The magnificent House of T'ang was succeeded by five insignificant dynasties, the duration of all of which was crowded into about half a century. Then, in A.D. 960, began the rule of the Sungs (pronounced Soongs), to last for three hundred years and rival in national peace and prosperity any other period in the history of China. The nation had already in a great measure settled down to that state of material civilization and mental culture in which it has remained to the present time. To the appliances of ordinary Chinese life it is probable that but few additions have been made since a very early date. The dress of the people has indeed undergone several variations, but the ploughs and hoes, the water-wheels and well-sweeps, the tools of the artisans, mud huts, carts, junks, chairs, tables, chopsticks, etc., which we still see in China, are probably very much those of two thousand years ago. Mencius, of the third century B.C., observed that written characters had the same form, and axle-trees the same breadth, all over the empire; and to this day an unaltering uniformity is one of the chief characteristics of the Chinese people in every department of life.

In spite, however, of the peaceful aspirations of the House of Sung, the Kitan Tartars were for ever encroaching upon Chinese territory, and finally overran and occupied a large part of northern China, with their capital where Peking now stands. This resulted in an amicable arrangement to divide the empire, the Kitans retaining their conquests in the north, from which, after about two hundred years, they were in turn expelled by the Golden Tartars, who had previously been subject to them.

Many volumes, rather than pages, would be required to do justice to the statesmen, soldiers, philosophers, poets, historians, art critics, and other famous men of this dynasty. It has already been stated that the interpretation of the Confucian Canon, accepted at the present day, dates from this period; and it may now be of interest to give a brief account of another remarkable movement connected with the dynasty, though in quite a different line.

Wang An-shih (as shi in shirk), popularly known as the Reformer, was born in 1021. In his youth a keen student, his pen seemed to fly over the paper. He rose to high office; and by the time he was forty-eight he found himself installed as confidential adviser to the emperor. He then entered upon a series of startling political reforms, said to be based upon new and more correct interpretations of portions of the Confucian Canon, which still remained, so far as explanation was concerned, just as it had been left by the scholars of the Han dynasty. This appeal to authority was, of course, a mere blind, cleverly introduced to satisfy the bulk of the population, who were always unwilling to move in any direction where no precedent is forthcoming. One of his schemes, the express object of which was to decrease taxation and at the same time to increase the revenue, was to secure a sure and certain market for all products, as follows. From the produce of a given district, enough was to be set aside (1) for the payment of taxes, and (2) to supply the wants of the district; (3) the balance was then to be taken over by the state at a low rate, and held for a rise or forwarded to some centre where there happened to be a demand. There would be thus a certainty of market for the farmer, and an equal certainty for the state to make profits as a middleman. Another part of this scheme consisted in obligatory advances by the state to cultivators of land, whether these farmers required the money or not, the security for the loans being in each case the growing crops.

There was also a system of tithing for military purposes, under which every family having more than two males was bound to supply one to serve as a soldier; and in order to keep up a breed of cavalry horses, every family was compelled to take charge of one, which was provided, together with its food, by the government. There was a system under which money payments were substituted for the old-fashioned and vexatious method of carrying on public works by drafts of forced labourers; and again another under which warehouses for bartering and hypothecating goods were established all over the empire.

Of all his innovations the most interesting was that all land was to be remeasured and an attempt made to secure a more equitable incidence of taxation. The plan was to divide up the land into equal squares, and to levy taxes in proportion to the fertility of each. This scheme proved for various reasons to be unworkable; and the bitter opposition with which, like all his other measures of reform, it was received by his opponents, did not conduce to success. Finally, he abolished all restrictions upon the export of copper, the result being that even the current copper "cash" were melted down and made into articles for sale and exportation. A panic ensued, which Wang met by the simple expedient of doubling the value of each cash. He attempted to reform the examination system, requiring from the candidate not so much graces of style as a wide acquaintance with practical subjects. "Accordingly," says one Chinese author, "even the pupils at the village schools threw away their text-books of rhetoric, and began to study primers of history, geography, and political economy"—a striking anticipation of the movement in vogue to-day. "I have myself been," he tells us, "an omnivorous reader of books of all kinds, even, for example, of ancient medical and botanical works. I have, moreover, dipped into treatises on agriculture and on needlework, all of which I have found very profitable in aiding me to seize the great scheme of the Canon itself." But like many other great men, he was in advance of his age. He fell into disfavour at court, and was dismissed to a provincial post; and although he was soon recalled, he retired into private life, shortly afterwards to die, but not before he had seen the whole of his policy reversed.

His career stands out in marked contrast with that of the great statesman and philosopher, Chu Hsi (pronounced Choo Shee), who flourished A.D. 1130-1200. His literary output was enormous and his official career successful; but his chief title to fame rests upon his merits as a commentator on the Confucian Canon. As has been already stated, he introduced interpretations either wholly or partly at variance with those which had been put forth by the scholars of the Han dynasty, and hitherto received as infallible, thus modifying to a certain extent the prevailing standard of political and social morality. His guiding principle was merely one of consistency. He refused to interpret words in a given passage in one sense, and the same words occurring elsewhere in another sense. The effect of this apparently obvious method was magical; and from that date the teachings of Confucius have been universally understood in the way in which Chu Hsi said they ought to be understood.

To his influence also must be traced the spirit of materialism which is so widely spread among educated Chinese. The God in whom Confucius believed, but whom, as will be seen later on, he can scarcely be said to have "taught," was a passive rather than an active God, and may be compared with the God of the Psalms. He was a personal God, as we know from the ancient character by which He was designated in the written language of early ages, that character being a rude picture of a man. This view was entirely set aside by Chu Hsi, who declared in the plainest terms that the Chinese word for God meant nothing more than "abstract right;" in other words, God was a principle. It is impossible to admit such a proposition, which was based on sentiment and not on sound reasoning. Chu Hsi was emphatically not a man of religious temperament, and belief in the supernatural was distasteful to him; he was for a short time under the spell of Buddhism, but threw that religion over for the orthodoxy of Confucianism. He was, therefore, anxious to exclude the supernatural altogether from the revised scheme of moral conduct which he was deducing from the Confucian Canon, and his interpretation of the word "God" has been blindly accepted ever since.

When Chu Hsi died, his coffin is said to have taken up a position, suspended in the air, about three feet from the ground. Whereupon his son-in-law, falling on his knees beside the bier, reminded the departed spirit of the great principles of which he had been such a brilliant exponent in life—and the coffin descended gently to the ground.



CHAPTER V—WOMEN AND CHILDREN

The Chinese are very fond of animals, and especially of birds; and on the whole they may be said to be kind to their animals, though cases of ill-treatment occur. At the same time it must be carefully remembered that such quantum of humanity as they may exhibit is entirely of their own making; there is no law to act persuasively on brutal natures, and there is no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to see that any such law is enforced. A very large number of beautiful birds, mostly songless, are found in various parts of China, and a great variety of fishes in the rivers and on the coast. Wild animals are represented by the tiger (in both north and south), the panther and the bear, and even the elephant and the rhinoceros may be found in the extreme south-west. The wolf and the fox, the latter dreaded as an uncanny beast, are very widely distributed.

Still less would there be any ground for establishing a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the very name of which would make an ordinary, unsophisticated Chinaman stare. Chinese parents are, if anything, over-indulgent to their children. The father is, indeed, popularly known as the "Severe One," and it is a Confucian tradition that he should not spare the rod and so spoil the child, but he draws the line at a poker; and although as a father he possesses the power of life and death over his offspring, such punishments as are inflicted are usually of the mildest description. The mother, the "Gentle One," is, speaking broadly, a soft-hearted, sweet-natured specimen of humanity; one of those women to whom hundreds of Europeans owe deep debts of gratitude for the care and affection lavished upon their alien children. In the absence of the Severe One, it falls to her to chastise when necessary; and we even read of a son who wept, not because his mother hurt him, but because, owing to her advanced age, she was no longer able to hit him hard enough!

Among other atrocious libels which have fastened upon the fair fame of the Chinese people, first and foremost stands the charge of female infanticide, now happily, though still slowly, fading from the calculations of those who seek the truth. Fifty years ago it was generally believed that the Chinese hated their female children, and got rid of them in early infancy by wholesale murder. It may be admitted at once that boys are preferred to girls, inasmuch as they carry on the family line, and see that the worship of ancestors is regularly performed in due season. Also, because girls require dowries, which they take away with them for the benefit of other families than their own; hence the saying, "There is no thief like a family of five daughters," and the term "lose-money goods," as jestingly applied to girls, against which may be set another term, "a thousand ounces of gold," which is commonly used of a daughter. Of course it is the boy who is specially wanted in a family; and little boys are often dressed as little girls, in order to deceive the angels of disease and death, who, it is hoped, may thus pass them over as of less account.

To return to the belief formerly held that female infanticide was rampant all over China. The next step was for the honest observer to admit that it was not known in his own particular district, but to declare that it was largely practised elsewhere. This view, however, lost its validity when residents "elsewhere" had to allow that no traces of infanticide could be found in their neighbourhood; and so on. Luckily, still greater comfort is to be found in the following argument,—a rare example of proving a negative—from which it will be readily seen that female infanticide on any abnormal scale is quite beyond the bounds of the possible. Those who have even a bowing acquaintance with Chinese social life will grant that every boy, at about the age of eighteen, is provided by his parents with a wife. They must also concede the notorious fact that many well-to-do Chinese take one or more concubines. The Emperor, indeed, is allowed seventy; but this number exists only on paper as a regulation maximum. Now, if every Chinaman has one wife, and many have two, over and above the host of girls said to be annually sacrificed as worthless babies, it must follow that the proportion of girls born in China enormously outnumbers the proportion of boys, whereas in the rest of the world boys are well known to be always in the majority. After this, it is perhaps superfluous to state that, apart from the natural love of the parent, a girl is really, even at a very early age, a marketable commodity. Girls are sometimes sold into other families to be brought up as wives for the sons; more often, to be used as servants, under what is of course a form of slavery, qualified by the important condition, which can be enforced by law, that when of a marriageable age, the girl's master shall find her a husband. Illegitimate children, the source of so much baby-farming and infanticide elsewhere, are practically unknown in China; and the same may be said of divorce. A woman cannot legally divorce her husband. In rare cases she will leave him, and return to her family, in spite of the fact that he can legally insist upon her return; for she knows well that if her case is good, the husband will not dare to risk the scandal of an exposure, not to mention the almost certain vengeance of her affronted kinsmen. It is also the fear of such vengeance that prevents mothers-in-law from ill-treating the girls who pass into their new homes rather as servants than daughters to the husband's mother. Every woman, as indeed every man, has one final appeal by which to punish an oppressor. She may commit suicide, there being no canon, legal or moral, against self-slaughter; and in China, where, contrary to widespread notions on the subject, human life is held in the highest degree sacred, this course is sure to entail trouble and expense, and possibly severe punishment, if the aggrieved parties are not promptly conciliated by a heavy money payment.

A man may divorce his wife for one of the seven following reasons:—Want of children, adultery, neglect of his parents, nagging, thieving (i.e. supplying her own family with his goods, popularly known as "leakage"), jealous temper and leprosy. To the above, the humanity of the lawgiver has affixed three qualifying conditions. He may not put her away on any of the above grounds if she has duly passed through the period of mourning for his parents; if he has grown rich since their marriage; if she has no longer any home to which she can return.

Altogether, the Chinese woman has by no means such a bad time as is generally supposed to be the case. Even in the eye of the law, she has this advantage over a man, that she cannot be imprisoned except for high treason and adultery, and is to all intents and purposes exempt from the punishment of the bamboo. Included in this exemption are the aged and the young, the sick, the hungry and naked, and those who have already suffered violence, as in a brawl. Further, in a well-known handbook, magistrates are advised to postpone, in certain circumstances, the infliction of corporal punishment; as for instance, when either the prisoner or they themselves may be under the influence of excitement, anger or drink.

The bamboo is the only instrument with which physical punishment may legally be inflicted; and its infliction on a prisoner or recalcitrant witness, in order to extort evidence, constitutes what has long been dignified as "torture;" but even that is now, under a changing system, about to disappear. This must not be taken to mean that torture, in our sense of the term, has never been applied in China. The real facts of the case are these. Torture, except as already described, being constitutionally illegal, no magistrate would venture to resort to it if there were any chance of his successful impeachment before the higher authorities, upon which he would be cashiered and his official career brought abruptly to an end. Torture, therefore, would have no terrors for the ordinary citizen of good repute and with a backing of substantial friends; but for the outcast, the rebel, the highway robber (against whom every man's hand would be), the disreputable native of a distant province, and also for the outer barbarian (e.g. the captives at the Summer Palace in 1860), another tale must be told. No consequences, except perhaps promotion, would follow from too rigorous treatment in such cases as these.

Resort to the bamboo as a means of extorting the confession of a prisoner is regarded by the people rather as the magistrate's confession of his own incapacity. The education of the official, too easily and too freely turned into ridicule, gives him an insight into human nature which, coupled with a little experience, renders him extremely formidable to the shifty criminal or the crafty litigant. As a rule, he finds no need for the application of pain. There is a quaint story illustrative of such judicial methods as would be sure to meet with full approbation in China. A magistrate, who after several hearings had failed to discover, among a gang accused of murder, what was essential to the completion of the case, namely, the actual hand which struck the fatal blow, notified the prisoners that he was about to invoke the assistance of the spirits, with a view to elicit the truth. Accordingly, he caused the accused men, dressed in the black clothes of criminals, to be led into a large barn, and arranged around it, face to the wall. Having then told them that an accusing angel would shortly come among them, and mark the back of the guilty man, he went outside and had the door shut, and the place darkened. After a short interval, when the door was thrown open, and the men were summoned to come forth, it was seen directly that one of the number had a white mark on his back. This man, in order to make all secure, had turned his back to the wall, not knowing, what the magistrate well knew, that the wall had been newly white-washed.

As to the punishment of crime by flogging, a sentence of one or two hundred—even more—blows would seem to be cruel and disgusting; happily, it may be taken for granted that such ferocious sentences are executed only in such cases as have been mentioned above. An acute observer, for many years a member of the municipal police force in Shanghai, whose duty it was to see that floggings were administered to Chinese criminals, stated plainly in a public report that the bamboo is not necessarily a severe ordeal, and that one hundred blows are at times inflicted so lightly as to leave scarcely a mark behind, though the recipient howls loudly all the time. Those criminals who have money can always manage to square the gaoler; and the gaoler has acquired a certain knack in laying on, the upshot being great cry and little wool, very satisfactory to the culprit. Even were we to accept the cruellest estimate in regard to punishment by the bamboo, it would only go to show that humanitarian feelings in China are lagging somewhat behind our own. In The Times of March 1, 1811, we read that, for allowing French prisoners to escape from Dartmoor, three men of the Nottingham militia were sentenced to receive 900 lashes each, and that one of them actually received 450 lashes in the presence of pickets from every regiment in the garrison. On New Year's Day, 1911, a eunuch attempted to assassinate one of the Imperial Princes. For this he was sentenced to be beaten to death, some such ferocious punishment being necessary, in Chinese eyes, to vindicate the majesty of the law. That end having been attained, the sentence was commuted to eighty blows with the bamboo and deportation to northern Manchuria.

The Chinese woman often, in mature life, wields enormous influence over the family, males included, and is a kind of private Empress Dowager. A man knows, says the proverb, but a woman knows better. As a widow in early life, her lot is not quite so pleasant. It is not thought desirable for widows to remarry; but if she remains single, she becomes "a rudderless boat;" round which gathers much calumny. Many young women brave public opinion, and enter into second nuptials. If they are bent upon remarrying, runs the saying, they can no more be prevented than the sky can be prevented from raining.

The days of "golden lilies," as the artificially small feet of Chinese women are called, are generally believed to date from the tenth century A.D., though some writers have endeavoured to place the custom many centuries earlier. It must always be carefully remembered that Manchu women—the women of the dynasty which has ruled since 1644—do not compress their feet. Consequently, the empresses of modern times have feet of the natural size; neither is the practice in force among the Hakkas, a race said to have migrated from the north of China to the south in the thirteenth century; nor among the hill tribes; nor among the boating population of Canton and elsewhere. Small feet are thus in no way associated with aristocracy or gentleness of birth; neither is there any foundation for the generally received opinion that the Chinese lame their women in this way to keep them from gadding about. Small-footed women may be seen carrying quite heavy burdens, and even working in the fields; not to mention that many are employed as nurses for small children. Another explanation is that women with bound feet bear finer children and stronger; but the real reason lies in another direction, quite beyond the scope of this book. The question of charm may be taken into consideration, for any Chinaman will bear witness to the seductive effect of a gaily-dressed girl picking her way on tiny feet some three inches in length, her swaying movements and delightful appearance of instability conveying a general sense of delicate grace quite beyond expression in words.

The lady of the tenth century, to whom the origin of small feet is ascribed, wished to make her own feet like two new moons; but whether she actually bound them, as at the present day, is purely a matter of conjecture. The modern style of binding inflicts great pain for a long time upon the little girls who have to endure it. They become very shy on the subject, and will on no account show their bare feet, though Manchu women and others with full-sized feet frequently walk about unshod, and the boat-girls at Canton and elsewhere never seem to wear shoes or stockings at all.

The "pigtail," or long plait of hair worn by all Chinamen, for the abolition of which many advanced reformers are now earnestly pleading, is an institution of comparatively modern date. It was imposed by the victorious Manchu-Tartars when they finally established their dynasty in 1644, not so much as a badge of conquest, still less of servitude, but as a means of obliterating, so far as possible, the most patent distinction between the two races, and of unifying the appearance, if not the aspirations, of the subjects of the Son of Heaven. This obligation was for some time strenuously resisted by the natives of Amoy, Swatow, and elsewhere in that neighbourhood. At length, when compelled to yield, it is said that they sullenly wound their queues round their heads and covered them with turbans, which are still worn by natives of those parts.

The peculiar custom of shaving the head in front, and allowing the hair to grow long behind, is said to have been adopted by the Manchus out of affectionate gratitude to the horse, an animal which has played an all-important part in the history and achievements of the race. This view is greatly reinforced by the cut of the modern official sleeves, which hang down, concealing the hands, and are shaped exactly like a pair of horse's hoofs.

In many respects the Manchu conquerors left the Chinese to follow their own customs. No attempt was made to coerce Chinese women, who dress their hair in styles totally different from that of the Manchu women; there are, too, some tolerated differences between the dress of the Manchu and Chinese men, but these are such as readily escape notice. Neither was any attempt made in the opening years of the conquest to interfere with foot-binding by Chinese women; but in 1664 an edict was issued forbidding the practice. Readers may draw their own conclusions, when it is added that four years after the edict was withdrawn. Hopes are now widely and earnestly entertained that with the dawn of the new era, this cruel custom will become a thing of the past; it is, however, to be feared that those who have been urging on this desirable reform may be, like all reformers, a little too sanguine of immediate success, and that a comparatively long period will have to go by before the last traces of foot-binding disappear altogether. Meanwhile, it seems that the Government has taken the important step of refusing admission to the public schools of all girls whose feet are bound.

The disappearance of the queue is another thing altogether. It is not a native Chinese institution; there would be no violation of any cherished tradition of antiquity if it were once and for ever discarded. On the contrary, if the Chinese do not intend to follow the Japanese and take to foreign clothes, there might be a return to the old style of doing the hair. The former dress of the Japanese was one of the numerous items borrowed by them from China; it was indeed the national dress of the Chinese for some three hundred years, between A.D. 600-900. One little difficulty will vanish with the queue. A Chinese coolie will tie his tail round his head when engaged on work in which he requires to keep it out of the way, and the habit has become of real importance with the use of modern machinery; but on the arrival of his master, he should at once drop it, out of respect, a piece of politeness not always exhibited in the presence of a foreign employer. The agitation, now in progress, for the final abolition of the queue may be due to one or all of the following reasons. Intelligent Chinese may have come to realize that the fashion is cumbrous and out of date. Sensitive Chinese may fear that it makes them ridiculous in the eyes of foreigners. Political Chinese, who would gladly see the re-establishment of a native dynasty, may look to its disappearance as the first step towards throwing off the Manchu yoke.

On the whole, the ruling Manchus have shown themselves very careful not to wound the susceptibilities of their Chinese subjects. Besides allowing the women to retain their own costume, and the dead, men and women alike, to be buried in the costume of the previous dynasty, it was agreed from the very first that no Chinese concubines should be taken into the Palace. This last condition seems to be a concession pure and simple to the conquered; there is little doubt, however, that the wily Manchus were only too ready to exclude a very dangerous possibility of political intrigue.



CHAPTER VI—LITERATURE AND EDUCATION

The Chinese people reverence above all things literature and learning; they hate war, bearing in mind the saying of Mencius, "There is no such thing as a righteous war; we can only assert that some wars are better than others;" and they love trade and the finesse of the market-place. China can boast many great soldiers, in modern as well as in ancient days; but anything like a proper appreciation of the military arm is of quite recent growth. "Good iron is not used for nails, nor good men for soldiers," says the proverb; and again, "One stroke of the civilian's pen reduces the military official to abject submission." On the other hand, it is admitted that "Civilians give the empire peace, and soldiers give it security."

Chinese parents have never, until recent days, willingly trained their sons for the army. They have always wished their boys to follow the stereotyped literary curriculum, and then, after passing successfully through the great competitive examinations, to rise to high civil office in the state. A good deal of ridicule has been heaped of late on the Chinese competitive examination, the subjects of which were drawn exclusively from the Confucian Canon, and included a knowledge of ancient history, of a comprehensive scheme of morality, initiated by Confucius, and further elaborated by Mencius (372-289 B.C.), of the ballads and ceremonial rites of three thousand years ago, and of an aptitude for essay-writing and the composition of verse. The whole curriculum may be fitly compared with such an education as was given to William Pitt and others among our own great statesmen, in which an ability to read the Greek and Roman classics, coupled with an intimate knowledge of the Peloponnesian War, carried the student about as far as it was considered necessary for him to go. The Chinese course, too, has certainly brought to the front in its time a great many eminent men, who have held their own in diplomacy, if not in warfare, with the subtlest intellects of the West.

Their system of competitive examinations has indeed served the Chinese well. It is the brightest spot in the whole administration, being absolutely above suspicion, such as attaches to other departments of the state. Attempts have been made from time to time to gain admission by improper means to the list of successful candidates, and it would be absurd to say that not one has ever succeeded; the risk, however, is too great, for the penalty on detection may be death.

The ordeal itself is exceedingly severe, as well for the examiners as for the candidates. At the provincial examinations, held once in every third year, an Imperial Commissioner, popularly known as the Grand Examiner, is sent down from Peking. On arrival, his residence is formally sealed up, and extraordinary precautions are taken to prevent friends of intending candidates from approaching him in any way. There is no age limit, and men of quite mature years are to be found competing against youths hardly out of their teens; indeed, there is an authenticated case of a man who successfully graduated at the age of seventy-two. Many compete year after year, until at length they decide to give it up as a bad job.

At an early hour on the appointed day the candidates begin to assemble, and by and by the great gates of the examination hall are thrown open, and heralds shriek out the names of those who are to enter. Each one answers in turn as his name is called, and receives from the attendants a roll of paper marked with the number of the open cell he is to occupy in one of the long alleys into which the examination hall is divided. Other writing materials, as well as food, he carries with him in a basket, which is always carefully searched at the door, and in which "sleeve" editions of the classics have sometimes been found. When all have taken their seats, the Grand Examiner burns incense, and closes the entrance gates, through which no one will be allowed to pass, either in or out, dead or alive, until the end of the third day, when the first of the three sessions is at an end, and the candidates are released for the night. In case of death, not unusual where ten or twelve thousand persons are cooped up day and night in a confined space, the corpse is hoisted over the wall; and this would be done even if it were that of the Grand Examiner himself, whose place would then be taken by the chief Assistant Examiner, who is also appointed by the Emperor, and accompanies the Grand Examiner from Peking.

The long strain of three bouts of three days each has often been found sufficient to unhinge the reason, with a variety of distressing consequences, the least perhaps of which may be seen in a regular percentage of blank papers handed in. On one occasion, a man handed in a copy of his last will and testament; on another, not very long ago, the mental balance of the Grand Examiner gave way, and a painful scene ensued. He tore up a number of the papers already handed in, and bit and kicked every one who came near him, until he was finally secured and bound hand and foot in his chair. A candidate once presented himself dressed in woman's clothes, with his face highly rouged and powdered, as is the custom. He was arrested at the entrance gate, and quietly sent home to his friends.

Overwork, in the feverish desire to get into the Government service, is certainly responsible for the mental break-down of a large proportion of the comparatively few lunatics found in China. There being no lunatic asylums in the empire, it is difficult to form anything like an exact estimate of their number; it can only be said, what is equally true of cripples or deformed persons, that it is very rare to meet them in the streets or even to hear of their existence.

As a further measure of precaution against corrupt practices at examinations, the papers handed in by the candidates are all copied out in red ink, and only these copies are submitted to the examiners. The difficulty therefore of obtaining favourable treatment, on the score of either bribery or friendship, is very much increased. The Chinese, who make no attempt to conceal or excuse, in fact rather exaggerate any corruption in their public service generally, do not hesitate to declare with striking unanimity that the conduct of their examination system is above suspicion, and there appears to be no valid reason why we should not accept this conclusion.

The whole system is now undergoing certain modifications, which, if wisely introduced, should serve only to strengthen the national character. The Confucian teachings, which are of the very highest order of morality, and which have moulded the Chinese people for so many centuries, helping perhaps to give them a cohesion and stability remarkable among the nations of the world, should not be lightly cast aside. A scientific training, enabling us to annihilate time and space, to extend indefinitely the uses and advantages of matter in all its forms, and to mitigate the burden of suffering which is laid upon the greater portion of the human race, still requires to be effectively supplemented by a moral training, to teach man his duty towards his neighbour. From the point of view of science, the Chinese are, of course, wholly out of date, though it is only within the past hundred and fifty years that the West has so decisively outstripped the East. If we go back to the fifteenth century, we shall find that the standard of civilization, as the term is usually understood, was still much higher in China than in Europe; while Marco Polo, the famous Venetian traveller of the thirteenth century, who actually lived twenty-four years in China, and served as an official under Kublai Khan, has left it on record that the magnificence of Chinese cities, and the splendour of the Chinese court, outrivalled anything he had ever seen or heard of.

Pushing farther back into antiquity, we easily reach a time when the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom "held learning in high esteem, while our own painted forefathers were running naked and houseless in the woods, and living on berries and raw meat." In inventive, mechanical and engineering aptitudes the Chinese have always excelled; as witness—only to mention a few—the art of printing (see below); their water-wheels and other clever appliances for irrigation; their wonderful bridges (not to mention the Great Wall); the "taxicab," or carriage fitted with a machine for recording the distance traversed, the earliest notice of which takes us back to the fourth century A.D.; the system of fingerprints for personal identification, recorded in the seventh century A.D.; the carved ivory balls which contain even so many as nine or ten other balls, of diminishing size, one within another; a chariot carrying a figure which always pointed south, recorded as in existence at a very early date, though unfortunately the specifications which have came down to us from later dates will not work out, as in the case of the "taxicab." The story goes that this chariot was invented about 1100 B.C., by a wonderful hero of the day, in order to enable an ambassador, who had come to the court of China from a far distant country in the south, to find his way expeditiously home. The compass proper the Chinese cannot claim; it was probably introduced into China by the Arabs at a comparatively late date, and has been confused with the south-pointing chariot of earlier ages. As to gunpowder, something of that nature appears to have been used for fireworks in the seventh century; and something of the nature of a gun is first heard of during the Mongol campaigns of the thirteenth century; but firearms were not systematically employed until the fifteenth century. Add to the above the art of casting bronze, brought to a high pitch of excellence seven or eight centuries before the Christian era, if not earlier; the production of silk, mentioned by Mencius (372-289 B.C.) as necessary for the comfort of old age; the cultivation of the tea-plant from time immemorial; also the discovery and manufacture of porcelain some sixteen centuries ago, subsequently brought to a perfection which leaves all European attempts hopelessly out-classed.

In many instances the Chinese seem to have been so near and yet so far. There is a distinct tradition of flying cars at a very remote date; and rough woodcuts have been handed down for many centuries, showing a car containing two passengers, flying through the clouds and apparently propelled by wheels of a screw pattern, set at right angles to the direction in which the travellers are proceeding. But there is not a scrap of evidence to show what was the motive power which turned the wheels. Similarly, iron ships are mentioned in Chinese literature so far back as the tenth century, only, however, to be ridiculed as an impossibility; the circulation of the blood is hinted at; added to which is the marvellous anticipation of anaesthetics as applied to surgery, to be mentioned later on, an idea which also remained barren of results for something like sixteen centuries, until Western science stepped in and secured the prize. Here it may be fairly argued that, considering the national repugnance to mutilation of the body in any form, it could hardly be expected that the Chinese would seek to facilitate a process to which they so strongly object.

In the domain of painting, we are only just beginning to awake to the fact that in this direction the Chinese have reached heights denied to all save artists of supreme power, and that their art was already on a lofty level many centuries before our own great representatives had begun to put brush to canvas. Without going so far back as the famous picture in the British Museum, by an artist of the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., the point may perhaps be emphasized by quotation from the words of a leading art-critic, referring to painters of the tenth and eleventh centuries:—"To the Sung artists and poets, mountains were a passion, as to Wordsworth. The landscape art thus founded, and continued by the Japanese in the fifteenth century, must rank as the greatest school of landscape which the world has seen. It is the imaginative picturing of what is most elemental and most august in Nature—liberating visions of storm or peace among abrupt peaks, plunging torrents, trembling reed-beds—and though having a fantastic side for its weakness, can never have the reproach of pretty tameness and mere fidelity which form too often the only ideal of Western landscape."

Great Chinese artists unite in dismissing fidelity to outline as of little importance compared with reproduction of the spirit of the object painted. To paint a tree successfully, it is necessary to produce not merely shape and colour but the vitality and "soul" of the original. Until with the last two or three centuries, nature itself was always appealed to as the one source of true inspiration; then came the artist of the studio, since which time Chinese art has languished, while Japanese art, learned at the feet of Chinese artists from the fourteenth century onwards, has come into prominent notice, and is now, with extraordinary versatility, attempting to assimilate the ideals of the West.

The following words were written by a Chinese painter of the fifth century:—

"To gaze upon the clouds of autumn, a soaring exaltation in the soul; to feel the spring breeze stirring wild exultant thoughts;—what is there in the possession of gold and gems to compare with delights like these? And then, to unroll the portfolio and spread the silk, and to transfer to it the glories of flood and fell, the green forest, the blowing winds, the white water of the rushing cascade, as with a turn of the hand a divine influence descends upon the scene. . . . These are the joys of painting."

Just as in poetry, so in pictorial art, the artist avoids giving full expression to his theme, and leaving nothing for the spectator to supply by his own imaginative powers. "Suggestion" is the key-note to both the above arts; and in both, "Impressionism" has been also at the command of the gifted, centuries before the term had passed into the English language.

Literature and art are indeed very closely associated in China. Every literary man is supposed to be more or less a painter, or a musician of sorts; failing personal skill, it would go without saying that he was a critic, or at the lowest a lover, of one or the other art, or of both. All Chinese men, women and children seem to love flowers; and the poetry which has gathered around the blossoms of plum and almond alone would form a not inconsiderable library of itself. Yet a European bouquet would appear to a man of culture as little short of a monstrosity; for to enjoy flowers, a Chinaman must see only a single spray at a time. The poorly paid clerk will bring with him to his office in the morning some trifling bud, which he will stick into a tiny vase of water, and place beside him on his desk. The owner of what may be a whole gallery of pictures will invite you to tea, followed by an inspection of his treasures; but on the same afternoon he will only produce perhaps a single specimen, and scout the idea that any one could call for more. If a long landscape, it will be gradually unwound from its roller, and a portion at a time will be submitted for the enjoyment and criticism of his visitors; if a religious or historical picture, or a picture of birds or flowers, of which the whole effort must be viewed in its completeness, it will be studied in various senses, during the intervals between a chat and a cup of tea. Such concentration is absolutely essential, in the eyes of the Chinese critic, to a true interpretation of the artist's meaning, and to a just appreciation of his success.

The marvellous old stories of grapes painted by Zeuxis of ancient Greece, so naturally that birds came to peck at them; and of the curtain painted by Parrhasius which Zeuxis himself tried to pull aside; and of the horse by Apelles at which another horse neighed—all these find their counterparts in the literature of Chinese art. One painter, in quite early days, painted a perch and hung it over a river bank, when there was immediately a rush of otters to secure it. Another painted the creases on cotton clothes so exactly that the clothes looked as if they had just come from the wash. Another produced pictures of cats which would keep a place free from rats. All these efforts were capped by those of another artist, whose picture of the North Wind made people feel cold, while his picture of the South Wind made people feel hot. Such exaggerations are not altogether without their value; they suggest that Chinese art must have reached a high level, and this has recently been shown to be nothing more than the truth, by the splendid exhibition of Chinese pictures recently on view in the British Museum.

The literary activities of the Chinese, and their output of literature, have always been on a colossal scale; and of course it is entirely due to the early invention of printing that, although a very large number of works have disappeared, still an enormous bulk has survived the ravages of war, rebellion and fire.

This art was rather developed than invented. There is no date, within a margin even of half a century either way, at which we can say that printing was invented. The germ is perhaps to be found in the engraving of seals, which have been used by the Chinese as far back as we can go with anything like historical certainty, and also of stone tablets from which rubbings were taken, the most important of these being the forty-six tablets on which five of the sacred books of Confucianism were engraved about A.D. 170, and of which portions still remain. However this may be, it was during the sixth century A.D. that the idea of taking impressions on paper from wooden blocks seems to have arisen, chiefly in connexion with religious pictures and tracts. It was not widely applied to the production of books in general until A.D. 932, when the Confucian Canon was so printed for the first time; from which point onwards the extension of the art moved with rapid strides.

It is very noticeable that the Chinese, who are extraordinarily averse to novelties, and can hardly be induced to consider any innovations, when once convinced of their real utility, waste no further time in securing to themselves all the advantages which may accrue. This was forcibly illustrated in regard to the introduction of the telegraph, against which the Chinese had set their faces, partly because of the disturbance of geomantic influences caused by the tall telegraph poles, and partly because they sincerely doubted that the wires could achieve the results claimed. But when it was discovered that some wily Cantonese had learnt over the telegraph the names of the three highest graduates at the Peking triennial examination, weeks before the names could be known in Canton by the usual route, and had enriched himself by buying up the tickets bearing those names in the great lotteries which are always held in connexion with this event, Chinese opposition went down like a house of cards; and the only question with many of the literati was whether, at some remote date, the Chinese had not invented telegraphy themselves.

Moveable types of baked clay were invented about A.D. 1043, and some centuries later they were made of wood and of copper or lead; but they have never gained the favour accorded to block-printing, by which most of the great literary works have been produced. The newspapers of modern days are all printed from moveable types, and also many translations of foreign books, prepared to meet the increasing demand for Western learning. The Chinese have always been a great reading people, systematic education culminating in competitive examinations for students going back to the second century A.D. This is perhaps a suitable place for explaining that the famous Peking Gazette, often said to be the oldest newspaper in the world, is not really a newspaper at all, in that it contains no news in our sense of the term. It is a record only of court movements, list of promoted officials, with a few selected memorials and edicts. It is published daily, but was not printed until the fifteenth century.

Every Chinese boy may be said to have his chance. The slightest sign of a capacity for book-learning is watched for, even among the poorest. Besides the opportunity of free schools, a clever boy will soon find a patron; and in many cases, the funds for carrying on a curriculum, and for entering the first of the great competitions, will be subscribed in the district, on which the candidate will confer a lasting honour by his success. A promising young graduate, who has won his first degree with honours, is at once an object of importance to wealthy fathers who desire to secure him as a son-in-law, and who will see that money is not wanting to carry him triumphantly up the official ladder. Boys without any gifts of the kind required, remain to fill the humbler positions; those who advance to a certain point are drafted into trade; while hosts of others who just fall short of the highest, become tutors in private families, schoolmasters, doctors, fortune-tellers, geomancers, and booksellers' hacks.

Of high-class Chinese literature, it is not possible to give even the faintest idea in the space at disposal. It must suffice to say that all branches are adequately represented, histories, biographies, philosophy, poetry and essays on all manner of subjects, offering a wide field even to the most insatiate reader.

And here a remark may be interjected, which is very necessary for the information of those who wish to form a true estimate of the Chinese people. Throughout the Confucian Canon, a collection of ancient works on which the moral code of the Chinese is based, there is not a single word which could give offence, even to the most sensitive, on questions of delicacy and decency. That is surely saying a good deal, but it is not all; precisely the same may be affirmed of what is mentioned above as high-class Chinese literature, which is pure enough to satisfy the most strait-laced. Chinese poetry, of which there is in existence a huge mass, will be searched in vain for suggestions of impropriety, for sly innuendo, and for the other tricks of the unclean. This extraordinary purity of language is all the more remarkable from the fact that, until recent years, the education of women has not been at all general, though many particular instances are recorded of women who have themselves achieved success in literary pursuits. It is only when we come to the novel, to the short story, or to the anecdote, which are not usually written in high-class style, and are therefore not recognized as literature proper, that this exalted standard is no longer always maintained.

There are, indeed, a great number of novels, chiefly historical and religious, in which the aims of the writers are on a sufficiently high level to keep them clear of what is popularly known as pornography or pig-writing; still, when all is said and done, there remains a balance of writing curiously in contrast with the great bulk of Chinese literature proper. As to the novel, the long story with a worked-out plot, this is not really a local product. It seems to have come along with the Mongols from Central Asia, when they conquered China in the thirteenth century, and established their short-lived dynasty. Some novels, in spite of their low moral tone, are exceedingly well written and clever, graphic in description, and dramatic in episode; but it is curious that no writer of the first rank has ever attached his name to a novel, and that the authorship of all the cleverest is a matter of entire uncertainty.

The low-class novel is purposely pitched in a style that will be easily understood; but even so, there is a great deal of word- and phrase-skipping to be done by many illiterate readers, who are quite satisfied if they can extract the general sense as they go along. The book-language, as cultivated by the best writers, is to be freely understood only by those who have stocked their minds well with the extensive phraseology which has been gradually created by eminent men during the past twenty-five centuries, and with historical and biographical allusions and references of all sorts and things. A word or two, suggesting some apposite allusion, will often greatly enhance the beauty of a composition for the connoisseur, but will fall flat on the ears of those to whom the quotation is unknown. Simple objects in everyday life often receive quaint names, as handed down in literature, with which it is necessary to be familiar. For instance, a "fairy umbrella" means a mushroom; a "gentleman of the beam" is a burglar, because a burglar was once caught sitting on one of the open beams inside a Chinese roof; a "slender waist" is a wasp; the "throat olive" is the "Adam's apple"—which, by the way, is an excellent illustration from the opposite point of view; "eyebrow notes" means notes at the top of a page; "cap words" is sometimes used for "preface;" the "sweeper-away of care" is wine; "golden balls" are oranges; the "golden tray" is the moon; a "two-haired man" is a grey-beard; the "hundred holes" is a beehive; "instead of the moon" is a lantern; "instead of steps" is a horse; "the man with the wooden skirt" is a shopman; to "scatter sleep" means to give hush-money; and so on, almost ad infinitum.

Chinese medical literature is on a very voluminous scale, medicine having always occupied a high place in the estimation of the people, in spite of the fact that its practice has always been left to any one who might choose to take it up. Surgery, even of an elementary kind, has never had a chance; for the Chinese are extremely loath to suffer any interference with their bodies, believing, in accordance with Confucian dogma, that as they received them from their parents, so they should carry them into the presence of their ancestors in the next world. Medicine, as still practised in China, may be compared with the European art of a couple of centuries ago, and its exceedingly doubtful results are fully appreciated by patients at large. "No medicine," says one proverb, "is better than a middling doctor;" while another points out that "Many sons of clever doctors die of disease."

Legend, however, tells us of an extraordinary physician of the fifth century B.C. who was able to see into the viscera of his patients—an apparent anticipation of the X-rays—and who, by his intimate knowledge of the human pulse, effected many astounding cures. We also read of an eminent physician of the second and third centuries A.D. who did add surgery to this other qualifications. He was skilled in the use of acupuncture and cautery; but if these failed he would render his patient unconscious by a dose of hashish, and then operate surgically. He is said to have diagnosed a case of diseased bowels by the pulse alone, and then to have cured it by operation. He offered to cure the headaches of a famous military commander of the day by opening his skull under hashish; but the offer was rudely declined. This story serves to show, in spite of its marvellous setting, that the idea of administering an anaesthetic to carry out a surgical operation must be credited, so far as priority goes, to the Chinese, since the book in which the above account is given cannot have been composed later than the twelfth century A.D.



CHAPTER VII—PHILOSOPHY AND SPORT

Chinese philosophy covers altogether too large a field to be dealt with, even in outline, on a scale suitable to this volume; only a few of its chief features can possibly be exhibited in the space at disposal.

Beginning with moral philosophy, we are confronted at once with what was in early days an extremely vexed question; not perhaps entirely set at rest even now, but allowed to remain in suspense amid the universal acceptance of Confucian teachings. Confucius himself taught in no indistinct terms that man is born good, and that he becomes evil only by contact with evil surroundings. He does not enlarge upon this dogma, but states it baldly as a natural law, little anticipating that within a couple of centuries it was to be called seriously in question. It remained for his great follower, Mencius, born a hundred years later, to defend the proposition against all comers, and especially against one of no mean standing, the philosopher Kao (Cow). Kao declared that righteousness is only to be got out of man's nature in the same way that good cups and bowls are to be got out of a block of willow wood, namely, by care in fashioning them. Improper workmanship would produce bad results; good workmanship, on the other hand, would produce good results. In plain words, the nature of man at birth is neither good nor bad; and what it becomes afterwards depends entirely upon what influences have been brought to bear and in what surroundings it has come to maturity. Mencius met this argument by showing that in the process of extracting cups and bowls from a block of wood, the wood as a block is destroyed, and he pointed out that, according to such reasoning, man's nature would also be destroyed in the process of getting righteousness out of it.

Again, Kao maintained that man's nature has as little concern with good or evil as water has with east or west; for water will flow indifferently either one way or the other, according to the conditions in each case. If there is freedom on the east, it will flow east; if there is freedom on the west, it will flow west; and so with human nature, which will move similarly in the direction of either good or evil. In reply, Mencius freely admitted that water would flow either east or west; but he asked if it would flow indifferently up or down. He then declared that the bent of human nature towards good is precisely like the tendency of water to flow down and not up. You can force water to jump up, he said, by striking it, and by mechanical appliances you can make it flow to the top of a hill; but what you do in such cases is entirely contrary to the nature of water, and is merely the result of violence, such violence, in fact, as is brought into play when man's nature is bent towards evil.

"That which men get at birth," said Kao, "is their nature," implying that all natures were the same, just as the whiteness of a white feather is the same as the whiteness of white snow; whereupon Mencius showed that on this principle the nature of a dog would be the same as that of a an ox, or the nature of an ox the same as that of a man. Finally, Mencius declared that for whatever evil men may commit, their natures can in nowise be blamed. In prosperous times, he argued, men are mostly good, whereas in times of scarcity the opposite is the case; these two conditions, however, are not to be charged against the natures with which God sent them into the world, but against the circumstances in which the individuals in question have been situated.

The question, however, of man's original nature was not set permanently at rest by the arguments of Mencius. A philosopher, named Hsun Tzu (Sheundza), who flourished not very much later than Mencius, came forward with the theory that so far from being good according to Confucius, or even neutral according to Kao, the nature of man at birth is positively evil. He supports this view by the following arguments. From his earliest years, man is actuated by a love of gain for his own personal enjoyment. His conduct is distinguished by selfishness and combativeness. He becomes a slave to envy, hatred, and other passions. The restraint of law, and the influence and guidance of teachers, are absolutely necessary to good government and the well-being of social life. Just as wood must be subjected to pressure in order to make it straight, and metal must be subjected to the grindstone in order to make it sharp, so must the nature of man be subjected to training and education in order to obtain from it the virtues of justice and self-sacrifice which characterize the best of the human race. It is impossible to maintain that man's nature is good in the same sense that his eyes see and his ears hear; for in the latter there is no alternative. An eye which does not see, is not an eye; an ear which does not hear, is not an ear. This proves that whereas seeing and hearing are natural to man, goodness is artificial and acquired. Just as a potter produces a dish or a carpenter a bench, working on some material before them, so do the sages and teachers of mankind produce righteousness by working upon the nature of man, which they transform in the same way that the potter transforms the clay or the carpenter the wood. We cannot believe that God has favourites, and deals unkindly with others. How, then, is it that some men are evil while others are good? The answer is, that the former follow their natural disposition, while the latter submit to restraints and follow the guidance of their teachers. It is indeed true that any one may become a hero, but all men do not necessarily become heroes, nor is there any method by which they can be forced to do so. If a man is endowed with a capacity for improvement, and is placed in the hands of good teachers, associating at the same time with friends whose actions display such virtues as self-sacrifice, truth, kindness, and so forth, he will naturally imbibe principles which will raise him to the same standard; whereas, if he consorts with evil livers, he will be a daily witness of deceit, corruption, and general impurity of conduct, and will gradually lapse into the same course of life. If you do not know your son, says the proverb, look at his friends.

The next step was taken by the philosopher Yang Hsiung (Sheeyoong), 53 B.C. to A.D. 18. He started a theory which occupies a middle place between the last two theories discussed above, teaching that the nature of man at birth is neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but a mixture of both, and that development in either direction depends altogether on environment. A compromise in matters of faith is not nearly so picturesque as an extreme, and Yang's attempted solution has attracted but scant attention, though always mentioned with respect. The same may also be said of another attempt to smooth obvious difficulties in the way of accepting either of the two extremes or the middle course proposed by Yang Hsiung. The famous Han Yu, to be mentioned again shortly, was a pillar and prop of Confucianism. He flourished between A.D. 768 and 824, and performed such lasting services in what was to him the cause of truth, that his tablet has been placed in the Confucian temple, an honour reserved only for those whose orthodoxy is beyond suspicion. Yet he ventured upon an attempt to modify this important dogma, taking care all the time to appear as if he were criticizing Mencius rather than Confucius, on whom, of course, the real responsibility rests. He declared, solely upon his own authority, that the nature of man is not uniform but divided into three grades—namely, highest, middle, and lowest. Thus, natures of the highest grade are good, wholly good, and nothing but good; natures of the lowest grade are evil, wholly evil, and nothing but evil; while natures of the middle grade may, under right direction, rise to the highest grade, or, under wrong direction, sink to the lowest.

Another question, much debated in the age of Mencius, arose out of the rival statements of two almost contemporary philosophers, Mo Ti (Maw Tee) and Yang Chu. The former taught a system of mutual and consequently universal love as a cure for all the ills arising from misgovernment and want of social harmony. He pointed out, with much truth, that if the feudal states would leave one another alone, families cease to quarrel, and thieves cease to steal, while sovereign and subject lived on terms of benevolence and loyalty, and fathers and sons on terms of kindness and filial piety—then indeed the empire would be well governed. But beyond suggesting the influence of teachers in the prohibition of hatred and the encouragement of mutual love, our philosopher does little or nothing to aid us in reaching such a desirable consummation.

The doctrine of Yang Chu is summed up as "every man for himself," and is therefore diametrically opposed to that of Mo Ti. A questioner one day asked him if he would consent to part with a single hair in order to benefit the whole world. Yang Chu replied that a single hair could be of no possible benefit to the world; and on being further pressed to say what he would do if a hair were really of such benefit, it is stated that he gave no answer. On the strength of this story, Mencius said: "Yang's principle was, every man for himself. Though by plucking out a single hair he might have benefited the whole world, he would not have done so. Mo's system was universal love. If by taking off every hair from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he could have benefited the empire, he would have done so. Neither of these two doctrines is sound; a middle course is the right one."

The origin of the visible universe is a question on which Chinese philosophers have very naturally been led to speculate. Legend provides us with a weird being named P'an Ku, who came into existence, no one can quite say how, endowed with perfect knowledge, his function being to set the gradually developing universe in order. He is often represented pictorially with a huge adze in his hand, and engaged in constructing the world out of the matter which has just begun to take shape. With his death the detailed part of creation appeared. His breath became the wind; his voice, the thunder; his left eye, the sun; his right eye, the moon; his blood yielded rivers; his hair grew into trees and plants; his flesh became the soil; his sweat descended as rain; and the parasites which infested his body were the forerunners of the human race. This sort of stuff, however, could only appeal to the illiterate; for intellectual and educated persons something more was required. And so it came about that a system, based originally upon the quite incomprehensible Book of Changes, generally regarded as the oldest portion of the Confucian Canon, was gradually elaborated and brought to a finite state during the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era. According to this system, there was a time, almost beyond the reach of expression in figures, when nothing at all existed. In the period which followed, there came into existence, spontaneously, a principle, which after another lapse of time resolved itself into two principles with entirely opposite characteristics. One of these principles represented light, heat, masculinity, and similar phenomena classed as positive; the other represented darkness, cold, femininity, and other phenomena classed as negative. The interaction of these two principles in duly adjusted proportions produced the five elements, earth, fire, water, wood, and metal; and with their assistance all Nature as we see it around us was easily and rapidly developed. Such is the Confucian theory, at any rate so called, for it cannot be shown that Confucius ever entertained these notions, and his alleged connexion with the Canon of Changes is itself of doubtful authenticity.

Chuang Tzu (Chwongdza), a philosopher of the third and fourth centuries B.C., who was not only a mystic but also a moralist and a social reformer, has something to say on the subject: "If there is existence, there must have been non-existence. And if there was a time when nothing existed, then there must have been a time before that, when even nothing did not exist. Then when nothing came into existence, could one really say whether it belonged to existence or non-existence?"

"Nothing" was rather a favourite term with Chuang Tzu for the exercise of his wit. Light asked Nothing, saying: "Do you, sir, exist, or do you not exist?" But getting no answer to his question, Light set to work to watch for the appearance of Nothing. Hidden, vacuous—all day long he looked but could not see it, listened but could not hear it, grasped at but could not seize it. "Bravo!" cried Light; "who can equal this? I can get to be nothing [meaning darkness], but I can't get to be not nothing."

Confucius would have nothing to say on the subject of death and a future state; his theme was consistently this life and its obligations, and he regarded speculation on the unknown as sheer waste of time. When one of three friends died and Confucius sent a disciple to condole with the other two, the disciple found them sitting by the side of the corpse, merrily singing and playing on the lute. They professed the then comparatively new faith which taught that life was a dream and death the awakening. They believed that at death the pure man "mounts to heaven, and roaming through the clouds, passes beyond the limits of space, oblivious of existence, for ever and ever without end." When the shocked disciple reported what he had seen, Confucius said, "These men travel beyond the rule of life; I travel within it. Consequently, our paths do not meet; and I was wrong in sending you to mourn. They look on life as a huge tumour from which death sets them free. All the same they know not where they were before birth, nor where they will be after death. They ignore their passions. They take no account of their ears and eyes. Backwards and forwards through all eternity, they do not admit a beginning or an end. They stroll beyond the dust and dirt of mortality, to wander in the realms of inaction. How should such men trouble themselves with the conventionalities of this world, or care what people may think of them?"

Life comes, says Chuang Tzu, and cannot be declined; it goes, and cannot be stopped. But alas, the world thinks that to nourish the physical frame is enough to preserve life. Although not enough, it must still be done; this cannot be neglected. For if one is to neglect the physical frame, better far to retire at once from the world, since by renouncing the world one gets rid of the cares of the world. There is, however, the vitality which informs the physical frame; that must be equally an object of incessant care. Then he whose physical frame is perfect and whose vitality remains in its original purity—he is one with God. Man passes through this sublunary life as a sunbeam passes through a crack; here one moment, and gone the next. Neither are there any not equally subject to the ingress and egress of mortality. One modification brings life; then comes another, and there is death. Living creatures cry out; human beings feel sorrow. The bow-case is slipped off; the clothes'-bag is dropped; and in the confusion the soul wings its flight, and the body follows, on the great journey home.

Attention has already been drawn to this necessary cultivation of the physical frame, and Chuan Tzu gives an instance of the extent to which it was carried. There was a certain man whose nose was covered with a very hard scab, which was at the same time no thicker than a fly's wing. He sent for a stonemason to chip it off; and the latter plied his adze with great dexterity while the patient sat absolutely rigid, without moving a muscle, and let him chip. When the scab was all off, the nose was found to be quite uninjured. Such skill was of course soon noised abroad, and a feudal prince, who also had a scab on his nose, sent for the mason to take it off. The mason, however, declined to try, alleging that the success did not depend so much upon the skill of the operator as upon the mental control of the patient by which the physical frame became as it were a perfectly inanimate object.

Contemporary with Chuang Tzu, but of a very different school of thought, was the philosopher Hui Tzu (Hooeydza). He was particularly fond of the quibbles which so delighted the sophists or unsound reasoners of ancient Greece. Chuang Tzu admits that he was a man of many ideas, and that his works would fill five carts—this, it must be remembered, because they were written on slips of wood tied together by a string run through eyelets. But he adds that Hui Tzu's doctrines are paradoxical, and his terms used ambiguously. Hui Tzu argued, for instance, that such abstractions as hardness and whiteness were separate existences, of which the mind could only be conscious separately, one at a time. He declared that there are feathers in a new-laid egg, because they ultimately appear on the chick. He maintained that fire is not hot; it is the man who feels hot. That the eye does not see; it is the man who sees. That compasses will not make a circle; it is the man. That a bay horse and a dun cow are three; because taken separately they are two, and taken together they are one: two and one make three. That a motherless colt never had a mother; when it had a mother, it was not motherless. That if you take a stick a foot long and every day cut it in half, you will never come to the end of it.

Of what use, asked his great rival, is Hui Tzu to the world? His efforts can only be compared with those of a gadfly or a mosquito. He makes a noise to drown an echo. He is like a man running a race with his own shadow.

When Chuang Tzu was about to die, his disciples expressed a wish to give him a splendid funeral. But Chuang Tzu said: "With heaven and earth for my coffin and my shell; with the sun, moon and stars as my burial regalia; and with all creation to escort me to my grave,—are not my funeral paraphernalia ready to hand?" "We fear," argued the disciples, "lest the carrion kite should eat the body of our Master;" to which Chuang Tzu replied: "Above ground I shall be food for kites; below ground for mole-crickets and ants. Why rob one to feed the other?"

Life in China is not wholly made up of book-learning and commerce. The earliest Chinese records exhibit the people as following the chase in the wake of the great nobles, more as a sport than as the serious business it must have been in still more remote ages; and the first emperors of the present dynasty were also notable sportsmen, who organized periodical hunting-tours on a scale of considerable magnificence.

Hawking was practised at least so far back as a century before Christ; for we have a note on a man of that period who "loved to gallop after wily animals with horse and dog, or follow up with falcon the pheasant and the hare." The sport may be seen in northern China at the present day. A hare is put up, and a couple of native greyhounds are dispatched after it; these animals, however, would soon be distanced by the hare, which can run straight away from them without doubling, but for the sudden descent of the falcon, and a blow from its claw, often stunning the hare at the first attempt, and enabling the dogs to come up.

Sportsmen who have to make their living by the business frequently descend to methods which are sometimes very ingenious, and more remunerative than the gun, but can hardly be classified as sport. Thus, a man in search of wild duck will mark down a flock settled on some shallow sheet of water. He will then put a crate over his head and shoulders, and gradually approach the flock as though the crate were drifting on the surface. Once among them, he puts out a hand under water, seizes hold of a duck's legs, and rapidly pulls the bird down. The sudden disappearance of a colleague does not seem to trouble its companions, and in a short time a very considerable bag has been obtained. Tradition says that Confucius was fond of sport, but would never let fly at birds sitting; which, considering that his weapon was a bow-and-arrow, must be set down as a marvel of self-restraint.

Scores of Chinese poets have dwelt upon the joys of angling, and fishing is widely carried on over the inland waters; but the rod, except as a matter of pure sport, has given place to the businesslike net. The account of the use of fishing cormorants was formerly regarded as a traveller's tale. It is quite true, however, that small rafts carrying several of these birds, with a fisherman gently sculling at the stern, may be seen on the rivers of southern China. The cormorant seizes a passing fish, and the fisherman takes the fish from its beak. The bird is trained with a ring round its neck, which prevents it from swallowing the prey; while for each capture it is rewarded with a small piece of fish. Well-trained cormorants can be trusted to fish without the restraint of the ring. Confucius, again, is said to have been fond of fishing, but he would not use a net; and there was another sage of antiquity who would not even use a hook, but fished with a straight piece of iron, apparently thinking that the advantage would be an unfair one as against the resources of the fish; and declaring openly that he would only take such fish as wished to be caught. By such simple narratives do the Chinese strive to convey great truths to childish ears.

Many sports were once common in China which have long since passed out of the national life, and exist only in the record of books. Among these may be mentioned "butting," a very ancient pastime, mentioned in history two centuries before the Christian era. The sport consisted in putting an ox-skin, horns and all, over the head, and then trying to knock one's adversary out of time by butting at him after the fashion of bulls, the result being, as the history of a thousand years later tells us, "smashed heads, broken arms, and blood running in the Palace yard."

The art of boxing, which included wrestling, had been practised by the Chinese several centuries before butting was introduced. Its most accomplished exponents were subsequently found among the priests of a Buddhist monastery, built about A.D. 500; and it was undoubtedly from their successors that the Japanese acquired a knowledge of the modern jiu-jitsu, which is simply the equivalent of the old Chinese term meaning "gentle art." A few words from a chapter on "boxing" in a military work of the sixteenth century will give some idea of the scope of the Chinese sport.

"The body must be quick to move, the hands quick to take advantage, and the legs lightly planted but firm, so as to advance or retire with effect. In the flying leap of the leg lies the skill of the art; in turning the adversary upside down lies its ferocity; in planting a straight blow with the fist lies its rapidity; and in deftly holding the adversary face upwards lies its gentleness."

Football was played in China at a very early date; originally, with a ball stuffed full of hair; from the fifth century A.D., with an inflated bladder covered with leather. A picture of the goal, which is something like a triumphal arch, has come down to us, and also the technical names and positions of the players; even more than seventy kinds of kicks are enumerated, but the actual rules of the game are not known. It is recorded by one writer that "the winners were rewarded with flowers, fruit and wine, and even with silver bowls and brocades, while the captain of the losing team was flogged, and suffered other indignities." The game, which had disappeared for some centuries, is now being revived in Chinese schools and colleges under the control of foreigners, and finds great favour with the rising generation.

Polo is first mentioned in Chinese literature under the year A.D. 710, the reference being to a game played before the Emperor and his court. The game was very much in vogue for a long period, and even women were taught to play—on donkey-back. The Kitan Tartars were the most skilful players; it is doubtful if the game originated with them, or if it was introduced from Persia, with which country China had relations at a very early date. A statesman of the tenth century, disgusted at the way in which the Emperor played polo to excess, presented a long memorial, urging his Majesty to discontinue the practice. The reasons given for this advice were three in number. "(1) When sovereign and subject play together, there must be contention. If the sovereign wins, the subject is ashamed; if the former loses, the latter exults. (2) To jump on a horse and swing a mallet, galloping here and there, with no distinctions of rank, but only eager to be first and win, is destructive of all ceremony between sovereign and subject. (3) To make light of the responsibilities of empire, and run even the remotest risk of an accident, is to disregard obligations to the state and to her Imperial Majesty the Empress."

It has always been recognized that the chief duty of a statesman is to advise his master without fear or favour, and to protest loudly and openly against any course which is likely to be disadvantageous to the commonwealth, or to bring discredit on the court. It has also been always understood that such protests are made entirely at the risk of the statesman in question, who must be prepared to pay with his head for counsels which may be stigmatized as unpatriotic, though in reality they may be nothing more than unpalatable at the moment.

In the year A.D. 814 the Emperor, who had become a devout Buddhist, made arrangements for receiving with extravagant honours a bone of Buddha, which had been forwarded from India to be preserved as a relic. This was too much for Han Yu (already mentioned), the leading statesman of the day, who was a man of the people, raised by his own genius, and who, to make things worse, had already been banished eleven years previously for presenting an offensive Memorial on the subject of tax-collection, for which he had been forgiven and recalled. He promptly sent in a respectful but bitter denunciation of Buddha and all his works, and entreated his Majesty not to stain the Confucian purity of thought by tolerating such a degrading exhibition as that proposed. But for the intercession of friends, the answer to this bold memorial would have been death; as it was he was banished to the neighbourhood of the modern Swatow, then a wild and barbarous region, hardly incorporated into the Empire. There he set himself to civilize the rude inhabitants, until soon recalled and once more reinstated in office; and to this day there is a shrine dedicated to his memory, containing the following inscription: "Wherever he passed, he purified."

Another great statesman, who flourished over two hundred years later, and also several times suffered banishment, in an inscription to the honour and glory of his predecessor, put down the following words: "Truth began to be obscured and literature to fade; supernatural religions sprang up on all sides, and many eminent scholars failed to oppose their advance, until Han Yu, the cotton-clothed, arose and blasted them with his derisive sneer."

Since the fourteenth century there has existed a definite organization, known as the Censorate, the members of which, who are called the "ears and eyes" of the sovereign, make it their business to report adversely upon any course adopted by the Government in the name of the Emperor, or by any individual statesman, which seems to call for disapproval. The reproving Censor is nominally entitled to complete immunity from punishment; but in practice he knows that he cannot count too much upon either justice or mercy. If he concludes that his words will be unforgivable, he hands in his memorial, and draws public attention forthwith by committing suicide on the spot.

To be allowed to commit suicide, and not to suffer the indignity of a public execution, is a privilege sometimes extended to a high official whose life has become forfeit under circumstances which do not call for special degradation. A silken cord is forwarded from the Emperor to the official in question, who at once puts an end to his life, though not necessarily by strangulation. He may take poison, as is usually the case, and this is called "swallowing gold." For a long time it was believed that Chinese high officials really did swallow gold, which in view of its non-poisonous character gave rise to an idea that gold-leaf was employed, the leaf being inhaled and so causing suffocation. Some simple folk, Chinese as well as foreigners, believe this now, although native authorities have pointed out that workmen employed in the extraction of gold often steal pieces and swallow them, without any serious consequences whatever. Another explanation, which has also the advantage of being the true one, is that "swallowing gold" is one of the roundabout phrases in which the Chinese delight to express painful or repulsive subjects. No emperor ever "dies," he becomes "a guest on high." No son will say that his parents are "dead;" but merely that "they are not." The death of an official is expressed by "he is drawing no salary;" of an ordinary man it may be said that "he has become an ancient," very much in the same way that we say "he has joined the majority." A corpse in a coffin is in its "long home;" when buried, it is in "the city of old age," or on "the terrace of night." To say grossly, then, that a man took poison would be an offence to ears polite.



CHAPTER VIII—RECREATION

To return, after a long digression. The age of manly sport, as above described, has long passed away; and the only hope is for a revival under the changing conditions of modern China. Some few athletic exercises have survived; and until recently, archery, in which the Tartars have always excelled, was regarded almost as a semi-divine accomplishment. Kite-flying has reached a high level of skill. Clever little "messengers" have been devised, which run up the string, carrying fire-crackers which explode at a great height. There is a game of shuttlecock, without the battledore, for which the feet are used as a substitute; and "diavolo," recently introduced into Europe, is an ancient Chinese pastime. A few Manchus, too, may be seen skating during the long northern winter, but the modern inhabitant of the Flowery Land, be he Manchu or Chinese, much prefers an indoor game to anything else, especially when, as is universally the case, a stake of money is involved.

Gambling is indeed a very marked feature of Chinese life. A child buying a cake will often go double or quits with the stall-keeper, to see if he is to have two cakes or nothing, the question being settled by a throw of dice in a bowl. Of the interval allowed for meals, a gang of coolies will devote a portion to a game of cards. The cards used are smaller than the European pack, and of course differently marked; they were the invention of a lady of the Palace in the tenth century, who substituted imitation leaves of gilt paper for real leaves, which had previously been adopted for playing some kind of game. There are also various games played with chequers, some of great antiquity; and there is chess, that is to say, a game so little differing from our chess as to leave no doubt as to the common origin of both. In all of these the money element comes in; and it is not too much to say that more homes are broken up, and more misery caused by this truly national vice than can be attributed to any other cause.

For pleasure pure and simple, independent of gains and losses, the theatre occupies the warmest place in every Chinaman's heart. If gambling is a national vice in China, the drama must be set off as the national recreation. Life would be unthinkable to the vast majority if its monotony were not broken by the periodical performance of stage-plays. It is from this source that a certain familiarity with the great historical episodes of the past may be pleasantly picked up over a pipe and a cup of tea; while the farce, occasionally perhaps erring on the side of breadth, affords plenty of merriment to the laughter-loving crowd.

Ability to make Chinamen laugh is a great asset; and a foreigner who carries this about with him will find it stand him in much better stead than a revolver. When, many years ago, a vessel was wrecked on the coast of Formosa, the crew and passengers were at once seized, and confined for some time in a building, where traces of their inscriptions could be seen up to quite a recent date. At length, they were all taken out for execution; but before the ghastly order was carried out, one of the number so amused everybody by cutting capers and turning head over heels, that the presiding mandarin said he was a funny fellow, and positively allowed him to escape.

With regard to the farce itself, it is not so much the actual wit of the dialogue which carries away the audience as the refined skill of the actor, who has to pass through many trials before he is considered to be fit for the stage. Beginning as quite a boy, in addition to committing to memory a large number of plays—not merely his own part, but the whole play—he has to undergo a severe physical training, part of which consists in standing for an hour every day with his mouth wide open, to inhale the morning air. He is taught to sing, to walk, to strut, and to perform a variety of gymnastic exercises, such as standing on his head, or turning somersaults. His first classification is as male or female actor, no women having been allowed to perform since the days of the Emperor Ch'ien Lung (A.D. 1736-1796), whose mother was an actress, just as in Shakespeare's time the parts for women were always taken by young men or boys. When once this is settled, it only remains to enrol him as tragedian, comedian, low-comedy actor, walking gentleman or lady, and similar parts, according to his capabilities.

It is not too much to say that women are very little missed on the Chinese stage. The make-up of the actor is so perfect, and his imitation of the feminine voice and manner, down to the smallest detail, even to the small feet, is so exact in every point, that he would be a clever observer who could positively detect impersonation by a man.

Generally speaking, a Chinese actor has many more difficulties to face than his colleague in the West. In addition to the expression of all shades of feeling, from mirth to melancholy, the former has to keep up a perpetual make-believe in another sense, which is further great strain upon his nerves. There being no scenery, no furniture, and no appointments of any except the slenderest kind upon the stage, he has to create in the minds of his audience a belief that all these missing accessories are nevertheless before their eyes. A general comes upon the scene, with a whip in his hand, and a studied movement not only suggests that he is dismounting from a horse, but outlines the animal itself. In the same manner, he remounts and rides off again; while some other actor speaks from the top of a small table, which is forthwith transfigured, and becomes to all intents and purposes a castle.

Many of those who might be apt to smile at the simple Chinese mind which can tolerate such absurdities in the way of make-believe, require to be reminded that the stage in the days of Queen Elizabeth was worked on very much the same lines. Sir Philip Sidney tells us that the scene of an imagined garden with imagined flowers had to do duty at one time for an imagined shipwreck, and at another for an imagined battlefield, the spectator in the latter case being helped out by two opposing soldiers armed with swords and bucklers. Even Shakespeare, in the Prologue to his play of Henry V, speaks of imagining one man to be an army of a thousand, and says:—

Think, when we talk of horses that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth; For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings.

Here, then, is good authority for the quaint system that still prevails in China.

Hundreds of Chinese pilgrims annually went their weary way to the top of Mount Omi in the province of Ssuch'uan, and gaze downward from a sheer and lofty precipice to view a huge circular belt of light, which is called the Glory of Buddha. Some see it, some do not; the Chinese say that the whole thing is a question of faith. In a somewhat similar sense, the dramatic enthusiast sees before him such beings of the mind as the genuine actor is able to call up. The Philistine cannot reach this pitch; but he is sharp enough to see other things which to the eye of the sympathetic spectator are absolutely non-existent. Some of the latter will be enumerated below.

The Chinese stage has no curtain; and the orchestra is on the stage itself, behind the actors. There is no prompter and no call-boy. Stage footmen wait at the sides to carry in screens, small tables, and an odd chair or two, to represent houses, city walls, and so on, or hand cups of tea to the actors when their throats become dry from vociferous singing, which is always in falsetto. All this in the face of the audience. Dead people get up and walk off the stage; or while lying dead, contrive to alter their facial expression, and then get up and carry themselves off. There is no interval between one play and the next following, which probably gives rise to the erroneous belief that Chinese plays are long, the fact being that they are very short. According to the Penal Code, there may be no impersonation of emperors and empresses of past ages, but this clause is now held to refer solely to the present dynasty.

For the man in the street and his children, there are to be seen everywhere in China where a sufficient number of people gather together, Punch-and-Judy shows of quite a high class in point of skill and general attractiveness. These shows are variously traced back to the eighth and second centuries B.C., and to the seventh century A.D., even the latest of which periods would considerably antedate the appearance of performing marionettes in this country or on the Continent. Associated with the second century B.C., the story runs that the Emperor of the day was closely besieged by a terrible Hun chieftain, who was accompanied by his wife. It occurred to one of his Majesty's staff to exhibit on the walls of the town, in full view of the enemy, a number of manikins, dressed up to a deceptive resemblance to beautiful girls. The wife of the Hun chieftain then persuaded her husband to draw off his forces, and the Emperor escaped.

By the Chinese marionettes, little plays on familiar subjects are performed; many are of a more serious turn than the loves of Mr. Punch, while others again are of the knock-about style so dear to the ordinary boy and girl. Besides such entertainments as these, the streets of a Chinese city offer other shows to those who desire to be amused. An acrobat, a rope-dancer or a conjurer will take up a pitch right in the middle of the roadway, and the traffic has to get on as best it can. A theatrical stage will sometimes completely block a street, and even foot-passengers will have to find their way round. There is also the public story-reader, who for his own sake will choose a convenient spot near to some busy thoroughfare; and there, to an assembled crowd, he will read out, not in the difficult book-language, but in the colloquial dialect of the place, stories of war and heroism, soldiers led to night-attacks with wooden bits in their mouths to prevent them from talking in the ranks, the victory of the loyal and the rout and slaughter of the rebel. Or it may be a tale of giants, goblins and wizards; the bewitching of promising young men by lovely maidens who turn out to be really foxes in disguise, ending as usual in the triumph of virtue and the discomfiture of vice. The fixed eyes and open mouths of the crowd, listening with rapt attention, is a sight which, once seen, is not easily forgotten.