Part 11

Besides the numerous differences between Oriental and Occidental customs noticed in Japan, we found in China many other proofs of what has been well called a state of topsy-turvydom. Thus, our tailors draw the needle inward; Chinese tailors stitch outward. With us military men wear their swords on the left side; in China they are worn on the right. In boxing the compass a Chinaman says "East, West, South, North." To mark a place in a book we turn the corner of a page inside; a Chinaman bends it the other way. We print the title of a volume on the back; the Chinese on the front. We play battledore and shuttlecock with our hands; the Chinese use their feet for a battledore and catch the shuttlecock on their foreheads. We use our own names when engaged in business; in China fancy names are taken. We carry one watch hidden in our pocket; a Chinese gentleman sometimes wears two outside his clothes, with their faces exposed. We black our boots; the Chinese whiten theirs. With us it is considered impolite to ask a person's age; in China it is a high compliment, and there a man is congratulated if he is old. Men, at least in the Occident, have plenty of pockets; the Chinaman has none, and uses his stockings as receptacles for papers, and at the back of his neck inserts his folded fan. At our weddings youthful bridesmaids are desired; at Chinese nuptials old women serve in that capacity. We launch our vessels lengthwise; the Chinese launch theirs sidewise. We mount a horse from the left; they mount their horses from the right. We begin dinner with soup and fish, and end with dessert; they do exactly the reverse. Finally, the spoken language of China is never written, and the written language is never spoken.

After all, however, we should remember that Chinamen who travel in our own country think that our customs are as strange as theirs appear to us. A prominent official of the Flowery Kingdom, who made the tour of Europe several years ago, took notes of what he saw, and published them on his return. Among them are the following: "Women, when going to the drawing-room of Queen Victoria regard a bare skin as a mark of respect." "When people meet and wish to show affection, they put their lips and chins together and make a smacking sound." This is not so difficult to understand, when we recollect that, like most Orientals, the Chinese do not kiss, and that even a mother does not kiss her own baby, although she will press it to her cheek. Again, he thus describes our dancing parties: "A European skipping match is a strange sight. To this a number of men and women come in couples, and enter a spacious hall; there, at the sound of music, they grasp each other by both arms, and leap and prance backward and forward, and round and round, till they are forced to stop for want of breath. All this," he adds, "is most extraordinary;" and when we Occidentals think of it, perhaps it is. A Chinese youth, after eating for the first time a European dinner, wrote of his experience: "Dishes of half-raw meat were served, from which pieces were cut with sword-like instruments and placed before the guests. Finally came a green and white substance, the smell of which was overpowering. This, I was informed, was a compound of sour milk, baked in the sun, under whose influence it remains until it becomes filled with insects; yet the greener and livelier it is, the greater the relish with which it is eaten! This is called _Che-sze_."

The object of most gruesome interest to me in Canton was its place of execution. On entering this, I looked about me with astonishment; for almost all the space between the rough brick walls was filled with coarse, cheap articles of pottery. Ah Cum explained, however, that when a batch of heads are to be cut off, the jars are all removed, much as a hotel dining-room is cleared for dancing. The condemned prisoners are always brought in baskets to this place, and are compelled to kneel down with their hands tied behind their backs. Their queues are then thrown forward, and they are beheaded at a single stroke. Traces of blood were visible on the ground, and from a mass of rubbish close at hand a grinning Chinaman pulled out several skulls which he had hidden there, and claimed a fee for exhibiting them. I was presented to the executioner, and asked him how many men he had himself decapitated, but he could not tell. He kept no count, he said--some days six, some days ten, in all probably more than a thousand. As he was resolutely opposed to having his picture taken, we placed his two-edged sword against the wall, and photographed that. When I was told that, once a week, twenty or thirty men are brought into this filthy court to die like cattle in a slaughter-house, I stood aghast, but when I subsequently learned that this is the only execution-place in a great province with a population of twenty millions, the number did not seem so appallingly excessive. This is, however, merely the average in ordinary times. After certain insurrections, such as the Taiping rebellion, this hideous square has seemed almost a reservoir of human blood. The venerable missionary, Dr. Williams, states that he saw here one morning at least two hundred headless trunks, and stacks of human heads piled six feet high. Careful estimates place the number executed here during fourteen months, at eighty-one thousand,--or more than thirteen hundred every week!

I doubt if many criminals beheaded here feel much regret at leaving life, so horrible has been their previous condition in the Canton prison. We visited this institution, but to obtain a picture of it was impossible. Within an ill-kept, loathsome area, we saw a crowd of prisoners wearing chains, while around their necks were heavy wooden collars, which, being from three to five feet square, were so wide that the poor wretches wearing them could never possibly feed themselves, but must depend on others for their nourishment. How they lie down to sleep with them on I do not know. Yet they must wear such collars for weeks, and even months, at a time. I have no sentimental sympathy for criminals, and thoroughly believe in the enforcement of just laws, but I was shocked at the sight of these poor creatures. Whatever may have been their guilt, such treatment is a degradation of humanity.

Leaving the place of execution, we made our way to one of the criminal courts of Canton. It was in session when we entered it, and I never can forget the sight that met my gaze. Before the judge was a prisoner on his knees, pleading for mercy and protesting innocence. Chains were around his neck, waist, wrists, and ankles. Beside him knelt an aged woman, whose gray hair swept the floor as she rocked back and forth, imploring vengeance on her son's assassin. At last the culprit confessed his crime of murder, and was led back to prison. How sincere his confession was, it would be hard to say; for if, in the face of powerful adverse testimony, an accused man still asserts his innocence, he is often punished in the court-room till he does confess. Around the hall were various instruments of torture--bamboo rods to flog the naked back; hard leather straps with which to strike the prisoner on the mouth, thus sometimes breaking the teeth and even the jaw; thumb-screws and cords by which he is suspended by his thumbs and toes; and heavy sticks with which to beat his ankles. I did not happen to see these used, because in the three trials I witnessed all of the prisoners confessed. But they are used; and just as I was entering the court, I met a criminal being led back to prison, so weak and crippled by his punishment, that he could hardly step without assistance. Curiously enough, after the torture has been administered, the culprit is required to fall upon his knees and thank the judge. This I should think would be "the most unkindest cut of all."

It seems impossible to say anything in defense of such a system as this; for in China a man is not only looked upon as guilty till he is proved innocent, but is kept in loathsome confinement, and may be even put upon the rack, in spite of the established fact that torture is never a test of truth. And yet a foreign resident made, as an apology, the following statement: "You must remember that testimony here amounts to nothing, and that, by paying sixpence apiece, you can pack the court-room with men who will swear that black is white. Hence, where a man can easily bribe false witnesses to ruin his enemy, the Chinese law provides that no one shall under any circumstances be put to death unless he has confessed his crime. But since a prisoner on trial for his life will usually protest his innocence to the last, the court attempts by torture to force him to confess."

We visited finally an object in Canton far pleasanter than its scenes of punishment, yet equally characteristic of the national life. It is the place where natives of this province take the first step in the only path which in China leads to political and social rank. It is the scene of the competitive examinations, the fame of which has filled the world.

The courtyard where the contest takes place is by no means inviting. It is an area of sixteen acres, covered with nearly nine thousand rough brick sheds. At the time of an examination each of these is occupied by a candidate. Before he enters it, his person is carefully searched, and soldiers and policemen guard all passageways to prevent communication. "Each in his narrow cell," these applicants for office then remain for three consecutive days and nights, about as pleasantly lodged, I should imagine, as Jonah was for the same length of time; for these dirty dens of brick are only four feet long, three feet wide, and possibly six feet high. One of the horse-sheds in the rear of a New England meeting-house would be a far more comfortable place in which to eat and sleep. Perhaps they are meant, however, to emphasize the triumph of mind over matter. Their only furniture consists of two small planks, one for a seat, the other for a table. Rest is, of course, impossible in such a cage, and candidates have sometimes died here from physical and mental strain. All this seems inexcusably cruel; yet the Chinese government may have good reasons for maintaining this severity. For instance, such a system, if introduced at Washington, would rid the District of Columbia of nine-tenths of its office-seekers within twenty-four hours. While some of these students persevere in their attempts till they are seventy or eighty years of age, others are quite young; but the fact of youth is not considered discreditable, for Confucius said: "A youth should always be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future may not be superior to our present?" At all events, the highest place is open to them, if their brains will take them there; for every village in China has its school, and every free-born citizen may qualify for this struggle, the governing principle of which is "Let the best man win!" It is the law of the "survival of the fittest" exemplified in politics.

In all the provinces of China, on the appointed day, thousands of candidates assemble, eager for the contest. Subjects are given them on which they must produce a poem and original essays. Their work is then examined by officials appointed by the Government, and so extremely rigid is the test, that out of every thousand applicants only about ten gain the first, or "District," degree. There are, however, three degrees to be attained by Chinese aspirants for fame. Those who come out as victors in the first receive no office, but are at least exempt from corporal punishment, and may attempt the examination for the next degree. Even the few who pass the second, or "Provincial," test (about one in a hundred) receive no government appointment. Yet they are distinguished among their countrymen by wearing a gold button in their hats, and by a sign over their houses signifying "Promoted man."

Those who succeed in standing the third, or "Imperial," test at Pekin,--severer even than the other two,--have reached the apex of the pyramid. They are now mandarins, and have acquired all they can desire,--social distinction, office, wealth, and (what is sometimes still more highly prized) great national fame. For in the results of this examination the entire country takes the greatest interest. The names of the successful men are everywhere proclaimed by means of couriers, river-boats, and carrier-pigeons, since thousands of people in the empire have laid their wagers on the candidates, as we might do on horses at the Derby. Strange, is it not, to think that this elaborate Chinese system was practised in the land of the Mongols substantially as it is to-day, at a time when England was inhabited by painted savages?

Moreover, the honors of successful candidates in China cannot be inherited. Young men, if they would be ennobled, must surpass their competitors and win their places as their fathers did. Even the youthful son of Li Hung Chang, whom General Grant considered, next to Bismarck, the most remarkable man he met with in his tour around the world, is not entitled, because of his father's office, to any special rank. Hence, China, though an absolute monarchy, has no privileged class whose claims rest merely on the accident of birth. Her aristocracy consists of those who have repeatedly proved themselves intellectually superior to their rivals. Among no people in the world, therefore, have literary men received such honors as in China; and it is a remarkable fact that this vast nation has worshiped for two thousand years, not a great warrior, nor even a prophet claiming inspiration from God, but a philosopher,--Confucius.

I have often thought that were I asked to compare the Chinese empire of to-day with some material object, I would select for such comparison the Great Wall on its northern frontier. This mighty work has hardly been surpassed in the whole history of architecture, not even by the builders of the Pyramids. It is no less than twenty-five feet high and forty feet broad, with watch-towers higher still, at intervals of three hundred feet. And yet it has a length of nearly fifteen hundred miles, a distance exceeding that from Boston to St. Paul, and in its uninterrupted march spans deep ravines and climbs to lofty mountain crests, in one place nearly five thousand feet in height. Although it was built three hundred years before the birth of Christ, it still exists, and during fourteen centuries sufficed to hold in check the savage tribes of Tartars from the north. It has been calculated that if the Great Wall were constructed at the present time, and with Caucasian labor, its cost would pay for all the railroads in the United States. One hundred years ago an English engineer reckoned that its masonry represented more than all the dwellings of England and Scotland put together, and, finally, that its material would construct a stone wall six feet high and two feet thick around the entire globe.

In many respects this great rampart is typical of China. Both have a vast antiquity, both have an enormous extent, and both have had their periods of glory,--China her age of progress and invention, and this old wall a time when it was kept in perfect order, when warriors stood at every tower, and when it stretched for fifteen hundred miles--an insurmountable barrier to invasion. But just as this leviathan of masonry has outlived its usefulness, and is at present crumbling to decay, so the huge Chinese empire itself now seems decrepit and wholly alien to the nineteenth century. Her roads, once finely kept, are now disgraceful; her streets are an abomination to the senses; her rivers and canals are left to choke themselves through want of dredging; and even her temples show few signs of care. Stagnation and neglect are steadily at work on her colossal frame, as weeds and plants disintegrate this mouldering wall. Will this old empire ever be aroused to new activity, and can fresh life-blood be infused into her shrunken veins to animate her inert frame? There is, I think, a possibility that, in the coming century, the new, progressive party here will overcome the dull conservatism of the nation, connect her vast interior with the sea, utilize her mineral wealth, develop her immense resources, and make her one of the great powers of the world. Napoleon once warned England that if the Chinese should learn too well from her the art of war, and then acquire the thirst for conquest which has characterized other nations, the result might be appalling to the whole of Europe. For think what inexhaustible armies they could raise, and what great fleets they could build and launch upon their mighty rivers! But this is a problem of the future, about which no man can predict with certainty.

Many have asked me if I am glad that I went to China, and I have always answered that, as a unique and useful study of humanity, I think it one of the most valuable experiences of my life. Still I am bound to say, that when I stood upon the deck of an outgoing steamer, and felt it move beneath my feet responsive to the engine's stroke, I drew a breath of pleasure and relief. For I was assured that the swarming millions of the Chinese empire were being left behind me, and that my face was turned toward that historic land where, lighted by the Southern Cross, I was to visit Hindu shrines and Mogul palaces, and gaze on the Himalayas and the Taj Mahal.

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Transcriber Note

Illustrations were repositioned so as to not split paragraphs. Some extremely long paragraphs were split so that illustrations might remain close to the original position in the text.