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CHINA AND THE CHINESE.

(By the author of "Opium and the Opium trade."*)

As the physiognomy of a people is oftentimes borrowed from the natural features of their country, so may their national character be said to take its impress from the institutions under which they live. We look in vain among the inhabitants of the lower Rhine, for those bold and daring features which distinguish the hardy race that dwells near its mountain source, and we shall be equally disappointed if we seek among idolaters for the high-toned moral sentiment which moulds the character of a Christian people. In forming a correct estimate of the character of the Chinese, many difficulties oppose us. They live under peculiar institutions, and secluded from the rest of the world, and are of course unaffected by those reciprocal relations which influence other civilized nations. And so marked, so sui generis, is every thing connected with them and their country, that the adjective China is a convenient mode of designating them. Porcelain and China are synonymous with many persons. A set of China or China-ware, China silks, China sweetmeats, China orange and China rose, are all sufficiently marked, merely by the adjective. But of all the odd things China produces, a China man himself is the oddest. He is in truth a curious specimen of the genus homo. Judge him by our standard, and he is to it a very antipode; but weigh him in his own scales, and he is of great gravity: try him by his own measure, and he is faultless. It is difficult to determine which of the two standards is the best for arriving at a correct decision.

A true Chinaman thinks himself to be the greatest man in the world, and China, beyond compare, to be the most civilized, the most learned, the most fruitful, the most ancient, in fact, the best country beneath the starry firmament. It is useless to tell him to the contrary, for he will no more believe you, than you do him. "If your country is so good, why do you come here after tea and rhubarb?" is a puzzler. "If your people are so good, why do you bring opium here to destroy us?" is unanswerable in his mind to prove his own goodness and our wickedness, and he clinches both by saying, "We can do without you, but you cannot live without us." When he is thus intrenched in his own wisdom, a Chinaman is beyond persuasion.

Ask some people what they think of the Chinese, and they will tell you that they are a most infamous and degraded people, a set of rascals without one redeeming quality. Ask others, and they will give it as their opinion, that the Chinese are a most excellent people; that they are honest and prompt in their dealings, industrious and nice in their habits-in `short, a paragon among the nations. The first, in my

* See page 158, vol. I.

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humble opinion, are as nearly correct in their estimate, as the last. If we expect too much from a pagan nation, we shall be disappointed; if we deny the existence of every good quality among them, we wrong the Chinese as a people.

The national virtues and vices of a Chinaman, naturally take their impress from his circumstances. He is less the master of his movements than others are, and to a great extent he spends his life in mental, as well as bodily thraldom. From the structure of the government, the sphere of an individual is much circumscribed. His thoughts, energies and exertions, are limited first by precept, and soon after by habit. Does he wish to become a scholar, he learns whatever the sages have bequeathed to him. When a boy, he goes to school, listens to the exhortations of Confucius, and moves in the circle of ideas therein marked out for him. Though the sages never intended to make man an automaton, he becomes so by habit. Nothing is taught in the schools besides the classics, and the literature of the country is based upon them. Would a Chinese soar beyond the dull circle of these acquirements, he must mark out a track for life, and enrolling himself among the candidates for literary distinc.tion, devote all his time and all the energies of his mind to literature. The general belief is, that whatever the ancients did not teach, is unworthy the attention of a son of Hán. The mind is, therefore, kept in subjection; it may not proceed farther than the prescribed limits, and must model all its thoughts according to the orthodox canon. This has a tendency to blunt the faculties, and to produce slavish submission to authority without permitting the right of inquiry. Thus there is, strictly speaking, no mental cultivation, and the yoke of submission to dogmatic precept is easily borne, as its pressure is not felt by such callous minds. Such is exactly the state in which a despotic government wishes its subjects to be. Control then becomes easy; the people are kept in subjection by working upon their prejudices, and when all minds are tutored in the same manner, the same measures will be equally applicable to the whole commonwealth. The emperor has always been anxious to uphold this acquiescence in what is written. The advantages accruing to the rulers are immense, and with such subjects they can safely venture a little upon their endurance. A whole code of laws is therefore drawn up to suit this mental slavery. There is law upon law, and precept upon precept; regulations, edicts, proclamations, commands and behests without end. They are calculated to restrain every action, and to make an immense people the puppets of their superiors. This is indeed a thraldom, for the fear of this arbitrary power paralyzes their energies. Since it cannot be resisted by open force, the sufferers use corresponding craftiness to escape from its clutches, or to protect themselves against its assaults. To this we trace one cause of the deceitfulness of the Chinese character. When we remember that the Chinese have no religious instruction,

and are also without the fear of the only true God, and acknowledge no accountability to Him for their actions, we are by no means astonished at the existence of so much vice among them. Whatever does not attract the attention of government, is committed without compromise of character. In judging, therefore, of this character, we should take into consideration the circumstances under which it is found-this will help us to have more patience with the people, and it ought to make us grateful that the "lines are fallen to us in such pleasant places."

"It is," says Bishop Berkeley, "as we are Christians, that we profess more excellent and divine truths than the rest of mankind." And in this the Chinese are sadly deficient. To us, upon whom from our earliest infancy, the mild, the peaceable and the redeeming influences of the Christian religion have been shed, the dark mazes of heathenism and the superstitious rites of its votaries are indeed abhorrent. If we examine the so-called religion of China, we will find the seeds of many of the vices which exist among its people. That of Confucius, is rather a system of ethics, than a systematic faith-that of Taou-Tza embraces doctrines dangerous in practice and disreputable in preceptrepudiating all recollections of the past and thoughts of the future. The founders of these two systems were contemporaries. The one sought to captivate the heart by virtuous and rational theories; the other to surprise and win by means which ministered to the gratification of the passions. The first is the doctrine of the Stoics-the second of the Epicureans. The religion of the masses—Buddhism— is a mere concoction of traditions imported by crafty priests, and precepts extracted from the sacred writings. The objects of worship of these several religions are almost innumerable, but among them all we look in vain for the object of our adoration. The Chinaman worships nature, but he neither recognises the existence of, nor pays the homage of a grateful heart, to nature's God. He worships not Him who made the earth and clothed it with pleasing verdure, and bid it teem with fruits and flowers-who spread out the lofty firmament and studded it with light-giving gems-who bade the sun its circuit run and lend to the pale moon its milder light-who gave to the sea bounds that it should not pass-who stills the tempest in its might, and rules the stormy billows-who made man in His own image, and gave to him high and holy attributes of mind and heart, to appreciate and to enjoy the blessings of His hand.

Having thus glanced, hastily it is true, at the system of government, education and religion of China, we are prepared in a measure to contemplate the dark lineaments in the character of its people.

The horrible crime of infanticide is practised to a great extent among the Chinese. Foul, indeed, is the stain it casts upon their character. The little infant is cast by its inhuman parents upon the waters, or more savagely strangled with cords. The tiger, the fiercest of all beasts, nurses with kindly care its young; the lion

will die of hunger in ministering to the wants of its little ones, but the Chinaman, with no compunction of conscience, will coldly and deliberately murder the infant of whose being he himself is the author. No excuse can be offered for the commission of this horrid crime. Neither his poverty, nor the character of their institutions, which wink at it; nor the antiquity of the practice, can be offered in palliation, or relieve the crime, in the least, of its enormity. Is it through poverty that they commit this inhuman crime? If this were the only alternative to a lingering death from starvation, it might be regarded as the dictate of humanity. But even the Chinese themselves do not believe that such a resort is necessary. They can sell their infants to those who have no offspring, or to parents who thus provide wives for their sons, for the female children are the only victims of this crime. This is a common custom among the poor. Instead of paying a comparatively large price for an adult daughter-in-law, they prefer obtaining infants for little or nothing, and bringing them up in ways which render their services valuable, or at least preclude much additional expense. If they cannot sell their children, there is but little difficulty in giving them away. And if both these expedients should fail, they need keep them but a little longer and go a little farther in order to accomplish their object. After they have arrived at a certain age, they can take their young children to foundling asylums which are to be found all over the empire, where the children of the poor are provided for without expense to their parents. But alas! want of affection is one great, repulsive feature of heathenism. Rather than subject themselves to the least trouble, multitudes prefer destroying their offspring as soon as they appear. Many of these worse than brutal parents, think it necessary to furnish themselves with some excuses for their inhuman conduct. And what are they? The poor say, that as they have not the means of support, it is not right that they should nourish those who will become only an increasing source of expenditure. They are unwilling to give them to others, through fear that they will be ill-treated, or brought up to some improper purpose, and they refuse to take them to asylums, because when they grow up, they may involve them in expense and trouble. But the practice is not confined to the poor alone; all classes are involved in its guilt. With the rich it is an act of heartless calculation, a balancing of mere pecuniary loss and gain. They boldly and fearlessly assert as an excuse, that such slender tenants of the nursery can never be raised to any important post in the household. True, some of them profess to be governed by the selfish fear, that their daughters may bring disgrace upon them but the common course of reasoning carried on in their cold, selfish hearts, is, that they will cost much both before and after marriagethat they will then be transferred to another connexion, (their laws not permitting them to marry one of their own surname,) which will be of no advantage, and may be of detriment to their parents, and that

if their husbands die, they will probably be thrown back upon them as a dead weight for future support! Do any doubt the prevalence of this inhuman crime? I do not make vague, unfounded assertions-I am supported by facts.

During the year 1843, the Christian missionaries stationed at Amoy, in the Fokeen province, for the purpose of ascertaining the proportion of female children murdered in their infancy in that city and neighbourhood, commenced a course of investigation and inquiry which they continued for a twelvemonth. They found that seven out of ten of the female children were destroyed at, or shortly after birth. There was no difficulty in obtaining facts on the subject. The Chinese did not hesitate to acknowledge, not their guilt, but their frequent commission of the practice. A Chinese woman, employed in one of the missionary families there, confessed that she had destroyed two of her infant children. A Chinaman also stated to one of the missionaries, that he and his two brothers had killed fifteen of their children, and saved but three. Dr. Cumming, who, while I was there, was stationed at Koolongsue, told me that one day, when a large crowd had collected in his hospital, to witness the operation of removing a large tumour from the neck of a Chinaman, he put the question publicly, "What number of female children are destroyed in this village, at birth?" The answer returned was, "more than one-half." One Chinaman held up in the crowd a little female child, and shamelessly stated, that he had "killed five, and saved but that one." When the newly appointed commandant at Amoy visited, in 1844, the English authorities there, he expressed surprise at the equal fondness of the English ladies for the children of both sexes. When asked by the consul, Mr. Alcock, what proportion of female children were destroyed by violence at Amoy, he replied, about one-half. A gentleman who was attached to the medical mission at Amoy, pointed out to me, one day while I was walking with him, a stream in the southern part of the city, a stream which was called by the Chinese, "dead infants' river," and he told me that he had frequently seen the corpses of infants floating upon its surface. Horrible, and almost incredible as these statements may appear, they are derived from authentic sources, and in their truth I place the most implicit belief. I should state, however, that the province of Fokeen is notorious, throughout the whole empire, for the number of its infanticides. Its practice, however, is not confined to Fokeen, and I should be doing the Chinese authorities injustice, did I omit to state, that by edicts they endeavour to suppress this cruel crime. I have seen a proclamation, which was issued in 1838, by Ke, at that time governor of the Quangtung province, in which he exhorts the people by arguments addressed to their reason, and by appeals to their kindlier feelings, to save all their little ones, whether male or female. "Surely," he says, "you forget that your mothers and wives were once female children. If you have no wives, where will be your posterity? If there had been no female children,

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