feet, which were like dolls' feet--a sight that was half ludicrous and half painful.

But if we were amused at the Chinese, I dare say they were as much amused at us. The people of Canton ought by this time to be familiar with white faces. But, strange to say, wherever we went we attracted a degree of attention which had never been accorded us before in any foreign city. Boys ran after us, shouting as they ran. If the chairs were set down in the street, as we stopped to see a sight, a crowd gathered in a moment. There was no rudeness, but mere curiosity. If we went into a temple, a throng collected about the doors, and looked in at the windows, and opened a pa.s.sage for us as we came out, and followed us till we got into our chairs and disappeared down the street. The ladies of our party especially seemed to be objects of wonder. They did not hobble on the points of their toes, but stood erect, and walked with a firm step. Their free and independent air apparently inspired respect. The children seemed to hesitate between awe and terror. One little fellow I remember, who dared to approach too near, and whom my niece cast her eye upon, thought that he was done for, and fled howling. I have no doubt all reported, when they went home, that they had seen some strange specimens of "foreign devils."

But the Chinese are a highly civilized people. In some things, indeed, they are mere children, compared with Europeans; but in others they are in advance of us, especially those arts which require great delicacy, such as the manufacture of some kinds of jewelry, exquisite trinkets in gold and silver, in which Canton rivals Delhi and Lucknow, and in the finest work in ivory and in precious woods; also in those which require a degree of patience to be found nowhere except among Asiatics. For example, I saw a man carving an elephant's tusk, which would take him a whole year! The Chinese are also exquisite workers in bronze, as well as in porcelain, in which they have such a conceded mastery that specimens of "old China" ornament every collection in Europe. Their silks are as rich and fine as any that are produced from the looms of Lyons or Antwerp. This need not surprise us, for we must remember the great antiquity of China; that the Chinese were a highly civilized people when our ancestors, the Britons, were barbarians.

They had the art of printing and the art of gunpowder long before they were known in Europe. Chinese books are in some respects a model for ours now, not only in cheapness, but in their extreme lightness, being made of thin bamboo paper, so that a book weighs in the hand hardly more than a newspaper.

Of course every stranger must make the round of temples and paG.o.das, of which there are enough to satisfy any number of worshippers. There is a Temple of the Five Genii, and one of the Five Hundred Arhans, or scholars of Buddha. There is a Temple of Confucius, and a Temple of the Emperor, where the mandarins go and pay to his Majesty and to the Sage an homage of divine adoration. I climbed up into his royal seat, and thought I was quite as fit an object of worship as he! There is a Temple of Horrors, which outdoes the "Chamber of Horrors" in Madame Tussaud's famous exhibition of wax-works in London. It is a representation of all the torments which are supposed to be endured by the d.a.m.ned, and reminds one of those frightful pictures painted in the Middle Ages in some Roman Catholic countries, in which heretics are seen in the midst of flames, tossed about by devils on pitchforks. But the Chinese soften the impression. To restore the balance of mind, terrified by these frightful representations, there is a Temple of Longevity, in which there is a figure of Buddha, such as the ancient Romans might have made of Bacchus or Silenus--a mountain of flesh, with fat eyes, laughing mouth, and enormous paunch. Even the four Kings of Heaven, that rule over the four points of the compa.s.s--North, South, East, and West--have much more of an earthly than a heavenly look. All these figures are grotesque and hideous enough; but to their credit be it said, they are not obscene, like the figures in the temples of India. Here we made the same observation as in Burmah, that Buddhism is a much cleaner and more decent religion than Hindooism.

This is to its honor. "Buddhism," says Williams, "is the least revolting and impure of all false religions." Its general character we have seen elsewhere. Its precepts enjoin self-denial and practical benevolence. It has no cruel or b.l.o.o.d.y rites, and nothing gross in its worship. Of its priests, some are learned men, but the ma.s.s are ignorant, yet sober and inoffensive. At least they are not a scandal to their faith, as are the priests of some forms of Christianity. That the Chinese are imbued with religious ideas is indicated in the very names of the streets already mentioned, whereby, though in a singular fashion, they commemorate and glorify certain attributes of character.

The idea which seems most deep-rooted in their minds is that of retribution according to conduct. The maxim most frequent in their mouths is that good actions bring their own reward, and bad actions their own punishment. This idea was very pithily expressed by the famous hong-merchant, Howqua, in reply to an American sea-captain, who asked him his idea of future rewards and punishments, to which he replied in pigeon-English: "A man do good, he go to Joss; he no do good, very much bamboo catchee he!"

But we will leave the temples with their grinning idols; as we leave the restaurants, where lovers of dainty dishes are regaled with dogs and cats; and the opium-shops, where the Chinese loll and smoke till they are stupefied by the horrid drug; for Canton has something more attractive. We found a very curious study in the Examination Hall, ill.u.s.trating, as it does, the Chinese manner of elevating men to office. We hear much in our country of "civil service reform," which some innocently suppose to be a new discovery in political economy--an American invention. But the Chinese have had it for a thousand years.

Here appointments to office are made as the result of a compet.i.tive examination; and although there may be secret favoritism and bribery, yet the theory is one of perfect equality. In this respect China is the most absolute democracy in the world. There is no hereditary rank or order of n.o.bility; the lowest menial, if he has native talent, may raise himself by study and perseverance to be Prime Minister of the Empire.

In the eastern quarter of Canton is an enclosure of many acres, laid off in a manner which betokens some unusual purpose. The ground is divided by a succession of long, low buildings, not much better than horse-sheds around a New England meeting-house of the olden time. They run in parallel lines, like barracks for a camp, and are divided into narrow compartments. Once in three years this vast camping-ground presents an extraordinary spectacle, for then are gathered in these courts, from all parts of the province, some ten thousand candidates, all of whom have previously pa.s.sed a first examination, and received a degree, and now appear to compete for the second. Some are young, and some are old, for there is no limit put upon age. As the candidates present themselves, each man is searched, to see that he has no books, or helps of any kind, concealed upon his person, and then put into a stall about three feet wide, just large enough to turn around in, and as bare as a prisoner's cell. There is a niche in the wall, in which a board can be placed for him to sit upon, and another niche to support a board that has to serve as breakfast-table and writing-table. This is the furniture of his room. Here he is shut in from all communication with the world, his food being pa.s.sed to him through the door, as to a prisoner. Certain themes are then submitted to him in writing, on which he is to furnish written essays, intended generally, and perhaps always, to determine his knowledge of the Chinese cla.s.sics. It is sometimes said that these are frivolous questions, the answers to which afford no proof whatever of one's capacity for office; but it should be remembered that these cla.s.sics are the writings of Confucius, which are the political ethics of the country, the very foundation of the government, without knowing which one is not qualified to take part in its administration.

The candidate goes into his cell in the afternoon, and spends the night there, which gives him time for reflection, and all the next day and the next night, when he comes out, and after a few days is put in again for another trial of the same character; and this is repeated a third time; at the end of which he is released from solitary confinement, and his essays are submitted for examination. Of the ten thousand, only seventy-five can obtain a degree--not one in a hundred!

The nine thousand and nine hundred must go back disappointed, their only consolation being that after three years they can try again. Even the successful ones do not thereby get an office, but only the right to enter for a third compet.i.tion, which takes place at Peking, by which of course their ranks are thinned still more. The few who get through this threefold ordeal take a high place in the literary or learned cla.s.s, from which all appointments to the public service are made. Here is the system of examination complete. No trial can be imagined more severe, and it ought to give the Chinese the best civil service in the world.

May we not get a hint from this for our instruction in America, where some of our best men are making earnest efforts for civil service reform? If the candidates, who flock to Washington at the beginning of each administration, were to be put into cells, and fed on bread and water, it might check the rage for office, and the number of applicants might be diminished; and if they were required to pa.s.s an examination, and to furnish written essays, showing at least some degree of knowledge of political affairs, we might have a more intelligent cla.s.s of officials to fill consular posts in different parts of the world.

But, unfortunately, it might be answered that examinations, be they ever so strict, do not change human nature, nor make men just or humane; and that even the rigid system of China does not restrain rulers from corruption, nor protect the people from acts of oppression and cruelty.

Three spots in Canton had for me the fascination of horror--the court, the prison, and the execution ground. I had heard terrible tales of the trial by torture--of men racked to extort the secrets of crime, and of the punishments which followed. These stories haunted me, and I hoped to find some features which would relieve the impression of so much horror. I wished to see for myself the administration of justice--to witness a trial in a Chinese court. A few years ago this would have been impossible; foreigners were excluded from the courts.

But now they are open, and all can see who have the nerve to look on.

Therefore, after we had made a long circuit through the streets of Canton, I directed the bearers to take us to the Yamun, the Hall of Justice. Leaving our chairs in the street, we pa.s.sed through a large open court into a hall in the rear, where at that very moment several trials were going on.

The court-room was very plain. A couple of judges sat behind tables, before whom a number of prisoners were brought in. The mode of proceeding was very foreign to American or European ideas. There was neither jury nor witnesses. This simplified matters exceedingly. There is no trial by jury in China. While we haggle about impanelling juries and getting testimony, and thus trials drag on for weeks, in China no such obstacle is allowed to impede the rapid course of justice; and what is more, there are no lawyers to perplex the case with their arguments, but the judge has it all his own way. He is simply confronted with the accused, and they have it all between them.

While we stood here, a number of prisoners were brought in; some were carried in baskets (as they are borne to execution), and dumped on the stone pavement like so many bushels of potatoes; others were led in with chains around their necks. As each one's name was called, he came forward and fell on his knees before the judge, and lifted up his hands to beg for mercy. He was then told of the crime of which he was accused, and given opportunity if he had anything to say in his own defence. There was no apparent harshness or cruelty towards him, except that he was presumed to be guilty, unless he could prove his innocence; contrary to the English maxim of law, that a man is to be presumed innocent until he is proved guilty. In this, however, the Chinese practice is not very different from that which exists at this day in so enlightened a country as France.

For example, two men were accused of being concerned together in a burglary. As they were from another prefecture, where there is another dialect, they had to be examined through an interpreter. The judge wished to find out who were leagued with them, and therefore questioned them separately. Each was brought in in a basket, chained and doubled up, so that he sat helplessly. No witness was examined, but the man himself was simply interrogated by the judge.

In another case, two men were accused of robbery with violence--a capital offence, but by the Chinese law no man can be punished with death unless he confesses his crime; hence every means is employed to lead a criminal to acknowledge his guilt. Of course in a case of life and death he will deny it as long as he can. But if he will not confess, the court proceeds to take stringent measures to _make_ him confess, for which purpose these two men were now put to the torture.

The mode of torture was this: There were two round pillars in the hall. Each man was on his knees, with his feet chained behind him, so that he could not stir. He was then placed with his back to one of these columns, and small cords were fastened around his thumbs and great toes, and drawn back tightly to the pillar behind. This soon produced intense suffering. Their b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaved, the veins on their foreheads stood out like whipcords, and every feature betrayed the most excruciating agony. Every few minutes an officer of the court asked if they were ready to confess, and as often they answered, "No; never would they confess that they had committed such a crime." They were told if they did not confess, they would be subjected to still greater torture. But they still held out, though every moment seemed an hour of pain.

While these poor wretches were thus writhing in agony, I turned to the judge to see how he bore the spectacle of such suffering. He sat at his table quite unmoved; yet he did not seem like a brutal man, but like a man of education, such as one might see on the bench in England or America. He seemed to look upon it as in the ordinary course of proceedings, and a necessary step in the conviction of a criminal. He used no bravado, and offered no taunt or insult. But the cries of the sufferers did not move him, nor prevent his taking his accustomed ease. He sat fanning himself and smoking his pipe, as if he said he could stand it as long as they could. Of course he knew that, as their heads were at stake, they would deny their guilt till compelled to yield; but he seemed to look upon it as simply a question of endurance, in which, if he kept on long enough, there could be but one issue.

But still the men did not give in, and I looked at them with amazement mingled with horror, to see what human nature could endure. The sight was too painful to witness more than a few moments, and I rushed away, leaving the men still hanging to the pillars of torture. I confess I felt a relief when I went back the next day, to hear that they had not yielded, but held out unflinchingly to the last.

Horrible as this seems, I have heard good men--men of humanity--argue in favor of torture, at least "when applied in a mild way." They affirm that in China there can be no administration of justice without it. In a country where testimony is absolutely worthless--where as many men can be hired to swear falsely for ten cents apiece as you have money to buy--there is no possible way of arriving at the truth but by _extorting_ it. No doubt it is a rough process, but it secures the result. As it happened, the English gentleman who accompanied us was a magistrate in India, and he confirmed the statement as to the difficulty, and in many cases the impossibility, of getting at the truth, because of the unfathomable deceit of the natives. Many cases came before him in which he was sure a witness was lying, but he was helpless to prove it, when a little gentle application of the thumbscrew, or even a good whipping, would have brought out the truth, which, for want of it, could not be discovered.

To the objection that such methods may coerce the innocent as well as the guilty--that the pain may be so great that innocent men will confess crimes that they never committed, rather than suffer tortures worse than death--the answer is, that as guilt makes men cowards, the guilty will give up, while the innocent hold out. But this is simply trusting to the trial by lot. It is the old ordeal by fire. A better answer is, that the court has beforehand strong presumptive evidence of the crime, and that a prisoner is not put to the torture until it has been well ascertained by testimony obtained elsewhere that he is a great offender. When it is thus determined that he is a robber or a murderer, who ought not to live, then this last step is taken to compel him to acknowledge his guilt, and the justice of his condemnation.

But there are cases in which a man may be wrongfully accused; an enemy may bribe a witness to make a complaint against him, upon which he is arrested and cast into prison. Then, unless he can bring some powerful influence to rescue him, his case is hopeless. He denies his guilt, and is put to the rack for an offence of which he is wholly innocent.

Such cases, no doubt, occur; and yet men who have lived here many years, such as Dr. Happer and Archdeacon Gray, tell me that they do not believe there is a country in the world where, on the whole, justice is more impartially administered than in China.

I was so painfully interested in this matter, that I went back to the Yamun the next day in company with Dr. Happer, to watch the proceedings further. As before, a number of prisoners were brought in, with chains around their necks, each of whom, when called, fell down on his knees before the judge and begged for mercy. They were not answered harshly or roughly, but listened to with patience and attention. Several whose cases were not capital, at once confessed their offence, and took the punishment. One young fellow, a mere overgrown boy of perhaps eighteen, was brought up, charged with disobedience to parents. He confessed his fault, and blubbered piteously for mercy, and was let off for this time with rather a mild punishment, which was to wear a chain with a heavy stone attached, which he was to drag about after him in the street before the prison, where he was exposed to the scorn of the people. The judge, however, warned him that if he repeated the disobedience, and was arrested again, he would be liable to be punished with death! Such is the rigor with which the laws of China enforce obedience to parents.

A man accused of theft confessed it, and was sentenced to wear the _cangue_--a board about three feet square--around his neck for a certain time, perhaps several weeks, on which his name was painted in large characters, with the crime of which he was guilty, that all who saw him might know that he was a thief!

These were petty cases, such as might be disposed of in any police court. But now appeared a greater offender. A man was led in with a chain around his neck, who had the reputation of being a noted malefactor. He was charged with both robbery and murder. The case had been pending a long time. The crime, or crimes, had been committed four years ago. The man had been brought up repeatedly, but as no amount of pressure could make him confess, he could not be executed.

He was now to have another hearing. He knelt down on the hard stone floor, and heard the accusation, which he denied as he had done before, and loudly protested his innocence. The judge, who was a man of middle age, with a fine intellectual countenance, was in no haste to condemn, but listened patiently. He was in a mild, persuasive mood, perhaps the more so because he was refreshing himself as a Chinaman likes to do. As he sat listening, he took several small cups of tea. A boy in attendance brought him also his pipe, filled with tobacco, which he put in his mouth, and took two or three puffs, when he handed it back; and the boy cleaned it, filled it, and lighted it again. With such support to his physical weakness, who could not listen patiently to a man who was on his knees before him pleading for his life? But the case was a very bad one. It had been referred back to the village in which the man was born, and the "elders," who form the local government in every petty commune in China, had inquired into the facts, and reported that he was a notorious offender, accused of no less than seven crimes--five robberies, one murder, and one maiming.

This was a pretty strong indictment. But the man protested that he had been made the victim of a conspiracy to destroy him. The judge replied that it might be that he should be wrongfully accused by one enemy, but it was hardly possible that a hundred people of his native village should combine to accuse him falsely. Their written report was read by the clerk, who then held it up before the man, that he might see it in white and black. Still he denied as before, and the judge, instead of putting him to the torture, simply remanded him to prison for further examination. In all these cases there was no eagerness to convict or to sentence the accused. They were listened to with patience, and apparently all proper force was allowed to what they had to say in their own defence.

This relieves a good deal the apparent severity of the Chinese code.

It does not condemn without hearing. But, on the other hand, it does not cover up with fine phrases or foolish sentiment the terrible reality of crime. It believes in crime as an awful fact in human society, and in punishment as a repressive force that must be applied to keep society from destruction.

Next to the Yamun is the prison, in which are confined those charged with capital offences. We were admitted by paying a small fee to the keepers, and were at once surrounded by forty or fifty wretched objects, some of whom had been subjected to torture, and who held up their limbs which had been racked, and showed their bodies all covered with wounds, as an appeal to pity. We gave them some money to buy tobacco, as that is the solace which they crave next to opium, and hurried away.

But there is a place more terrible than the prison; it is the execution-ground. Outside the walls of Canton, between the city gate and the river, is a spot which may well be called Golgotha, the place of a skull. It is simply a dirty vacant lot, partly covered with earthenware pots and pans, a few rods long, on one side of which is a dead wall; but within this narrow s.p.a.ce has been shed more blood than on any other spot of the earth's surface. Here those sentenced to death are beheaded. Every few days a gloomy procession files into the lane, and the condemned are ranged against the wall on their knees, when an a.s.sistant pulls up their pinioned arms from behind, which forces their heads forward, and the executioner coming to one after another, cleaves the neck with a blow. A number of skulls were scattered about--of those whose bodies had been removed, but whose heads were left unburied. In the lane is the house of the executioner--a thick, short-set man, in a greasy frock, looking like a butcher fresh from the shambles. Though a coa.r.s.e, ugly fellow, he did not look, as one might suppose, like a monster of cruelty, but was simply a dull, stolid creature, who undertook this as he would any other kind of business, and cut off human heads with as little feeling as he would those of so many sheep. He picks up a little money by exhibiting himself and his weapon of death. He brought out his sword to show it to us. It was short and heavy, like a butcher's cleaver. I took it in my hand, and felt of the blade. It was dull, and rusted with stains of blood. He apologized for its appearance, but explained that it had not been used recently, and added that whenever it was needed for service, he sharpened it. I asked him how many heads he had cut off. He did not know--had not kept count--but supposed some hundreds. Sometimes there were "two or three tens"--that is, twenty or thirty--at once. Rev. Mr. Preston told me he had seen forty cut off in one morning. Dr. Williams had such a horror of blood that he could never be present at an execution, but he one day saw nearly two hundred headless trunks lying here, with their heads, which had just been severed from the bodies, scattered over the ground. Mr. Preston had seen heads piled up six feet high. It ought to be said, however, that in ordinary times no criminal convicted of a capital offence can be executed anywhere in the province (which is a district of nearly eighty thousand square miles, with twenty millions of inhabitants) except in Canton, and with the cognizance of the governor.

The carnival of blood was during the Taiping rebellion in 1855. That rebellion invaded this province; it had possession of Whampoa, and even endangered Canton. When it was suppressed, it was stamped out in blood. There were executions by wholesale. All who had taken part in it were sentenced to death, and as the insurgents were numbered by tens of thousands, the work went on for days and weeks and months. The stream of blood never ceased to flow. The rebels were brought up the river in boat-loads. The magistrates in the villages of the province were supposed to have made an examination. It was enough that they were found with arms in their hands. There were no prisons which could hold such an army, and the only way to deal with them was to execute them. Accordingly every day a detachment was marched out to the execution ground, where forty or fifty men would be standing with coffins, to receive and carry off the bodies. They were taken out of the city by a certain gate, and here Dr. Williams engaged a man to count them as they pa.s.sed, and thus he kept the fearful roll of the dead; and comparing it with the published lists he found the number executed in fourteen months to be eighty-one thousand! An Aceldama indeed! It is not, then, too much to say that taking the years together, within this narrow ground blood enough has been shed to float the Great Eastern.

But decapitation is a simple business compared with that which the executioner has sometimes to perform. I observed standing against the wall some half a dozen rude crosses, made of bamboo, which reminded me that death is sometimes inflicted by crucifixion. This mode of punishment is reserved for the worst malefactors. They are not nailed to the cross to die a lingering death, but lashed to it by ropes, and then slowly strangled or cut to pieces. The executioner explained coolly how he first cut out an eye, or sliced off a piece of the cheek or the breast, and so proceeded deliberately, till with one tremendous stroke the body was cleft in twain.

Thus Chinese law ill.u.s.trates its idea of punishment, which is to inflict it with tremendous rigor. It not only holds to capital punishment, but sometimes makes a man in dying suffer a thousand deaths. A gentleman at Fuhchau told me that he had seen a criminal starved to death. A man who had robbed a woman, using violence, was put into a cage in a public place, with his head out of a hole, exposed to the sun, and his body extended, and there left to die by inches. The foreign community were horror-struck; the consuls protested against it, but in vain. He lingered four days before death came to put an end to his agony. There were about twenty so punished at Canton in 1843, for incendiarism.

We shudder at these harrowing tales of "man's inhumanity to man." But we must not take the pictures of these terrible scenes, as if they were things which stare in the eyes of all beholders, or which give the fairest impression of Chinese law; as if this were a country in which there is nothing but suffering and crime. On the contrary, it is pre-eminently a land of peace and order. The Chinese are a law-abiding people. Because a few hundred bad men are found in a city of a million inhabitants, and punished with severity, we must not suppose that this is a lawless community. Those who would charge this, may at least be called on to point out a better-governed city in Europe.

This fearful Draconian code can at least claim that it is successful in suppressing crime. The law is a terror to evil-doers. The proof of this is that order is so well preserved. This great city of Canton is as quiet, and life and property are as safe, as in London or New York.

Yet it is done with no display of force. There is no obtrusion of the police or the military, as in Paris or Vienna. The gates of the city are shut at night, and the Tartar soldiers make their rounds; but the armed hand is not always held up before the public eye. The Chinese Government has learned to make its authority respected without the constant display of military power.

The Chinese are the most industrious people on the face of the earth, for only by constant and universal industry can a population of four hundred millions live. When such ma.s.ses of human beings are crowded together, the struggle for existence is so great, that it is only by keeping the millions of hands busy that food can be obtained for the millions of mouths. The same necessity enforces peace with each other, and therefore from necessity, as well as from moral considerations, this has been the policy of China from the beginning. Its whole political economy, taught long since by Confucius, is contained in two words--Industry and Peace. By an adherence to these simple principles, the Empire has held together for thousands of years, while every other nation has gone to pieces. China has never been an aggressive nation, given to wars of conquest. It has indeed attempted to subdue the tribes of Central Asia, and holds a weak sway over Turkistan and Thibet; while Corea and Loochoo and Annam still acknowledge a kind of fealty, now long since repudiated by Burmah and Siam. But in almost all cases it has "stooped to conquer," and been satisfied with a sort of tribute, instead of attempting roughly to enforce its authority, which would lead to perpetual wars. Thus has China followed the lesson of Confucius, furnishing the most stupendous example on the face of the earth of the advantage to nations of industry and peace.

The reason for this general respect and obedience to law may be found in another fact, which is to the immortal honor of the Chinese. It is the respect and obedience to parents. In China the family is the foundation of the state; and the very first law of society, as well as of religion, is: "Honor thy father and mother." In no country in the world is this law so universally obeyed. The preservation of China amid the wreck of other kingdoms is largely due to its respect to the Fifth Commandment, which has proved literally "a commandment with promise;"--the promise, "that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee," having been fulfilled in the preservation of this country from age to age.

As a consequence of this respect to parents, which imposes an authority over children, and binds them together, the family feeling in China is very strong. This, however n.o.ble in itself, has some evil effects, as it often separates the people of a town or village by feuds and divisions, which are as distinct, and as jealous and hostile, as the old Highland clans in Scotland. This interferes with the administration of justice. If a crime is committed, all of one's clan are in league to screen and protect the offender, while the rival clan is as eager to pursue and destroy him. Woe to the man who is accused, and who has no friend! But the disposition to stand by each other manifests itself in many acts of mutual helpfulness, of devotion and personal sacrifice.

Carrying out the same idea, the nation is only a larger family, and the government a patriarchal despotism. There is no representative government, no Congress or Parliament; and yet there is a kind of local government, like that of our New England towns. Every village is governed by "elders," who are responsible for its police, who look after rascals, and who also aid in a.s.sessing the taxes for the local and general governments. By this union of a great central power with local administration of local affairs, the government has managed to hold together hundreds of millions of human beings, and make its authority respected over a large part of Asia.

This family feeling moulds even the religion of China, which takes the form of a worship of ancestors. Those who have given them existence are not lost when they have ceased to breathe. They are still the links of being by which, and through which, the present living world came from the hand of the Creator, and are to be reverenced with a devotion next to that felt for the Author of being himself. Their memory is still cherished. Every household has its objects of devotion; every dwelling has its shrine sacred to the memory of the dead; and no temple or paG.o.da is more truly holy ground than the cemeteries, often laid out on hill-sides, where reposes the dust of former generations. To these they make frequent pilgrimages. Every year the Emperor of China goes in state to visit the tombs of his ancestors. The poor emigrant who leaves for America or Australia, gives a part of his earnings, so that, in case of death, his body shall be brought back to China to sleep in the soil that contains the dust of his ancestors. Thus the living are joined to the dead; and those who have vanished from the earth, from the silent hills where they sleep, still rule the most populous kingdom of the world.

One cannot leave China without a word in regard to its relations with other countries. In this respect a great change has taken place within this generation. The old exclusiveness is broken down. This has come by war, and war which had not always a justifiable origin, however good may have been its effects. The opium war in 1841 is not a thing to be remembered by England with pride. The cause of that war was an attempt by the Chinese government in 1839 to prevent the English importation of opium. Never did a government make a more determined effort to remove a terrible curse that was destroying its population.

Seeing the evil in all its enormity, it roused itself like a strong man to shake it off. It imposed heavy penalties on the use of opium, even going so far as to put some to death. But what could it do so long as foreigners were selling opium in Canton, right before its eyes? It resolved to break up the trade, to stop the importation. As a last resort, it drew a cordon around the factories of the foreign merchants, and brought them to terms by a truly Eastern strategy. It did not attack them, nor touch a hair of their heads; but it a.s.sumed that it had at least the right to exercise its authority over its own people, by forbidding them to have any intercourse with foreigners.

Immediately every Chinese servant left them. No man could be had, for love or money, to render them any service, or even to sell them food.

Thus they were virtually prisoners. This state of siege lasted about six weeks. At the end of that time the British merchants surrendered all the opium, at the order of their consular chief, Charles Elliot, for him to hand it over to the Chinese; it amounted to 20,283 chests (nearly three million pounds in weight), mostly on board ship at the time. The Chinese received it at the mouth of the river, near the Bogue Forts, and there destroyed it, by throwing it overboard, as our fathers destroyed the tea in Boston harbor. To make sure work of it, lest it should be recovered and used, they broke open the chests and mixed it thoroughly with salt water. As it dissolved in the sea, it killed great quant.i.ties of fish, but that opium at least never killed any Chinamen.

This brought on war. Much has been said of other causes, but no one familiar with affairs in the East doubts that the controlling motive was a desire to force upon China the trade in opium which is one chief source of the revenue of India.