Stoical Unconcern.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7, 14 August 1912, Page 70

Stoical Unconcern.

The Chinese were ever a race much addicted to suiede, points out Mr .1. iL. Gibson, in an article in the “Dublin Review.” Jn spite of a marked scepticism with regard io the prospect of a life hereafter, they meet death with stoical unconcern. High officials take poison in their yainens at the bidding,,of Imperial ediets. Criminals are led to execution talking pleasantly with their -friends. The writer knows of a case in point, of a long string of victims to be beheaded in that terrible potter’s yard that the tourist can see in Canton, one of -whom asked serenely of the executioner that he might be placed at the end of the line in order to have leisure to finish his cigarette. There, enjoying his final smoke, unmoved and scarcely interested, he witnessed the death bf-Jiis comrades. To the Chinese in bondage life is no more .than a series of troubles, a .riddle that is barely worth the guessing; and death, the shortest and simplest solution. There are many native proverbs to that effect, of which “every man - must be possessed of lice” is highly representative. Only io those who understand—as far as they are comprehensible to the Occidental mind—Chinese temperament and character is it. credible that the payment of compensation for lives lost on the railway became, to many, an immediate inducement to commit suicide. Nor were these suicides confined to tiie inhabitants of the northern provinces of Chili and •Shangtung, but men walked hundreds of miles in order to get themselves killed that their families might thereby profit. Thus the initial expense of the railway company became tremendous. The director's were obliged to stop payment for lives lost, and the suicides immediately eeased.