A BOOK OF THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2157, 27 June 1895, Page 40

A BOOK OF THE WEEK.

ANOTHER GLIMPSE OF CHINA.*

("T. P.," in the Weekly Sun.) VII.— VAGARIES OF THE PENAL CODE. The administration of the laws is even worse than the neglect of their duties by the public departments. The officials are corrupt or stupid, or very often both ; the penal code is unequal and often barbarous, and especially where tbe rights of children and women are concerned. If a man discovers his wife in Jlaf/mMe delicto, and kills htr on the spot, he is held blameless ; and if a husband panishes his wife for striking and abusing his father, mother, grandfather, or grandmother in such a way as to cause ber death, he shall only be liable to receive a 100 blows. With equal consideration a man who kills a son, a grandson, or a save is punished with 70 blows and a year and a-halt ; s banishment, and this only when he falsely attributes the crime to another person. Though the code affords no direct justification for punishing disobedient sons with death, or for infanticide, it is an incontrovertible fact that in cases which constantly occur both crimes are practically ignored by the authorities. * A particularly brutal case, of the murder of. an uufilial son, was reported in the Peking Gazette, 1882. The report was in the form of a memorial addressed to the throne by the Governor of Bhansi, in which that officer stated that there had been in his district a l»d named Lvi, who was endowed by Nature with an " unamiable and- refractory disposition." On one occasion he stole his mother's head ornaments, and another time he * " Society in China," by Robert A, Douglas. London : A. D. lanes.

pilfered £2000 cash belonging to her. This last mfcdimtanuur roused her direst anger, aud. she attempted to chastise him. Unwilling to endure ths indignity, Lvi saizdd her by the throat, and ouly released her on the expoatulatiou of his Bister. Tnis behaviour so angered the old lady that th-j d :t,ei mined on the death of her son. Being pliyiieilly incapable of accomplishing tho dc;d kerftlf, she begg.d a sergeant of police on duly in the njigbbjurhood to act as executioner. This he declined to do, but softened his refusal by offering to flog Lui. To do this conveniently he bound the lad, and with the help of three men, carried him off to a deserted gnard-house ou the outskirts of the village. Thither Mrs Lvi followed, and implored the men to bury her son alive. Again the se-geaut declined, aud emphasised his refusal by leaving the hut. 'I he other men were more yielding, aud having thrown Lvi on the ground they procesded, with the help of Irs mother and si&ter, to pull do ;?ii the walls and to bury their victim in the dtbris. When the case came on for trial it was decided " that the death in this case was propirly deserved, and that bis mother was accord ngly absolved from all blame " The aergeanfc, however, was sentenced for his comparatively innocent part in the affair to receive 100 blows, and the three men and the daughter each received 90 blows. # VITI —PRIMITIVE BARBARITY. Here is another curious and horrible story — there are many of the same kind in the book— which showa how primitiva and savage are the ideas of the people of the processes of ja9ticein the village communities. This occurred in the province of Yun-nan, and was reported to the throne by the Viceroy of that province :— Thnt officer stated that a native of a prefecture within kia jurisdiction, named Peng, when on his why to watch over his own patch tf grouud psssed through a field of com farmed by a neighbour, and in an idle moment plucked some ears of corn. On the watchman employed on the farm giviog the alarm Peng fled, but not before he was- recognised. The farmer, on hearing of the pilfering, consultei with his landlord, and agretd with him that IVng should be made to suffer the usual penslby of his crime, and be burnt to death. According to custom, a meeting of the village elders was summoned aud the case was laid before them. After considerable discussion it was determined -that tho supreme punishmont should be indicted, and Peng was therefore bound and placed upou the funeral pyre. In order to prevent his n. other, who had pleaded in vain for his life, frtm reporting ths matter to the mandarin", she was compelled, under threats of insbant de»t\ both to eigu a paper consenting to ths deed and to set tho torch to the wood which was to' consume her son. In an agony of horror at the part she had been made to play, the wrctehci woman went straight from tbe execution grcu id to tho Yatiun, where she presented a petition aga'nat the murderers. Upon this the wagi-lrate arrested the farmer and his landlord, end finding that by a law, enacted in 1750, the principal offenders in a concerted murder of such a kind should suffer the capital penalty, passed sentence accordingly. The landlord, however, having died in prison, it remained only to proceed against the farmer, who was bsheaded in due course. IX.— FILIAL DEVOTION. I have said something of the relations of parents and children from the more sinister side; let me now put the more, admirable aspect. I must say that, on the whole, I see something of the admirable in the views of the Chinese on the duties of children to their parents. Between the hulking fellow of our civilisation, who allows his father or mother to go to the workhouse, and the love, respect, and care of the Chinese son for his parents the comparison is, in my opinion, all on the side of the Chinaman. At all events, the Chinaman has no doubt upon the subject. One of the barriers which stand between China and the adoption of the Christian religion is the ridiculous and even-childish attempt which Christian missionaries have made to destroy tho sanctities and the ceremonies by which the Chinese commemorate their dead. I would advise evevy reader to study closely what Mr Gundry and Mr Douglas have to say on that part of the subject; it will help them, perhaps, to a candid and impartial judgment on the vexed question of the attitude we should assume to missionary enterprise in the Chinese Empire. However, let us to the Chinese code— whsch was founded by Confuolue, and " like other Confucian instructions, is laid down with curious minuteness." I hope the passaga that follows will be as curious and interesting to others as it is to me : — At cock-crow it is the duty of the son or daughter, who should first be dreiserl with sjrupulous care, to go to thtir parenth' apartment to inquire attar their welfare and to attend to the ; r wants, and he or she— more commonly she — must so continue at their beck and call until the night again closes upon them. These duties must not be performed in a psrfunctory way, but everything must b9 done with the expression of cheerfulness aud filial respecband love. "When his parents are in error," says the Book of Ritual, " the son, with a humble spirit, pleasing countenance, and gentle tone, must point it out to them. If they do not receive his reproof he must strive more and more to be dutiful and respectful towards them until they are pleased, and then he must again point out their error. . . . And if the parents, irritated and displfased, chastise their son until the blood flows from him, even then he must not dare to harbour the least r< sentment ; but, on the contrary, should treat tbem with increased respect and dutifulneßS." This kind of devotion to parents seems sn strained and artitical that one would be tempted at first sight to imagine that it represents mertly an ideal, vrere it not that the records of the past and the experiences of the present reveal the existence of a precisely similar regime. For nuny centuries the youth of both eexes— for though daughters do nob partake of the privileges of sons, they share in all th«ir duties— have had held up to them 24 instances of filial piety for their guidance and imitation. They are told, for instance, of a mm named Lai, who, in order to make hia pirenbs forget their great age, being himself an elderly person, used to dress himself in particoloured embroidered garments like a child, and disport himself before them for their amusement. They are told of a lad wh.ss parents wcra t?o poor to provide themselves with mofq'iito curtains, aud who used to lie naked near their bed that th 1 ? insects might attack him unrestrainedly, and thus cease to annoy his parents. They are told of a poor man who, liuding it imposßible to support both his mother and his child, proposed to his wife that they should bury the child alive, for, said he, " another child may be born to us, but a mother once gone will nc\er return." His wife haviiig consented, the man dug a hole of the depth ef three' cubits, whoo*

lo ! he came npon a pot of gold bearing the fol- 1 lowing inscription :— " Heaven bestows this treasure on a dutiful son ; the magistrate may not seize it nor shall the neighbours take it from him." In this story we have an instance oE Chinese filial piety in excehis, and an illustration of the crifoct of tho Confucian warning against a tollish attachment to wife and children. It is a omuionplaco of Chinese morality that one or all of these should readily be eacrifioed in the interests of parents, and it is interestiug to find that tbia man, who is Baid to have been Bayed by a miracle from ccmtnilt : ng murder, has been handed clown through more than 20 centuries as a model of virtue. X,— STORY OV MISS WANG. And it must be borne in mind that these of heroic and, as we would think,insane self-sacrifice on the part of children to their parents do not end with remote ages. The Peking Gazette of our own time now and then brings to mind similar case's. Recently, for instance, there was the story of Mis 3 Wang -.— Ah the age of 13, when the first hint of her parents' desire to betroth her reached her eirs, she retired to her room, and with a pointed weapon drew blood from her arm, with which ahe wrot3 a sentence announcing her intention to remain single in order that she might devote bersolf to the care of her parents. At the a^e of 18 she again refused a propysed mitrimouial alliauco ; and when, in 1852, the remains of her father and her second brother, who had perished at the capture of Wuchang by the rebels, were brought back to Kaoyeo, she exclaimed with tears that, since she could not leave her mother to follow her father to the grave, she would ab least varnuh bn coffin with her b'ood. Thereupon she gashed her arm with a knife, allowing a streim of blood to mingle wjbh the lacqacr of the cyffin. She had reached the age of 2b" when her father's obstqaies WcT<3 completed, and again her mother and elder brother urged her to marry ; but she steadfastly declined, and devoted herself to waiting upon her mother, with whom she shortly afterwards removed to Choh Chow, on her brother reciving an appointment at Peking as a reward tor hi* father's pervicep. Sue allowed no hands but her own to wait upon her mother, and when, in 1862, her mother was altickeii with a dangerou3 illness, ahe cut a piece of flesh from her left thigh to be adminibteted as a retnedy. In less thin a year a fresh attack of illness supervened, when she cub a piece of flesh from her right thigh, recGvary enuiiug as Lcfore. Oa subsequent ooasioi s, when her parent was suffering from sligh'j ailments, she applied burning incsnse Blicks to her atnu and mcd the calcined flesh to mingle with the retredies prescribed, and alway3 with successful results. Afcer her mother's dea*h, in 1872, she refused all sustenance daring a period of three days, aud was afterwards with difficulty persuadtd lo taste food. XL— " SOCIETY " WITHOUT WOMEN. The position of womea in China ia very bad. From their cradles to their graves they stand at a disrinct disadvantage as compared with men :—: — No husband or male relative ever appears outside bi-< own portal in company with his wif-a or female •belongings, and social intercom se is thus entirely lobbed of the softening influei,C!s and elevating tendencies which are everywhere due to the preaence of women. What we call, socifcty is therefore confined to the men, who pay visits, give dinners, and enjoy p ; cuic3 aud excursions like ptople of all couutrtes. The only dinner parlies, therefore, of which tie out- < side world has any knowledge are those wbich lose to us half their attractions by being lobbed of the pic-ence of ladies, aud which are rendered abnormally tedious by their great length. XII.— SUBJECTION OF WIVES. Nor is a woman's position much improved when she gets a husband. "By the accident of her sex," as Mr Douglas says, "ahe is viewed as a burden by her parents. from her birth onwards, and if they succeed iv marrying her off, they are only too glad to wash their hands of her altogether." If a hu-band is" driven to make mention of his wife he speaks of her as his " dull thorn," or by some equally uncomplimentary term. In ordinary life he regards her less as a companion than as a chattel, which id times of adversity may bs disposed of by sale. In seasons of famine an open imrket is held of the wives and daughters of the poorer sufferers ; and not long since, during a period of dearth in northern China, so great a traffic cpiurg up in women and girls that in some places nearly every available c&rl and conveyance were engsgad to transport the newlypurchased slaves to the central provinces. . . . It is not at a'l uncommon for husbands to punuh their wives severely, sometimes, no doubt, under great provocation, for Chinese women, untutored, unloved, and uncared for, have all the faults aud failings of unreclaimed natures ; but at others for little or no reason ! The Abbe Hue tells a story of a Chinese husband who had a wife with whom he had Jived happily for two yearj. But having conceived the idea that people were laughh.g at him because he had nrsver beaten her, he determined to mike a bpgiriiiii'g iti such a way as to impress every spectator, and accordirgly, though he had no fault to find with her, he beat her mercilessly. XIII.— AN AMAZONIA.N LEAGUE. And this hideous prospbeb has produced its revolt, as all tyrannies ultimately do. The revolt takes the tragic form which oppression generates among the weak. So many are the disabilities attaching to married life in China that many girls prefer goiDg into Buddhist nunneries, or even committing suicide, to trusting their futures to the guardianship of men of whom they know pracli .ally nothing. Archdeacon Gray, in his 14 Caina," states that in 1873 eight young girls, residing near Canton, " who had been affianced, drowned themselves in order to avoid marriage. They clothed themselves iv their best attire, and at 11- o'clock, in the darkness of the night, having bound thenißelvc3 together, threw tbemeelves into a tiibutary stream of ths Canton river." la some parts of tbe same province anti - matrimonial associations are tormed, the members of which resist to the death the imposition of the marring* yoke. "The existence of this Amazonian League," writes a missionary long resident in the neighbourhood, " has long been known, but as to its ru!c3 and the number of its members uo definite information has como to hand. It is om^ed of young widows and marriagfab!e girls. Dark hints arc given as to the met 1 olj use dto escape in itiimony. The sudden demise of betrothed UuHbands or the abrupt ending of the newly-married husband s career fiuggeal uuliwful means for dissolving the bonds." XIV.— THE IDEAL WIFE. But unfortunately there is another side of the question. The Chinese literature is proof of this:— - In the modern Pekingese play, one of the characters, a widower, degcKibet the c?en currcaft

J Jiij 1 j_ii_ l j.j m . U itM'^ —-■-- ■ i iimi* of his late married life by B&ying that he and wife lived together as host and guest, and ia most novels we read of husband and wife living harmoniously, if not rapturouriy, together, la poetry also the love of home is constantly insisted on, and the misery of bßing separated from wife and children is the common plaint; of tb.9 traveller and the exile. Aod the Peking Gazstte constantly writaS accounts of wives who die rather than survive their husbands : — One suoh instance was that of the wife of Kwo Sunglin, a brother of the last Minister but ona \ at our court. Through a long illness this lady nursed him with devoted tenderness until deattt s came, when she ended her own existence by talc- \ ing poifon. Another c\se was lately reported j> to the Emperor, in which a young widow, aged V 27, declared 4»ei" intention not to survive her g lord, and remaiaed for three days without! S taking nourishment. "At length," writoi tho J> memorialist, •' having made an effort to rise and i perform the mourning rites of prostration, sha ■; threw herself weeping on the ground, and ) breathed her last." • Tne most curious phase oE . this devotion is the form which it takes in some of the southern provinces, where, after the manner of Sufcteoism, the widow commita V suicide iv public in the presence of an applauding crowd. In an instance do3crib3d by an eyewitness, a vast proco3sion escorted tha yoang widjw, who was drefsed in scarlet and gold, atd ■ was b^ina in a riobly-deooratad cbair to tbe sceno of -the tragedy. On arriving at tho scaffold, on which stood a gallows, the lady mounted the platform, and hwing welcomed the crowd, partook, with some female rela'iivos, of a prepared ropasb, whiob, adds tho narrator, she appeared to appreciate extremely. She then scattered rice, herbs, and Ho wars among the ccowd, at tho eatne time thanking tbem for thoir attendance and upheld-, ing the motives which urged h9r to ths step Bha was about to take, She then mounted on a chair, and having waved a final adieu fca tho crowd, adjusted tbe noone round her neck, and, drawing a handkerchief over her faoe, gave tho signal for the removal of the support. With extraordinary self-posssession, while hanging in mid-air, she placed her hand before her, and continued to make the usual form of salutation until complete unconsciousness ensutd. Such devotion to tlio fand memory oE husbands invaiiably receives the approval of cha people, and whenrouoitadto the Emperor gains hia eutiic approbation. XV.— DEATH OBSEQUIES. I have space for only" two other extracts ; this orre will serve to convoy the ideas of thd Ohiuese with regard to death and to undutlful sons. Death is a very solemn and ceremonious business among the Ohiuese :— On the approach of doith the invalid fa borne into the central hall, where, on a bed of boards, he ia geally laid with his feet towards the door. In preparation for tho dece\BO his robes aud tub of offif c, if he be a mandarin, and if a c jminoner bis bo 5 t attire, are placed beside him, aud when the last supreme moment arrives he ia dressed iv state, and so meats his fate in fall ciaonicals. After death a priest is summoned, who, cftw having saved the soul from perdition by the use of hicantatioup, callo upon one of the three spirits which are said to inhabit every man to hivbtcn to t'ae enjoyment of bliss in the empy- " rein regions of tho west. Of the two other spirits, one is supposed eventually to remain with the corpse in thu grave, and the other to ba attached to tb.9 aucaslral tablet wbich ulfci- , rna'ely finds its place in the family hall. When this cuvuao»y is completed, the chief mourner, in the company of friends and fiuppoitew— for grief is supposed lo hwe 60 broken him down as to have rendered him unable to walk with..u6 tho help of a frie ndly arm and of a iu>t-.ining sl-ff— goes lo tho nearest river or stream "to buy water" t» lave tbe features of the dead. Having thrown 6duie copper cash into the water, acoompanied sometimes by a small fWb, wbich is supposed to announc9 the transaction to the river god, he fills a bowl from tho. current and returns to perform his sacred office. Tha coffin is a massive structure, made of four boards, from 3in to 4in in thickueis, of a hard and durable wood. In this the body is laid on a bed of quicklime and charcoal, and the cover is hermetically •ealed with cement, This is necessary for tha sake of the eurvivora, since custom provides that the coffin fhould remain above ground for seven times sevsn days, and it somttimes happens that tho inability of the astrologers to diecover a lucky day for the interment entails a still longer pre-aepulchral period. XVI.— A TRAGIC STORY. And now for my final aneciote :—: — Much virtue exists in the style and natura of the ccffn, and most men as they advance in years provide themselves with their future narrow bed?, if, iiyleed, their 6ons hava not been sufficiently fili«lly-mhided to mike them presents of them. A tragic incident, in which an old man's coffin formed a leading feature, was lately described in\he Peking Gazette. A certain Mr Chia had a son who was as dissolute as he was disrespectful, and who, in a moment of financial pressure, sold the coflin which is father, with prudent foresight, had prepared for his final resting place. On the theft being discovered, Ohia at once charged his son with tho crime, snd in his anger swore that if the c ffia were not returned he would, as aocn as he recovered <fom an illneES from which he was suffering, bring him before the authorities and cause him to be put to death. This threat to enrng.d the young man that, in a moment o£ drurken fury, ho strangled his father. For such a crime there could be only one sentence, and the wretched criminal was oondemned to the slow and lingering process of being sliced to death. I have not exhausted the materials of interest and instruction in the volume, though I have disposed of all my space. Iti 18 an admirable volume.

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