It is most amusing to read of the minute directions that are given in this
manual of etiquette with regard to the way in which parents should be
treated by their children. "Boys and girls who are still under age ought
to rise from their beds at dawn and wash their hands and rinse their
mouths, and carefully comb their hair. They should then hasten to the
bedroom of their parents and inquire if they are in need of any
refreshment. If they are, they must at once proceed to the kitchen and
provide something savoury for them to partake of, and they must stand by
with heads slightly lowered in token of profound respect whilst they are
eating the food they have prepared for them."

Rules even are laid down as to how the children should act when a father,
for example, has been doing something that needs reproof. "When he has
been in error the son must point this out in an exceedingly humble manner,
in a gentle tone and a countenance on which there must not be the shadow
of a frown. If the father refuses to listen, the son must become still
more dutiful than he has ever been, until finding that any unpleasant
feeling has passed away he must again with great respect point out what he
considers ought to be rectified in his conduct, and try and show him the
injury he is doing to the department, district, village or neighbourhood
in which he lives. Should the father be so enraged at this as to beat his
son till the blood flows down, he must not dare to harbour the least
resentment against him, but must serve him with increased respect and
reverence."

The fourth of the "Five Classics" is called the _Record of the Spring and
Autumn_, and was composed by Confucius. His object in writing it was to
give a narrative of events in continuation of the history contained in the
_Book of History_ mentioned above. He desired also to give the nation a
lasting monument of himself, for he seemed to be haunted with an idea that
if he did not leave some record of himself, his name and his memory would
perish from the face of the earth.

His narrative of events extends from B.C. 722-480, but the whole thing has
been done in the most inartistic fashion. The sentences are brief and
matter of fact, and whether it be an atrocious murder or a deed of heroism
that is recorded, the author is careful to conceal what his own views are
with regard to them. No details are given and no opinion expressed, the
facts are simply recorded, and that is all; and yet Confucius declared
that it would be by the _Records of the Spring and Autumn_ that
succeeding ages would either honour or condemn him, a prediction that was
bound never to be fulfilled.

The last of the "Five Classics" is the _Book of Changes_, the most
mysterious and the most unfathomable of all the books in the Chinese
language. It consists of sixty-four short essays, and is founded upon the
same number of lineal figures, each made up of six lines, some of which
are whole and some are divided. From these figures are evolved all kinds
of theories on moral, social, and spiritualistic questions. It is the
happy hunting-ground of fortune-tellers, who can predict from the peculiar
way in which the lines happen to be placed in relation to each other
whether prosperity is to come into a man's life, or whether misery and
sorrow are to close it in disaster.

In the above I have given a very rough and general summary of the
school-books that the youth of China have had to study from the earliest
days down to the present. The common subjects that are taught in the
schools at home, such as arithmetic, geography, grammar, and such like,
have no place in the schools of this country. The result is that the whole
nation is grossly ignorant of every other country outside of their own,
and this has engendered conceit and contempt and an arrogant spirit for
countries that stand in the van of civilization in the West.

But a mighty change is even now working in this old Empire, and men are
beginning to realize that the system of education that has so far been in
existence is a radically defective one, and must be displaced by those
that are more in a line with the ones that have raised the West to such a
high pitch of learning in so many departments of study. There is just now
a tremendous thirst for Western education, and the nation seems prepared
to abandon the old conservative systems that have been such a hindrance to
the advance of thought in the past.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MANDARIN

    Mandarins' great power--Ambition of every father that son should be a
    mandarin--A famous Prime Minister--Description of a mandarin of a
    county--His three titles--Clever method of squeezing complainant and
    defendant--A typical case--Crime not noticed until officially brought
    before the notice of the mandarin--Violations of law by mandarins for
    the purpose of squeezing--Methods of judicial procedure--Torture used
    to cause confession--Mandarins allowed large discretionary powers in
    their decisions--Two typical instances.

Any man who is in office under the Government is called a mandarin. It
must be understood, however, that he is actually in its service to get
this honourable title for whilst many, through courtesy, are addressed as
mandarins, it is only those who are in the _bonâ fide_ employment of the
country that really can be considered as such.

The mandarins as a class are the privileged men of the Empire. They have
large and extensive powers. In the exercise of their functions a wide
discretion is allowed them, and in their decisions as magistrates, whilst
they have to keep themselves within certain general laws recognized as the
statutes of the dynasty, they are left very much to their own wit and
common-sense as to how they shall reach the conclusions they may finally
come to. In addition to the above, the mandarins have almost unlimited
opportunities of making money and of enriching themselves and their
families.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE GATE (NANKIN).]

This latter has a fascination for the Chinaman, which explains the intense
longing that every youth, who has any ambitions for the future, has to
some day become a mandarin. I presume there is hardly a son born in this
wide Empire, about whom the father does not at once begin to have his
dreams. He pictures to himself the time when the little fellow whose
cries are awakening new echoes in the home shall have taken his degree and
have qualified himself for some Government appointment. His visions widen
and he sees him advanced from one post to another, and growing in power
and in wealth, until he finally returns to his ancestral home to build a
magnificent mansion and to enrich every member of it.

As the mandarins all spring from the people, without any reference to
class or social position, the dreams that the parents often have about
their sons are not the fairy creations of fancy like those of Aladdin's
wonderful lamp, but in countless instances are real romances that are more
marvellous than any writer of fiction has ever conceived. In one of my
travels in the interior of China in passing along a great thoroughfare, I
came upon a magnificent grave. I saw at once it was the tomb of a man that
had been a great mandarin, for only such could possibly have had such a
splendid monument erected in connection with his last resting place.

The tomb, that stood high and conspicuous far back from the highway along
which a constant stream of travellers passed to and fro, was situated at
the end of a great avenue flanked on both sides by huge stone figures
larger than life. The whole was intended to represent the official
residence and court of a high mandarin. There were stone lions guarding
the approaches to where the great official was supposed to be visiting,
and granite horses with their riders waiting patiently for the coming of
their lord, and stone footmen who had been standing for more than a
century for one whose footsteps would never again be heard by human ears.

There was quite a romantic story connected with this grave. Nearly two
hundred years ago, the ground occupied by it was a poor little farm,
cultivated by a family who could barely get enough out of it to keep body
and soul together. A son was born, and as the lad grew up, the parents
seeing that he was a child of uncommon natural abilities, determined that
he should be a scholar, and that he should retrieve the glories of his
house which tradition declared had in former years been most conspicuous,
and should bring back the good fortune which had been vanishing slowly
from their home.

He was accordingly kept at school when he should have been helping on the
farm or going out as a labourer to earn a few cash to ease the poverty
that held the family within its grip. To do this meant a struggle for them
all, and ceaseless self-denial both for the parents and for the young
scholar himself, but after years of a stern struggle to keep the wolf from
the door, the faith and patience of them all were rewarded by the success
of the son.

He passed his examinations with such brilliant success, that he was soon
made a mandarin, and he was appointed to the control of a rich county
where he had ample opportunities of showing the Government how well fitted
he was to rule. From this time the shadow that had rested on his home
lifted, for he was now in a position to send sufficient money to his
parents to enable them to live in luxury. The old house, battered by the
weather and falling into decay, was rebuilt and enlarged. Fresh fields
were bought and added to the farm, and servants and field hands were
employed to gather in the harvests that filled their home with abundance.

In the meanwhile the son had been advanced from one post to another, until
finally he was summoned to the capital by the Emperor and made Prime
Minister. During these years his wealth had been accumulating, until now
he had a large fortune at his command, which, true to Chinese nature and
to Chinese traditions, he had sent to his old home, and which he had spent
largely in the purchase of lands which he added to his own, and of farms
which he let out to farmers, who had lost their own, to cultivate for
him.

At length the time came for him to die, and with the strong passion for
his home where he was reared that supplies the place of patriotism to the
Chinese, he made arrangements that his body should be carried to the place
where he was born, and should be buried in one of the fields in sight of
his old home, where his grave could be cared for, and where his spirit
could be sacrificed to by the members of his own family.

This meant a journey of over a thousand miles, over great plains and up
and down hills and mountains, and across wide rivers, and months of steady
journeying for a large retinue that would have to follow the dead
statesman in a kind of triumphal march across the Empire.

At length the great procession reached the place where the illustrious
dead was to be laid. The whole country round had gathered to witness the
proceedings, for never before, in this region at least, had such a
magnificent funeral been witnessed by any one. There were civil mandarins
of various ranks, dressed in their official robes, with their retinues and
attendants and gorgeous sedan chairs. There were also the highest military
mandarins of the province, with long lines of soldiers, that had been
ordered by imperial edict to do honour to the dead by their presence.

And now the coffin was lowered into the grave amid the blare of trumpets
and the loud wailing of the mourners dressed in sackcloth, whilst crowds
gazed on the scene from every little rising ground, and the proud and
haughty officials pondered with solemn faces upon the honour that had been
done that day to a man who had risen from such a humble condition in life.

One would have imagined that as the mandarins, or rulers of the country,
are all recruited from the ranks of the people, they would naturally be
in sympathy with them, and would do their utmost to deliver them from the
tyranny and oppression from which they too often suffer, but this is not
the case. The fact is the mandarins, as a whole, are the great curse of
the nation. They are rapacious and exacting. They have no regard for
justice or mercy, when these conflict with their own self-interests, and
they are the bitter opponents of any plans of reform, knowing that the
carrying out of such would endanger their own vested interests, and
deprive them of the arbitrary powers they now possess.

In order to give the reader some practical idea of what are the duties and
responsibilities of a mandarin, I propose to select one and describe him
as graphically as I can, so that one may have a picture of him before the
mind's eye. For this purpose, I shall take the "County Mandarin," for
though there are many others that are superior to him in rank, there is
not one whose duties are so multifarious, or who is so responsible for the
order and good government of his district as he is.

He has three titles by which he is equally well known throughout the whole
of the Empire. The first of these is the "County Mandarin," because he is
the chief official in it, and his authority is the predominant one
throughout the whole of the county. Even in cases where his immediate
superior wishes any action to be carried out within his jurisdiction, he
has to request the county mandarin to see it executed. The second of his
titles is "The man that knows the County," from the fact that it is
assumed that he is so intimately acquainted with everything that goes on
within his district that nothing can possibly happen in it without his
being thoroughly cognizant of it. This assumption of course is an utterly
ridiculous one, as it would be manifestly absurd to suppose that any
mortal man could know what is happening by day or night throughout a
large county. The title, however, which has come down from the past, and
which the man accepted when he took office, serves to make him responsible
for all that goes on within his jurisdiction. The theory of the Chinese
Government that every one in some way or other is responsible for what may
take place in society, enables it to at once put its finger on the person
who has to be dealt with in the case of any infraction of the law, though
he himself may not be the individual who has committed the offence.

A murder, for example, is committed during the darkness of the night. It
was done in some alleyway and there is no trace of those who killed the
man. The bailiff of the ward is summoned to appear before the local
mandarin, and he is asked if he has apprehended the murderer. He makes the
excuse that the whole thing happened during the night when the whole city
was asleep, and therefore he could not possibly be cognizant of what all
the scamps and ruffians were doing when honest men were in their beds and
were fast asleep.

That excuse, which would at once be accepted in England, would be laughed
at in China, and the bailiff would be reminded that it was his business to
know everything that went on in his ward, and very likely he would receive
a hundred blows to refresh his memory, and the promise of as many more if
the culprit were not captured within a certain limited time. By this same
doctrine of responsibility, "The man that knows the County" is held by the
Government to be one that must bear on his shoulders the consequences of
whatever may happen in any part of the county over which he rules.

A third title that is given to the official I am describing is, "The
mandarin that is the Father and Mother of the People." This term is a very
pretty one and is given to no other official. It is intended to indicate
the very intimate relationship that exists between him and his people,
and the tender concern that he ought to have for their welfare. As the
child runs to its mother in time of trouble and gets comfort from her
sympathy, so the people of a county turn to this mandarin, when they are
threatened with injustice or oppression, and so he, in the spirit of a
father when he sees his own son in distress, bends all his energies to
protect and comfort them. This is a beautiful theory, which the ancient
legislators of this country in some moment of inspiration conceived, but
the actual fact is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, instead of
being a father or a mother, he is more like a hungry tiger that desires to
dig its claws into the flesh of a lamb, to satisfy its appetite upon it.

The mandarin whom I am describing has just received an appointment to the
county, say, of "Eternal Spring," for which he has paid the modest sum of
a thousand pounds to the high official who had the disposal of the office.
He is an ambitious man, and his great aim is not only speedily to recoup
himself this initial outlay, but also to lay by a considerable sum to
carry with him to his ancestral home and enable him to live in easy
circumstances for some years to come. As his term of office lasts only
three years and his salary is not more than three hundred a year, it would
seem that he would require to be a conjuror to accomplish these two
objects in the limited time at his command.

That he can do, and in the great majority of cases actually does perform,
such remarkable financial legerdemain is a fact that is entirely due to
the vicious system on which the whole civil service in China is based. It
is perfectly understood by the Government that when a mandarin is
appointed to any official position under it, the squeezes he has to pay
for it, and the inadequate salary he will receive for his services, are
all to be met and supplemented by what he can wring out of the people.
This system is as old as the nation, and has become so inwrought and
worked into its very fibre, that a new creation of national life would
seem to be essential before it could be eradicated from the body politic.
When the mandarin arrives at his Yamen, which is his residence and the
place where all the official business of the county is transacted, he is
met by the whole staff of men who are to assist him in the arduous duties
that fall to him as the chief magistrate in the large district he has been
appointed to rule. These consist of a private secretary, an interpreter, a
number of writers who write dispatches and conduct any correspondence that
may arise, a large body of policemen, or runners as they are generally
called in the East, and a dozen disreputable-looking men who form the
retinue of the mandarin, when he is called out to settle disturbances in
any part of his large field, or adjudicate on cases that have to be tried
on the spot.

Nominally he is responsible for all the salaries that this great crowd of
men receive, and one wonders how he manages to pay them all out of his
three hundred a year. The real fact of the case is, the only man that
receives any salary from him is his private secretary. All the rest
purchase the privilege of being employed in his service, and give the
whole of their time free simply for being permitted to extract out of the
people who come to engage in lawsuits, or from those who have fallen
within the grip of the law, fees and squeezes and perquisites enough to
give them a very good permanent income.

It is very interesting to watch the way in which these gentry carry on
their official work, and how as ministers of justice in executing the
decisions of the mandarin their one aim seems to be to extract as much out
of the pockets of the people they are operating on as it is possible for
them to do.

A farmer, for example, comes one day into the Yamen to lay a complaint
against a rich neighbour who has taken forcible possession of some of his
fields. He produces the deeds of his lands, and shows how they have been
in his family for several generations and that they have never been
alienated either by sale or by mortgage. The rich man has simply taken
forcible possession of them because he belongs to a formidable clan, he
declares, and not because he has any right to the fields.

The runners are delighted with this case, for the fact that there is a
rich man in it makes it certain that some of his dollars will be
transferred to their pockets. The complaint is formally accepted by the
mandarin, and the court fees having been paid, a warrant is issued for the
arrest of the man who has been accused.

The runners or policemen start out on their journey with light and joyous
hearts. The road that leads away from the main thoroughfare takes them
through rice fields, and skirts the foothills, and runs through villages,
until at last it brings them by a narrow pathway to the house of the rich
man they have come to arrest.

The whole village is excited by the arrival of these messengers of the
law, for they are always a sign of ill omen, and the only man that can
face them without being terrified is the man who knows that he has the
means to satisfy their cupidity and to thus avoid being roughly handled by
them. A crowd as if by magic silently gathers round the open door through
which the runners have entered, and the women from the neighbouring houses
collect in excited knots, and with flushed faces discuss the wonderful
news of their village life.

The rich man, with as calm and as indifferent a manner as he can assume,
though his heart is beating fast, comes out into the courtyard where the
runners are standing and politely asks them what is their business with
him. They tell him they have a warrant for his arrest for seizing some
fields that belong to one of his neighbours, and the mandarin has
ordered them to bring him to his court to be tried for the offence.

[Illustration: A POLICEMAN.

_To face p. 280._]

Whilst the warrant is being read, the accused has had time to collect his
wits. He of course denies the accusation, and politely asks the men to be
seated. At the same time he calls the cook, and declaring that they must
be tired and hungry after their long walk, he orders him to at once get
dinner ready for them, and in a whisper he gives him a hint that he does
not wish him to spare any expense in providing such a meal as will put
them in the best humour possible.

The runners freely protest that they have no time to delay, that their
orders are imperative, and that the "Father and Mother of his People" is
impatiently awaiting their return. This of course is all put on, for
dinner is just the one thing they have been looking forward to; so
pretending to yield to the entreaties of their host, they at once make
themselves at home. They smoke their pipes and then laugh and chat with
the members of the household, just as though they had been invited guests,
and not policemen who had come to carry off the head of it to prison.

After a time, when they have got into a comfortable humour with each
other, the rich man takes the head runner aside, and after a few minutes
of earnest conversation and the slipping of a few dollars into his hand,
an air of increased geniality seems to have suddenly sprung up between him
and his uninvited guests. They are now most polite and deferential to him,
and the swaggering, bullying manner natural to them is replaced by a
childlike gentleness that is really most touching. Dinner over, instead of
incontinently grabbing him by the tail and hauling him along the road as
their instinct would prompt them in the case of any of the common people,
they part from him with smiles and bows and high-flown compliments, whilst
the culprit actually stands at his door, and ostentatiously, for the
benefit of the man who has accused him of stealing his fields, entreats
them not to leave him too soon, and assures them that his heart will be
desolated if they do not come quickly and pay him another visit.

When they reach the Yamen, the "Man that knows the County" demands of them
where their prisoner is. They have their story all ready, and they explain
that when they reached his home they could find no trace of him, and that
without any explanation to his friends he had disappeared and they could
not find him. They declare, however, that they are keeping an eye upon the
family, who they are convinced are hiding his movements, and that before
long they will be able to arrest him and bring him before the magistrate.
There is no doubt but that both the "Man that knows the County" and these
scamps whose faces are dyed with the opium hue, all had their tongues in
their cheeks whilst this fable was being rehearsed. Both sides know that
the whole thing is a farce, but seeing that the original idea was devised
by the thinkers and humorists that lived when the history of the nation
was in twilight, it would not do for their far-off descendants to give the
show away, and so with solemn faces they play out the thing, as though a
tragedy and not a comedy were being enacted.

The runners have scarcely left the house, when the rich man hastens, as
fast as he can hurry, to the city, and enters his reply to the accusation
that has been laid against him. He denies that _in toto_, and produces
deeds, that have been so deftly manufactured that they have the impress of
a hundred years upon them, and which he declares prove decisively that the
fields in question belong to him, and have come to him in proper legal
succession from his forefathers.

He is careful, however, after he has put in his plea, to find out some
relatives of the "Father and Mother of the People" who have followed him
from his distant home for occasions like this, with whom he confers. An
earnest but not an unduly prolonged conversation takes place, when a
certain sum of money changes hands, which is destined to find its way into
the pocket of the mandarin, and whose purpose is to give him such a clear
and profound grasp of the case that he will have no difficulty in deciding
that the accusation against the rich man has been a trumped-up one.

Ten days go by and no further proceedings have been taken. The
complainant, well aware of the cause of this, scrapes together as large a
sum as he can possibly afford, and by the same underground method sends it
to the "Man that knows the County," with the hope that he will be able to
see the justice of his case and give him back his fields. At the same time
he enters what in legal phraseology is called a hurrying petition, the
object of which is to hasten the action of the mandarin so as to finish up
the case without delay.

Upon the receipt of this, an order is issued to the runners to go and
arrest the accused with all possible dispatch and bring him to the Yamen
so that he may be tried. The previous farce such as I have already
described is once more gone through. The runners are received with lavish
hospitality and a certain number of dollars are transferred to their
pockets, that put a smile on their features that lights them all up and
that spreads away to the back of their necks, till it finally vanishes
down their tails into thin air. On their return to the Yamen they report
that the man is still away from home, and though they have made diligent
inquiries they have not yet been able to trace his whereabouts.

And so the case goes on, bribes being paid by both sides that go to swell
the gains of the "Father and Mother of his People," whilst fees also are
squeezed out of them by the runners, who, as in some difficult cases in
Chancery in England, grow fat upon the spoils that they extract out of
both the complainant and defendant. Finally, after many months of
vexatious delays, when the whole hungry tribe in the Yamen see that no
more money can be got out of either side, the case is tried, when some
compromise is suggested and the parties leave the court fully convinced
that there is no such thing as justice in China.

The mandarins in this land take a very Oriental idea of what their duty is
in regard to crime. They act upon the principle that unless it is legally
brought before them, and a complaint is entered in their court, they will
take no cognizance of it. Two large and wealthy villages have a quarrel, a
very common thing in China. The feud grows and the passions become excited
till finally they determine to take up arms and settle the case by a
fight. To get the aid of the supernatural on their behalf, each side
appeals to the village god, that is the patron of the clan, to know
whether it approves of the taking up of arms. Almost invariably the idol
does so, and in addition promises to give their side victory in the coming
struggle.

All the old rusty jingals are brought out and furbished up; gunpowder is
bought, and spears and cruel-looking pronged instruments that have been
hidden away when there was no occasion for them, are thrown into the
common stock and are served out to the young bloods who have been getting
blue-mouldy for want of a beating.

Fighting now goes on every day, and other villages round about take sides
with one of the parties, till sometimes as many as thirty, divided into
different camps, are at open war with each other. Fields are desolated,
and crops are ruthlessly destroyed. All this time the "Father and Mother
of his People" knows exactly what is going on, but as he has never been
officially informed of it, he acts on the assumption that the district
where men are being murdered is at absolute peace. Not a soldier is sent
to apprehend the lawbreakers, and no notice whatever is taken of the fact
that combatants are being seized and subjected to the most horrible
tortures, whilst they can get no redress from the constituted authorities
who ought to protect them.

The fact of the matter is the mandarin is simply waiting his time, and
when that arrives he will come in force and rake in the golden harvest
that awaits him. In these clan fights it invariably happens that after a
time both sides become tired of the whole business, and mediators are
appointed to bring the two sides to terms with each other. This process
goes on smoothly until the question as to how much blood-money should be
paid for those who have been killed on each side arises. Where an even
number have fallen in the struggle the solution of the difficulty is an
easy one, but when the number of the slain is greater on one side than on
the other, it is in nearly every case necessary to appeal to the mandarin
to get him to use his authority to settle the matter. It is then that he
finds his opportunity of making a lot of money out of both the belligerent
parties. They have broken the law, he tells them, by carrying on war in
his Majesty's dominions, and he must fine them for daring to take this
liberty. In many cases he has been known to return to his Yamen thousands
of dollars richer than when he left it.

In the question of crime, the democracy is allowed a much larger liberty
than is the case in the West. With the exception of rebellion, or any
overt act against the Government, a Chinaman may commit the most atrocious
misdemeanours without being held responsible to the authorities, unless,
indeed, some formal complaint has been made against him. Murder, for
example, is a crime that in nine cases out of ten is always settled by the
families concerned, by a payment of blood-money. They will fight and
wrangle, and discuss for days together as to the compensation that is
demanded, but when once the amount has been settled and paid the whole
thing is finished, and society never dreams that the murderer owes
anything to it, or that he ought to atone to it for the injury he has done
it in killing one of the members of it.

It is interesting to observe how the mandarin, with his impecunious staff,
who all represent the majesty of law in this Empire, systematically assist
certain classes of people to evade the law of the land, in consideration
of a regular payment being made to allow them to do so. Take gambling, for
instance. The gambling instinct is one of the strongest passions by which
the whole of the Chinese race may be said to be moved. There is no class
exempt from it. The rich and the poor, the men of learning in common with
the coolie who earns his living on the streets, refined ladies and the
wives and daughters of the labouring classes, all have this passion in
their blood. This is so well recognized by their rulers that gambling is
strictly forbidden throughout the Empire. There are standing laws against
it which forbid the indulgence of it in any form whatsoever. There is only
one exception to this, and that is during the first three days in the new
year. Then the nation gambles openly, and tables are placed on the
streets, around which crowds of men gather; and in the homes the women,
forgetful of their duties, are so absorbed over their cards and dice that
until the fourth day, when the gambling must stop, they seem to be driven
with as mad a passion for gain as are the men on the streets.

Now the mandarin and his low-class, opium-dyed gang of followers take
advantage of this terrible weakness of the people to make money out of it;
and so a stranger to the ways of China would be immensely astonished to
find that in the market towns, and especially in those where regular fairs
are held, gambling shops where games of chance are played openly before
the public everywhere exist, and crowds of country bumpkins, drawn by the
universal passion, gather round the tables and, forgetful of time, lose
all sense of everything else, and become absorbed in the changing figures
of the board that bring them either fortune or despair.

You naturally ask how it is that in a country where gambling is so
strictly forbidden, that here is a shop entirely given up to that vice,
and that openly and in sight of the crowds that usually flock to a fair,
the place is packed with men who make no attempt at disguising what they
are engaged in. You will soon discover that the owner of the place pays a
certain settled sum into the Yamen that is divided amongst the "Man that
knows the County" and his disreputable set of underlings; and should any
policeman happen to have official business in the fair, and were passing
along the street and saw the eager, noisy gamblers gathered round the
tables, he would profess the utmost ignorance as to what was going on in
that disreputable place. Should any of the more respectable inhabitants
make a formal complaint against the betting and gambling fraternity, the
magistrate would appear to be filled with indignation, and runners would
be sent to apprehend the lawbreakers to bring them before him to be
punished according to law. They would find, however, when they arrived
that every trace of gambling had been removed, and only perhaps a young
lad would be found, with an innocent-looking face, selling peanuts and
candies. The fact is, before they started with their warrant from the
mandarin, they sent on a swift-footed messenger ahead of them to warn the
men they were coming, and telling them to clear out.

China is a country full of lofty ideas. These are found in the writings of
the sages. They are pasted up in crimson strips of paper on the doorposts
of the houses and shops in every city in the Empire. They are found
staring at one over the temples of the gods, and on the lofty doors of
the Yamens, so that one would suppose that these latter were churches
where the highest morality and the profoundest of theological teachings
were being daily expounded. There is no place indeed that is considered so
bad that a public sense of decency would demand that they should be
excluded from it. Low, miserable opium dens, and houses of ill-fame, and
gambling hells, and homes that are the abode of thieves are adorned with
the most exquisite sentences full of the highest morality, and seemingly
culled with the greatest care from the vast repertory that the language
contains, as if to condemn the very vices that are rampant within.

One would imagine that these beautiful and choice epitomes of all the
virtues would have made the Chinese a highly moral and virtuous people,
but they have not done so. The exquisite sentences that give you a thrill
as you read them for the first time, stare down upon the inmates and upon
the passers-by without the remotest apparent effect upon any one. The
opium-hued runner, and the mandarin whose sole aim is to enrich himself,
pass in and out of the Yamen with sentences that extol righteousness and
benevolences as the highest virtues, but the Yamen remains unchanged, and
continues to be the abode of the greatest villainies. It is an undoubted
fact that it has the worst reputation for roguery and cheating and
chicanery, and the violation of all justice, of any other place throughout
the kingdom.

This is no new development of modern times, but has been in existence from
ages immemorial.[4] It is not, moreover, the result of any class
legislation, for all the mandarins spring from the masses, and therefore
all their vices and defects are inherited from them. There needs a
renovation of the whole social fabric to make men honest in life, and to
cause them to refrain from the practice of things that would never be
tolerated in the common life of the Englishman of to-day. The methods of
judicial procedure in China are entirely different from those in the West.
There is no jury, no summoning and questioning of witnesses, and no
lawyers to defend their clients or to expound the law, so as to deliver
them from any penalties they might have incurred. Everything is left in
the hands of the judge, who takes whatever view may seem to him to be the
best in the case, and to decide without any reference to law books or
statutes or to legal precedents.

A case, for example, is going to be tried. A man is accused of robbing a
grave, one of the most heinous crimes of which a Chinaman can be guilty.
As it is one of the axioms of Chinese law that an accused person is
assumed to be guilty, he is brought in forcibly and with brutal roughness
by some of the runners, wildly declaring that he is absolutely guiltless
of the offence with which he is charged.

This protestation is, of course, taken as a kind of joke that every
prisoner is accustomed to make, so he is forcibly bumped down on to his
knees, whilst his head is made to strike the ground with a sound that is
heard throughout the court. The judge looks on him with a stern and solemn
visage, and enlarges on the enormity of his crime. He must be guilty, for
how otherwise would he be here charged with this offence? The mandarin
calls upon him to confess, but as he refuses to do this, but, on the
contrary, adheres to his statement that he is innocent, a signal is given
to the runners, who proceed to beat him most unmercifully, till his cries
ring throughout the building, and he calls in the most piteous tones to
all present to bear witness that he never committed the crime with which
he is charged. After a time, seeing that he remains obstinate, the
castigation is stopped, and the man, bleeding and wounded, is dragged out
by his tail by the runners and thrown into a dismal dungeon, with some
dirty straw in a corner, and where he can consider whether he will confess
as the mandarin commands him, or whether he will consent to endure the
barbarous treatment he will receive till he does.

A few days pass by, and he is again dragged into the court and the same
process is repeated, until at last, exhausted by his sufferings and unable
to endure the horrible tortures to which he is subjected, he finally
confesses that he did rob the grave. This is exactly what the mandarin has
been manoeuvring for, for according to Chinese common law procedure, no
prisoner can be condemned, and there can be no execution of his sentence,
until he has signed with his own hand his confession that he is guilty. It
would seem to the unsophisticated mind of the Barbarian that has never
been enlightened by the civilizing influences of the sages, that criminal
law would find itself at a complete standstill, seeing that no man would
be willing to sign his own condemnation.

This, however, is an utter mistake. The mandarin has ways and means of
persuading a refractory prisoner to make just the very confession that
will justify him in punishing him to the full extent that he believes he
deserves. There is the prison where a man may be slowly starved, and
chains and manacles, and stout bamboo rods wielded by sturdy brawny arms
that no touch of pity ever weakens. These can be used with such steady,
unfaltering perseverance that life becomes intolerable, and the poor
fellow would be ready to sign a hundred criminating documents rather than
continue to endure the tortures that are inflicted upon him.

In the above accounts of the methods of judicial procedure in China, I
have selected cases that are of constant occurrence throughout the Empire.
How a nation with such a system of judicature has managed not only to
exist, but also to retain a vitality such as China has to-day, is a marvel
that testifies to the law-abiding character of the Chinese race. The
mandarin of to-day is about as mean and as ignoble a specimen of a ruler
as can be conceived, but he has always been the same. He is a product of
the ages. All the teachings of the sages in which he is an adept, have
never been able to produce a better. The people universally hate and
loathe him. He is the synonym for oppression, injustice, and cupidity, and
yet when a man rises from the ranks and is numbered amongst this
aristocracy of power, he never remembers the loathing of the people for
this class, whose name is distasteful to all honest men. It is quite true
that one does occasionally meet with a high-minded and honourable
mandarin, but he is simply an exception that proves the rule. The love and
devotion that the people manifest to such an exceptional character as this
only shows what a longing men have for those to rule over them who shall
exhibit in their lives some of the higher virtues by which human life is
adorned.

The mandarin being untrammelled by juries or by precedents or by statute
books, and often having to depend upon his own mother wit to find out the
truth in some intricate case that comes before him, is accustomed to use
independent and original methods that would shock the legal mind of our
judges in England. Not so in this land, where they are applauded by those
who hear of them as being exceedingly ingenious and as showing the subtle
character of the minds of those who devised them. A description of some of
these may be interesting to the reader.

On one occasion a farmer was going to market with two huge bundles of
firewood that balanced on a bamboo pole he was to carry on his shoulder
from his farm to the neighbouring market town. Just before leaving, his
wife thrust some yards of cotton cloth that she had woven into one of the
bundles, and asked him to take them to the draper's and dispose of them
for her at the best price he could get for them.

Arriving at the town, he applied at the house of a rich scholar to whom he
had been accustomed to sell, and asked if he wanted to buy any firewood.
Finding that he did, he saw that the bundles were duly weighed and paid
for; when, walking down the narrow, ill-paved street and congratulating
himself that he had disposed of his wood so easily, he suddenly remembered
that he had forgotten all about the cloth that had been hidden in one of
them. Hastily retracing his steps, he explained to the purchaser that
there was some cotton cloth belonging to his wife concealed amongst the
wood, and he would be infinitely obliged to him if he would kindly take it
out and give it to him.

The man protested that it was quite a mistake to say that there was any
cloth in either of the bundles. They had both been taken to pieces, but
nothing of the kind was found in them. He must have dropped it by the way,
or his wife may at the last have forgotten to put it in.

The farmer, perfectly certain that the cloth was in the possession of the
rich man, and seeing no way of obtaining redress, wended his way to the
Yamen of the mandarin to ask his advice on the matter. This man happened
to be one whose reputation for ferreting out crime was the admiration of
all the country round. He listened to the farmer's story very attentively,
and after a few pertinent questions he sent one of his runners and ordered
the suspected man to come and see him at once. When he came he vigorously
denied that the cloth was amongst the wood he had bought, and he declared
that the farmer had trumped up this false charge against him and ought to
be severely punished. "The Man that knows the County" seemed to sympathize
with all that he said, and rather inclined to side with him against the
poor farmer. "Is it at all likely, your Excellency," he said, "that I, a
wealthy man, would do such a mean and dishonourable act as to rob a man of
an article only worth two or three shillings in value?"

In reply to this, the mandarin begged to be excused for a moment, and
going into a side room he called one of his runners, and told him to go to
the wife of the rich man and tell her that her husband had confessed that
they had the piece of cloth in their possession, and that she was to hand
it over to the runner, who would bring it to the mandarin. Fully believing
this story, she brought the stolen cloth out of the hiding place where it
had been placed for concealment, and handed it over to the policeman. It
may be easily understood how utterly dumfounded the culprit was when the
runner walked in with the stolen cloth in his hand, and how delighted the
farmer was when it was handed over to him by the "Father and Mother of his
People." Turning to the rich man, the mandarin addressed him in very stern
language upon the meanness of his offence. "I do not like to send you to
prison," he continued, "for that would degrade you in the sight of the
people and the members of your family. My Yamen is out of repair, and if
you will call a builder and have it thoroughly overhauled, I shall be
willing to let you off any further punishment." As this would cost him
fully a hundred pounds, it will be quite evident that he paid dearly for
trying to rob the farmer of his cloth.

One day a mandarin was being carried along a certain road in his sedan
chair, when a man who had been having a quarrel with another appealed to
him to defend him against an attempt that was being made to wrong him. He
explained that as he was walking along the road, it began to rain, and
seeing a stranger who had no umbrella he offered to share his with him as
far as they went together. Now when they were about to part, the man
claimed that the umbrella was his, and had forcibly taken it away from
him. "The Man who knows the County" declared that it was rather a
difficult case to settle, because there was no outside evidence to be got
to help him to a decision. There was simply one man's word against the
other, so he decided that the umbrella should be cut in two and a half
given to each.

There was no appeal against this action of the mandarin, and so the men
went off, with the hacked and mangled pieces of the umbrella, much to the
amusement of the crowd that had gathered to witness this impromptu trial
on the road. They had not gone many yards ahead when the official called
one of his runners, and ordered him to follow the two men, listen to their
conversation, and mark which one of them was most severe in his
condemnation of his judgment. He was then to apprehend them both and bring
them to his Yamen, where he would give his final decision on the matter.

In a short time both men were brought into court, when the runner reported
that the man that claimed that the umbrella was originally his, and that
out of good nature had shared it with the other, was most indignant at
what he called the unjust decision of the judge. The other individual, on
the other hand, treated the whole thing as a joke, and highly applauded
the conduct of the mandarin. "The Father and Mother of his People"
addressed the latter in the severest terms. He spoke of his ingratitude
and baseness of heart in returning a kindness in such a dastardly way as
he had done, and he ordered him to buy a new umbrella and give it to the
man he had wronged as a punishment for his offence. He issued also an
order that he should be made to wear the cangue[5] for a fortnight, and
that he should be made to parade up and down in front of the house of the
man he had maligned during the day, and be shut up in prison during the
night. This decision gave great satisfaction to every one excepting the
man who was so seriously affected by it.

If money could only be eliminated out of the life of a mandarin he would
cease to be the despicable character he often is. In their private life
they are kind and hospitable and have the courtly manners of gentlemen. In
their public capacity, when a bribe is not in view, they have a desire as
a rule to do justice in the cases that are brought before them. In some
respects they are much to be pitied. As no man may be a higher official in
his own province, it follows that he has to live far away from his home
and his friends, amongst people strange to him, who often speak a
different language from his own. It is true that his wife and children
accompany him to his new position, but they never cease to long to be back
again at the place where their kindred dwell. To be a mandarin means power
and the facility for acquiring a fortune, but it means also exile for the
time being from the ancestral home, and constant danger of being involved
with the higher authorities should any of his mistakes or his misdeeds be
brought to light.

CHAPTER XIV

PEDDLER LIFE IN CHINA

    The Chinese thrifty--Nothing wasted--Besides regular shopkeepers,
    there are itinerant dealers--The "candy man"--His various kinds of
    sweets--The "sweets and sours man"--The cloth peddler--Describe him
    minutely--The pork peddler--The jewellery peddler--The fortune-teller.

The Chinese are a thrifty race. Stern necessity and a widespread poverty
that has placed vast masses of them on the very borderland of starvation,
have compelled the nation to exercise economies such as are absolutely
unknown in the richer lands of the West. We get some idea of the narrow
line that divides countless numbers of people from absolute want, by the
fact that with regard to food there is nothing of that ever wasted in
China. "Wilful waste brings woeful want" is a proverb that Chinese in
common life would have great difficulty in understanding, or indeed in any
rank of society. The famines that have in all ages desolated great regions
in China, and the desperate struggle that is constantly going on for
simply enough to eat, have surrounded food as it were with a halo, that
would make it seem like sacrilege to misuse what we should throw away as
useless or positively hurtful.

[Illustration: A PEDDLER.]

[Illustration: A SHOEMAKER AT WORK ON THE STREET.

_To face p. 296._]

On one occasion, I was travelling in the interior, when I was disturbed by
a violent explosion of wrath on the part of the captain of the boat. He
was evidently incensed beyond measure with one of the members of the crew,
and he used the strongest language in condemnation of him. They were all
gathered round the great rice pan having their evening meal, and with
every mouthful that was taken out of the bowl that contained the condiment
to go with their rice, the anger of the captain blazed out in a fresh
burst of indignation. "What is the matter," I at last asked, "and why are
you making such a row over your meal?" "Matter!" he replied, "there is a
great deal of matter, that is quite enough to make one as angry as I am.
Do you see this man?" he said, pointing with his chopsticks to the
delinquent upon whom his wrath was being expended. "I sent him this
afternoon to the market to buy some oysters to eat with our rice this
evening, and he had not the sense or the nose to buy good ones. He allowed
the dealer to cheat him most egregiously, for the oysters are not simply
tainted--which would not have seriously mattered--they are positively
stinking, and the taste is so offensive that we can hardly get them down
without being sick." "But are you really going to eat them?" I asked, with
a look of consternation on my face. "Eat them! of course we are; you would
not have us waste the food, would you? We have paid for it, and we
certainly could not afford to lose our money," and the whole crew went on
popping the unsavoury, unhealthy morsels into their mouths, grumbling all
the time at the man who was the cause of their discomfort, but who in
order to cover his mistake pretended to be perfectly satisfied with the
almost putrid oysters that one could smell from a distance.

The preciousness of food and the jealous care that is taken not only of
what is wholesome and appetizing, but also of what would be rejected by
our poor in England as positively uneatable, show unmistakably how near
the greater part of the nation is to the ragged edge of destitution and
want. The result is that the desire to maintain life in the fierce
struggle that the masses have for mere existence has made the Chinese
amongst the most industrious people in the world. Mere poverty alone would
not have developed this feature in the national character, had there not
been a deep instinct of industry in the race which has tended to develop
industrial habits that permeate every class of society.

The whole population of China has been roughly divided by one of its great
thinkers into four classes, the scholars, the farmers, the workmen, and
the tradesmen. As the last-named produce nothing, but simply deal in
articles that other hands have manufactured, they stand the lowest in the
estimation of the public, and are deemed of less service to the community
than any of the other three. The scholar is the thinker without whom no
State can ever rise in intelligence or in civilization. The farmer is the
man that tills the soil and produces the food of the nation. Without him
the people would perish, or revert to their primitive state when they were
compelled to hunt the wild beasts in the forests and live a wretched,
precarious life. The workman supplies society with everything that is
needed for the necessities or the luxuries of everyday life, and
transforms by his skill the raw material into the thousand and one forms
that are needed for the comfort of the persons or the homes of the entire
nation.

The tradesman is neither an originator nor an inventor, and his
contribution, therefore, to the assets of the country is not to be
compared to those that the three other classes are continually making for
the benefit of the community. In spite, however, of the inferior position
that is assigned to him, the tradesman occupies a very prominent position
in the public eye, for the Chinaman, in addition to all his other
qualifications, is a man who is imbued with a passion for trade.

The towns and cities of the Empire are full of shops, and men with as keen
wits as can be found in any country in the world are constantly on the
alert as to how they shall make their business boom. The fairs and
markets, too, that are regularly held all over the kingdom, are popular
gatherings where the farmers can indulge in the national love for driving
a bargain.

Outside of the regular traders, however, who have capital and business
places where they can carry on their trade, there is a vast army of
peddlers who are everywhere to be met with, and are a recognized
institution, supplying a distinct want that the regular shopkeepers are
not always prepared to do.

The first of these that I shall describe is the "candy man." This
itinerant dealer in sweets is one of the most popular of all the men that
are to be found appealing to the public for a living. His outfit consists
of two baskets on which boards are placed, where he daintily arranges the
delicacies that are to prove so attractive to old and young, that the
stock that he has laid in may soon be turned into hard cash. He will then
be able to return home with his heart full of gladness because of the
speed with which he has been able to dispose of his fascinating goods.
From past experience he knows exactly where to place his baskets with
their tempting wares, so that he may be within easy call of those that are
likely to become customers of his. It is usually under the spreading
branches of a great banyan, where loungers congregate to catch the breezes
that are ever wandering about beneath the huge boughs that stretch out
almost horizontally as though to shield those that seek their shelter from
the great, hot, blazing sun. Or he takes his stand at the junction of two
or more roads where people are constantly passing, and near which he may
know there are a good many children living.

No sooner has he settled upon the spot where he hopes to commence business
than he ostentatiously makes a clanking sound with a huge pair of shears,
that are very much like those that the tailors use for cutting in England,
but which he employs to cut off lengths of toffy for those who would buy
from him. The sound of these jangling shears acts like magic upon all the
youngsters within hearing distance, and with mouths watering they gather
round his baskets to gaze in rapture upon the array of good things, so
temptingly laid out, that he has for sale.

Most of the lads have a few cash with them, but they delay buying because
they have not yet quite made up their minds what they are going to invest
in, and besides, it gives them an air of importance to keep the man
waiting; which he does with the greatest good nature, knowing that any
sign of impatience would drive his customers away, whilst with patience
and tact he is sure of drawing from their pockets every cash that they
possess.

His stock-in-trade consists of great slabs of what the Americans call
peanut candy. This is made, as the name indicates, from a combination of
the best white sugar and peanuts. These are boiled together in a great
cauldron, and stirred and stirred, till they are thoroughly mixed and the
now consistent mixture has been cooked, so that it can be emptied on a
board. It is then allowed to cool somewhat, when it is rolled by a wooden
roller to a certain thickness, after which it is ready to be eaten.

The combination of the sugar and the peanuts makes a very pleasant and
succulent compound. The latter gives a nutty flavour to the former, whilst
the sugar imparts some of its own essence to the nuts, and a mixture of
flavours is produced that is popular amongst all classes.

In addition to the candy, the peddler has also a very delicate sweet that
is less substantial, but none the less popular because a larger amount can
be bought for the same money. The material out of which it is made is
moist sugar, as white as the manufacturers can produce it. This is put
into a large pan and boiled over a slow fire. After a certain time it is
turned by the heat into a very consistent and a very sticky substance. At
the proper moment this is taken out of the pan and transferred to a board,
where it is moulded with deft and knowing fingers into a length of two or
three yards.

Then begins a most peculiar process that is to change the whole character
of the material before us. It is first of all stretched with a cunning
hand just as far as it will go without actually snapping. It is then
doubled back on itself and pulled again to the breaking-point, and so on
time after time until the work is done.

During this peculiar manipulation, the sweet has undergone a remarkable
change. From a dark, almost black colour, it has been turned into a golden
hue, and from being dense and heavy it is light and flaky, so that when it
is cut into lengths for sale, each one looks like a stalactite that might
have been taken out of Fingal's Cave. A bite from one of these crumbles at
once in the mouth and a crackling sound is heard and a beautiful aroma is
perceived, and before one has hardly had time to realize it, the sweet has
dissolved.

Another thing that the eager eyes of the little fellows catch amongst the
dainties is molasses candy, made in the orthodox home fashion, but cut
into little squares and sold for just one cash apiece, which is about the
thousandth part of two shillings. This is cheap and therefore popular, for
it will stand a good deal of sucking before it disappears, which is a
consideration with the generality of the buyers, for their finances are
not usually in a very flourishing condition.

Besides the above there is real sugar candy, not in sticks, but in lumps
as they have come from the sugar refinery. There are also a great variety
of sugar-coated combinations that all have their patrons, and as the
little knots of purchasers come in from different directions at the
well-known call of the peddler, one marks how varied are the tastes of the
lads by the way in which they select the articles they like from those
laid out so temptingly on the boards that contain his stock.

Another very popular peripatetic merchant is the man who is popularly
known as the seller of "sweets and sours." Like the man already described,
the people that patronize him the most are the children, though a goodly
proportion of his sales is made to persons of all ages. His goods consist
entirely of fruits prepared in such tempting and fascinating ways that the
general public is ready to put their hands in their pockets at the sound
of the little bell that announces the presence of this popular caterer to
the public taste.

He has quite an assortment of all the most popular fruits that are known
in Chinese life. He has the arbutus, which at a rough glance appears very
much like a strawberry, though it is really essentially different, for it
has a large stone, and even when it is fully ripe it has a decidedly tart
taste about it. He has these in several distinct forms, so as to meet the
wishes of those who vary in their views as to how the fruit should be
eaten. Some have been prepared with the slightest dash of sugar, so that
the sour and sweet are so nicely adjusted that both can be distinctly
perceived as it is slowly eaten by the purchaser. Some, again, have been
so deluged with sugar, that the naturally acid flavour has almost
vanished, and there remains but a remnant of the old nature left to modify
the ultra-sweetness of the sugar. Others, again, have been dried in the
sun until nearly all the juice has vanished. They have then been steeped
in brine, and the combination of salt and tart that is the result has a
fascination for some that one can hardly understand.

All these are strung on thin slips of bamboo in fives, and the buyer
holding these in his fingers can slip them off one by one into his mouth
without soiling his fingers. Three or four cash is the usual price for
this delicacy.

In addition to these, there are plums from the country districts, and
luscious-looking peaches and large fat mangoes all drenched in sugar,
which has not only preserved them from decaying, but has also added a
new flavour to each of them, which is specially attractive to those that
favour any particular kind. Again, amongst the collection there is one
fruit that always finds a ready market--the dwarf apples that are brought
by the steamers and the huge merchant junks from Tientsin and Newchang in
the far North of China.

[Illustration: A PEDDLER.

_To face p. 303._]

When they are thoroughly ripe they are rosy cheeked, and resemble the
Baldwins that come from America and are sold by the barrowmen in London
and in different parts of England, only they are diminutive, for they are
only about the fourth of the size of the ordinary English apple. These are
crushed flat, and the whole are allowed to lie in sugar until they are
entirely permeated with it. They are then strung on the bamboo sticks and
are always the chief attractions that the "sweets and sours" man has to
offer to the public. As they come from a great distance, and have been
rendered more perishable by the long journey they have had to travel, they
are a great deal dearer than the other local productions, and so it is
only those who have a larger command of money that can afford to purchase
them.

This peddler has attractions that never fail to draw around him a group
both of old and young, who usually enjoy their purchases on the spot. Some
stand and chat with each other as they slowly crush the sweet and
toothsome morsel between their teeth. Others, again, of a more meditative
turn of mind, take the favourite posture of sitting on their heels, and
give the whole force of their minds to the enjoying of the flavours
contained in their favourite fruits. The buzz of conversation and the
ready wit of the peddler, and the passing crowds that would like to join
in but have not the time, and the great sun flashing down his rays upon
the scene, all combine to make such gatherings as these very picturesque
and very attractive to look upon.

Another well-known peddler who is very popular with the housewives is the
cloth-seller. His is a form that is easily recognized, as he daily goes
his round up and down the district that use and wont has made him consider
to be especially his own. It is very possible, indeed, that he may have
bought the right from the man that preceded him, just as with us a doctor
purchases a practice and becomes the rightful successor to the man who is
retiring.

He is distinguished by the fact that he carries all his stock on one of
his shoulders. To carry it anywhere else would seem in the conservative
eyes of the Chinese to disqualify him for his profession. As the burden he
has to bear is usually over one hundred pounds in weight, it would seem an
impossibility for any man unless he were a Sandow to continue day after
day and for many hours in each to support such an enormous weight as this.
But the fact is that they do so, and without apparently any very great
effort. The men as a rule are small and wiry, and as they move along at a
steady trot, without any panting or perspiring, one is apt to imagine that
the goods they are carrying are not nearly so heavy as they really are.

In order to cater for the wants of the women of the houses of his
district, he has to have with him specimens of every kind of dress goods
that they are likely to require, and in addition a liberal supply of the
more common stuffs that are worn by the poorer classes. These stocks he
must have on hand, for he must take advantage of the immediate wants of
his clients, and the impression that his eloquence makes upon them at the
time, to dispose of his wares. Were he to depend upon their taking
to-morrow what he has not ready for them now, he might find that their
mood had changed or they were short of cash when he returned with the
goods, and so his sales would be lost.

This cloth peddler is really a most advanced man, and a true pioneer in
promoting liberal ideas with regard to dress. The Chinese one
_beau-idéal_ with regard to that is the blue cotton cloth. Just as bread
in England is the staple article of the food of the masses, so that in
China is the one eternal type of what is considered the proper kind of
material with which to clothe the nation. The common people everywhere
make that the basis of their dress. The farmers all dress in this
distressingly dull-coloured material. The common coolies and workmen of
every grade in life, following the national instinct, seldom wear anything
else. It is only the well-to-do or the very rich that emerge out of this
universal worship of the blue cotton, and adopt silks or satins as their
common wear.

The women, it is true, have a few bright colours in addition to the blue
in which they appear when they are fully dressed and on holiday occasions,
but for ordinary and common everyday life the blue cotton asserts its
mastery, and holds its own against everything else.

Now this peddler is slowly causing a revolution in the ideals of the women
at least. In order to advance his business he brings the newest patterns
and the most attractive goods that enterprising merchants, both native and
foreign, are introducing from the West. He has no large stocks in hand
that he must dispose of before he can bring in new and fashionable
materials. All that he possesses, or nearly so, he carries with him on his
shoulder, and when they are disposed of, he simply goes to the merchant
and selects other goods that he has found by experience will catch the eye
of the younger women and girls that he meets on his round, and induce them
to buy from him.

The great aid that this man gets in his introduction of new ideas amongst
the women no doubt is Christianity. This has worked a perfect revolution
in family life wherever it has been received. Not only is the condition of
the women ameliorated, but their position is distinctly elevated. They
are not left to the tender mercies of heathen society to be treated with
the indignities to which they are constantly liable. The Church is always
behind them to stand out in their defence when any wrong is going to be
inflicted on them. A new power has come into the land that demands rights
for them that no legislation in the past and no tradition has ever dreamed
of asking.

In addition to all this, there are the new methods that a faith in the
gospel has developed. The custom that amounts almost to a law in China is
that young women shall not be seen on the streets. They must remain
indoors till they are married, and afterwards till they are getting on in
years. One of the most remarkable features about the streets and roads is
the few women that are seen upon them. Elderly women, with perhaps girls
under ten, and slave women, are to be met with, but maidens and young
married wives are a rare sight either on the public thoroughfares or on
the by-ways in the country places.

The morals of China, in spite of the high ideals that have been
transmitted by the sages, and that have permeated into every section of
the people, are not sufficiently elevated to permit women the freedom that
they have in Christian lands. Now Christianity has already begun to work a
remarkable change in delivering the women of China from the bondage that
an idolatrous system had imposed upon them. Whether young or old they are
required to attend church on Sundays. No distinctions are allowed. The
young girl of eighteen, that would never be seen out of the doors for
years, the newly-married wife, the maiden that has just been betrothed, in
common with elderly ladies whose sons and daughters are grown up, and the
old grandmothers that travel as they like, all are expected to attend at
the regular services, and no dispensation excepting absolute necessity
will be given to allow them not to be present.

Sunday at present is the happiest day in the week for the Christian women.
They get out of their narrow, confined houses into the sunlight. They meet
large numbers of their own sex in the church. They see new faces and get
fresh ideas, and broader views of life. They look at the various styles of
dresses, and the result is that on the morrow, when the peddler comes
round, he will get orders for new kinds of materials that they would never
have dreamed of had they not seen how pretty and becoming they looked on
the women they had met in the church.

But listen! there is the blast of a conch shell, blown by a man whose
lungs are sound, and who knows how to manipulate it so that he shall
produce the greatest volume of noise, and send it echoing along the
street. No need to ask who the man is, for every one is perfectly aware
that it is the pork peddler who is drawing near, and now every housewife
who is preparing dinner begins to count her cash to see if she can afford
the luxury of pork to-day.

Pork to a Chinaman is what beef is to an Englishman. Excepting in the
ports and in those centres where Europeans congregate, beef is but very
rarely seen. In the interior of China, pork shops abound in every city in
the Empire, but one would have to look long before he could find a beef
shop. By a thoroughly conservative and orthodox Chinese the killing of
cattle in order to sell their flesh for food is considered highly immoral.
He would tell you that these animals help in the tilling of the soil, that
therefore they are the producers of the food of the nation, and as a
matter of gratitude for their services they should be saved from the
indignity of being slaughtered for food. That is the way in which an
orthodox Confucianist would talk when the question of eating beef might be
the subject of conversation.

There are no such metaphysical discussions with regard to the pig, or
indeed any other animal that is used for food. Swine have precisely the
same animal properties that they have in any other country, and those
brought up in this extreme Eastern land might be transported to the cabins
of the Irish and they would never discover that a "furriner" had invaded
their homes.

As a domestic animal the pig has the same unpleasant habits that he has in
the British Isles. He likes to wallow in the mud, and feed on garbage and
other insanitary matter that a horse or a cow would absolutely refuse to
touch. He is on the whole a quiet and inoffensive animal, and in his
restless peregrinations after food he does not care to interfere with the
comfort or liberty of his neighbours. But let his usual meal time come
round, and if his mistress has neglected to fill his trough with something
strengthening, he will squeal and grunt and make such a fuss and a
disturbance that for the peace of the household speedy steps will have to
be taken to satisfy his hunger.

Were it not for his low and ungentlemanly habits, the pig would doubtless
have been the national emblem of the Chinese, instead of the mysterious
and inscrutable dragon, and poets would have sung his praises, and artists
would have immortalized him in their paintings. There was too little
romance, however, about him to allow of such an honour being put upon him,
but there is no question that he is the most popular animal in the whole
of the eighteen provinces. The only word in the language for flesh meat is
one that means pork, and throughout the four hundred millions of people,
the one popular dish that makes all eyes glisten about meal times is the
one that is composed of some preparation of the succulent flesh of this
animal.

The pork peddler, as already intimated, is known by the powerful blasts
that he blows from a sea shell. His outfit is of the simplest. It consists
of two baskets, on one of which a board is spread, and the pork is laid
out in a dainty fashion so as to tempt the intending purchasers to buy
what they want. In the other are thrown odds and ends, for the peddler has
really no need for it, as its main idea is to form a kind of balance so
that he may be able to carry his load with comfort from the bamboo pole
that rests on one of his shoulders.

Lying beside the pork is a large chopper, with which he cuts off the
pieces that his customers may desire, and a steelyard for weighing his
sales. As he rests his apparatus in front of some houses, he is soon
surrounded by a little knot of people, some of them with private
steelyards of their own, in order to test whether the peddler's has not
been doctored, so as to cheat them of their due weight.

Sometimes when the peddler has had his pork watered there is great
dissatisfaction, and no one will buy from him unless he sells at a
considerably reduced price. This watering is a vicious custom that
prevails largely amongst all butchers, and is intended to make it possible
to sell the meat at a lower rate to the very poor. The way it is managed
is to pump a quantity of water down the main arteries of the animal
immediately after it is killed until the whole animal is saturated with
it. As this injection of water drives out the blood, the flesh has a pale,
anæmic look that tells the secret, and the aim of the peddler is to
conceal this from the public by plastering the flesh over with the blood
that flowed from the body when the animal was killed. This is the
universal practice of the trade, though it does not deceive a single
person, nor can it give the healthy look to the pork that the unwatered
meat has.

No doubt this wretched system exists because the peddler can sell cheaper,
and as cash are few and precious amongst the poor, the national delicacy
would certainly be less attainable by large numbers of them were they to
have to pay the higher price that is demanded for the unwatered article.

It is very amusing to watch the group that has gathered round the peddler,
and to note how keen the Chinese are in everything where bargaining is
concerned. The instinct of trade is deep seated within them, and they seem
to have a positive enjoyment in the mere chaffering and bargaining, and in
the final victory of a few cash that would seem to us such a trifling gain
that we would not condescend to spend any time over the transaction. Here
is a man that is evidently an important one, for he comes up with a
dignified air and with his steelyard in his hand, as though he were going
to buy the whole of the peddler's stock-in-trade. After many
uncomplimentary remarks about the pork, and declaring that it is of very
poor quality and would be found tough in the eating, he selects a piece
that seems to have caught his eye, and he requests the man to cut that off
for him.

He does so, weighs it with his steelyard, and in doing this he allows
himself the liberal margin of the sixteenth of an ounce, so as to add to
his profits and to save himself from any loss in the weight. The purchaser
has an eagle eye, and watches this weighing with a very suspicious glance.
The Chinese are adepts in manipulating the steelyard, so as to make it
weigh heavier or lighter according as they desire. Besides, as there is no
standard to which the dealers must conform, and no inspectors of weights
and measures to help to keep them honest, there is constant friction
between buyers and sellers as to the true weight of the article that is
being disposed of.

The man says, "Let me weigh the pork," and fixing it on the hook that is
attached to his steelyard, he declares after a very careful manipulation
of the instrument that it is lighter by two-sixteenths than the peddler
was going to charge him for. This results in a wordy contest between the
two men, and a weighing and reweighing by each, and an appeal to the
crowd, and even to Heaven itself, as to the justice of each man's
statement. Finally the dispute is settled by splitting the difference,
which probably gives the true weight of the pork, and the people who sided
with the purchaser, because of the prospective contests they are going to
have with the peddler when they have their purchases weighed, declare that
the principles of Heaven have been vindicated, and now every one ought to
be satisfied. As the whole amount in dispute amounted to about one-sixth
of a penny, and the time spent in adjusting the matter occupied fully ten
minutes, whilst numerous appeals to heaven and earth and to the
consciences of the peddler and the purchaser were pointedly made to them
by the onlookers, it did really seem ludicrous and hardly worth the candle
to go through such an amount of fuss for so small a sum as was involved
either way.

After the question is settled amicably, and both parties have saved their
face, the peddler ties the pork with a rush, gathered from the banks of
some mountain stream, deftly makes a loop to act as a handle, and hands it
to the man. Immediately an elderly woman from a neighbouring house selects
a piece which weighs exactly two ounces, and for this she hands him cash
to the value of about three halfpence. There is no paper needed to wrap it
in, for the rush again comes into requisition, and with the loop in her
forefingers she bears it away without any danger of violating the
proprieties, or of soiling the meat by the dust that might have gathered
on her hands.

Another very popular peddler is the middle-aged woman who goes round with
a very unpretending-looking basket that contains all kinds of jewellery,
such as women in the middle and upper classes are accustomed to wear. All
these may be purchased at any of the goldsmiths' shops in the city, but as
the younger women are not allowed to go out and visit these for
themselves, they gladly welcome the travelling jeweller, from whose store
they can pick and choose the precise ornaments they wish to buy.

Articles of jewellery hold an important place in the dress of the Chinese
women. As they do not wear hats or bonnets in the coldest weather, or when
the sun in all his strength is pouring forth his fiery rays in the height
of summer, a woman is never supposed to be completely dressed unless she
has a certain number of golden or silver hairpins stuck in her hair, and
bracelets on her wrists. In addition to these she must have some sprays of
flowers, either natural or artificial, before she is dressed well enough
to receive visitors or go outside of her own door. The laws of etiquette
are very severe on this point, and even amongst the lowest classes, a
woman who is old enough to go out on business of any kind must wear her
earrings and have flowers in her hair, unless she wishes to be looked upon
with a great deal of suspicion.

The articles of jewellery are of a very miscellaneous character. Those
used on the head are long, dagger-looking pins, made of gold and inlaid
with kingfisher's feathers. They are meant really to add to the beauty of
the coiffure, and not to keep their hair from falling down, for that is
tied with red silk and plastered with unguents, so that it needs no
further aid to keep it in position.

Next in importance to these are the bracelets that figure very largely in
the toilette of the women of all classes. They are chiefly made of gold
and silver and jadestone, and vary in prices from a few shillings up to as
many pounds.

The rich indulge in very expensive ones and wear several on each arm. The
poorer women are pleased if they can afford to get one silver one, whilst
those in the lowest ranks never dream of aspiring to any such luxury.

The earrings are things that every woman wears no matter what her position
in life may be. When a girl is five or six years old her ears are bored.
This is done if possible on the tenth day of the tenth moon, as that is
the one lucky day in the year when it is believed that no inflammation of
the ears will follow from the process. In order to fully insure that,
however, the needle that has been used for the operation must be thrown
down the nearest well.

The fashion of the earrings varies in different localities, and if one is
very observant, he will be able to tell the district to which a woman
belongs by looking at the shape and size of her earrings. In one
particular county with which the writer is familiar, the earring assumes
enormous dimensions, being several inches in diameter; so large are they
indeed that a child that is being nursed can easily pass its arm through
one of them without any inconvenience to the mother or danger to itself.

Now the peddler has a large field in the countless homes in a considerable
district in which to carry on her operations. She is usually a woman with
a very fluent and persuasive tongue, who knows the foibles of women and
their love for finery. She has a large stock of jewellery which she
exhibits with such consummate art that women are inveigled into buying
what they do not really need, and which they had no intention of
purchasing.

The sight, however, of so many attractive works of art proves so
irresistible that this clever dealer manages to dispose to those who can
afford it many of the articles she has in her basket. The result is that
some of these peddlers make in the course of years quite little fortunes,
which enable them to spend their declining years in comfort and in
comparative affluence.

One of these women, with whom I was acquainted, was the wife of a
silversmith who had a shop in one of the principal streets of a very
populous city. The business was a prosperous one, for the shop had a good
reputation and the master of it was a man who knew his trade well and
could produce goods that could not be surpassed by any other shop in the
town. The true secret of the prosperity, however, lay not with the sales
that were made over the counter, but with those that were effected by the
wife. She was very plain and far from prepossessing in appearance, and
utterly uneducated, for the family had risen from very humble
circumstances. She was a woman, however, of great natural abilities, with
shrewd common-sense, and she had the power of presenting anything she had
to say in a forceful, eloquent manner that was very convincing.

She decided to take up the _rôle_ of peddler, so as to increase their
trade by disposing of a larger number of goods than could be done in the
shop. That she was willing to do this showed her strong and independent
character, for a woman that pursues this calling must be prepared for a
great many rebuffs, as it is not held in the highest honour by the
community at large. She persevered in her intention, and the result was
that she kept the business of the shop at high pressure in order to be
able to supply her with the requisite amount of goods that she was able
constantly to dispose of, and in the course of years from a Chinese point
of view they became quite rich.

Another peddler with less ambitious aims than the one just described is
the man that gets his living by coming round to the various houses where
he has got to be known, and buying the tinfoil that remains as an ash
after the paper money has been burned to wooden images. The Chinese
believe that the idols in order to be induced to do any service for the
worshippers must be bribed by presents of money. A moderate amount of the
current coin of the realm they are willing to expend in this way, but it
must be limited, and so in order to make the gods believe that they are
giving them vast sums, they have invented a system of paper notes,
representing ingots and gold coins and common cash all done up in
hundreds. Tinfoil beaten as thin almost as it will bear, is used to
represent the more precious metals. In its natural colour it is supposed
to be silver, and a yellow tinge is given to it when the worshipper wishes
to propitiate the idol with gold. These different coloured pieces of
tinfoil are pasted on coarse paper of a settled size and are then burned
in the presence of the idol, who is credited with not having sense enough
to know that it is being cheated. If a hundred pieces representing a
hundred dollars are presented, then the god is believed to be so much the
richer by that amount, and that it has stored them away in its unseen
treasury where countless sums of money are being accumulated. If a hundred
pieces of gold are burned, the idol is then supposed to be all the more
pleased and to be ready to send down blessings on the worshipper.

After the paper has been burned the tinfoil falls down amongst the ashes
and is carefully collected by the priest of the temple, who in time sells
the collection to the tin-beater, who can utilize the material for future
service with the idols. In some of the more popular shrines, where the
gods have the reputation of being able to bestow large favours on those
who worship them, the income derived from this burned and shrivelled
tinfoil is very considerable. There is one famous temple that at times is
visited by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, who all burn more or less of
this paper money, and where the sale of the scorched and apparently
useless tinfoil brings in thousands of dollars a year.

The peddler I am describing has nothing to do with the buying of the
refuse tinfoil in the temples. That is kept in the hands of the
authorities in each, who dispose of it to meet their current expenses.
Where his business lies is amongst the families that are situated within
his round. These are accustomed all more or less to offer bribes of money
to their household gods whenever they wish to obtain any favour from them.
With the thrift of the Chinese they always carefully pick out from the
ashes what the gods were cheated into believing were precious pieces of
gold and silver. The next day when the peddler makes his rounds they are
sold for a few cash to him, and thus they perform the double service of
bribing the gods and of putting money into their own pockets.

Of late this man has added to the original idea of being a collector of
burnt tinfoil, the name by which he is popularly known amongst the
Chinese, by also acting as a rag and bone merchant. As was remarked at the
beginning of this chapter, nothing is wasted in China, and what would be
thrown into the dust heap in England and carried away next day by the dust
cart, is here carefully set aside and kept to be sold to this peddler. A
sardine tin, for example, has been opened, and it seems now to be only an
incumbrance and of absolutely no value. The Chinaman thinks differently,
for he puts it away on a shelf in his kitchen, and when the cry of the
collector of burnt tinfoil is heard heralding his approach, it is taken
down and in consideration of a few cash is added to his collection of what
seems useless rubbish.

A chicken is killed and all the feathers are sedulously preserved, and
even the very bones that are left after it has been eaten are collected
and put aside to be sold on the morrow. All kerosene tins and empty
bottles, unless carefully watched by the mistress, will disappear
mysteriously and no one appears to know where they have vanished to; but
the peddler, if he would consent to reveal all he knows about them, could
tell exactly where they are and how much he has gained by their sale.

[Illustration: A WAYSIDE KITCHEN.

_To face p. 317._]

It is a very singular thing that the characters of the various kinds of
peddler seem to be influenced by the particular business in which each of
them is concerned. The pork peddler has a bluff and breezy air about him,
and he sends forth his blasts from his shell as though he were the
advance guard of an invading army. The seller of "sweets and sours" is
distinguished by a pleasing countenance on which a winning smile seems
perpetually to rest. His association with children and his constant effort
to win their confidence have no doubt been largely instrumental in giving
this pleasant character to his face. The cloth peddler, on the other hand,
has a severe and dignified countenance, as though he were conscious of the
responsibility that belonged to him in being the interpreter as it were of
the fashions, and the introducer of foreign goods into a land that was
accustomed to look upon any one as a traitor to his country that had any
traffic with anything associated with the "Outer Barbarian."

The profession of the collector of burnt tinfoil has unquestionably had a
demoralizing effect upon him. He is usually pale and thin, with the air of
a man of broken-down fortunes. He walks along with a timid, shrinking air,
as though he scented a policeman at every turn in the road, and when he
looks at you it is with a kind of side glance, apparently fearful lest if
he looked you straight in the face you would discover the depravity that
is deep down in his heart.

Beside the above that I have attempted to describe there are many other
kinds of peddlers who are equally interesting in their way. There are, for
example, the vegetable seller, and the fruiterer, and the peddler that
deals exclusively in needles and threads and tapes. There are also the
peddlers with the travelling kitchen, and the one that may be found on the
streets at all hours of the night with pork rissoles for the special
benefit of opium smokers, who have a weakness for delicacies of this sort.
There are, again, the peddlers who are only to be found from about nine
o'clock in the evening up almost to the time when the dawn threatens to
disperse the shadows of the night. These men are to be found at street
corners with portable stoves and a plentiful supply of hot rice. Some of
them attempt to cater not simply to the hunger of the late wanderers on
the streets, but also to their fastidious appetites, for they have
prepared good stocks of vermicelli, and a very pleasant combination of
soft-boiled rice and oysters, so as to tempt those who would otherwise be
inclined to hurry on their way homewards.

There is one man who though he does not strictly belong to the class I
have been discussing, yet as his life is spent on the street in his
endeavour to make a living, I shall attempt to describe, and that is the
fortune-teller. He is to be found in a niche on some great thoroughfare,
where the crowds are passing incessantly the livelong day, and where he is
just out of the crush of the living tide that surges just outside of him.
His stock-in-trade is about a dozen bamboo slips with enigmatic sentences
carved on each of them, that to the mind of the man who can read into the
mysteries of the unknown land contain the clues to the story of each one
that applies to him to have their future revealed to him or her. He has
also a Java sparrow enclosed within a diminutive cage, that is believed to
be the interpreter of the spirits in helping to unfold in some slight
measure the secrets they hold about the men on earth.

Here is a man, for example, who comes out of the crowd with an
anxious-looking face and a deep shadow resting upon it that has driven all
the sunlight and joy out of it. The fortune-teller is at once all
attention, whilst the sparrow from interested motives of its own cocks up
its head and takes a kind of knowing glance at the customer. The man,
evidently distressed at the subject that is occupying his mind, pours
forth in voluble and vivid language the story of his woes. It seems that
he and a neighbour are having a lawsuit about the house in which he is now
living. This man he declares to be a thoroughly unprincipled one, who has
no conscience and does not know what the fear of Heaven means. He has
claimed the house as his own, though he has not the slightest particle of
right to it; but as he belongs to a powerful clan and has plenty of money
at his command, he is afraid that might will prevail and he will lose his
property, and thus be deprived of his home. He explains that the case has
gone before the local mandarin, but as he has not the means to bribe him
and the smaller officials under him, whilst his opponent is making lavish
presents to them all, he is fearful that when the matter comes to be tried
the decision of the judge will be in favour of his enemy. What he would
like to know now is, is there any likelihood of his gaining his case. If
the fortune-teller could only give him any light on that subject that
would relieve his mind he would be infinitely obliged to him.

These fortune-tellers are keen judges of human nature, and they know that
men like to have pleasant answers to their requests, and so they
manipulate them so that, like the Delphic Oracles, they can be interpreted
either favourably or the reverse according as they eventually turn out.
This man listens with the utmost attention, with a keen look on his face,
and as the story becomes more intense, he sways his head from side to side
as though he were deeply moved at its recital.

When it is finished he throws down the twelve divining slips of bamboo on
to a little board on his knee, and asks the inquirer whether he wishes to
have the assistance of the bird in his case, for this will involve him in
a slight extra expense. Having expressed his willingness, the door of the
little cage is opened, and the bird, that has been looking with a wistful
eye on the whole of the proceedings, hops out and touches one of the slips
with its beak, as though the spirits had commissioned it to select that
particular one as containing their answer to the man's request to be
allowed to peer into the future.

The bird waits for a moment whilst the fortune-teller drops a grain of
rice in front of it, which it instantly picks up, and disappearing again
into its cage, it begins to preen its feathers whilst it keeps a watchful
look on the passers-by, in hopes evidently that it may again soon be
called upon to earn another grain of rice.

The fortune-teller now takes up the slip, and reading aloud the
inscription on it, he declares that there is no doubt but that he will be
successful in his lawsuit, that Heaven will intervene to frustrate the
malice of his enemy, and that he may go home with his mind at ease. To a
Westerner the statement on the bamboo is exceedingly vague. It declares
that the river which has been flowing amongst the hills and has been lost
to view, is again appearing round the curve of a mountain cape, and will
soon flow up to the very feet of the eager onlooker. The river is supposed
to be the case that has been giving the man perplexity, and its vanishing
out of sight the anxiety he has had as to its ultimate issue. Its sudden
turn into sight when it seemed to be lost is an indication that the affair
will turn out prosperously.

Should, however, judgment be given against him, the fortune-teller will
free himself from blame by declaring that he had misread the sign given by
the returning stream, as it really was a good omen that the spirits had
given in favour of his enemy, who was finally to remain victor in the
contest for the house.

No sooner has this man gone, than a young fellow of about twenty steps up
and says that he would like to get some indication from the spirits about
a question that is giving him some anxiety. He had obtained a situation in
the town with an employer of labour, who had a reputation for ill-treating
the people that were in his service. He was very anxious, he said, for
some employment, but he would prefer to be without any for some time
longer, rather than suffer harsh treatment and be compelled to leave. Was
it safe, therefore, for him under these circumstances to accept the offer
that had been made him, or should he reject it?

Again the slips were thrown carelessly on to the board, and the sparrow,
that had been watching the young fellow whilst he was telling his story,
being let out of its cage, touched one of the bamboo slips with its beak,
and then waited for the grain of rice that was dropped in front of it.
Looking carefully at the inscription, he once more proceeded in a
mysterious and enigmatic way to say what the spirits advised to be done in
the matter. This was so vague and unsatisfactory, that the young man
declared that he would not risk the trouble that he might have if he
decided to accept the billet that had been offered to him, that he would
just make up his mind now to reject it; and with a smile on his face and a
few pleasant words of thanks, he disappeared in the crowd that was passing
and repassing in front of them.

With this man I will close my chapter, though there are many others who
get their living in the streets whose stories are just as interesting as
his, illustrating the peculiar modes of thought of an idolatrous people,
and the strenuous nature of their life in trying to satisfy their
spiritual and physical necessities.

CHAPTER XV

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