Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them

There is one Chinese family that has for many years shown us kindliness. We have assisted at its weddings and its funerals, and its young men have spent long hours of the days, when they had nothing else to do, at our house. One day the ladies announced they were coming. And they came; but, alas! as is usual, in such numbers, and with so many women attendants, it was difficult to find chairs enough for all, much more conversation. How merry they were, as they looked about at all our foreign things, all new to them! But their especial delight was our battledore and shuttlecocks. They had been accustomed to use the heels of their crippled feet for battledores, and were not easily tired of playing in our pleasanter fashion. It was one of these girls who afterwards at a dinner party consented to show me her foot. For a year after that she was busy with preparations for her trousseau, all apparently made at home under her own supervision; and, to my great regret, I have seen nothing of her since her marriage. We were away for a time, and since then she has had a child. A Chinese lady never goes about whilst expecting, nor whilst her child is very young—at least, those I know do not. Curiously enough, for a month after child-birth Chinese coolies object to even carrying a woman in a sedan-chair. There are in China many curious traces of the same idea, that led to the service for the churching of women. There is some objection to women sleeping upstairs in a house frequented by men; and when a woman in our house was put to sleep in a room that happened to be over the entrance, some Chinese considered it very damaging to my husband's business. In China a husband and wife very rarely go out or travel together. On one occasion, as I relate elsewhere, an old-fashioned inn actually refused to receive us on that ground, and we were nearly benighted before arriving at another village, where our servant had the assurance to pass me off as a man.

It must not, however, be assumed from all this that Chinese women take no part in affairs. A Governor's wife is always supposed to be the keeper of his official seal, and is therefore never expected to go out and pay visits. When my husband was obliged to go to Shanghai on business, it was his Chinese employés who immediately suggested that I should keep the keys of the safe, and supervise the accounts in his absence, this being what they said the wife of a Chinese man of business would undertake. Nor is it unusual, my husband says, for a business man to say to him, "I must go home and consult my wife before concluding this bargain." When we first arrived in Chungking, the wife of a formerly very wealthy merchant came at once to see me, begging that some place might be found in my husband's business for her husband, who had unfortunately become impoverished. I promised to mention the matter; but as she proceeded to enter into details, and my knowledge of Chinese was even less then than it is now, I called for our cook to interpret, and to my amusement presently heard him say, "I don't know why you trouble my mistress about all this. Foreign ladies are not like our ladies; they don't understand anything about business, and take no part in their husbands' affairs." This he said in a tone as if explaining that we were ignorant, frivolous creatures; and it must be remembered that, like most Chinese who go into foreign employ, he had been uniformly in service with foreigners since his earliest years.

When a young man in my husband's business was taking to dissipated courses, it was his mother who came off in her sedan-chair into the country to interview my husband. And very definitely she knew what she wanted,—that her son should be given employment at a distance, and thus separated from the many undesirable acquaintances he had formed. She begged my husband also to give him a talking to, and told him exactly what she thought he had better say; then, having laid her point of view very clearly before him, begged that her visit might be kept a secret from her son, and so departed. I must add that, for all her being a lady, she went on her knees to my husband on arrival, and tried to do so again on going. But in conversation with him she was anything but on her knees.

Except among the poorest of the poor, who do field-work or carry water, the women of China do little beyond suckling children and making shoes, except in the treaty ports, where now large numbers of them are employed in the factories lately started. They smoke and gossip, give and go to dinner parties, and one of their great delights is to go on pilgrimages to distant shrines. It is sometimes stipulated before marriage that a woman shall go on so many pilgrimages during the year. Even when nuns invite ladies to come and enjoy themselves with them, it means drinking wine, smoking, and playing cards; and not uncommonly, in the west of China at all events, smoking includes opium-smoking. The ladies who are regular opium-smokers sit up late at night, and do not get up till five or six in the evening. They mostly have bad health, and generally say they have taken to opium-smoking because of it. Whatever effect opium may have upon men, the various ladies I have seen at ladies' dinners generally return from the opium-couch with their eyes very bright, their cheeks very red, and talking a great deal of nonsense very excitedly. But afterwards they look yellow and unhealthy, mostly with sunken cheeks. They seem no more ashamed of it than ladies are of taking wine in England. But those who do not smoke seem to think it a rather disgraceful proceeding. A lady will draw herself up, and say, "None of the members of my family smoke opium—not one." But at a good many dinner parties the opium-couch is prepared with all its elegant accessories. And at the only Chinese country house, at which I have stayed, the ladies' one idea was to ask me into their bedrooms to smoke opium. Naturally, my acquaintance is rather with Szechuan ladies. Cantonese seem altogether different. And I gather that there must be a much more cultured set in some parts of China, judging from the ladies engaged in starting the High School for Girls in Shanghai. Of those I know in the west, only one young girl could read and write. She was talked of with admiration by young men, who asked if I knew her, and if she were not awfully clever.

Foreign men often get the idea that women rule the roost in China, because when they want to buy a house or bit of land the sale is often delayed owing to some old woman of the family not agreeing to it. And the scolding tongue of an old woman has before now proved too much for a British Consul to withstand. But it must be remembered what a dull, mulish obstinacy is that of the Chinese man, and that somehow or other the Chinese woman has to get on with him. At Ichang, in one street at least, the men were said to be constantly beating their wives; and I recollect once seeing a woman, who, after a storm of invective against her husband, threw herself down on the road there and kicked and screamed. She was very red, as if she had been drinking too much wine; and I still remember the sheepish air of the man, as he stood and watched her kicking. He certainly did not attempt to lay a hand upon her whilst we were by. But during all the years I have been in China this is the only case of the kind I have seen. In a Chinese city one does not at night hear the cries of women as one too often does in London. And on the whole it would appear as if husbands and wives got on very well together, if without very much affection. A woman who kills her husband is still condemned to death by the lingering process, namely, to being sliced to death; but though this shows the horror entertained of so dastardly a deed, yet in reality, even for such a crime as this, she is put to death first and cut in pieces afterwards.

Meng Kuang is one of the typical women of China. Contrary to the usual custom, she seems to have chosen her own husband, and went to his house dressed in all the splendour of a Chinese bride. For seven days he did not speak to her, nor answer one of her questions. At last he told her he did not like silks of various colours, nor a painted face, nor blackened eyebrows. At once she transformed herself into a plainly dressed, hard-working wife; she became noted for her virtues; and her name is on the lips of all the people of China, somewhat after the fashion of the patient Griselda of old.

A prettier story is told of the wife of the Emperor Yuan-ti in the Han Dynasty (about the third century A.D.). The Emperor was inspecting a collection of wild animals, tigers and others, when a bear broke loose. Climbing up the railing of the enclosed space, he was getting to the top, and all the other women were running away, when Chao I. advanced as if to meet the bear, standing fearlessly in front of him with a determined air. The guards happily killed the bear, before he could attack her; but the Emperor turned to Chao I., and asked her how it was she was not afraid. Her reply is beautiful: "Wild animals are generally content with one victim. I advanced to place myself as a shield for you." For this she was greatly honoured in her lifetime, and has ever since been held up as an example of womanly courage and devotion.

It only remains to add that whilst a roomful of Chinese ladies presents a very pretty appearance, from the exquisite gradations of colour of their embroidered skirts and jackets, the brilliancy of their head ornaments, and their rouge, yet, taken individually, probably no other nation is so deficient in charm. Their idea is that is it indecorous to show the figure; therefore only their deformed feet, cased, it is true, in beautifully embroidered little shoes, and their faces, are seen; even the hands, which are small and very elegantly shaped, with taper fingers and filbert nails, are concealed in their large sleeves. Their faces at parties are often so rouged as to look like masks, their lips coloured, their eyebrows darkened, and their hair so anointed as to give a shining, semi-metallic setting to the face. Their skirts are very prettily made, in a succession of tiny pleats longitudinally down the skirt, and only loosely fastened together over the hips, so as to feather round the feet when they move in the balancing way that Chinese poets liken to the waving of the willow. Their outer jackets in winter, often of plum-colour satin, with gold-embroidered sleeves, are rather like old-fashioned spencers and unobjectionable; but the under-jackets—at a party a lady often wears three—are of an ugly cut, especially in the back, where they are made so as to stick out instead of hanging flat over the shoulders. And when the ladies divest themselves of their skirts—you always ask a Chinese lady to lay aside her skirt, as in England you ask her to lay aside her cloak—any dress more ugly could hardly be imagined than the long, sloppy-looking under-jacket over rather full, straight-cut trousers, possibly of red satin, gorgeously embroidered with life-size butterflies. There is no single feature in the face that we could call pretty, and in accordance with etiquette the face is entirely devoid of expression. I have never been able to find anything pretty about a Chinese woman except her hands and arms, both of which are very prettily modelled. Doubtless her feet and legs would be too, if let alone. Now her poor legs are like two sticks.

Although often what one must call very well bred, there is nothing pretty or taking about Chinese ladies' manners. But whether in spite or because of this want of charm, the women of China give me the idea that, if once set upon their feet again, they will become a great power in the land—not witching men's hearts away, but guiding them in childhood in the way in which they should go, and in after-years pre-eminently calculated to be companions, counsellors, and friends. Confucius and Mencius are both said to have had remarkable mothers; and it is at least noteworthy that, since the Chinese have taken to mutilating the feet of their women, there has not been one man whom they reckon great born among them: so true it is that any injury to the women of a nation always reacts upon the men with redoubled force.

CHAPTER IX.
BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES.

In China a bride usually rides in a richly embroidered red sedan-chair, decorated with flowers, and hired for the occasion. Not long ago in Canton city a man hired a chair to carry his bride to his homestead in the suburbs. The distance was great, and the hour late. When the four chair-coolies and the lantern-bearers arrived at their destination, the chair containing the bride was deposited outside the doorway to wait the auspicious hour selected for opening the door to admit the bride, and the coolies adjourned to an opium-den; and as they had travelled a long way and were tired, they soon fell asleep. How long they dozed they knew not; but on awakening, they returned, and found the bridal chair outside the doorway. They came to the not unnatural conclusion that the bride had already entered the household, and that the chair was left there for them to take back to the city. Since they had all received their pay in advance, they did not stop to make further inquiries, but hurried home with the chair, put it in a loft, and, rolling themselves up in their beds, slept the sleep of the just. In the meantime the bridegroom heard the bridal party arrive, but had to wait the stroke of the auspicious hour before welcoming the bride. At last the candles were lit, incense-sticks were lighted, the new rice and viands for entertaining the bride were served, the parents-in-law put on their best suits, and so did the bridegroom, and with much pomp and ceremony the door was thrown wide open; but as far as the lantern's light would reach, lo! there was not a trace of the bridal chair, or bride, nor a single soul to be seen. Great was their consternation, and it became greater still as they concluded that bandits must have kidnapped the bride, and would hold her for ransom. The district officer was aroused, the case was reported to the village justice of the peace, and search parties were sent out in every direction. The bridegroom, though distracted, had sense enough to rush to the city and make inquiries of the chair-bearers. The coolies were dumbfounded, and explained what they had done. Together they climbed to the loft, opened the door of the chair, and found the demure-looking bride, long imprisoned and half-starved, but still appearing to her best advantage in her beautiful bridal gown. The bride appeared to have known that she was being carried backwards and forwards; but could not protest, because it is the custom for brides not to open their lips till the marriage ceremony is performed. Hence all the trouble.

At one wedding I saw the poor bride grow so painfully crimson under the comments of a very young man, that I took for granted he must be some rude younger brother, and without thinking said so, and found I had done quite the right thing; for the youth—who was no relation at all—incontinently fled, feeling he had over-stepped the bounds of propriety. Besides not speaking, the bride is supposed not to eat. At the only wedding-feast I have attended—I have been to several receptions—the unfortunate bride and bridegroom had to kneel and touch the ground with their foreheads so often, that even if well nourished one wondered how they could live through it. The bride had to serve all the ladies with wine, the bridegroom to go round the men's tables and do likewise. When the size of the bride's feet is further considered, and the weight of the jewellery in her hair, one wonders a little in what frame of mind the poor bride ultimately approaches her groom. It must certainly be in an absolutely exhausted condition of body.

An amusing matrimonial incident may be worth repeating here. A young fellow was to be married on a certain lucky date; but his business having taken him away just before the event, he found it impossible to get back in time. He wrote to his parents, begging them to get the ceremony postponed. To this suggestion many objections were raised by relatives and friends and invited guests, and a strong despatch was forthwith prepared, peremptorily commanding his attendance on the original date. Again the bridegroom pleaded business, and said that he really could not come, whereupon the incensed father straightway took his departure for regions unknown, leaving the mother to do as she liked in the matter. The latter was a woman of original ideas, and, finding herself thus left alone, resolved, for the honour of the family, to resort to strategy. Giving out that the bridegroom had actually returned, but would not be visible until the day of the marriage, she cleverly dressed in male attire a buxom daughter, who is said to have been at all times very like her brother, and made her act the part of happy man throughout the ceremonial. When the latter was finished and the deception was disclosed or discovered, the hymeneal party is said to have broken up in fits of laughter, and in praise of the mother whose genius had evolved so satisfactory a method of overcoming a serious domestic difficulty. The proxy marriage will, it is said, hold good, and, nolens volens, the son is now regarded by his family and friends as a married man.

When one of our many cooks once wanted a wife, he discussed the matter in very businesslike style with my husband. "I can get a wife in Szechuan for ten dollars," he said. "But, then, I can know nothing about her family and habits, as I could if I took a wife from Hupeh"—his own province. "It is true there I should have to pay more. But here all the women drink wine and smoke, and many of them smoke opium. And you never can know the truth beforehand. Now, if I find after marriage that the woman I have chosen smokes opium, there will be my ten dollars gone, and nothing to show for them. I shall wait till I can go home to my own province. Aren't you going that way soon, master? Promise you will take me when you do." However, after all these wise sayings, he was over-persuaded by the account he heard of some woman, married her, and was, I think, very fortunate in her, but that the poor creature died of some painful internal disease two years afterwards.

Our water-coolie made such a fuss over his wedding, gave such a feast, invited so many guests, and borrowed so much money to defray expenses, that I do not see how it is possible in all the course of his life for him to get out of debt again; for though he had made an elaborate calculation that each wedding guest would give a present worth more than his share of the feast would cost, and that he himself would thus really make money by it, he found himself disappointed. It is curious as, perhaps, indicating the mortality among the women of China that all our servants, with the exception of one who has left our service, have lost their wives at least once during the twelve years I have been in China; and not one of the wives can have been over forty.

The men seemed proud of their wives, and good to them according to their ideas; but it certainly was extraordinary how little they seemed to feel their loss when they died. Yet I suppose they care sometimes. Whenever we visit in Chinese houses, my husband generally tries to rejoin me when he can, knowing that my knowledge of Chinese cannot carry me very far, and that consequently my intercourse with the ladies of the house is apt to become rather fatiguing to both parties after a time. On one occasion I was surprised to see him come in so very soon, and with two young men. One of the young fellows said to me in a good-humoured way, "We want him to enjoy himself, and we notice he is never so happy as when he is with you. Oh, yes! we have husbands like that too." One of the governors of Chungking was said, indeed, to be so fond of his wife as to order naval reviews on the river for her amusement. He built a specially pretty pavilion in the highest part of the city for her to have dinner parties there, and possibly it may have been partly grief over her loss—she died of the fright caused by a very great fire that all but burnt their official residence—that made him afterwards go out of his mind for a time. Another Chinese official, ordered to take up high office in Tibet, was so determined his wife should accompany him, that, as the Tibetans will not allow Chinese women to pass a barrier a few miles beyond Tachienlu for fear of the Chinese settling down and overrunning the country, he had her dressed as a man and carried in a sedan-chair, which she never got out of. So it seems some Chinese husbands value their wives beyond the price they pay for them. But with our servants that last seemed to be all they thought of. And yet I still hear the soft caressing tones in which our head servant's wife used always to address him. She was a very plain woman, but so quiet, and made so little demands for herself, wanting always apparently only to be serviceable, that as her husband rose in social position and wealth it always touched me to see the way in which this honest, homely creature would look round on the fine ladies she was brought in contact with, and who at first tried to put her down, but were always in the end won over by her perfectly unassuming manners.

Another woman's husband was a man of violent temper, who insisted upon her working very hard; and the result was continual bickering between the couple, which frequently led to the interchange of blows and bad language. The wife appealed on several occasions to her mother's people for protection; but after trying to comfort her, they always sent her back to her husband. About a month after the marriage the husband ordered his wife one day to go and cut firewood on the hills; but not having been accustomed to carry burdens, she declined to go, and received in consequence a severe beating. A little later she was again beaten and abused by her husband for not washing his clothes clean enough. About the same time she made use of a sum of 400 cash (not quite a shilling) belonging to her husband; and when he discovered the fact, he gave her a sound thrashing with a stick, and vowed that he would repeat the treatment on the following day if she did not produce the money. A month passed, during which continued squabbling occurred between the man and his wife, the latter having frequently to go without food, and being threatened with a divorce for her bad behaviour. At last the woman, exasperated by the treatment she was receiving and dreading the disgrace of a divorce, determined to make away with her husband. A year before, while still unmarried, she had accompanied an old woman in the village on a herb-gathering expedition on the hills, and remembered her companion pointing out to her a poisonous plant, which, if eaten, cut asunder the intestines and caused sudden death. Having gone on several occasions to gather firewood, she kept careful watch for this particular plant, and succeeded in collecting a handful, which she hid away until she could find a favourable moment for making use of it. At last she found her opportunity one day when her father-in-law, her husband's brothers, and her sister-in-law all happened to be from home, and only she and her husband were left in charge of the house. Shortly after noon she began to prepare the evening meal, and poured over the vegetables the infusion obtained by boiling the poisonous plant. She handed his supper to her husband, left their portion for the remainder of the family, and then went out on the excuse of having to make some purchases. The father and his three sons returned shortly afterwards; and being hungry after their day's work, they all partook heartily of the poisoned food. Symptoms of poisoning very soon followed, and the whole family was found by a neighbour lying on the floor in a state of great agony. Two of them were saved by means of emetics; but the father, the woman's husband, and a brother of the latter all died the same night. The woman was found, and handed over to the authorities, who, after a protracted trial, in which she declared her innocence, found her guilty of the murder. She was condemned to death by the lingering process on two different counts, and would, as the law provides, receive some additional slashes of the knife at the time of the execution. All the poisonous herbs in the district were ordered to be removed, so as to prevent the repetition of such a crime in future. When a parricide occurred in ancient times, the authorities used to order that the whole city, where such a hideous crime had been committed, should be razed to the ground; and on the Yangtse the traveller sees the ancient site of the city of Chungchow on an island without now a house upon it, because of such a crime, the city having by order been moved to the river-bank, where it now stands among its groves of waving bamboos.

A Nanking lady was sad, very sad. Her husband had left her for business far away, and had sent home only a few letters. Many times did she send word by his friends requesting him to return, but he did not come. At last, in despair, she called in a fortune-teller, who was supposed to be endowed with supernatural knowledge of everything past, present, and future. After consulting his books, the fortune-teller's face assumed a thoughtful and anxious expression. In trembling accents he addressed the sad wife thus: "O lady, your husband has changed his sphere of business many, many times. Ill-luck has pursued him everywhere. Money he has now none; but, what is worse, he is lying dangerously ill in a lonely inn, hundreds of miles from here." The wretched lady was heartbroken, and began to weep copiously. The fortune-teller comforted her, and rapidly turning over the leaves of his mystic book, he joyously exclaimed, "Saved!" Then he explained that a certain lucky star was obscured by a dark cloud; and that if it could be made to shine again, her husband would rise from his bed of sickness, and make a great deal of money. About two shillings was the sum charged for working the miracle of dispelling the dark cloud. While the fortune-teller was on his knees, earnestly praying his god to deliver the absent husband from the clutches of the evil one, who was obscuring the lucky star, the door was abruptly pushed open, and there, standing on the threshold with a bag over his shoulder, full of shoes of silver and gold bars, was the long-absent husband. The wife gave a cry of joy and rushed forward. The confused fortune-teller, terribly frightened, hurriedly sought an exit by the back door, but slipped, fell, sprained his ankle, and broke his head. The husband did not wish to mar the joy of his return by any harsh measures, and let off the now thoroughly wretched fortune-teller with a reprimand.

Births, marriages, and deaths follow each other in all our newspapers. I will not say more about births than that the Chinese are all born with a round black mark about the size of a penny at the base of the spine. It disappears generally before they reach eight years old.

As to deaths, all the money that is left from weddings may be said to be spent upon funerals, which are the grand moment of a Chinaman's life. Then Taoist priests are called in to officiate; for whilst every one belongs to the three religions in China, each religion especially takes certain parts of life for its care. The best sites are reserved for graves; the best wood is used for coffins; the merriest music to our ears is that heard at funerals. But of all funerals of which I have heard, I think this one is the most amusing. A woman about fifty years old, fearing that her son, a worthless spendthrift, would not accord her a grand funeral after her death, hit upon the plan of enjoying one before that event. She fixed a day, notified her friends and relations to come dressed in mourning, hired many priests and monks and all the paraphernalia usual at funerals, including a splendid coffin and a green baize sedan-chair. Amidst much weeping and praying she was carried all about the city in the sedan-chair, followed by the coffin and surrounded by mourners. Can any one living, ever before or since, have been so perfectly happy? For, as a rule, attaining the highest earthly bliss, we fear its loss or diminution; but this woman had nothing to fear. She had had her funeral.

CHAPTER X.
CHINESE MORALS.

Missionaries generally say that the Chinese are frightfully immoral. So do the Americans and Australians, excluding them as far as they can from their respective countries. But, brought up on the English saying that "Hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue," I always think virtue must be in the ascendant in China for vice so to slink into corners and hide its head before it. There certainly is not the slightest outward appearance of vice in Chinese cities. And I have always understood that everywhere, except in the foreign settlements, where it is certainly not the case, very decided repressive measures are used. Shanghai, once the Model Settlement, is looked upon as a hotbed of corruption by Chinese fathers up-country, who say gravely they would not dare to send their sons there, whatever business advantages are offered, until their principles are quite firmly established. Up-country it is European morals that Chinese find as shocking as Australians find theirs. It is impossible for me to enter into details here; but there are certain things, alas! too customary among Europeans, which to every Chinaman are an abomination. It is well to bear this in mind, perhaps; and it is to be hoped that increased intercourse may lead Europeans to think disgraceful what Chinese already think so, and Chinese to be bound by the European code where, if anywhere, it is higher than their own, rather than, as so often occurs, to lead each nation to accept the other's lower ideas.

As new suggestions however, are always more interesting than trite generalisms, I must mention the peculiar measure devised in 1891 by his Excellency the Viceroy at Nanking to keep up the standard of morality among his writers and the higher class of employés. Shortly before, one of the composers of memorials had taken to leading a fast life, frequenting places not over-respectable. One day he leaned out of a wine-shop, and saw two men, dressed in black, standing quietly by his horse. He took no notice of the matter, but kept on drinking. When he left the place and walked up to his horse, the two strangers retired a pace or two. Climbing into the saddle, he rode slowly along, cooling himself in the evening breeze. He soon heard footsteps, and perceived the men were following him. His heated brain imagined fearful consequences. The mysterious personages might be bandits or secret society men bent on assassination or plunder. He whipped up his horse, and made for his official quarters in the residence; but his pursuers were fleet of foot, and kept up with his not very fast pony. On reaching the Viceregal residence, the writer called upon the guards to arrest the two bold men, who came up breathless. But the guards did not move to obey his orders, and the mysterious beings stepped up, saluted, and said, "Sir, do not feel angry or apprehensive. We are members of the Secret Police of his Excellency the Viceroy. We have received instructions, to follow any and all the officials and gentlemen connected with the office, and report to our master where they go, their actions, behaviour, and conduct." Then they turned, mingled with the crowd, and disappeared. Next day the writer's pony was reported to be for sale, and since that memorable evening he has not revisited his former haunts. Possibly this method might be adopted with advantage by any high official in England, who was as solicitous about the conduct of his subordinates as this Chinese Viceroy.

Probably no one knows better than Li Hung-chang how to get hold of other people's money. Here is an idea of his for collecting contributions to a Famine Relief Fund. He furnishes a long list of subscriptions, mostly of £150 each, from officials whose generosity was due to the promptings of their parents or other relatives now deceased. Each donor had been granted permission to erect an archway (pai fang) to the memory of the person, who first inspired him with the idea of contributing to the relief of suffering humanity. Among those to whom this honour was accorded were the President and members of the Chinese club at Yokohama, whose joint contributions amounted to £300.

The west of China is exceptionally decorated with these memorial arches, generally erected to the memory of chaste widows and incorruptible officials, who, to judge by the arches, seem more numerous than one would otherwise have thought. I remember the interest with which we approached one in course of construction. It was a very hot day, and this pai fang was being erected on a slight eminence, where the people told us no rain had fallen for forty years, although thunder-showers refreshed the country all round it. We ate our luncheon under its shadow, and observed that it was one of Li Hung-chang's arches, erected to the memory of a dead man, the inspirer to an act of charity towards the famine-stricken. The Chinese are a people altogether guided and animated by memories. In the same year the Governor of Honan submitted a petition from the gentry and inhabitants of the town of Wensiang, in which they prayed for permission to erect a memorial temple to the late intendant of their circuit. This town, it seems, borders upon the Yellow River, from the ravages of which it had suffered terribly for a long succession of years. Two years before a movement was started by the local magistrate and the people for building a breakwater to serve as a barrier against the floods. "The Taotai, in whose jurisdiction the place was situated, took an active interest in the enterprise, and even went frequently in person to superintend the progress of the work. The great difficulty experienced was the want of sufficiently large stones. Greatly to the astonishment of the whole community, a heavy storm of wind and rain deluged the country, and brought down an endless quantity of huge stones exactly suited to the purpose. The people naturally regarded the strange occurrence as a direct manifestation of divine power in aid of a great public undertaking, which they and their forefathers had been unable to complete during several centuries. The Taotai fell a victim to fatigue and over-exertion, and his death was deeply bewailed by the whole district. The Governor, in supporting the petition, mentioned a fact which proves the supernatural origin of the phenomenon. One of the stones, which was as large as a house, and shaped like a tortoise, was inscribed with seal characters, only two of which, denoting 'work' and 'stone' respectively, could be made out. The breakwater was completed, and the safety of the district secured. As a token of their gratitude for the services of the Taotai, the petitioners begged that they might be permitted to erect a temple to his memory, at which the usual sacrifices should be offered.—Granted by Rescript."

But it is not only public benefactors and deserving officials who are rewarded by memorials. Deserving deities or patron saints also meet with recognition. Thus in 1891 an application was made to the Throne for two Imperial tablets, bearing his Majesty's sign-manual, to be suspended in the temples of the dragon-king and the god of fire at Chiwan-chow. The latter district, consisting of six villages, which contribute to the Exchequer some 10,000 taels, had no proper water system, and was entirely dependent for its supply of that precious commodity on the periodical rains. Of late years, whenever rain had not fallen in due season, prayers offered up at these two shrines had ever been graciously answered. Moreover, in the seventh moon of the previous year, just when the crops were ready for harvesting, a heavy fall of rain came on, and threatened to submerge the fields. But a visit on the part of the gentry and people of the neighbourhood to the temple of the god of fire had the effect of dissipating the clouds and causing the rain to cease, so that the grain could be gathered in in due season. Two months later, when about to sow the second crop, a thorough soaking rain was necessary to prepare the ground for the seed; but for days no rain fell, and the people greatly feared that they would be unable to sow. A visit to the temple of the dragon-king, however, had the desired effect, and dispelled all gloomy prospects of a dearth of food.

It was in recognition of these gracious favours of the gods that the memorialist ventured to prefer this request, which was accordingly granted. Many people may laugh at this. It seems to me rather an act of faith of which we might find many parallels in Europe in the Middle Ages, and of which individually I should be glad to find further examples now. "Whom we ignorantly worship" will be a true description of man's part as long as he lives upon this earth with darkened eyes. But it is only when he ceases to worship that there seems to be little hope for him. There is little enough of worship in China as it is, and what there is naturally seems to us of Europe somewhat superstitious; for the religions of China appear to have had their day, to have effected what they could for China, and to be passing away. Is it true that the youthful Emperor Kwang-shü was considering with his adviser Kang whether Christianity should not be adopted as the national religion, when he was precipitated from the throne by the woman who rules China single-mindedly for her own advantage?

That crime is not very rife in China is sufficiently shown by their having no police force. Foreigners are sometimes shocked by the severity of Chinese punishments, not realising that it is our excellent police that enable us to mitigate our scale of punishments. But the Chinese are like women in this respect also. They afford an extraordinarily small percentage of criminals to the world's criminal roll, and of these the most part are for petty theft. In business dealings, unlike the Japanese, the Chinese keep to their word, even when it is to their own disadvantage to do so. And merely saying, "Puttee book," without any signed and sealed written entry, held good as a legal transaction all through China, till, alas! an old-established English firm, probably already foreboding the failure that afterwards overwhelmed it, repudiated a transaction of which there was no further record than the till then two sacred words. Since then Chinese, like other nations, have recourse to written documents; but so high always is the sense of business obligation among them, that each China New Year many men, unable to discharge their obligations, commit suicide rather than live disgraced. This is the more remarkable among a nation that adulterates everything it knows how to, resorts to every business subterfuge, thinks not to lie foolish, and to be found out only stupid, not disgraceful. When, however, we denounce Orientals for want of truth, do we realise how untruthful we are ourselves, and that what shocks us is rather the different kind of falsity from that to which we are accustomed? I have yet to find the English bootmaker or worker in fur, who can be relied upon to keep to his word as to the day on which he has promised anything; whilst I have met with more than one Chinese tailor, who may be relied upon to appear with his work finished to the very day and hour, his given word being sacred to him. The English tradesman thinks it wrong to lie about the past, the Chinese about the future.

The merchants look askance at the missionaries' saints, and missionaries are very suspicious of the merchants' business employés and butlers. But a nation, that all through the land produces men, who so thoroughly satisfy their employers, cannot be called a decadent race; nor, indeed, are any of the signs of decadence with which I am acquainted to be discovered among the great Chinese people, who appear always hard-working, good-humoured, kindly, thrifty, law-abiding, contented, and in the performance of all duties laid upon them astonishingly conscientious. I have never known a servant shirk any task imposed upon him, because he was tired or ill, or because it was late at night. Let unexpected guests arrive, the Chinese servant always rises to the occasion, and the honour of the family is safe in his hands. "Oh, but we have always heard Chinese were good servants," some one remarks. Let me relate a story of another kind of virtue!

A Hunan man living at Hankow, and a Christian, was greatly troubled because his wife would bind their little girl's feet. At last he sent the child away to an American mission-school at a distance. While she was there, a great wave of anti-footbinding enthusiasm passed over the school, and all the girls unbound their feet, his daughter among them. When she came home, he was delighted to find her able to walk, and to stand on her feet, and with healthy, rosy cheeks. After a while, however, he became aware that each day she was walking worse, and that it must be that once more her mother was inflicting the torture of binding upon her, worse than ever now the girl was older. Yet they had so often gone over the matter together with always the same result, that he shrank from remonstrating with his wife, till one day in a neighbouring cottage a woman said: "A nice one you are to talk, you who are seeing your own daughter daily lamed before your eyes!" Then he went home, and said to his wife: "This thing must have an end. Not only have I the pain of seeing my daughter daily lamed, but I can no longer speak out for God; my mouth is stopped by your handiwork." His wife replied, as so often before: "If you will cut off your queue, I will unbind our daughter's feet—yes, and my own too." "Do you mean what you say?" he asked quietly. Again and again she repeated her declaration that they must conform to custom if he did, and that if he gave it up so would they; regarding it always as a thing impossible that he should part with that glory of a Chinaman, his long, glossy, plaited tail of hair. At last, when she had said it seven times, each time with increasing vehemence, her husband took up the large pair of Chinese scissors lying on the table, and there and then before her astonished eyes cut off his queue. The neighbours, in horror at what he had done, carried it off, and in high excitement proceeded to unroll it like a great black serpent at the feet of one of the missionaries, who at first thought the Hunan man must have been in such violent anger as to lose all control over himself, or he would never have done what he had. But the man explained that it was not in anger, but because he saw no other way to save his child, having all in vain tried argument and entreaty with his wife. "It is true it is contrary to the law of the land," he said; "but it is better I should offend against that than offend against my God." When I last saw him, he had the shock of upstanding hair, that generally indicates in a Chinaman a desire to add to his queue. His wife had unbound her feet, and their daughter's feet had never been bound again. When last heard of, the three had all been out for a walk together. But people must have lived in China to know what heroism this sacrifice of a pigtail really means. So far it has had no imitators, and other Chinese hearing of it remain simply astounded.

Before dismissing this subject of morals, it is as well to add that any Englishwoman marrying a Chinaman in England would do well to ascertain first that he was unmarried, which is most unlikely, as a Chinese father considers it a disgrace not to find a wife for his son so soon as he is marriageable. Further, that even where this is the case, the life that would lie before an English girl married to a Chinaman, if he were to take her into real Chinese life, is such as one does not like to contemplate: she must in any case prepare to become the servant of her mother-in-law. In December, 1898, there were, however, four young English girls, the youngest only seventeen, brought out by mail-steamers as the wives of Chinamen, and deserted in Shanghai, all without money, one even without clothes. Whilst sorry for the girls, I must own that in cases like this I feel more indignation against their parents than against the Chinamen. There is a degree of carelessness that seems worse than a crime.

CHAPTER XI.
SUPERSTITIONS.