Part 23 (1/2)

In all the public thoroughfares tables are set up, where the crowds may gather and throw their dice and venture their cash, and look with their solemn, unemotional faces upon the varying fortunes of the games, as their money that they have h.o.a.rded up for the occasion pa.s.ses into the possession of the winner, and they are left penniless. The chances are all in favour of the man that runs the concerns, but an occasional success where ten times the amount risked is gathered in by the delighted winner, so stirs the gambling instincts that they keep putting down their money on the board, hoping in every throw of the dice to woo fortune to their side.

Another decidedly unpleasant feature about the Chinese is the hazy and indefinite ideas they have generally with regard to _meum_ and _tuum_.

They are wanting in that straightforward honesty that is the characteristic of the typical Englishman. There is no typical Chinaman that corresponds to him. It is quite true that in certain business relations.h.i.+ps a Chinaman's word is as good as his bond, and that contracts entered into by leading Chinese firms are faithfully carried out, even though they may be large losers by the transactions. This is not the result of a profound instinct for honesty, but rather the carrying out of a commercial code of honour, the infraction of which would cause them to lose face amongst business men, and thus imperil the credit of their firms. These very men that would be willing to bankrupt themselves rather than disavow some business engagement that had turned out badly, will under other circ.u.mstances act very much like the rest of their countrymen and take advantage of you for their own benefit, and fleece you unmercifully.

The first and most practical experience one has of this deteriorated moral character in the nation is with one's cook, who sets himself systematically to cheat upon every article he has to buy for the home use.[6] As he has the purchasing of everything required from the Chinese market, it may easily be imagined what a field he has for gradually making his fortune out of the unsuspicious foreigner. He will charge just as much per cent. extra upon every article as he thinks he can safely do without raising the ire of his employer. He does not call this stealing.

It goes under the more euphonious designation of earning, for to steal would mean that he was a thief, and that he would never under any circ.u.mstances consent to be. If you were to ask him if in his daily purchases he earns anything upon them, a pleasant smile would flash over his yellow countenance and he could deny that he did, but in such a way as to confess in a shy and ingenuous manner that he did. If, however, you were to ask him if he stole from his master, he would be filled with indignation, and anger would flash from his eyes, whilst he would indignantly repudiate the idea that he had ever stolen from any one in his life. Universal custom and the inbred instinct of the Chinaman to earn an honest penny whenever the opportunity may occur has given the nation decidedly low ideas of morality, and has led the people into huge systems of overreaching each other that have had the effect of dulling the conscience and of lowering the moral standard.

The transition from stealing in what might be called a legitimate and recognized way into downright theft and burglary is not a very difficult one. The fabled days of the times of Confucius have long since pa.s.sed away when no man needed to shut his door at night when the family retired to rest, and no one felt any concern about his purse that he may have accidentally dropped on the road, since he would simply have to go back over the way he had travelled and he would find it on the exact spot where it had accidentally fallen from him. The nation has fallen upon degenerate times since then, for locks and bars and bolts and walls that would seem to be meant to act as fortifications are now all required by those who have any property that would be worth the carrying off.

This fact is most conspicuous in the houses of the rich, who are apt to keep considerable sums of money in them, and who thus tempt the cupidity of the thieves in the neighbourhood, and even of those that live at a distance, who will come suddenly one dark night in considerable force and in one fell swoop carry off all the valuables in them.

The p.a.w.n shops, that are known to contain all kinds of precious property that are held as pledges for money lent on them, have to be built strong enough to resist the organized attack of desperate bands of robbers. They are in fact miniature fortresses, with walls of granite slabs that would resist a battering-ram, and iron plated doors, and jingals placed inside the doors ready to resist an onslaught of the thieving mob of ruffians. As these are under the special protection of the mandarins, it shows the lawless character of the Chinese robber fraternity, that they dare to a.s.semble in such numbers to attack such formidable buildings as they are, and yet such things are by no means uncommon.

One stormy, cloudy night when the inmates have retired to rest, and there is no suspicion of anything unusual going to take place, the sudden barking of dogs, that seem mad with excitement, arouses the sleepers from their slumbers. Peering through the narrow stone slits of the windows upstairs, they catch a glimpse of a large number of dark figures moving restlessly about. Immediately the whole establishment is alive. The place is going to be attacked, and now with cries of terror and alarm every one hastens to his post to repel the onslaught of these midnight marauders.

The battle is sharp and fierce, and there is none to bring aid to the defenders, for the neighbours, though they hear the sounds of firing, and the shouts of the ruffians and the screams of the terrified women inside the p.a.w.n shop that startle the midnight air, dare not come to the rescue, for the robbers are not in a mood to spare any one that dares to interfere with the carrying out of their plans.

After some hours of conflict, the main door is battered in with axes and the robbers intent only on plunder decamp with their huge spoils, that will enable them to gamble to their hearts' content, and to steep their senses in opium for many a long day to come. They have so effectually concealed their ident.i.ty that all investigations made by the mandarins or by detectives specially employed by the firm, fail entirely to discover who the midnight thieves were that so successfully raided the wealthy establishment.

The processes of law are so uncertain in China that there is a positive temptation to the criminal cla.s.ses to indulge in all manner of nefarious schemes that are for the detriment of society. The mandarin of a certain county, who is declared, in the poetic language so often employed by the Chinese, to be ”The Father and Mother of his People,” happens to be a weak, vacillating character, or his few senses have been saturated with opium so that he is quite incompetent to see to the government of his district.

The lawless characters within it, who might have been restrained by a firm and vigorous hand, now a.s.sert themselves, and the large clans with their powerful followings domineer and oppress the weaker ones. Travellers are stopped on the highways, or carried off and shut up and tortured until they are redeemed by their friends by the payment of a heavy ransom.

The river that may run through this unhappy region is infested with pirates who sally out at night and capture the trading junks that may be lying at anchor in some snug bay where they have taken refuge for safety.

They also land their men at the villages along the banks and raid and plunder the defenceless inhabitants, and when the morning comes there is despair in the hearts of those who have been deprived of their all, for they know that no redress will ever be obtained from the mandarin, who is the cause of the lawlessness that prevails on the land and along the streams and away down to the river's mouth, where it pours its waters into the ocean.

Wherever there is an efficient executive, the men who prey upon society are compelled for the time being to take to honest courses to earn a living for themselves and their families. It is very interesting to watch how a whole district may be kept in order and laws obeyed and confidence restored by the action of one vigorous mandarin. On one occasion a certain region was in a most disturbed condition. Travellers pa.s.sing through it did so at the greatest risk of being seized and held to ransom. They were compelled to go in companies for the sake of the protection that numbers would give them, and even then they had to pay the headmen of a certain large and turbulent village stipulated fees for pa.s.ses that would carry them for a few miles on their journey without being molested by other blackmailers. Even the very poorest in going from one place to another were called upon to pay a few cash before they were allowed to proceed, and men were stationed outside the village to collect the toll from every one that pa.s.sed by.

There were loud grumblings and complaints at this distressing state of things, but no steps were taken by the local authorities to put an end to it. The lawbreakers were rich enough to bribe the mandarins and every member of their Yamens, so that the story of their misdeeds was quietly ignored and they were allowed to grow rich on their illegal exactions.

After a time a new general was appointed to take military charge of the whole district. He was an exceedingly active and intelligent official, and had the reputation of being impervious to a bribe. A tremor of excitement ran through the ranks of the blackmailers when they heard of his appointment, but they contented themselves with the idea, that if he could not be reached by money, his subordinates, whose livelihood depended upon such perquisites as they were prepared to give them, would certainly not refuse the liberal sums they could have for the asking.

The general soon found what a disgraceful condition his district was in, and he quietly took measures to restore law and order in it. He knew that he could get no reliable information from the members of his own Yamen, so he used to go out every evening after dark in various disguises and mingle with the people. He would sit in the tea shops and hobn.o.b with coolies, or he would enter the restaurants and converse with the more staid and respectable citizens and glean from their conversation information upon all manner of subjects that would be serviceable to him in his government of the people.

He found that the greatest disorders existed and that it would require very stern and decided measures to put an end to them. He got a complete history, too, of the particular village that had become so notorious for its exactions, with the names of its leading men and all their cruelties to the victims that had been seized in order to extract large sums out of them. He knew that these very men had spies even in his own Yamen who were ready to report any action that he might be going to take with respect to them, and therefore he had to keep his plans a profound secret even from his most confidential advisers.

At length after weeks of patient waiting, during which the suspicions of the lawbreakers were lulled to sleep, he decided upon immediate action. He had not informed any of his officers what he was going to do, neither had any of his troops the slightest suspicion that anything special was going to take place. Rousing the camp at midnight, he ordered five hundred men to prepare for instantly marching to a destination that he would reveal to no one. Taking the lead, the troops, who had been commanded to keep the most profound silence, glided like spectres through the dark and gloomy streets till they reached one of the great gates of the city. These were thrown open at the command of the general, and the soldiers trooped along the high road wondering what was the meaning of this midnight march and what scheme was working in the fertile brain of their leader.

Ten miles had been travelled and darkness still lay upon the land, and the trees and the houses, as they suddenly loomed up, looked like ghosts that had wandered out of ”The Land of Shadows,” and were waiting for the dawn to return to their dreary abodes in that sunless world. Suddenly the order was whispered through the ranks to halt, and in tones of stern command the soldiers were ordered to surround the village that lay in the profoundest stillness at their side. They were to see that no one of its people were allowed to escape, and that for every one that managed to do so the life of the soldier on guard would have to pay the forfeit. The men knew too well the temper of their general to imagine that this was an idle threat.

With noiseless tread each man took up the station a.s.signed to him by his officer, and the whole command stood in breathless silence until the dawn in the east lifted up the curtain of the night and revealed the village to them. A detachment of men were marched into it, and half-a-dozen of the leading men of the clan were seized and marched to an open s.p.a.ce outside of it, where the general was standing with some of his officers. The executioner with bared arm and gleaming sword awaited but the word of command, and six heads rolled on to the ground and the tragedy was over.

The bugles sounded and the men fell into their ranks, and almost before the whole of the village had time to rub their eyes to a.s.sure themselves that they were awake, the avengers of law were hurrying back to the city they had left at midnight.

The effect of this stern act of justice was perfectly magical in its effects. The news spread with the rapidity of lightning through the length and breadth of this famous general's jurisdiction. With the fall of those heads, every trace of lawlessness vanished from the great clans that had been terrorizing society. Men could now travel freely without any danger of molestation, and even in the darkness of the night no one dared to lay his hand upon a member even of the weakest of the clans. The fear of the general was in the hearts of the transgressors, for conscience made cowards of them all, and stories were circulated about the almost supernatural knowledge that he had of men's doings, and which every one implicitly believed in.

And so during the term of his office there was an end to blackmailing, and the region became as peaceful as though the gamblers had burnt their cards and had taken to reading religious books, and the opium smokers had become reformed, and the pa.s.sion for unlawful gains had died out of the hearts of the men who had made it impossible for honest men to travel freely either for business or for pleasure very far from their own doors. But whilst this was the case, there was no real reformation in the hearts of a single one of those who had made society unsafe for men and women who wished to live a law-abiding life. They were simply afraid of the man that had the instant power of life and death, and who without trial of judge or jury, and without the fear of any superior court to call in question his decisions, could hand over a person at a moment's notice to the man who held the gleaming sword, and who with one stroke of it could decide in two seconds a matter that lawyers in England would wrangle over for months.

The lawless cla.s.ses in China form a considerable percentage of the whole population. They are ruthless and cruel, and in the carrying out of their fell purposes they show but little consideration for the lives or property of those whom they may select to be their victims. There is a general impression in Western lands that the idolatrous races of people living in the East are a simple-minded folk, with but few pa.s.sions and generous and tender-hearted to each other. They are supposed to lead a sunny life, and imitating the luxuriance of nature that the great sun continually spurs into action by his fiery heat, to have the widest sympathies with everything human. This is an ideal picture that could only have been drawn by the vivid forces of imagination. China is no Eden of this kind, and it may be accepted as a general truth that where men have lost the knowledge of G.o.d, and are not drawn into a n.o.ble life by an impression of His purity and tenderness which He wishes reproduced in the lives of the world, men's own conceptions of what a n.o.ble life ought to be will always fall far short of the Divine.