Part 19 (1/2)
But a mighty change is even now working in this old Empire, and men are beginning to realize that the system of education that has so far been in existence is a radically defective one, and must be displaced by those that are more in a line with the ones that have raised the West to such a high pitch of learning in so many departments of study. There is just now a tremendous thirst for Western education, and the nation seems prepared to abandon the old conservative systems that have been such a hindrance to the advance of thought in the past.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MANDARIN
Mandarins' great power--Ambition of every father that son should be a mandarin--A famous Prime Minister--Description of a mandarin of a county--His three t.i.tles--Clever method of squeezing complainant and defendant--A typical case--Crime not noticed until officially brought before the notice of the mandarin--Violations of law by mandarins for the purpose of squeezing--Methods of judicial procedure--Torture used to cause confession--Mandarins allowed large discretionary powers in their decisions--Two typical instances.
Any man who is in office under the Government is called a mandarin. It must be understood, however, that he is actually in its service to get this honourable t.i.tle for whilst many, through courtesy, are addressed as mandarins, it is only those who are in the _bona fide_ employment of the country that really can be considered as such.
The mandarins as a cla.s.s are the privileged men of the Empire. They have large and extensive powers. In the exercise of their functions a wide discretion is allowed them, and in their decisions as magistrates, whilst they have to keep themselves within certain general laws recognized as the statutes of the dynasty, they are left very much to their own wit and common-sense as to how they shall reach the conclusions they may finally come to. In addition to the above, the mandarins have almost unlimited opportunities of making money and of enriching themselves and their families.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ENTRANCE GATE (NANKIN).]
This latter has a fascination for the Chinaman, which explains the intense longing that every youth, who has any ambitions for the future, has to some day become a mandarin. I presume there is hardly a son born in this wide Empire, about whom the father does not at once begin to have his dreams. He pictures to himself the time when the little fellow whose cries are awakening new echoes in the home shall have taken his degree and have qualified himself for some Government appointment. His visions widen and he sees him advanced from one post to another, and growing in power and in wealth, until he finally returns to his ancestral home to build a magnificent mansion and to enrich every member of it.
As the mandarins all spring from the people, without any reference to cla.s.s or social position, the dreams that the parents often have about their sons are not the fairy creations of fancy like those of Aladdin's wonderful lamp, but in countless instances are real romances that are more marvellous than any writer of fiction has ever conceived. In one of my travels in the interior of China in pa.s.sing along a great thoroughfare, I came upon a magnificent grave. I saw at once it was the tomb of a man that had been a great mandarin, for only such could possibly have had such a splendid monument erected in connection with his last resting place.
The tomb, that stood high and conspicuous far back from the highway along which a constant stream of travellers pa.s.sed to and fro, was situated at the end of a great avenue flanked on both sides by huge stone figures larger than life. The whole was intended to represent the official residence and court of a high mandarin. There were stone lions guarding the approaches to where the great official was supposed to be visiting, and granite horses with their riders waiting patiently for the coming of their lord, and stone footmen who had been standing for more than a century for one whose footsteps would never again be heard by human ears.
There was quite a romantic story connected with this grave. Nearly two hundred years ago, the ground occupied by it was a poor little farm, cultivated by a family who could barely get enough out of it to keep body and soul together. A son was born, and as the lad grew up, the parents seeing that he was a child of uncommon natural abilities, determined that he should be a scholar, and that he should retrieve the glories of his house which tradition declared had in former years been most conspicuous, and should bring back the good fortune which had been vanis.h.i.+ng slowly from their home.
He was accordingly kept at school when he should have been helping on the farm or going out as a labourer to earn a few cash to ease the poverty that held the family within its grip. To do this meant a struggle for them all, and ceaseless self-denial both for the parents and for the young scholar himself, but after years of a stern struggle to keep the wolf from the door, the faith and patience of them all were rewarded by the success of the son.
He pa.s.sed his examinations with such brilliant success, that he was soon made a mandarin, and he was appointed to the control of a rich county where he had ample opportunities of showing the Government how well fitted he was to rule. From this time the shadow that had rested on his home lifted, for he was now in a position to send sufficient money to his parents to enable them to live in luxury. The old house, battered by the weather and falling into decay, was rebuilt and enlarged. Fresh fields were bought and added to the farm, and servants and field hands were employed to gather in the harvests that filled their home with abundance.
In the meanwhile the son had been advanced from one post to another, until finally he was summoned to the capital by the Emperor and made Prime Minister. During these years his wealth had been acc.u.mulating, until now he had a large fortune at his command, which, true to Chinese nature and to Chinese traditions, he had sent to his old home, and which he had spent largely in the purchase of lands which he added to his own, and of farms which he let out to farmers, who had lost their own, to cultivate for him.
At length the time came for him to die, and with the strong pa.s.sion for his home where he was reared that supplies the place of patriotism to the Chinese, he made arrangements that his body should be carried to the place where he was born, and should be buried in one of the fields in sight of his old home, where his grave could be cared for, and where his spirit could be sacrificed to by the members of his own family.
This meant a journey of over a thousand miles, over great plains and up and down hills and mountains, and across wide rivers, and months of steady journeying for a large retinue that would have to follow the dead statesman in a kind of triumphal march across the Empire.
At length the great procession reached the place where the ill.u.s.trious dead was to be laid. The whole country round had gathered to witness the proceedings, for never before, in this region at least, had such a magnificent funeral been witnessed by any one. There were civil mandarins of various ranks, dressed in their official robes, with their retinues and attendants and gorgeous sedan chairs. There were also the highest military mandarins of the province, with long lines of soldiers, that had been ordered by imperial edict to do honour to the dead by their presence.
And now the coffin was lowered into the grave amid the blare of trumpets and the loud wailing of the mourners dressed in sackcloth, whilst crowds gazed on the scene from every little rising ground, and the proud and haughty officials pondered with solemn faces upon the honour that had been done that day to a man who had risen from such a humble condition in life.
One would have imagined that as the mandarins, or rulers of the country, are all recruited from the ranks of the people, they would naturally be in sympathy with them, and would do their utmost to deliver them from the tyranny and oppression from which they too often suffer, but this is not the case. The fact is the mandarins, as a whole, are the great curse of the nation. They are rapacious and exacting. They have no regard for justice or mercy, when these conflict with their own self-interests, and they are the bitter opponents of any plans of reform, knowing that the carrying out of such would endanger their own vested interests, and deprive them of the arbitrary powers they now possess.
In order to give the reader some practical idea of what are the duties and responsibilities of a mandarin, I propose to select one and describe him as graphically as I can, so that one may have a picture of him before the mind's eye. For this purpose, I shall take the ”County Mandarin,” for though there are many others that are superior to him in rank, there is not one whose duties are so multifarious, or who is so responsible for the order and good government of his district as he is.
He has three t.i.tles by which he is equally well known throughout the whole of the Empire. The first of these is the ”County Mandarin,” because he is the chief official in it, and his authority is the predominant one throughout the whole of the county. Even in cases where his immediate superior wishes any action to be carried out within his jurisdiction, he has to request the county mandarin to see it executed. The second of his t.i.tles is ”The man that knows the County,” from the fact that it is a.s.sumed that he is so intimately acquainted with everything that goes on within his district that nothing can possibly happen in it without his being thoroughly cognizant of it. This a.s.sumption of course is an utterly ridiculous one, as it would be manifestly absurd to suppose that any mortal man could know what is happening by day or night throughout a large county. The t.i.tle, however, which has come down from the past, and which the man accepted when he took office, serves to make him responsible for all that goes on within his jurisdiction. The theory of the Chinese Government that every one in some way or other is responsible for what may take place in society, enables it to at once put its finger on the person who has to be dealt with in the case of any infraction of the law, though he himself may not be the individual who has committed the offence.
A murder, for example, is committed during the darkness of the night. It was done in some alleyway and there is no trace of those who killed the man. The bailiff of the ward is summoned to appear before the local mandarin, and he is asked if he has apprehended the murderer. He makes the excuse that the whole thing happened during the night when the whole city was asleep, and therefore he could not possibly be cognizant of what all the scamps and ruffians were doing when honest men were in their beds and were fast asleep.
That excuse, which would at once be accepted in England, would be laughed at in China, and the bailiff would be reminded that it was his business to know everything that went on in his ward, and very likely he would receive a hundred blows to refresh his memory, and the promise of as many more if the culprit were not captured within a certain limited time. By this same doctrine of responsibility, ”The man that knows the County” is held by the Government to be one that must bear on his shoulders the consequences of whatever may happen in any part of the county over which he rules.
A third t.i.tle that is given to the official I am describing is, ”The mandarin that is the Father and Mother of the People.” This term is a very pretty one and is given to no other official. It is intended to indicate the very intimate relations.h.i.+p that exists between him and his people, and the tender concern that he ought to have for their welfare. As the child runs to its mother in time of trouble and gets comfort from her sympathy, so the people of a county turn to this mandarin, when they are threatened with injustice or oppression, and so he, in the spirit of a father when he sees his own son in distress, bends all his energies to protect and comfort them. This is a beautiful theory, which the ancient legislators of this country in some moment of inspiration conceived, but the actual fact is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, instead of being a father or a mother, he is more like a hungry tiger that desires to dig its claws into the flesh of a lamb, to satisfy its appet.i.te upon it.
The mandarin whom I am describing has just received an appointment to the county, say, of ”Eternal Spring,” for which he has paid the modest sum of a thousand pounds to the high official who had the disposal of the office.
He is an ambitious man, and his great aim is not only speedily to recoup himself this initial outlay, but also to lay by a considerable sum to carry with him to his ancestral home and enable him to live in easy circ.u.mstances for some years to come. As his term of office lasts only three years and his salary is not more than three hundred a year, it would seem that he would require to be a conjuror to accomplish these two objects in the limited time at his command.