The real Chinaman

Front matter

HANDBOUND AT THE

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THE

Preface

The average of mankind resembles too closely that pleasant old lady who lived alone, miles from a neighbor, in one of the more remote nooks of the Green Mountains. A stranger stopped at her gate one summer day for a glass of water. Upon being told, in answer to her question, that he lived in Boston, she exclaimed : " Dear me ! How lonesome you must be away off there !" Boston was a lonely spot in her conception ; but the very centre of the universe was framed within the weatherbeaten walls of her cottage.

Like her, we are inclined to measure all people by a yardstick of our own construction, the model for which is found in ourselves. Others are right or wrong, wise or unwise, according as they copy or depart from the fashion which we have arbitrarily set up, the ideal formed within the essentially narrow limits of our personal surroundings.

We smile at and perhaps ridicule the unthinking, automatic regularity with which millions of Chinese drop their winter garb for that of summer, or the reverse, upon a day fixed by the will of one man. Yet how does this act differ in wisdom from that other procedure under which millions of the most cultivated and refined ladies of America and vi ii PREFACE.

Europe copy blindly monstrosities in dress or costume at the freaky dictation of an impersonality called Fashion ? And if there is a difference in the two rules of conduct, upon which side does the greater wisdom lie ? Look at the grotesque outlines and shapes of deformity which have supplanted the graceful contour of the natural woman, and then decide which is wiser, or, if you please, less unwise, for a nation to accept the dictum of one man upon the time when the climate requires a change of garb, or for half the population of two continents, in defiance of their individual taste and good sense, to adopt a whim in dress which may have originated in the slums of Paris or London ?

There is need of more genuine knowledge and less narrow-minded judgment. It would, doubtless, be well if we could see ourselves as others see us. But it would be much better if we could see both others and ourselves from a higher and hence more accurate plane of sight, if we could measure men not by ourselves, but by an ideal, a standard man. A greater breadth of vision would serve a more valuable purpose than to increase the accuracy and intelligence of our conceptions. It would make charity more common, patience easier, and belief in the essential unity and nobility of humankind the rule rather than, what it now is, the exception.

It is far easier to criticise the Chinese than to understand them. The points of contact are too few and too recent. Our information is based largely upon fancy instead of fact, and misinterpretation of them and their ways is the easy and inevitable result. Yet they are emphatically a race

PREFACE. XX

worthy of serious study. As real life is far more fascinating than any work of fiction, so is the genuine Son of Han, with his fixed and crystallized peculiarities, immensely more interesting to the honest student than the caricatured Chinaman, with whom alone the average public is familiar.

This volume is neither a defence, apology, criticism, nor panegyric. It is rather an explanation. It attempts to give a few of the results of many years of residence among the Chinese, in the course of which the author wras brought into close and familiar relations with all classes of the people in nearly every section of the empire. In it an effort is made to describe and explain some of the more prominent factors in the national life, and to show why some of their ways, so odd to us, are natural to them. Facts are dealt with rather than opinions. The book represents an effort to outline with a few broad sweeps of the pen the Chinaman as he is.

The numerous incidents scattered through the volume are inserted with a view to make the picture more lifelike, interesting, and intelligible. Each one represents an actual occurrence, free of coloring or exaggeration. Were it necessary, the place and date of each, with the names of the persons concerned in it, could be given. In the same way, the illustrations are sun pictures, owing nothing to art save the skill and fidelity with which they have been transferred, unchanged even in minute details, to these pages.

Intertwisted with the faults and foibles of the Chinese are many sterling virtues and admirable

traits of character. They combine the fixedness of age with the persistence of youth. They change slowly. Yet it seems impossible that any one should come to know them well without reaching the conviction that there is a great future before the nation, and that China has yet an important part to play in the history of the world.

Chester Holcombe.

New York, January i, 1895.

■*5?

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

A High Chinese Official in Evening Dress. . . ... .Frontispiece

Imperial Dragon v

Buddhist Devil v

Pagoda at Pa Li Chuang vii

Ornamental Street Archway in Peking x

Stone Gateway xi

Dragons Supporting the Globe xiii

Ornamental Fan Design xx

Dragon Design i

A Gate of Peking 13

Mounted Chinese Official 20

Li Hung Chang 25

Bronze Open Work 28

Chinese Flag . 29

Entrance to the Palace 32

View of Peking 37

Chinese River Scene 44

Post Marking Land Boundary 49

A Lock on the Grand Canal 51

Souvenir Fan 58

Bridge in Summer Palace 72 xi i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Buddhist Female Idol 73

Group of Children 75

Street Scene in Peking 81

Wall About Peking 89

Entrance Hall to Imperial Tombs 92

Jinricksha 93

Carriage of Chinese Official 95

Front of Official Residence , 101

Chinese Dragon (Moulded in Porcelain) 111

Sedan Chair 115

Incense Urn 116

Oven for Burning Paper, Confucian Temple, Peking 122

Buddhist Priest Trampling Satan Under Foot 133

Goddess of Mercy 137

Chinese Wedding Chair 143

Chinese Head of Pillar 144

Tomb of the Emperor Yung Lo, Died a.d. 1425 147

Pagoda at Yii Chuan Shan 155

Chinese Catafalque 163

Dragons 1 70

Head of Buddhist Devotee 171

Peddling Fruit 172

Group of Children 175

Chinese Barber 179

Bit of Great Wall * 191

Flag Standards 1 92

Entrance to Imperial Cemetery 194

Approach to Ming Tombs 195

Bridge on the Grand Canal 199

Street Barrier 213

Ornament Pillar 214

The Great Wall . 217

Chinese Beggar 226

Mongol Winter Encampment 231

Top of Pagoda * 237

Village on Grand Canal near Peking 241

A Chinese Student 252

Chinese Pony and Groom 257

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xin

PAGE

Gateway 260

Bronze Lion 261

Chinese Passenger Boat 265

The Donkey 275

Chinese Mule Litter 281

Dragons Reaching for the Sun 285

Archway 286

Chinese Jinricksha 289

Chinese Servants 303

Junk 309

Dragon 310

Group of Chinese Workmen 317

Mender of Tubs 321

Chinese Passenger Cart 325

Dragon 330

Antique Chinese Cash 337

Peking-Bank Notes 345

" No Thoroughfare" 350

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS.

Chapter I

Recent acquaintance of China with Western nations, 1. Date of first treaty, 2. Contrast between the Oriental and Occidental world, 2. Chinese seclusion, 3. Ignorance regarding foreigners, 4. The Chinese Empire and surrounding kingdoms, 5. Position of Japan, 6. The so-called suzerainty of China, 8. Exact nature of relationship, 9. The opium war, 10. Mutual misunderstanding inevitable, 14. Contrast between China and Japan, 17. Discrimination against China and its results, 18. Students at Annapolis and West Point, 19. Prince Kung, 22. Li Hung Chang, 24. No real opposition to the reigning family among Chinese, 28.

Chapter II

Peculiarities of the governmental system, 3.1. Its antiquity, 31. Satisfies the people, 32. It is pure paternalism, 33. Filial obedience and parental responsibility enforcer! by law. is. ~1 he family the unit of government, 36. The Emperor, 36. Laws are comparatively mild and humane, 40. Rewards and penalties, 41. Two theories regarding the system, 42. Filial piety, 43. Influence of Confucius, 45. Officials chosen from among the people, 45. Similarity between Chinese form of choosing officers and that followed in the United States, 47.

Chapter III

Its antiquity, 49. Immense but uncertain number of characters, 50. Mode of writing and printing, 51. Characters were originally outlines of objects which they represented, 54. Modes of combination illustrated, 55. Idiomatic constructions, 56. Grammar of Chinese, 57. Chinese efforts to learn English, 5S. Words lacking in the language, 60. Difficulties of pronunciation, 62. Sounds cannot be represented by any alphabet, 63. Aspirated and unaspirated consonants, 64. Tone has equal part with sound in determining the meaning, 65. Four tones recognized in standard Chinese, 67. Amusing blunders, 69. Local dialects, 70. Pidgin English, 71.

CHAPTER IV. Chinese Home Life 73-92

Does not begin with marriage, 73. Lot of young married women, 74. Motherhood a badge of honor, 75. Polygamy allowed, but monogamy the rule, 77. Influence of women, 7S. Ties of locality, So. Chinese not natural' colonists, 83. Ancestral worship, 86. Filial obedience, S9. Coffins presented to parents, go.

CHAPTER V. Chinese Social Life 93-115

Little time given to recreation, 93. An overworked Chinesestatesman, 93. Peculiar model of Oriental society, 97. Husband and wife may not ride in the same vehicle, 99. Chinese students in America, 100. Social amusements of Chinese ladies, 102. Women of the poorer classes, 103. Oriental ideas of dignity, 104. Etiquette interferes with social life, 105. Chinese fond of argument, 107. Legend of the fox, 108. Chinese reception-rooms, 109. Dinner-giving between Occidentals and Orientals, no. The servant of the Corean minister, 113.

ANALYSIS OF CONTEXTS. xvn

Chapter VI

Confucius not the founder of a religion, 116. He was a sage, not a devotee, 117. Materialism is the basis of Confucianism, 118. Temple of Heaven, no. Respect for education and literature, 121. Worship of ancestors, 123. What is the practical idea involved, 123. Chinese belief in a future state, 124. Ancestral tablet, 125. All Chinese are Confucianists, 126. Taoism, 126. Its theory and practice, 127. Buddhism, 128. Method of worship, 130. Thibetan archbishop, 131. Living Buddhas, 131. Ideas borrowed from Christianity, 132. Mendicant priests, 135. A pilgrimage to Wu Tai Shan, 139. Chinese Government tolerant, 142. Mohammedans and Jews in China, 143.

Chapter VII

Saturated with superstitious notions, 144. They are separate from religious belief, 145. Feng S/iui, 145. Interfered with burial of an emperor, 149. Chinese astrologers, 152. Methods of placating local spirits, 154. The use of pagodas, 156. Lucky and unlucky days, 157. Prayer at the hole of a fox, 158. Prayers for rain, 159. Ling Shih Hsien, 160. Old trees, 161. Inhumanity as a fruit of superstition, 165. Infanticide, 166. Treatment of young children when ill, 167. Two cases, 168.

Chapter VIII

Peculiarities of Oriental hair, 171. Admiration of the Occidental beard, 172. Symbol of Chinese manhood, 174. How the queue was introduced into China, 174. It is a badge of respectability, 178. Etiquette of the queue, 178. " Tail-cutting," 181. Chinese belief in magic, 182. Official proclamations giving preventives for " tail-cutting, " 183. One genuine case, 184.

Chapter IX

Primitive hall of justice, 192. Antiquity of the judicial system, 193. The Censorate, 193. The Chinese Code, 195. Cases are decided by precedents, 197. Dangerous latitude allowed to magistrates, 198. Efforts to secure confession, 201. Antiquated processes, 202. Scene in a Chinese court, 203. Chinese prisons, 205. Modes of punishment, 206. Forms of death penalty, 207. The white silken cord, 20S. Etiquette of a Chinese court, 209. A fearful case of cruelty, 210.

Chapter X

The Chinaman a philosopher, 214. Official salaries, 216. Illegal and extra-legal fines, 219. Guards against injustice and extortion, 223. Civil-service regulations, 224. Sale of titles and official honors, 225. Power of public opinion, 227. The literati, 227. Dangerous exercise of their power, 229. The Tientsin massacre, 230. Mandarin boots, 233. Interesting case of resistance to oppression, 234-

Chapter XI

Object of study, 237. Chinese ambition, 237. High moral tone of educational works, 238. Narrow limits of system, 243. Description of course of study, 244. Schools and their arrangements, 246. Method of study, 247. High intellectual ability of the Chinese, 24S. The Chinese students in America, 24S. Illiteracy in China, 249. System of government examinations originated 1900 years ago, 250. Proscribed classes, 250. Degrees conferred, 253. Regulations for the examinations, 254,

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS.

Chapter XII

Politeness universal, 261. Etiquette complicated and tedious, 262. Pompous and bombastic titles, 263. Foreign relations vexed by questions of etiquette, 264. The audience question, 267. The etiquette of a cup of tea, 269. Importance of familiarity with Oriental forms, 270. A Mexican saddle and sombrero in China, 271. Tedious formalities evaded, 273. Lies of courtesy, 274. Chinese habit of repression, 277. Quaint custom among Pekingese, 279.

Chapter XIII

Grades of Chinese society, 286. Standing of Chinese merchants, 287. Merchants study their customers, 291. Various prices for various customers, 294. The dicker, 295. No standard of weight or measure, 29S. Exact book-keeping impossible, 300. Co-operative system, 301. The Chinese " squeeze," 301. Chinese servants, 305.

Chapter XIV

Intense poverty of the Chinese masses, 310. Average prices paid for labor, 311. Food of common people, 312. Experiences at Chinese inns, 313. Clothing, 316. The house, 319. The labor problem in China, 320. Economy of the Chinese, 322. Government allows begging, 323. The queen of the beggars of Peking, 327. Incidents, 328.

XX AX A LYSIS OF CONTEXTS.

Chapter XV

The Chinese money unit, 330. Spanish and Mexican dollars, 331. Varying and various ounce weights, 332. Form of silver bullion used, 334. Tests of fineness, 334. Chinese cash. 336. Attempts to tamper with the currency, 339. Doubling cash, 341. Chinese banks, 343. Taxation, 346. Uncertainty regarding total revenue, 347. Taxes payable in kind, 347. Modes of remittance, 348. Needs of reform. 349-

THE REAL CHINAMAN.

Chapter I

The commencement of any mutual acquaintance between China and the Western world dates back only a little more than thirty years.

The first treaties by which China acknowledged the existence of the nations of America and Europe were signed about fifty years ago. Those treaties, however, only served as a preliminary introduction, and lacked such provisions as would enable either of the parties consenting to them to prosecute any friendly intimacy with the other. So long as not more than three or four points upon the Chinese seaboard were thrown open to foreign residence and commerce, while travel in the interior of the empire was prohibited, Peking remained inaccessible to all diplomatic representatives, and our legations were kept on board men-of-war cruising up and down the Chinese coast — so long as such a condition of affairs existed, we of the Western world could learn little about the Chinese, and they could gain no knowledge of us.

Such was the situation from the date on which the first treaty between China and any foreign power was signed — the British treaty, signed at Nanking, August 29th, 1842 — up to the time when, by the treaties of Tientsin, signed in 1861, diplomatic representatives were accorded the right of residence at the capital, and foreigners of all classes were permitted to travel freely throughout the empire.

Then first in the history of humankind two great antipodal worlds of men stood face to face and gazed into each other's eyes. The progressive and aggressive Occidental, quick, eager, and alert, met in the Oriental the very incarnation of conservatism, the embodiment of dignity and repose. Action met inertia. The age of steam, steel, and electricity stood over against the age of Confucius. Let the reader imagine a modern pushing man of business introduced to the Chinese sage, and the two left to become acquainted, and each to gather his impressions of the other, then add to the picture the essential fact that the sage had a positive unwillingness to meet the business man, and he will have a sufficiently accurate idea of the situation.

There was absolutely no common point of meeting, no standing-ground of a mutual advantage mutually recognized. True, we wished to trade with the Chinese. He had shown how much or how little he desired commerce with us by so carefully hedging about and restricting our interchanges with him at Canton — the single point where they had been permitted to go on at all — that it was as though we received his bales of silk and chests of tea lowered to us from the battlements of an impregnable wall, and delivered our Mexican dollars and British opium to him by the returning rope. Recognition of this extremely attenuated line of commercial intercourse, so far as it existed, was in the form of restrictive rather than encouraging regulations.

It was not that China had any peculiar objection to political and trade relations with America and Europe. She desired no enlargement of her acquaintance in any direction. An imperial decree made any Chinese subject forfeit his head to the executioner, as a punishment for having wandered into foreign parts, if he was so indiscreet as to come within reach of that gentleman by a return to his native land. That law still stands unrepealed, though for many years it has never been enforced. The government order, forbidding the construction of any junks or vessels of a greater length than sixty feet, made all other than short coasting voyages both unprofitable and dangerous. With her ports closed to foreign craft, regardless of nationality, and no domestic vessels fit for even moderately long ocean voyages, it is easy to estimate the extent of China's desire to either receive or return visits from strangers. The sole exception to this exclusion was in favor of a limited number of Siamese merchant-vessels, duly registered and furnished with permits to trade between Bangkok and certain Chinese ports. These made their leisure way northward with the summer or

4 THE REAL CIllXAMAA'..

southeastern monsoon, and were blown home again by the northwestern winds of winter, thus making one round voyage each year.

It is unnecessary to the purpose of this volume that the causes which led China to prefer such absolute seclusion should be inquired into and their validity either recognized or denied. That she was totally ignorant of the character and position of Western nations, and necessarily so, is self-evident. It is related that when what is now the German Empire sent commissioners to China to negotiate a treaty, they were refused. On the kindly interference of the British minister, this refusal was withdrawn, the Chinese Government naively remarking that it was informed by the British representative that the Germans were really a respectable people, and that their king was a relative of the Queen of Great Britain. For this reason they decided to negotiate a treaty. In 1870 one of the most prominent officials in Peking, being dispatched to Europe upon a special mission, gave directions that some one hundred and fifty pounds of salt should be packed with his other baggage, as he was accustomed to use it in his food, and he had reason to fear difficulty in obtaining it in the regions to which he was bound." A member of the Imperial Cabinet was once overheard, so recently as 1884, inquiring of an associate whether foreigners had any form of marriage contract, or whether the two sexes lived promiscuously together.

Coupled with this unqualified ignorance were certain absurd and amusing notions concerning the habits and personal appearance of the unfortunate

W TROD UC TOR Y. 5

creatures who lived beyond the reach of the civilizing influences of the Chinese Empire. The interested student in ethnology may find in the bookstores of Peking and other Chinese cities to-day volumes containing descriptive accounts of some of these outside barbarians, with carefully executed representations of them done in water-colors. One type has ears reaching to the earth, another has no legs worthy of mention. The representation of one tribe forces the student to the conclusion that the Chinese must have heard, and with some accuracy, of the gorilla. One race is pictured as having its face as a sort of boss in low relief upon the breast, while another carries its head conveniently located under the left arm. Small wonder that China desired no close acquaintance with people concerning whom she knew so little and imagined so much.

Prior to this disturbance of her seclusion, China had, for many centuries, been the single central figure in a world largely of her own creation and in which she was the final dominant force. She had been the planet, the powerful civilized, cultivated empire, surrounded by its circle of admiring satellite kingdoms. Corea, upon the northeast, the Mongol families on the north, Kashgar and Samarcand upon the west, Thibet in its Himalayan clouds and snows at the southwest, Burmah and Siam at the south, Annam and Cochin China trailing off from her southeastern border, and the little kingdom of Liu Chiu lying like a fringe in the China Sea — these formed a system, a world, of which the Chinese Empire was the centre. They flattered her by that most delicate and subtle of all forms of flattery, imitation. They copied her forms of civilization, to a considerable extent modeled their governmental systems after hers, borrowed her religions, several of them adopted her written language, gained their knowledge of the arts and literature from her, and all of them deferred and appealed to her as final authority and sovereign mistress of the Oriental world. She was arbiter of their disputes, whether domestic or international. She aided them at times to quell insurrection by force of arms. She held herself and was held as the patron and the superior of all.

In this planetary system — to pursue the figure already used — Japan was the erratic and dangerous comet. Probably no other Oriental nation gained such large and practical advantages from China as did Japan. Her knowledge of art, her written language, much of her literature, at least one of her religious systems, were all borrowed from her great continental neighbor. The very names Japan has given to her two great staple products, tea and silk, show that they were introduced from China. Yet she was always the troublesome neighbor, the one disturbing force in the calm of China's recogr nized supremacy. Those who imagine that recent troubles between these two nations are exceptional are mistaken. They are but a modern repetition of the history of the past ten centuries.

Between the nations named, excepting Japan and China, a definite and well-understood relationship and intercourse was established. Annual embassies came from the smaller States, at each new year to Peking, bringing presents and the felicitations of the season to the Emperor. They were entertained by him, and on their return home were the bearers of return gifts to the heads of their own nations, which gifts were always as much more valuable than those they brought as the Emperor was greater in power and wealth than their lord. It is only within a very few years that the King of Siam has ceased sending white elephants to the Emperor of China. Some of those sent are still living and kept in the " Elephant Stables" at Peking. And the winter of 1894-95 bids fair to be the first in many decades, if not centuries, in which the King of Corea has failed to dispatch his annual mission to the Chinese capital. Much of the traffic between the two nations was carried on by means of these embassies, a large number of merchants being allowed to accompany them, and the goods they sold and bought being, as a matter of privilege, exempt from duties or imposts of any sort. Whenever the question of succession to the throne became practical in any of these outlying kingdoms, the will of the Emperor of China was taken in case of strife between several claimants. And in some of the States named it had come to be a custom, though never more than a matter of form, for the new incumbent to dispatch a special embassy to Peking to announce his accession and request the gracious recognition of the Emperor. This was peculiarly true of the kings of Corea and Annam.

As might oe expected, much confusion and misunderstanding has grown up in the exact and intensely practical Western mind regarding this loose-jointed and essentially Oriental relationship. There is no word in any European tongue which will describe the position which China claims to hold vis-a-vis the smaller States named, because the idea is wholly foreign to our notions of international connections. It has therefore, for lack, partly, of a better term, and partly of accurate knowledge of what the relationship was, been spoken of as a suzerainty. Whatever it is, it is not that. The vital point of the connection of suzerain and vassal is that the latter must pay regular sums of tribute and furnish specified military forces to the former. Neither of these has ever been exacted in a single instance. China has repeatedly sent armed bodies of men to assist her weaker neighbors to suppress internal rebellion, but she has never either asked or received aid of that sort from them. And aside* from the interchange of New Year gifts, in which China invariably gives more than she receives, there is no such thing as tribute paid by king to emperor.

Vague and indefinite as is this relationship to our minds, it is simple and clear to the Oriental, since it is exactly in the line of his ideas. He describes it as the connection between the elder and the younger brother ; and when the Chinese Government has had occasion to mention her position — toward Corea, for example — the same word has been used as is employed to express the relative position in the family of two brothers. Keeping in view the fact that, under the patriarchal system, which is not only in vogue in China, but forms the

IN TROD UC TOR V. 9

basis of her entire form of government, the elder brother has a certain authority over and responsibility for the younger, it ceases to be difficult to understand the tie which connects China with her surrounding and less powerful neighbors. It implies a sort of moral authority or right of control, which is entirely foreign to our ideas, and particularly objectionable, since it can be exercised or repudiated at will. And perhaps in the fact that it can be enforced or evaded, as discretion may indicate, is to be found the feature of the system which is most pleasing to the Oriental mind.

It cannot be a matter of surprise to a thoughtful mind that long centuries of unquestioned supremacy, of admiration and flattery from her weaker and less civilized neighbors, had developed an intense national conceit in the Chinese mind, and that she should regard with feelings closely allied to contempt all remote nations which had not been favored with her example, and hence had not formed themselves upon her model. She had her coterie of humble admirers, and desired no questionable additions to the circle. And it must not be forgotten that she had more or less communication with India, and had a substantially correct idea of what European intercourse had meant, from an Oriental standpoint, to that great empire of Southern Asia.

Such being the attitude of China upon the general question of establishing friendly relations with the nations of Europe and America, and such her position of calm, yet absurd, superiority, it was peculiarly unfortunate that acquaintance and assoio THE REAL CHINAMAN.

ciation with us was forced upon her in what her government and people could with justice regard as a bad cause.

This is not the place for a discussion of the question whether any nation has the right to insist, by force of arms, if necessary, that any other nation shall establish and maintain commercial and friendly intercourse with it. That question may be left to recognized authorities on international law. Nor is it intended to express an opinion regarding the right or wrong of the so-called opium war. The attempt is here made not to record opinions, but to portray, with some degree of faithfulness and accuracy, a situation. The broad outline of facts is sufficiently well known to all intelligent readers, and each of them can and will draw his own conclusions. But the feeling which those facts aroused in the Chinese, the view which they took of them, and which has very seriously colored their opinions of all foreigners, and influenced the entire course of their foreign relations, are not sufficiently well understood nor its more remote effects always clearly recognized. No true picture of the modern Chinese can be drawn without bringing the opium war upon the canvas. For that reason alone.. it is introduced.

Whatever may have been the other causes — and they were many and serious — which led to the series of military and naval expeditions against China, from the attack upon the Bogue forts, below Canton, in 1842, to the capture of one of the north gates of Peking and the destruction of the Summer Palace, in i860, to the Chinese the purpose of all of

INTRODUCTORY. II

these operations is summed up in one word — opium. He looks upon all other grievances as pretexts, or as valid only through being made to subserve one main purpose, the opening of the empire as a vast market for the sale and consumption of the drug raised in India.

To him the facts are plain and their logic irresistible. There had been much friction between the authorities at Canton and the agent of the East India Company for years prior to 1842 over the introduction of the drug into China, either in open or secret violation of the laws of the empire. These troubles increased after the expiration of the charter of the East India Company. They reached a climax in 1840, when Commissioner Lin reached Canton, sent there by the Chinese Emperor with the most explicit and peremptory orders to put a complete end to the opium traffic at all hazards. He found, shortly after his arrival, opium on board twenty-two ships in the river below Canton, to the value of about $9,000,000. It was there in open and notorious violation of the laws of the empire, and hence was, v/ith the vessels which brought it, liable, by universally recognized law, to seizure and confiscation. Its surrender was demanded, and after some peculiar steps taken by Commissioner Lin to enforce the demand, it was delivered to him by Captain Elliot, the agent of the British Government, who also gave a pledge that no more should be brought into the port. The opium thus secured (20,291 chests) was at once completely destroyed by being thrown into trenches and mixed with lime and salt water, and this mixture was allowed to run into the river at low tide. Officers were stationed to prevent any one from carrying away any portion of the drug ; and one Chinese who endeavored to carry away a small quantity was summarily beheaded. There is not the least reason to doubt that every ounce was disposed of in this thorough manner. These are facts about which there can be no question. The Government of China was honest in its intention to exterminate the opium trade ; it was within its right in the demand for the surrender of the contraband drug, and, for once at least, it possessed a servant in Commissioner Lin who inflexibly and thoroughly executed the instructions which he had received.