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FAMILY LIFE

Chinese character studied in the home—How marriages are arranged in China—Love of husband and wife must be concealed—Daughters go out of clan, sons remain—Story of a famous community in former days—Solidarity of family—Story of general accused of treason—Disposal of sons—Occupation of women in homes—Wife-beating—Suicides of wives—Women treated as inferior—Filial piety, views on—The famous book describing the twenty filial sons—Filial piety not extensively carried out by the Chinese.

If one desires to understand the Chinese, he must study the family life, for there we find the secret for much that is amusing and perplexing in their character. In all the long years of Chinese history, the ideal of the family has been an exalted one. Ancient sages have dealt with much eloquence upon it, and it has been made the model upon which the State has been built up. It is declared in books written on China that the Chinese Government is a patriarchal one, the meaning of which, put into simpler language, is that the system by which this vast and ancient Empire is ruled has been borrowed from any one of the countless homes that exist throughout the land. It has been plainly stated by Confucius, more than two thousand years ago, that a man that did not know how to rule his home was quite unfit to govern a kingdom.

That the family ideal is held in the highest honour by every class of society is evident from the fact that every one that can by any possibility scrape together the amount required to be paid to the parents of the young girl, gets married; whilst for every woman, without any regard for her personal appearance or even for her infirmities, when the marriageable age comes round, a marriage is arranged, and she is carried to her husband’s home with as much ceremony as though she were the most beautiful woman in the land. If a woman does not get married it is her own fault or that of her family, who for selfish or other reasons fail to make the necessary arrangements for her, and never because her features are uncomely or her complexion bad, or because she has some bodily infirmity that in England would condemn her to a spinster’s life, though she lived to the age of Methuselah.

Let us now take the case of a family, such as one may see anywhere, and look at the peculiar way in which it is built up and developed in accordance with the antique methods that seem dear to the Yellow brain in this land. A young man is going to be married. The parents have decided that question for him, and they have called in a middle-woman, who does all the selecting and all the courting that is possible in China, and by her intrigues and falsehoods, the girl that is to be his bride is settled for him absolutely, without any power of appeal from the sons or the parents should they discover by and by that the young lady would be an undesirable acquisition when she came into their home.

With us it is an accepted axiom that to secure the happiness of the married couple, there must be love and there must be a thorough acquaintance with each other. The Chinese hold that all that is Platonic nonsense, and is the reasoning of a barbaric mind that has never come under the benign influence of the sages and teachers of the Celestial Empire. They declare that neither of those two things are requisite, and they point to China, where marriage is the rule in social life, and where a Divorce Court does not exist in all the length and breadth of the land, as a convincing evidence that love at least is not at all a requisite for marriage. The young man and his wife then begin their married life without any knowledge of each other. They have never seen each other, and they have never dared to inquire from their parents what their future partners were like. To have done so would have filled the hearts of their fathers and mothers with a shame so intense as to be absolutely unspeakable.

Their first look into the faces of each other, after the bride has been carried with noise of music and firing of crackers in the crimson chair into the home of her husband, must be one in which is concentrated the agony and passion of two hearts, trying to read their fate for the years that are to come, from what a bashful glance at each other’s faces can tell them. If either of them is disappointed, the wave of despair that flashes through the heart is hidden behind those sphinx-like faces, and no quivering of the lips and no glance of the coal-black eyes betrays the secret that has sprung up within them.

They are both conscious that their marriage is a settled fact and that there is no possibility of its ever being annulled, and so with the heroic patience that the Chinese often show in ordinary life, they both determine to make the best of things, knowing that in time love will grow, and tender affection for each other will ripen amid the trials and disciplines of life through which they will have to pass together.

The years go by, and without daring to show by word or look to the rest of the world that they love each other, the deepest and the purest affection has sprung up in their hearts. The Chinese language is full of tender epithets and phrases full of poetry to express the emotions of love, but the husband and wife may never use any of these excepting behind closed doors where none can hear them but themselves.

In the course of time the family grows in numbers, and three sons and as many daughters are born. There was indeed another girl, but as it was considered that there were enough of them in the family, she was put to death immediately after her birth, so she was never counted. As the years rolled by, the children grew up and the boys were sent to school, whilst the sisters were taught household work, such as cooking, mending and embroidery. At last, when these latter arrived at the age of eighteen, the services of middle-women were called into requisition, and they were severally carried into other clans, for no person may marry a member of his own, even though these may be counted by the thousands.

After a few years more, the same process was pursued with regard to the sons, and three young brides were brought into the family circle to add to its members and to increase its dignity and importance. And here it is that we see the wide difference in the Oriental and Western conception of the family. The latter believes in the hiving off of the children and the formation of new homes, until finally very often only the old father and mother are left solitary and alone in a house that used to resound the livelong day with the sounds of laughter and merry voices.

The ideal of the former is to keep the sons in the home. They seldom if ever leave that to start housekeeping for themselves. The daughters go out and are lost to the clan, and are no longer looked upon as belonging to it; but, on the other hand, their places are taken by the brides that come from other clans, and so the balance is preserved. It is no uncommon thing to meet with homes where fifty to a hundred people are housed in one spacious compound, and where four generations of men, with their sons and grandsons, a motley group where the sires of the home, with their hoary flowing beards, and the infants in arms live in the common home.

It is recorded in Chinese history, that in early days there was a famous branch of a well-known clan that numbered several thousand people, the descendants of nine generations, that were all under the control of the chieftain of the clan, and lived together in a series of large compounds, that resembled a miniature walled city. The story went abroad that the whole of this community lived in the most complete harmony. The men never had any disagreements and the voices of the women and children were never known to be raised in angry dispute. The very dogs even, touched by the general atmosphere of peace that reigned over the miscellaneous crowds that swarmed in this miniature town, seemed to lay aside their natural ferocity, and all quarrelling and fighting had disappeared, and they lived in the utmost harmony and contentment.

A WOMAN CARRYING BABY ON HER BACK.

A WOMAN CARRYING BABY ON HER BACK.

To face p. 24.

Rumours of this wonderful settlement had spread throughout the province, and had been carried by travellers to the palace of the Emperor. Being somewhat concerned as to the truth of these, he determined to visit the place, and see for himself if the facts were really as they were stated. Accordingly on his next tour to the great mountain Tai-Shan, to worship God from its summit, which the kings in those days were accustomed to do, he called at this famous establishment. Never had such a gorgeous retinue stopped in front of its doors. There was the Emperor in his vermilion chair, carried by bearers dressed in the royal livery of the same colour. In front marched a detachment of the Household Guards, great stalwart men, that had been selected from the bravest that the fighting province of Hunan could supply. Behind, in a long and splendid train, were the highest nobles in the land, who were there to attend to the wants of their Lord and Master, and to see that every strain of anxiety should be removed from the royal mind. Further in the rear was a small army of servants of every description, and cooks in abundance prepared to serve upon the imperial table every delicacy and luxury that China itself could provide, or that could be procured from other countries.

The prince of the clan received the Emperor on bended knees, and then he was graciously allowed to stand up and conduct him over his little kingdom. His Majesty, who had a keen common-sense mind, examined very minutely into every detail of the life of this unique community.

He was perfectly satisfied with everything that he saw, and just before leaving, whilst he was having some refreshment, he asked the chief what system he employed to ensure such perfect order and harmony in such a large and varied establishment, where even the very dogs seemed to have caught the infection, and to have lost the quarrelsome disposition natural to them.

He at once sat down, and taking up a pen he proceeded to fill a page with Chinese hieroglyphics. Handing it to the Emperor on bended knees, he told him that he would find there the secret of the source from whence the love and unity that prevailed was to be found. With a good deal of curiosity his Majesty glanced over the document. To his astonishment he discovered that the writing was composed of one hundred identical words, whose meaning was “Forbearance.” “It is by forbearance in a hundred different ways that this great company of people have arrived at its present harmony,” explained the prince. “Forbearance has been a mighty force with us, and has helped us all to subdue our passions so that we have been able to bear with the infirmities of one another.”

The Emperor was so pleased that he took his pen and wrote out a sentence expressive of his admiration for the masterly and statesmanlike manner in which so large and varied a community had been ruled with such splendid results to the country, and ordered it to be affixed over the main entrance, so that every one should know that this great and harmonious establishment possessed the royal approbation and protection.

It will be thus seen that a family in China has a much larger meaning than it has with us. It is by no means the narrow thing it is in the West, but spreads beyond the limits that are tolerated there. It in reality includes the members of the collateral branches of either the father or the mother, and these are often spoken of as though they were members of the same home. A young fellow with whom you are acquainted introduces another about the same age. You ask him who he is, and without a moment’s hesitation he says that he is his younger brother. For the moment you feel perplexed, for you know as a fact that he never had a brother. After a little further probing of the matter, you discover that he is the son of his father’s younger brother, in fact his cousin. You ask him why he did not say so at the beginning, and thus save all misunderstanding. “But he is my brother,” the man repeats, with an amused stare on his face at the density of the foreigner.

The intimate union that exists between the family so-called and those nearest of kin makes a perfect tangle in Chinese relationships, and leads to some very amusing and ludicrous developments. This is rendered all the more easy because the Chinese marry young, oftentimes repeatedly, and not uncommonly late in life, and so it happens that one occasionally meets an elderly man who addresses as his grandfather a young fellow who is not half his grandson’s age.

The family basis that is thus broadened to include the nearest collateral branches is real and effective. The tie that binds the various members together is no merely sentimental bond. A particular member of the family, for example, becomes wealthy. He has perhaps gone abroad and amassed a considerable fortune, and he returns to his old home to enjoy it amidst his kindred. In one sense it is his own to dispose of as he thinks best, and yet every member of the extended family feels that he has a proprietary right to the blessings that it brings with it. They gather round him to give him a hearty welcome, and whilst they do so every heart throbs with the expectation that any pecuniary difficulties from which they may have been suffering will be removed as soon as their cases have been made known to their wealthy relative.

But it is not simply in cases of good fortune that the solidarity of the family is proved. It is seen most conspicuously when any misfortune comes on any individual in it. Then all the rest are more or less affected by it. A man, for instance, breaks the law, and in order to avoid being arrested, flies from his home. When the officers come to take him they can find no trace of him. One would naturally suppose that these men would return and report to the mandarin that the criminal had fled, and that the whole process of law would be stayed until the culprit himself could be apprehended, but that is not so. They proceed to arrest any male member of the family that they can lay their hands upon, whether it be a brother or a cousin or a son, and carry him to the mandarin, who keeps him in prison until the real offender has been caught.

An Englishman would say that is unjust, and if he were present when the policeman made his capture he might possibly protest against the illegality of the seizure. They would simply assure him that they were quite within their rights. The man they had arrested, they would say, was a member of the offender’s family, and as they were all in the eye of the Chinese law responsible for each other, they were quite justified in arresting any one in it, and keeping him in prison until their relative who had broken the law was either captured or had delivered himself up to justice.

The laws of China are all based upon the assumption of the solidarity of the family, and that in its prosperity or adversity all members of it must take their share. Chinese history abounds with the most terrible instances of the operation of this law.

On one occasion, a general in command of a division of the army, fancying that he had been slighted by the Emperor because he had not been rewarded as he thought his services deserved, began to intrigue against the dynasty and to plot for its overthrow. As he was a famous man and had rendered signal services to the State in many a brilliant campaign, it was some time before any suspicion of his treasonable designs were at all entertained by any one. At length, rumours faint and uncertain began to be whispered about. These grew in intensity, until ere long the proofs of the terrible conspiracy were so clear and definite that there could be no question as to the man’s guilt. He had been betrayed by a confederate who was deep in his confidence, and who was terrified at the fearful consequences that would happen to him were his guilt discovered. He consequently determined to save himself by the sacrifice of his friend. In the small hours of a dark and stormy night a small body of chosen troops surrounded the house of the general, who was seized and hurried off to the execution ground, where by torchlight his cries and his sorrows, as far as this world was concerned, were speedily put an end to.

But the tragedy had only begun with the death of the unfortunate conspirator. Revolution is a word of such a dread import in China, that it can be expiated only by the death of the offender and by every member of his family. As the general was a noted man, the Emperor decided that four generations on the father’s side and four on the mother’s, in all eight generations of absolutely innocent people, should be slaughtered without any trial and without any opportunity of defending themselves.

The murderous edict was at once drawn up and signed by the vermilion pen, and soldiers were sent out post haste to execute the decree, lest any of the unfortunate victims should escape. And so it came to pass that eight generations of people, without distinction of age or sex, were set upon and ruthlessly murdered. The old man whose footsteps were tottering to the grave, and the baby still in its mother’s arms; the matron in the midst of her family, and the young girls full of spirits and with the expectation of many happy years before them, without a moment’s warning were hacked and stabbed to death, until not a single member of the clan was left alive to tell the tale.

A Chinese family is in some respects a very interesting sight. The parents in this land are passionately fond of their children, especially the boys, and deny themselves for their sakes, and indulge them to such an extent that many of the lads when they grow up become anything but a credit to their homes. In the well-to-do families, the sons go to school from the time they are seven or eight till they are fifteen or sixteen, when, if they are not planning to be scholars, arrangements are made for them to go into business, and they become clerks or book-keepers or assistants in shops.

When the home is a poor one, the lads begin their life at a very early age; there is no schooling planned for them. As soon as they can handle a rake, they are sent out to collect firewood for the home. By and by, as they grow in strength, a pair of baskets and a bamboo carrying-pole are given them, and their life as coolies may be now said to have begun. The coolie in China may be said to be the unbought slave that does the rough and menial work of the Empire, and in large numbers of cases performs the labours that the beasts of burden do in our home lands.

The girls until they are five or six are allowed to run about the house and amuse themselves with the simple enjoyments that childhood is so ingenious in inventing. After that comes the serious business of foot-binding, when for several years they have to endure the most agonizing pains during the hideous process of maiming and distorting the feet, a procedure that nature never ceases for a single day to protest against. There is no question but that whilst this cruel custom is so dreadful that there is no language strong enough to condemn it, it has undoubtedly had the effect of developing in the woman’s character a heroic fortitude, and a power of endurance that enables her to bear up against many of the ills and trials that women are called upon to suffer during the course of their lives.

From the standpoint of the West, a girl’s life in China is a very monotonous one. She has no dolls to while away her idle moments. She never goes out to school, where she might meet other girls and give free play to her exuberant spirits on the playground, or enjoy the fun and jollity that girlhood knows so well how to appreciate. She may never take a walk, or stroll out in the moonlight, or ramble along the seashore, or race up and down the hillside. Her place is in the home, in the stuffy, ill-ventilated rooms, where she eats out her heart in the dreary monotonous life to which custom condemns her, and where her sole view of the great world outside is through the narrow doors through which, when no one is looking, she may catch a glimpse of the moving panorama that passes by them.

No wonder that the one day that to her is full of romance and poetry is that on which the troupe of actors erect their boards right in front of her house, and perform some comedy that fills every one with fits of laughter, and lets her see a phase of life that she never dreamt existed until these merry rogues acted it with such realistic power before her. The passion for theatricals in China is a symptom of the unrest and absolute weariness at the intolerable sameness that characterizes heathen life in this land.

After a careful study of the family life of this great people, one reluctantly comes to the conclusion that it is anything but a happy one. The main cause for this is the absence of mutual love when the married life begins, and the lower position that the woman occupies in the estimation of the men everywhere. That there are happy homes where hearts are knit to each other by true devotion and affection is undoubtedly the case, but they are the exception and by no means the rule.

One very unpleasant evidence of this is the frequency with which wife-beating is carried on by all classes. The Chinese, who adopt ten when they wish to give any idea of comparative numbers, declare that in six or seven families out of ten the husbands regularly beat their wives. Sixty or seventy per cent of the husbands treating their wives in this rough and brutal manner is a terrible commentary upon the home life of the Chinese, and yet no one, as far as my observation goes, ever expresses any condemnation of the custom. It seems to be considered as an inalienable right that has come down from the ancient past, before the civilization of the sages had begun to touch their forefathers with their humane teachings, and with the intense conservatism of the Chinese, the husbands continue to exercise it, whilst the great public looks on and takes no step to stop the barbarous custom.

That the wives have never consented to this unwomanly and savage treatment is evident from the fact of the large numbers of suicides amongst them that occur annually in any given area that one may select at random. A village is startled with the report that a woman has thrown herself into a well. Some one happening to pass by at the moment observed the poor creature with flushed face and flaming eyes throw herself headlong into it. At once every one is mad with excitement. The women run shouting and screaming to each other, expressing their loud commiseration; the men move along with sphinx-like faces to see if help can be rendered, and the dogs tear about yelping and barking and having free fights with each other.

The unfortunate woman is hauled out of the well with her long hair dishevelled and streaming with water, and with a look of terror on her face, as though death, when she came face to face with it, had filled her with an unspeakable horror. She is quite dead, and so amid noise and uproar and the wailing of her children, who have heard the terrible news, she is carried to her home. It seems that she had had a few words with her husband, and being high-spirited and independent, she had answered him in a way that had been hurtful to his dignity as a man, and seizing a heavy piece of wood, he had beaten her most unmercifully, without any thought as to where the blows fell. With her body bruised and with her heart breaking, and with her sense of womanhood utterly crushed out of her, she determined that she would hide her disgrace in the well, and in doing so would avenge herself most thoroughly on the man who had so injured her. Her husband in his desolate home, though he might feel no sorrow for the woman he had wronged, would be made to realize what a grievous mistake he had made when he found that he had to attend to the details of the home management that had hitherto been left to her care.

It must not be supposed that the Chinese husbands because they beat their wives do not love them, for that is not the case. Looking at the Chinese home in a rough and general way, one is struck with the fact that there is really a great deal of mutual affection shown both by the husband and the wife for one another. It is less demonstrative than with the peoples of the West. Oriental thought and tradition are against the open demonstration of the love that they feel for each other, still it is unquestionably the fact that the great majority of the homes in this land are bound together by a true and a solid affection.

The Chinaman, stolid and unemotional looking, has within him a world of passion waiting till something rouses it, and then it breaks forth like one of his own typhoons, reckless of what it may destroy. But beside this fiery volcanic nature, that leads men who are accustomed to beat their wives into the most cruel treatment of them, he is moved by forces that would never influence us; so much so that the forty per cent. that treat their wives with courtesy and respect are occasionally influenced to join the ranks of the wife-beaters, simply to avoid the imputation that they are afraid of them and dare not use the stick to them.

In that most charming and humorous book, The Chinese Empire, written by Abbé Huc, he describes a scene that seems incredible, but which is a true portrait of what frequently takes place throughout the country. He tells of a man who was really fond of his wife and who for two or three years lived on the most affectionate terms with her. He noticed that smiles passed over the yellow visages of some of the young fellows that he was acquainted with whenever they passed each other on the street. Flashes of fun, too, made the black eyes of others gleam, as though the laughter within them was too great to be suppressed. Furtive glances, too, were cast upon him by men who seemed anxious not to catch his eye.

He was perplexed at these cryptic signs and tried to get an explanation. At last one day, a kind friend enlightened him, and explained to him the mysterious conduct of his neighbours, who, he said, were exceedingly amused because he had never beaten his wife, and the only reason they could think of was because he was afraid of her.

There is nothing in the world that a Chinaman dreads so much as being laughed at. He can stand a great deal, but that stirs his soul in a way that transforms the solemn, staid-looking Celestial into a raging wild beast. “If that is all my neighbours have to be amused at,” he said, whilst passion was tearing his soul with a perfect storm of fury, “I can soon prove to them that they are utterly mistaken, and I will show them in a most convincing manner that they have been so.”

Without a moment’s delay he hastened home, and seizing the first heavy implement that lay handy, he began to belabour his wife with it, with such terrible effect that soon the air resounded with the shrieks and cries of the unhappy woman. When the passion had died down, he confessed that he had done wrong, but nothing could save his wife, for the injuries he had inflicted on her had been so severe that in two or three days she died in the greatest agony.

Chinese law in many respects is as curious as the Chinese mind. In civil offences, it refuses to take the initiative, and if no complaints are put before the mandarin, the most outrageous crimes, that in England would at once set in motion the whole machinery of the law until ample justice had been done upon the criminal, are left without any punishment. In this case there was no one to bring any complaint before the authorities; for what was the crime? A man had beaten his wife, but sixty per cent. of the husbands throughout the Empire do that habitually. Public opinion had nothing to say against him excepting that he had carried his beating a little too far, for which he was a fool, for he would be simply so much out of pocket when he came to purchase another wife.

The poor woman was dead, dead of a broken heart, dead from the awful injuries that she had sustained, simply that her husband’s face might be preserved in the estimation of his neighbours; and now not a word of sympathy for her, not a tear was shed, and scarcely a shadow passed over the face of any one, as she travelled through unutterable sorrow into the unknown land.

The inferior position that a woman holds in the estimation of the men is shown in their absolute indifference to her when she happens to fall sick. She is allowed to drag on in pain and weariness for weeks and months, and the expense of a doctor and the medicines he might prescribe are not entertained until she gets so seriously ill that without medical aid she would inevitably die. A doctor is then called in to diagnose her case, but one has a grim suspicion that the main factor in the husband’s willingness to sacrifice a few cash for his wife, was not any inordinate love for her, but dread lest she should die and he would have to be out of pocket in providing himself with another.

A Chinese doctor whose opinion I was one day asking with regard to this very question, assured me that in his medical practice he had found the men invariably opposed to the spending of money on their wives when they were ill. “I was on one occasion,” he said, “attending a country-woman for some complaint. It was not a serious case, but it was such that if no remedy had been applied, it might have grown into one that would have caused her considerable inconvenience. I sent in my bill to the husband for my attendance and for the medicines I had supplied, but he refused to pay. It only came to forty cash (about a penny), but he declared that he had not called me in, and therefore he would not accept my account. The woman I knew had no money, and so I told her I would not charge her.”

The Chinese family is supposed to be bound together by a virtue that is unique in China, and which has never been looked upon with the same reverence by any other country in the world as in it. I refer to filial piety. There is no question but that this as an ideal virtue has been held up before the nation during the whole length of its existence. Confucius immortalized the subject by writing a book on it, and though it is wanting in the nerve and vigour of his other classical works, because it is from his pen it has through successive generations exercised a marvellous influence in keeping up the national belief in this virtue amongst all classes of society, from the Emperor on the throne down to the poorest beggar that sits with sore legs and tattered garments by the roadside, though his own parents perhaps years ago drove him on to the streets, and because of his badness refused to recognize him as their son.

The utterance of the word “Hsiau,” has an electrical effect upon any Chinaman in whose hearing it is mentioned. The ordinary citizen will discourse with you by the hour upon its beauties, and he will enlarge upon the excellence and nobility of the children that carry it out in ordinary life, especially when great obstacles exist in the performance of it. The man upon whose face profligate is plainly written with the pen of whisky and opium hears the word “Hsiau,” and a softened look passes over it, and his eyes lose their hardness, and any goodness that lay in his heart is for the moment supreme. In fact, I have never yet met any one, scoundrel or honest man, who has not been moved more or less by the mention of this universally reverenced virtue.

Next in importance to the brochure of Confucius on filial piety is a book quite as widely known, which is entitled The Twenty-four Examples of Filial Piety. A brief account of twenty-four famous instances of devotion to parents under various trying circumstances are given, and these are printed age after age, and read eagerly by the people.

They are certainly most amusing reading, and they give the impression that whatever other qualities the Chinaman may possess, he is endowed with a strain of romance and poetry that explains how popular he can be when he lets himself go. One story tells of a man who was looked upon as a model for filial piety. His family consisted of his mother, himself and wife, and a little infant son. Quite unexpectedly his mother falls dangerously ill and is unable to eat any food. Distressed beyond measure at this, and fearing lest she should die, he kills his child, and the milk that his wife used to give to the little one is now absorbed by the sick mother.

This deed is evidently so pleasing to Heaven, that whilst he is digging a grave in which to bury his murdered child, he suddenly comes upon a bar of gold, which he at once accepts as a special present to himself for his filial piety. Whilst he is congratulating himself on the good fortune that has befallen him, he hears a cry from the mat in which he had wrapped his son, and to his delight he finds that he has come to life again, without any of the marks upon him to show the brutal treatment he had received from his father. Returning home with the gold and the baby in his arms, a fresh delightful surprise awaits him, for his mother comes to the door to meet him, perfectly restored to health—another special favour from Heaven to reward him for his devotion to her.

Another of these twenty-four is a young lad, who acts in such a way as to excite the admiration of all who read his story. His mother had died and his father married a second wife, who was exceedingly unkind to him. She had a son of her own by a previous marriage, upon whom she lavished all the love of her heart. After years of ill-treatment, his father one day quite unexpectedly discovers the true state of the case, when he is so enraged that he drives his wife and her beloved son from his home, and he declares that he will never have anything more to do with them.

It is at this juncture that the filial piety that has immortalized the young fellow’s name is conspicuously manifested. He so pleads with his father to forgive his stepmother that he is permitted to go and bring her home again, though he is quite conscious that her return means sorrow to himself.

AN OLD LADY.

To face p. 39.

He has successfully performed his mission, when lingering on the road he is seized by a band of robbers, who decide, for reasons not stated, to murder him. The stepmother hears of this, and filled with remorse and with gratitude too, she takes her own son to the robbers’ camp and offers them him in exchange for the other, to be killed in his stead. The thieves are so impressed with the noble self-denial of both stepmother and stepson, that they all agree to abandon their evil lives and to become honest citizens of the Empire, which they proceed to do at once, and the band is broken up.

One of the most famous amongst the twenty-four heroes, however, is one whose name it would seem to any one but a Chinaman ought to be covered with infamy, instead of being inscribed on the roll of fame, and held up for the admiration of the whole Empire. His name is Ting-lan, and it is told of him that for many years he cruelly beat and ill-treated his mother. One day he happened to be on the hillside caring for his flock of goats, when he saw a young kid kneel down by its mothers side to drink. He was so struck with this beautifully submissive action of the animal, that he was led to think of how different had been his own conduct to his mother. A wave of repentance swept over his heart, and he determined that his whole future life should be an atonement for the wrongs he had done her.

Just at this moment the old lady appeared coming over the hill towards him, when Ting-lan, his heart filled with his good resolutions, ran eagerly in her direction, to kneel down before her to confess his sins and to tell her how he had determined to be a dutiful son in the future. The mother, knowing nothing of the change of heart that had come over him, and thinking that he was rushing at her to beat her, turned and fled in hot haste, and threw herself into a deep and rapid river that flowed near by.

Her son, terrified and distressed beyond measure, jumped in after her in his endeavour to save her, but all in vain. The fast-flowing stream had claimed her as its victim, and no trace of the unhappy mother could be found in the turbid waters that hid her from the gaze of her weeping son. By and by there seemed to rise from the very spot where his mother had disappeared a flat oblong piece of wood, which he seized upon eagerly as the only memento that remained of her, and on this he had engraved her name and the date of her death. Popular tradition holds that the first use of the Ancestral Tablets, which are believed to contain the spirits of the dead and which are worshipped twice a year by the living descendants, began from this time and from this circumstance. If this is so, which is extremely doubtful, then it may be said that Ting-lan was the originator of a form of worship that is more powerful and more deep-seated than any other in the whole of the Empire.

When the Chinese are asked how it is that such an unworthy character as Ting-lan could be admitted into such a renowned gallery of national worthies, the only reply you get is, “Oh, he repented, you know,” as if that were enough to condone years of cruel treatment of his mother, and quite sufficient to entitle him to a more than common place amongst the great moral teachers of his country. One cannot conceive of any other nation in the world but the Chinese being willing to canonize such a very doubtful character as Ting-lan.

The mere fact that there has been such a high ideal of filial piety maintained from the very earliest days of Chinese history has been of incalculable service to the Empire. It is an ideal that every one accepts, and it must be admitted that but for it society in general and the home in particular would have degenerated more than they have done in the passage of the centuries. That there are as fine examples of filial piety to-day as any of those recorded in the popular book that has been quoted is unquestionable, but they are rare. A boy to be filial must be dutiful and submissive, he must neither gamble nor smoke opium; whatever wages he earns he must hand over to his parents; he must support them in old age, and when they die he must perform the regular services to the spirits in the grave and in the Ancestral Tablet, and in the Ancestral Hall.

From examination that I have made, the prevailing testimony is that not more than one or two per cent, of the sons of the present day are in any true sense filial. You speak to a young man about filial piety. His face is leaden-hued, and has all the marks of the dissipated opium smoker. His face lights up and he becomes eloquent as he expatiates on the virtue. You examine into his home life, and you find that he is leaving his old parents upon the very verge of destitution. He has borrowed money on the farm, and he has carried off the best of the goods in the home and pawned them. This man represents a large class who are all enthusiastic, in the abstract, about filial piety, but who look on whilst the old father is slaving himself to death, but who will not lift a finger to keep the wolf away from the door.

You meet another young fellow who is not an opium smoker. He has the appearance of robust health. He lives well and generously, for his salary is an ample one. The ruddy hue on his face becomes tinged with a brighter colour, as you talk with him about the duty of sons towards their parents, and you feel now that you have a genuine case of filial piety such as might be enrolled amongst the famous twenty-four. You ask him casually how much he sends home regularly to the old folks in their country home. A shadow falls over his face, he stammers and hesitates, and mumbles out something about his expenses being so heavy that he has not been able to spare anything out of his salary; but he says, and his face brightens up as he does so, “I am going to send some as soon as I draw my next money.” For the moment he means to do this, but he never does.

That filial piety exists in China, in the books of its sages, in its light literature, and in a deep sentiment imbedded in the hearts of all classes of society, is a fact that no one who knows anything of this strange and perplexing land can dispute. It is just as true, however, that in actual practice it is no more prevalent here than it is in England or America, if quite so much, and that the reputation that China has obtained for the carrying out of this virtue is one that she does not deserve.