《中国人的性格》是美国传教士阿瑟·史密斯（明

《中国人的性格》是美国传教士阿瑟·史密斯（明恩溥）基于1872年赴华传教期间的社会观察撰写的著作，首版英文名《Chinese Characteristics》于19世纪末问世，。作者在华生活逾五十年，书中融合人类学视角与传教士立场，记录了晚清民众的性格特征与文化形态。

全书以27个主题章节剖析中国人行为模式，包含“保全面子”“省吃俭用”等生活哲学，以及“漠视精确”“因循守旧”等社会现象。通过对比西方工业文明，着重探讨东方特有的生存韧性，如环境适应力与疼痛耐受性。书中案例多源自山东乡村生活经历，涉及衣食住行、孝悌观念等主题，部分结论因宗教立场存在视角争议。该著作开创西方研究中国国民性先河，被译成多国文字，成为近代中西文化互鉴的重要文本。

我们已经考察了中国人的慈善活动。仁慈是一种善良的天性，同情也建立在它的基础上，我们姑且认为中国人的确做了些慈善事业，下面所要阐明的是中国人明显缺乏同情。

我们要时刻牢记，中国人口众多，各地会定期发大水或闹饥荒。很多国家的事实都表明，社会条件是控制人口增长的重要因素，但在中国，似乎不怎么灵验。传种接代是中国人的首要愿望。最穷的人家也要在儿子很小时就给他们娶媳妇，随后这些孩子又生出一大堆孩子，就好像他们生活有保障一样。还由于一些其他原因，结果使得中国人的生活简直就是干活，吃饭，吃饭，干活，几乎就像一个短工，这已经难以避免。如果一个外国人不能马上意识到，几乎所有的中国人都缺钱，他就不可能长期与中国人相处。事情一开始做，他们就要钱，因为他们一无所有，给了钱，做事的人才有饭吃。即使是小康人家，急需用钱的时候，也很难筹集到起码的数目。中国有个意味深长的说法，用以形容办丧事、打官司时被迫借钱的窘状：“过贱年”，就是说好像一个饥饿的人，不顾一切地寻求帮助。除了境况较好的人家外，谁都不可以指望能在孤立无援的情况下，独立操办这类事情。令人绝望的贫穷是帝国最突出的现实，它使得人与人之间明显变得冷漠。在物质困乏的压力下，人们已形成一些固定的习惯，即使是直接的生活需求不再紧迫时，他们仍保持艰苦的生活水平。中国的生活就像一个椭园，钱和粮是它的两个圆心，一切社会生活都围绕着它们旋转。

帝国民众的极度贫困、他们为生活所需而进行的长

帝国民众的极度贫困、他们为生活所需而进行的长期艰苦的抗争，以及在各种难以想像的条件下所遭受的令人同情的苦难，都是世人皆知的。中国人的慈善行为无论是出于何种动机，也都只不过是想从令人绝望的痛苦中解脱出来，哪怕是千分之一那么一点点。这些苦难一直沉重地压迫着他们，要是遇到灾荒年头，还不知要糟多少倍呢！中国的有识之士应该意识到他们那些缓和痛苦的办法是彻底行不通的。无论是靠个人的慈悲，还是靠政府的干预，即使做得再好，也只能改善表面的症状，对于根除疾病完全无效。就像发冰块给伤寒病人一样——每个人就这么多，没有医院，没有饮食，没有药物，没有护理。因此，一点也不奇怪，中国人没有变得更慈善，而是在全然缺乏制度、预见和管理的情况下，一直保持行善的习惯。我们都清楚，即使一个有教养的人，长期面对既无法阻止又无力帮助解决的灾难，会产生什么样的结果。现代的战争就是一个明证。第一次看见血，会精神紧张，产生难以消除的印象，但它很快就消失了，人也变得麻木了。对有经验的人来说，对血的恐惧一生只有一次。中国经常发生战争，人们对战争的结果也早已习以为常。

对残疾人的态度也能说明中国人缺乏同情；中国人一般认为，呆子、瞎子、尤其是独眼龙、聋子、秃子、斗鸡眼都应该避而远之。似乎生理上有缺陷，道德上也一定有缺陷。据我们观察，人们不会对这些人冷酷无情，但总是缺少同情。就像古犹太人认为的，这些人肯定暗中犯了罪，因此才遭到这样的惩罚。相反，西方人会对这种人产生发自内心的同情。

一个不幸残疾的人，无论是先天的还是后天的，不能忍耐嘲讽就不能活下去。对他最温和的方式是描述他的缺陷，以引起众人的注意，药铺的伙计会对一个病人说：“麻子老兄，你是哪村的？”一个斜眼人听到“眼斜心歪”也不足为奇，假如是个秃子，就会听到：“十个秃子有九个是骗子，最后一个如不哑巴，也一样。”这些不幸的人终生都必须逆来顺受，只有当他听到长年不断的嘲弄而不再温怒时，才能够安于生活。

对精神有问题的人，中国人同样坦率得过分。旁观者会说：“这孩子是个笨蛋！”可实际上，他也许并不笨。不断地重复说他不长脑子，很容易摧残他未发育完全的智力。以这种方式对待精神病患者或其他病人，也十分普遍。也许恰恰就是这种方式导致了疾病的产生，并使之更为严重。他们所有的毛病、生活的细节成了公众的谈资，而他们自己所能做的只是完全习惯于被称为“疯子”。“二百五”、“蠢货”等等。

在一个重视生男孩的民族中，因没有孩子而遭到谴

在一个重视生男孩的民族中，因没有孩子而遭到谴责与嘲骂，一点儿也不奇怪。就像传说中先知撒母耳的母亲，“为了激怒她，仇敌触动了她的痛处。”不管有意无意，一个母亲悄悄地闷死了她的一个孩子，人们对此并不大惊小怪，那一定是个女孩。

婚礼中新娘的遭遇也是中国人缺乏同情的典型例证。新娘一般都很年幼，也很害羞胆怯，突然置身于那么多陌生人当中，难免感到恐惧。尽管各地风俗差别很大，但都任凭众人盯着这些可怜的孩子，完全漠视她们此刻的心情。有的地方，人们可以随意拉开轿帘，盯着新娘看；还有的地方，新娘会成为尚未出嫁的姑娘们取乐的对象。她们站在新娘经过的道旁，大把大把地向她头上撒草籽或谷糠，新娘的头发是费了好长时间，仔细油过的，那些东西会牢牢地粘在上面。在公婆门前，新娘一下轿子，就立刻成了人们品评的对象，仿佛一匹刚买来的马，此时此刻，＊注：撒母耳，《圣经》中希伯莱的士师与先知。新娘的心情当然是不难想像的。

中国人一方面特别注意细节，另一方面又会做出对别人显然不合时宜的事。我的一位中国朋友，就说过一些失礼的话，可他一点儿都没觉察到。他描述他第一次见到外国人时，说他感到最惊奇的是他们脸上长满了胡子，像猴子一样，然后他还再三保证说：“我现在已经非常习惯了。”老师则会当着学生的面评价学生：靠门的那个最聪明，二十岁时一定会高中，而邻桌的那两个的确是他所见学生中最愚蠢的，这种评价会对学生产生何种影响，从来没人想过。

中国人缺乏同情还表现在他们的大家庭生活方面。尽管各家情况不同，我们仍然可以轻而易举地发现，他们的家庭生活并不幸福。他们也不可能幸福，因为缺少感情上的结合，而这一点在我们的现实生活中恰恰是至关重要的。中国人的家庭只是个人组成的团体而已，他们持久稳定地结合在一起，有共同的利益，也有不同的利益。这种家庭在我们看来根本不是家庭，因为家庭成员之间没有同情心。

在中国，女孩一出生，多多少少总不受欢迎。她们

在中国，女孩一出生，多多少少总不受欢迎。她们的遭遇中有大量有意义的事例，可以说明中国人缺乏同情。

在中国，母亲和女儿共同住在封闭狭窄的小院子里，难免会发生争吵，由于平时很少受到约束，她们便往往恶语相加。中国俗话说：“再骂总是亲闺女。”对于想了解中国家庭的人，这句话确实很有意味。女儿一旦结婚，除血缘关系，就与娘家没多少关系了，将她的名字从家谱中抹去，是出于一种根深蒂固的观念：她不再是我们家的女儿了，而是别人的媳妇了。但人的天性又促使女儿隔三差五回娘家走亲戚，这也是地方风俗，某些地方，女儿经常回娘家，而且住的时间很长；而另外一些地方，女儿则应尽量少回娘家，如果娘家人全死了，她就几乎再也不回去了。不管这些风俗有多少细微的差异，人们普遍认为，媳妇是婆家人。女儿回娘家，严格说来，是出于一种做活的考虑。她们常常带上婆家的一大堆针线活，而娘家的人必须帮她做完，每次还要尽量带上自己的孩子，这样，既可以避免自己不在时没人照看，最重要的是孩子能在姥姥家吃喝花销。对于女儿较多的家庭，频繁的造访会令全家人感到很可怕，简直是一种严重的盘剥。因此，父亲与兄弟常常阻挡女儿回来，母亲却暗中支持。但根据当地风俗，如正月里的某些日子，尤其还有节日，女儿回娘家是不能限制的。

女儿回婆家时，就像谚语中讲的贼，从未空手而归。她应给婆婆带些礼物，一般是些吃的。假如忽略了这一点，或者没能办到，婆婆就会演戏似地发一通脾气，女儿嫁到穷人家里，或者后来家道衰落了，假如她有一些结了婚的兄弟，她将会发现，回娘家就仿佛医生说的，“处置不当”。娘家的媳妇和已出嫁的女儿之间就会爆发战争，就像非利士人和以色列人一样，都把家看成自己的领地，把对方看成入侵者。如果媳妇在家里足够强大，她们就会像非利士人那样，对不能统统消失或赶走的仇敌索取贡品。媳妇在整个家庭中的地位，严格地说，形同奴仆。找仆人，当然要找健壮的，发育良好的，而且还要懂得烹调、缝纫等生活技艺，不论当地人如何谋生，她们总比没有力气和办事能力的孩子要强得多。因此，我们就明白了，为什么一个十岁左右瘦弱的男孩会要一个健壮丰满。二十岁的姑娘作媳妇了。婚后很长一段时间，姑娘还要尽心尽力照看生天花的小丈夫，天花是一种幼儿病。

中国媳妇的苦难简直罄竹难书。中国妇女一般结婚很早，她们一生中相当一部分时间是受婆婆的绝对控制，由此，人们大概可以想像出媳妇在倍受虐待的家庭中，遭受了多么令人难以忍受的痛苦。做父母的，在女儿遭受虐待时。只能对她的婆家表示抗议，或在女儿受虐自杀后，索取高昂的送葬费，除此之外，他们完全保护不了自己的女儿。如果丈夫严重伤害、甚至杀死了妻子，只要说她对公婆“不孝”，就可以逍遥法外了，我们有必要重复一遍，年纪轻轻的媳妇自杀，在中国司空见惯，有些地方，各村都会接二连三发生这类事。一位母亲曾责备已出嫁的女儿自杀未遂：“你有机会，怎么会死不成？”痛哉斯言！

在几年前的北京《邸报》上，河南总督偶然披露了

在几年前的北京《邸报》上，河南总督偶然披露了一种情况：不仅父母杀死孩子不需要负法律责任，而且作婆婆的杀死媳妇只需交一笔罚金就行了。在报告的案例中，有一位妇女用香柱烧她的童养媳，用烧红的火钳烙她的双颊，最后又用滚烫的开水把她烹死。这位总督的奏折里还提到了其他类似的例子，其可靠性是勿容置疑的。这类极端野蛮的行径大概并不多，不过，残酷的虐待导致自杀或企图自杀却是常见的。

中国有许多妇女嫁给人作妾，她们的生活也十分痛苦。她们生活的家庭，极少是幸福的，总是不断发幸争吵和公开的打斗。一位在中国住了很久的外国人写道：“我所居住的那个城市的长官，是个大富翁、大学者，诗人，也很有才干，通晓经典教义；但他任意欺骗、诅咒、搜刮和体罚百姓，以满足自己罪恶的欲念。他的一个妾逃跑了，抓到后，被剥光了衣服倒吊在梁上，严刑拷打。”

在中国这样的国家，穷人可不能生病。女人、孩子病了，男人根本不把它当做一回事，任其发展，到最后常常都是病人膏盲，因为男人没时间照料他们，有时是因为“付不起医药费”。

我们前面讨论的孝顺观念把年轻人看得无足轻重。他们的价值只在未来，而不是现是。西方的许多做法在中国常常是被反其道而行之。三个旅行者当中，最年轻的要吃苦在前。最年轻的仆人也一律最辛苦。百姓的生活穷困难熬，孩子们经常会因苛刻的压制而离家出逃。在外头，他们一般都能发现生存的希望，因为可以与别人合伙谋生。。出逃的原因多种多样，但据观察，最普遍是因为不堪虐待。我知道一个男孩，最近斑疹伤寒初愈，很想吃东西——这种病人一般都是这样。他觉得家里的粗糙的黑窝头实在难以下咽，就跑到街上，非常奢侈地买了大约两毛钱的点心吃了，但因此受到父亲的严厉责骂，于是一气之下，跑到东北去了，从此，杳无消息。

乔治·Ｄ·普林蒂斯说，男人是支配者，女人只不

乔治·Ｄ·普林蒂斯说，男人是支配者，女人只不过是“细枝末节”。这话用来形容妻子在中国家庭中的地位，非常恰当。人们认为，婚姻对女方家庭是为了不再抚养她，摆脱一个负担，对男方家庭则是为了传种接代。除非深究潜在的动机，人们对此都是闭口不谈。但是在中国，没有谁对此心里不清楚。

婚姻的这一目的，在较穷的阶层表现得更突出。寡妇再嫁，人们会说：“现在她不会饿死了。”俗话说：再嫁再娶，为了肚皮；没吃没喝，拆灶散伙。灾荒年头，丈夫抛弃妻儿，任其乞讨或饿死，己是司空见惯，有很多家庭把儿媳妇赶回娘家，由娘家赡养，或最终饿死。他们说：“你们的女儿，你们自己养活吧。”有时，发给哺育婴儿和妇女的特殊救济粮，会被男人吞吃，尽管这种事可能并不多，可总在发生。

仅仅通过灾荒年头的现象评价一个民族，显然有欠公允，然而，重要的是，特殊的岁月常常是检验社会基本原则的试金石，和平时相比，可能会更准确，更确实，在中国，卖妻卖儿，并不只发生在灾荒年头。只不过，这时人似乎忘记是在从事人口交易。了解真情的人都知道，早几年，很多灾区，买卖妇女儿童就像买卖牲口一样公开，唯一的区别就是前者不用赶到集市上去。1878年，大灾荒几乎席卷了整个东三省，并向南蔓延，买卖妇女随处可见，十分普遍。大量的妇女被运往内地。有的地方，运输都出现了困难，甚至连一辆马车都雇不到。人贩子千方百计转运刚买到的妇女，把年轻的从灾区或人口过剩的地方运往因造反而人口减少、或多年娶妻困难的地区。令人感到悲哀的是，这一奇怪的交易对买卖双方可能都是最好的出路。尽管卖方妻离子散，天各一方，但买者与卖者毕竟都能活下去。

我们说过，中国人之所以对病人熟视无睹，是因为他们“只不过是女人和孩子”。天花，在西方被当成可怕的灾祸，可中国人对它一点儿也不重视——尽管在中国经常有人染上这种病，而且几乎无人能逃，这也只因为害天花的主要是孩子。因害这种病而双目失明的人十分普遍。中国人对婴儿生命价值的忽视程度，令西方人难以想像。他们强烈反对毁坏人的尸体，但对婴儿的尸体经常不加掩埋。婴儿死了，人们都是说：“扔掉”，用芦席松松地卷了，抛到荒野里，不久就被野狗吃掉了。有的地方，还流行一种恐怖的习俗，把婴儿塞进乱坟岗的死人堆，以免“鬼魂”回家骚扰。

我们感到天花可怕，中国人却不在乎。可他们对斑

我们感到天花可怕，中国人却不在乎。可他们对斑疹伤寒与伤寒的恐惧，如同我们见了猩红热一般。一个人离家在外，得了上述其中任一种病，都难以得到妥善的护理，甚至一点护理也得不到。向其他人请求帮助，得到的回答肯定是：“那病传染。”尽管伤寒多少有些传染，可在云南的一些山沟里，它可能是最令人胆寒的灾难。巴伯先生描述说：“患者不久变得虚弱不堪，接着一连几小时，浑身疼痛难忍；随后神志不清，胡言乱语，患了这种病，十之八九，性命不保。”据当地人说：“病人房间的各个角落都被鬼占据了，桌子和床在里面四处移动，发出声音，清楚地回答人们的提问。”可是，很少有人冒险进屋。传教士向我证实，大多数情况下，由于害怕传染，人们像对待麻疯病人一样将病人丢弃不问。如果家里的老人患了这种病，最好的照顾就是把他挪进一间孤零零的小屋子，放上一碗水，锁上门。挂念他的亲人每天两次战战兢兢地从门缝往里看，用棍子捅捅病人，看他是不是还活着。中国人性情温和，在这样一个民族，每个家庭中肯定存在友爱行为，不过我们没有发现而已。疾病与灾难尤其容易唤起人类天性中最美好的一面。在一家为中国人开的西方医院里，我们耳闻目睹了很多实例，不仅父母与子女，丈夫与妻子真诚相爱，就连陌生人之间也彼此爱护。一位中国母亲见到失去母亲的婴儿，很愿意用自己的乳汁喂养他，因为不忍心看着他饿死。

除非有特殊的原因，没人愿意帮助别人，这是中国多重社会关系表现出来的一个特点。比如，一个聪慧的男孩，经过考虑，想去读书，即使他没机会入学堂，这也非常合乎清理。可他周围的很多读书人，宁愿闲着无事，也不愿教他识字。他一流露出读书的愿望，就会招来无穷的嘲讽，这些人曾经年累月待在学堂里，他们似乎认为：“这家伙凭什么走捷径，我们费了好多年时间辛辛苦苦学来的东西，怎么能教他，让他很快学会呢？还是让他和我们一样请老师吧。”尽管个别人可以自学，但是很少有人能真正学到知识，哪怕是最基本的识字也不可能。

见人落水，竟袖手旁观，所有在中国的西方人都对此大为震惊。几年前，一艘外国汽轮在扬子江上着火，岸上挤满了观望的中国人，但没人营救落水的乘客与船员。最后，那些拼命游到岸边的人，很多都被抢劫一空，甚至身上的衣服也被剥去了，还有一些人被当场杀死。不久前，英国也曾发生沉船事件，但没有出现不营救的现象，我们应该将这些事比较来看。1892年秋天，英国一艘庞大的汽船在中国海岸搁浅，当地渔民和政府官员都尽全力救助幸存者。不过，中国人对灾难麻木不仁，这是个普遍的事实，尤其离家在外，俗话说：在家千日好，出门一时难。

在中国旅行，人们普遍发现，沿途的人对陌生人缺乏友善与帮助。夏天遇到暴雨，无法继续旅行时，需要前进的人会发现，这时天公和人在合伙捉弄他。即使你走的路通向泥潭，也没人会提醒你。你走入泥潭，与附近修路的人无关。我们说过，中国人不重视公路建设。所有的路在任何时候都布满了深坑，旅行者一旦陷进去就难以自拔。这时，周围立刻会聚满看热闹的人，他们都像一句成语所说的：“袖手旁观”。直到答应给钱，旁观者中才会有一位站出来，帮你一把。不仅如此，当地的居民还经常故意在难走的地方挖一个深坑，这样，陷进去的旅客不得不花钱请他帮忙。在这种情况下，一个人若不了解道路情况，最好不要听当地人的劝告，只管照直往前走，只要不能肯定所走的是一条绝路，就比接受他们的“帮助”好得多。

可是，我们还听说过，一家外国人搬到中国内地的

可是，我们还听说过，一家外国人搬到中国内地的一个城市，受到了人们的热诚欢迎，邻居甚至主动借家具给他们，直到他们把家具备齐。类似的事情无疑还有，不过，谁都明白，这只是例外。人们一般除了对新搬来的人感到好奇外，更多的是表示冷漠，就好像肥鹅注定会招来贪婪与阴沉的敌意，最终被拔光羽毛。还没听说过，外国人遇到天灾人祸，中国人自愿帮忙的先例，当然，也可能出现过。我们只听说，曾有一些海员尝试从天津到烟台、从广州到汕头作陆上旅游时，自始至终没人给过他们一碗饭，或留住一宿。

在中国，将客死他乡的人运回家，途中住店非常困难，一般是住不成，我们曾听说，一位死者的兄弟，因店主不让住店，不得不在街头过夜。请摆渡者将尸体运过河，也会被狠狠地敲一笔。我们还晓得，有些人为免引起怀疑，就把尸体层层包裹，再外扎草席，使它看起来像一包货物。据说，前几年的一个寒冬，山东维县的一家店主因为怕几个快要冻僵的旅客死在店里，拒绝他们住店。结果，这几位旅客都冻死街头。

中国人作恶犯罪，很少有人告发，部分原因是没钱告状，另外也不愿惹人注意，通奸案一般私下了结。插足者会遭到一大帮人的毒打，中国人相信“人多势众”。有时，这个人的腿会被打折，有时是胳膊，更多的情况是被用生石灰弄瞎双眼。笔者知道几个这方面的例子，这类事情一点儿也不罕见。有一位聪明的中国人，他不了解西方人的思想“方式，当他听到外国人抗议这种极为残酷的做法时，毫不掩饰他的惊讶，他说，这种处理方法在中国已是“非常宽容”的了，就像他自己，仅仅残废而已，否则，早被杀死了。

“为什么老是到我家吃饭？”作嫂子的会对小叔子这样说，他已离家多年，在外头干了见不得人的事，双眼被人用生石灰弄瞎了，“这儿没地方让你住，硬的，有刀；软的，有绳，你只配要这些！”这是那位无法医治的盲人偶然告诉我的，如果有希望，他还想获得一丝光明；若是没希望，他暗示说，无论“硬的”，还是“软的”，都可以让他解除痛苦。我们很少听说过，这类暴行的受害者告官成功过。对他们不利的证据已经压倒了一切，而且官员们十之八九认为他们活该，罪有应得，甚至还应该加重惩罚。即便他打赢了官司，处境也不会有所改善，只会变得更糟。他的邻居会更加愤怒，那时，他连命也难保了。

中国人把人视为神圣的，但生活中很少重视人的价

中国人把人视为神圣的，但生活中很少重视人的价值、人的尊严。在中国，偷盗是最易惹人愤怒的罪恶之一。因为人口众多，而且经常濒临无法生存的境地，偷盗就被视为对社会的严重威胁，其危害仅次于谋杀。在一次救灾中，一位分发救济品的人，发现一位妇女像疯狗一样被锁在石磨上，她是个盗窃狂，早已精神错乱。如果一个人被发现是小偷，或因某种原因而被公众唾弃，他就可能在简单讯问后被公众处死，这和弗吉尼亚早些年治安维持会的做法没什么两样。有时用刀子刺死，更多是活埋。有人形象地称之为“吞金”，其实，这非常残酷。笔者认识四个人，曾差点被这样处死。有两例是已被捆上，有一例是坑已挖好，后来由于族人中一些长者的干预，才没有被活埋。另有一例，发生在笔者很熟悉的一个小村子里，一个年轻人偷东西，已经不可救药，人们也知道他神经不正常。他本家的一些人和他母亲“商量（！）”了一下，就在村口的小河上砸了个冰窟窿，把他捆紧，塞了进去。

太平天国起义闹得最凶的那段日子，到处都很紧张。一张生面孔，一旦有嫌疑，就会被抓起来，遭到严厉的盘查。若不能交待清楚，使抓他的人满意，马上就会遭殃。在离盘查点几百码远的地方，文告上写着将近二十年前发生的两件惨事。当时，官吏们发现，他们自己几乎无力执法，就发布了一个半官方的告示，让百姓捕捉所有的可疑人物。一次，村民们发现，一个人骑着马向村子里走来，不像是本省的。盘问中，那人怎么也说不清自己的来历，接着又发现他的包裹中塞满了珠宝，这显然是偷来的，村民们就把他捆起来，挖坑活埋了。这时，又看见一个人惊恐地从田野中跑过，有人猜测他可能是同伙，索性连他也一起埋了。有时，陌生人还被迫自己挖坑。在无法无天的时代，所有的人都会变得胆大妄为。一些老人回忆说，那时候，像这类事数不胜数。1877年，爆发了一场不可思议的剪辫运动，当时，大半个帝国都被白色恐怖所笼罩，许多有嫌疑的人都被活埋了。当然，特殊情况下，任何民族都会产生这样的恐怖时期，我们也不能太苛求中国人。

中国人缺乏同情，最突出的表现是残酷。他们一般认为中国的穆斯林比他们自己更残酷。尽管可能真的如此，但了解中国人的人，肯定都认为，对别人的痛苦漠然置之，世界上几乎没有任何文明国家能与中国相比。就拿孩子来说，在家里，他们几乎无拘无束；一旦开始上学，这个充满温情的天国就消失了。《三字经》是帝国最常用的启蒙教材，这本书中有句话，叫做：“教不严，师之情。”老师的性情与学生的天资都会影响老师对学生的态度。不过一般来说，都非常严厉。我们曾见过一个刚被老师惩罚过的学生，那情形就像在街头打了一架，头破血流。老师让他掌握写应试文章的秘诀，他没做到。老师发火，学生挨骂，更是常事。另外，不幸受罚的孩子还会遭母亲的毒打，一位平时拿孩子出气的母亲，遇到特别刺激时，更会残酷地对待自己的孩子。

中国人缺乏同情还表现在他们的刑法制度中，根据帝国的法典，很难判断哪些刑罚合法，哪些刑罚不合法，因为有一些不符合法令条文的做法会得到社会习俗的认可与支持，最能说明这一点的是打板子的数目，它们常常高出法律规定数目十倍，有的多达百倍。这里，我们没机会公正地评价中国人对囚犯惨无人道的严刑拷打。在像《中央王国》或者《胡克游记》这类有关于中国的优秀著作中，这样的事例不胜枚举，《胡克游记》的作者提到，他曾亲眼看见一批囚犯手被钉在囚车上，押往衙门，因为解差忘了带脚镣。囚犯没有钱来打通关节，平时就会受到蓄意的残酷折磨，中国人虽有“心肠”，却肯定没有“慈悲”，还有比这更有力的证据吗？几年前，上海的报纸报道了一个案子。两个老囚犯向一个新囚犯索取“孝敬费”，结果地方官员判他们重打两、三千大板，又用铁锤敲碎他们的脚踝骨。中国有谚语云：死不进地狱，活不进衙门。我们大概不会对此感到奇怪吧？＊

既然上文中，那些出人意料的结论是从表面上可靠

既然上文中，那些出人意料的结论是从表面上可靠的韩因章（HANYINZHANG）先生，一位在美国学习法律的中国留学生，他曾在一家重要的宗教杂志上发表过一篇论文，论述中国法治。前面在讨论中国人“不紧不慢”时已经引用过这篇文章。该文认为中国人并不把自己的刑罚当成残酷的。可我们对此不敢苟同，不能忘了，他们是中国人，他们的法律、习俗也是中国人的。他们在个人权利方面不进行彻底改革，他们的刑罚也许永不会有任何实质性的改善。在道德力量有条件充分发挥作用之前，一定不能放弃物质力量。例证得出的。下面我们将引用1888年2月7日北京《邸报》译文中的一段：

“据云南总督报告，该省的一些农村，流行一种可怕的陋习：抓到偷粮食的人，要活活烧死。同时，还强迫他的亲人书面表示同意这种做法，并要亲自点火，以免日后归罪于他人。有时，只不过折断庄稼的一个枝茎。有的出于怨恨，仅凭莫须有的罪名，就把别人置于死地，乍一听，这种残酷的做法实在令人难以置信。它也曾助长了云南的叛乱。政府一直努力铲除这一陋习，至今仍未成功。”

福州附近的一个地区，还有强迫寡妇自杀殉夫的恶习。几年前，当地的中国报纸曾作过详细的描述。乡人先是逼迫寡妇自缢，然后焚烧尸体，并建造一座牌坊，以彰其节。政府不断努力阻止这一残酷的做法，除了个别地方一时奏效外，基本上徒劳无功。

中国需要的东西很多，政治家认为需要海军、陆军和兵工厂，友邦人士认为显然需要货币、铁路和科学指导，但若进一步分析帝国的境况，难道她最深切的需要不是多一些人类的同情心吗？她需要对孩子同情，尽管人类从前没发现它，可十八世纪以来，它已成为人类最宝贵的财富。她需要对妻子和母亲同情，这种同情十八世纪以来已经获得长足发展，并深入人心。她需要把人当做人来同情，懂得仁慈之情有如天国的甘霖，既降临于祝福者，也降临于被祝福者——只有它才使人类最接近于上帝，塞内加称这种神圣的情感为“智力的缺陷”，但基督教培育的仁慈之花，要一直等到开满全世界才会停止。

XXI.THE ABSENCE OFSYMP

XXI.THE ABSENCE OFSYMPATHY

ATTENTION has been directed to that aspect of Chinese life which is represented by the term"benevolence,"the very first of the so-called Constant Virtues.Benevolence is well-wishing.Sympathy is fellow-feeling.Our present object, having premised that the Chinese do practise a certain amount of benevolence,is to illustrate the proposition that they are conspicuous for a deficiency of sympathy.

It must ever be borne in mind that the population of China is dense.The disasters of flood and famine are of periodical occurrence in almost all parts of the Empire.The Chinese desire for posterity is so overmastering a passion that circum- stances which ought to operate as an effectual check upon population,and which in many other countries would do so, appear to be in China relatively inefficient for that purpose. The very poorest people continue to marry their children at an early age,and these children bring up large families,just as if there were any provision for their maintenance.The result of these and other causes is that a large proportion of the population lives,in the most literal sense,from hand to mouth.This may be said to be the universal condition of day-labourers,and it is a condition from which there appears to be no possibility of escape.No foreigner can long deal with the ordinary Chinese whom he everywhere meets,without at once becoming aware of the fact that hardly any one has any ready money.The moment that anything whatever is to be done,the first demand is for cash,that those who are to do it may get something to eat,the presumption being that as yet they have had nothing.It is often very hard even for well-to-do people to raise the most moderate sums of money when it suddenly becomes necessary to do so.There is a most significant expression commonly employed on such oc- casions,which speaks of a man who is obliged to collect a sum with which to prosecute a lawsuit,to arrange for a funeral,and the like,as"putting through a famine,"that is,acting like a -,0 and the bearing of this fact upon the relations of the people to one another must be evident to the most careless observer. The result of the pressure for the means of subsistence,and of the habits which this pressure cultivates and fixes,even after the immediate demand is no longer urgent,is to bring life down to a hard materialistic basis,in which there are but two prominent facts.Money and food are twin foci of the Chinese ellipse,and it is about them as centres that the whole social life of the people revolves.

The deep poverty of the masses of the people of the Chinese Empire,and the terrible struggle constantly going on to secure even the barest subsistence,have familiarised them with the most pitiable exhibitions of suffering of every conceivable variety.Whatever might be the benevolent impulses of any Chinese,he is from the nature of the case wholly helples to relieve even a thousandth part of the misery which he sees about him all the time—misery multiplied many times in any year of special distress.A thoughtful Chinese must recognise the utter futility of the means which are employed to alleviate distress,whether by individual kindness or by government in- terference.All these methods,even when taken at their best, amount simply to a treatment of the symptoms,and do abso- lutely nothing towards removing disease.Their operation is akin to that of societies which should distribute smallpieces of ice among the victims of typhoid fever—so many ounces to each patient,with no hospitals,no dieting,no medicine,and no nursing.It is not,therefore,strange that the Chinese are not in practical ways more benevolent,but rather that,with the total lack of system,of prevision,and of supervision,be- nevolence continues at all.We are familiar with the phenom- enon of the effect,upon the most cultivated persons,of con- stant contact with misery which they have no power either to hinder or to help,for this is illustrated in every modern war. The first sight of blood causes a sinking of the epigastric nerves, and makes an indelible impression;but this soon wears away, and is succeeded by a comparative callousness,which, even to him who experiences it,is a perpetual surprise.In China there is always a social war,and every one is too accustomed to its sickening effects to give them more than a momentary attention.

One of the manifestati

One of the manifestations of Chinese lack of sympathy is their attitude towards those who are in any way physically de- formed.According to the popular belief,the lame,the blind, especially those who are blind of but one eye,the deaf,the bald,the cross-eyed,are all persons to be avoided.It appears to be the assumption that since the physical nature is defective, the moral nature must be so likewise. So far as our obser- vation extends,such persons are not treated with cruelty,but they excite very little of that sympathy which in Western lands is so freely and so spontaneously extended.They are looked upon as having been overtaken by a punishment for some secret sin,a theory exactly accordant with that of the ancient Jews.

The person who is so unfortunate as to be branded with some natural defect or some acquired blemish will not go long without being reminded of the fact.One of the mildest forms of this practice is that in which the peculiarity is employed as a description in such a way as to attract to it public attention. "Great elder brother with the pockmarks,"says an attendant in a dispensary to a patient,“from what village do you come?” It will not be singular if the man whose eyes are afflicted with strabismus hears an observation to the effect that“when the eyes look asquint,the heart is askew";or if the man who has no hair is reminded that“out of ten bald men,nine are de- ceitful,and the other would be so also,were he not dumb.” Such freaks of nature as albinos form an unceasing butt for a species of cheap wit,which appears never for an instant to be intermitted.The unfortunate possessor of peculiarities like this must resign himself (or herself)to a lifetime of this treat- ment,and happy will he be if his temperament admits of his listening to such talk in perpetual reiteration without becoming by turns furious and sullen.

The same excess of frankness is displayed towards those who exhibit any mental defects."This boy,"remarks a bystander, "is idiotic."The lad is probably not at all"idiotic,"but his undeveloped mind may easily become blighted by the con- stant repetition in his presence of the proposition that he has no mind at all.This is the universal method of treating all patients afficted with nervous diseases,or indeed with any other.A ll their peculiarities,the details of their behaviour, the method in which the disease is supposed to have originated, the symptoms which attend its exacerbations,are all public property,and are all detailed in the presence of the patient, who must be thoroughly accustomed to hearing himself de- scribed as“crazy,""half-witted,"“besotted in his intellect,” etc.,etc.

Among a people to whom the birth of male children is so vital a matter,it is not surprising that the fact of childlessness is a constant occasion of reproach and taunts,just as in the ancient days,when it was said of the mother of the prophet Samuel that“her adversary also provoked her sore,for to make her fret.”If it is supposed for any reason,or without reason,that a mother has quietly smothered one of her children, it will not be strange if the announcement of the same is pub- licly made to a stranger.

One of the most charac

One of the most characteristic methods in which the Chinese lack of sympathy is manifested is in the treatment which brides receive on their wedding-day.They are often very young,are always timid,and are naturally terror-stricken at being sud- denly thrust among strangers. Customs vary widely,but there seems to be a general indifference to the feelings of the poor child thus exposed to the public gaze.In some places it is allowable for any one who chooses to turn back the curtains of the chair and stare at her.In other regions,the unmarried girls find it a source of keen enjoyment to post themselves at a convenient position as the bride passes,to throw upon her handfuls of hay-seed or chaff,which will obstinately adhere to her carefully oiled hair for a long time.Upon her emerg- ence from the chair at the house of her new parents,she is subjected to the same kind of criticism as a newly bought horse,with what feelings on her part it is not difficult to imagine.

Side by side with the punctilious ceremony which is so dear to the Chinese heart is the apparent inability to perceive that some things must be disagreeable to other persons,and should for that reason be avoided.A Chinese friend,who had not the smallest idea of saying what would be deficient in politeness,remarked to the writer that when he first saw foreigners it seemed most extraordinary that they should have beards that reached all round their faces just like those of monkeys, but he added,reassuringly,“I am quite used to it now!”The teacher who is asked in the presence of his pupils as to their capacity,replies before them all that the one nearest the door is much the brightest,and will be a graduate by the time he is twenty years of age,but the two at the next table are certainly the stupidest children he ever saw.That such observations have any reflex effect upon the pupils,never for a moment enters into the thought of any one.

The whole family life of the Chinese illustrates their lack of sympathy.While there are great differences in different households,and while from the nature of the case generalisa- tion is precarious,it is easy to see that most Chinese homes which are seen at all are by no means happy homes.It is impossible that they should be so,for they are deficient in that unity of feeling which to us seems so essential to real home life.A Chinese family is generally an association of individuals who are indissolubly tied together,having many of their interests the same,and many of them very different. The result is not our idea of a home,and it is not sympathy.

Daughters in China are from the beginning of their existence more or less unwelcome. This fact has a most important bearing on their whole subsequent career,and furnishes many significant illustrations of the absence of sympathy.

Mothers and daughters

Mothers and daughters who pass their days in the nar- row confinement of a Chinese court under the conditions of Chinese life,are not likely to lack topics of disagreement,in which abusive language is indulged in with a freedom which the unconstraint of everyday life tends to promote.It is a popular saying,full of significance to those who know Chi- nese homes,that a mother cannot by reviling her own daughter make her cease to be her own daughter! When a daughter is once married she is regarded as having no more relations with her family than those which are inseparable from com- munity of origin.T here is a deep-seated reason for omitting daughters from all family registers.She is no longer our daughter,but the daughter-in-law of some one else.Human nature will assert itself in requiring visits to the mother’s home,at more or less frequent intervals,according to the local usage.I n some districts these visits are very numerous and very prolonged,while in others the custom seems to be to make them as few as possible,and liable to almost com- plete suspension for long periods in case of a death in the family.But whatever the details of usage,the principle holds good that the daughter-in-law belongs to the family of which she has become a part.When she goes to her mother's home, she goes on a strictly business basis.She takes with her it may be a quantity of sewing for her husband's family,which the wife's family must help her get through with. She is ac- companied on each of these visits by as many of her children as possible,both to have her take care of them and to have them out of the way when she is not at hand to look after them,and most especially to have them fed at the expense of the family of the maternal grandmother for as long a time as possible.In regions where visits of this sort are frequent,and where there are many daughters in a family,their constant raids on the old home are a source of perpetual terror to the whole family,and a serious tax on the common resources. For this reason these visits are often discouraged by the fathers and the brothers,while secretly favoured by the mothers. But as local custom fixes for them certain epochs, such as a definite date after the New-Year,special feast-days, etc.,the visits cannot be interdicted.

When the daughter-in-law returns to her mother-in-law,it is true of her,as the adage says of a thief,that she never comes back empty-handed.She must take a present of some sort for her mother-in-law,generally food.Neglect of this established rite,or inability to comply with it,will soon result in dramatic scenes.If the daughter is married into a family which is poor,or which has become so,and if she has brothers who are married,she will find that her visits to her mother are,in the language of the physicians,"contra-indicated."

There is war between the daughters-in-law of a family and the married sisters of the same family,like that between the Philistines and the children of Israel,each regarding the territory as peculiarly its own,and the other party as interlopers.If the daughters-in-law are strong enough to do so,they will, like the Philistines,levy a tax upon the enemy whom they cannot altogether exterminate or drive out.A daughter-in-law is regarded as a servant for the whole family,which is precisely her position,and in getting a servant it is obviously desirable to get one who is strong and well grown,and who has already been taught the domestic accomplishments of cooking,sewing,and whatever industries may be the means of livelihood in that particular region,rather than a child who has little strength or capacity.Thus we have known of a case where a buxom young woman of twenty was married to a slip of a boy literally only half her age,and in the early years of their wedded life she had the pleasure of nursing him through the smallpox,which is considered as a disease of infancy.

The woes of daughters-in-law in China should form the subject rather for a chapter than for a brief paragraph.When it is remembered that all Chinese women marry,and generally marry young,being for a considerable part of their lives under the absolute control of a mother-in-law,some faint conception may be gained of the intolerable miseries of those daughters-in-law who live in families where they are abused.Parents can do absolutely nothing to protect their married daughters,other than remonstrating with the families into which they have married,and exacting an expensive funeral if the daughters should be actually driven to suicide.If a husband should seriously injure or even kill his wife,he might escape all legal consequences by representing that she was “unfilial”to his parents.Suicides of young wives are,we must repeat,excessively frequent,and in some regions scarcely a group of villages can be found where they have not recently taken place.What can be more pitiful than a mother's reproaches to a married daughter who has attempted suicide and been rescued:“Why didn't you die when you had a chance?”

The Governor of Honan,

The Governor of Honan,in a memorial published in the Peking Gazette a few years ago,showed incidentally that while there is responsibility in the eye of the law for the murder of a child by a parent,this is rendered nugatory by the provision that even if a married woman should wilfully and maliciously murder her young daughter-in-law,the murderess may ransom herself by a money payment.The case reported was that in which a woman had burned the girl who was reared to become her son's wife with incense sticks,then roasted her cheeks with red-hot pincers,and finally boiled her to death with kettlefuls of scalding water.Other similar instances are referred to in the same memorial,the source of which places its authenticity beyond doubt.Such extreme barbarities are probably rare, but the cases of cruel treatment which are so aggravated as to lead to suicide,or to an attempt at suicide,are so frequent as to excite little more than passing comment.The writer is personally acquainted with many families in which these occurrences have taken place.

The lot of Chinese concubines is one of exceeding bitterness.The homes in which they are to be found—happily relatively few in number—are the scenes of incessant bickerings and open warfare."The magistrate of the city in which I live,"writes a resident of China of long experience,“was a wealthy man,a great scholar,a doctor of literature,an able administrator,well acquainted with the good teachings of the Classics;but he would lie and curse and rob,and torture people to any extent to gratify his evil passions. One of his concubines ran away;she was captured,brought back, stripped,hung up to a beam by her feet,and cruelly and severely beaten.”

In a country like China the poor have no time to be sick. Ailments of women and children are apt to be treated by the men of the family as of no consequence,and are constantly allowed to run into incurable maladies,because there was no time to attend to them,or because the man“could not afford it."

As we have noticed in speaking of filial piety,it is a constituent part of the theory that the younger are relatively of little account.They are valued principally for what they may become,and not for what they are. Thus the practice of most Western lands is in China reversed.The youngest of three travellers is proverbially made to take the brunt of all hardships.The youngest servant is uniformly the common drudge of the rest.In the grinding poverty of the mass of the people,it is not strange that the spirit even of a Chinese boy often rebels against the sharp limitations to which he finds himself pinned,and that he not infrequently runs away.The boy who has made up his mind to go will seldom fail to find some slight thread by which he may attach himself to some one else.The causes for this behaviour on the part of boys are various,but so far as we have observed,the harsh treatment of others is by far the most common.In a case of this sort,a boy recently recovered from a run of typhus fever, being possessed by the hearty appetite common to such patients, and finding the coarse black bread of the family fare hard eating,went to a local market and indulged in the luxury of expending cash to the value of about twenty cents.For this he was severely reproved by his father,upon which the lad ran away to Manchuria,an unfailing resort of lads all over the northeastern provinces,and was never heard of again.

It was a saying of Geo

It was a saying of George D.Prentice,that man was the principal object in creation,woman being merely“a side issue.” The phrase is a literal expression of the position of a wife in a Chinese family.The object had in view in matrimony by the family of the girl is to get rid of supporting her.The object on the part of the husband's family is to propagate that family. These objects are not in themselves open to criticism,except on the ground of a too complete occupation of the field of human motives. But in China no one indulges in any illusions on the subject.

That which is true of the marriages of those in the ordinary walks of life is pre-eminently true of the poorer classes.It is a common observation in regard to a widow who has remarried,that“now she will not starve.”It is a popular proverb that a second husband and a second wife are husband and wife only as long as there is anything to eat;when the food-supply fails each shifts for himself.In times of famine relief cases have often been observed where the husband simply abandons the wife and the children,leaving them to pick up a wretched subsistence or to starve.In many instances daughters-in-law were sent back to their mothers'family to be supported or starved as the event might be."She is your daughter,take care of her yourself.”In other cases where special food was given by distributers of famine relief to women who were nursing small infants,it was sometimes found that this allowance had been taken from the women and devoured by the men,although these instances were probably exceptional.

While it would be obviously unfair to judge a people only by the phenomena of such years as those of great famine,there is an important sense in which such occasions are a species of touchstone by which the underlying principles of social life may be ascertained with more accuracy and certainty than on ordinary occasions.The sale of wives and of children in China is a practice not confined to years of peculiar distress, but during those years it is carried on to an extent which throws all ordinary transactions of this nature into insignificance.It is perfectly well known to those acquainted with the facts,that during several recent years in many districts stricken with famine,the sale of women and children was conducted as openly as that of mules and donkeys,the only essential difference being that the former were not driven to market.During the great famine of 1878,which extended over nearly all parts of the three most northern provinces,as well as further south,so extensive a traffic sprung up in women and girls who were exported to the central provinces that in some places it was difficult to hire a cart,as they had all been engaged in the transportation of the newly purchased females to the regions where they were to be disposed of.In these cases young women were taken from a region where they were in a condition of starvation,and where the population was too redundant,to a region which had been depopulated by rebels, and where for many years wives had been hard to procure. It is one of the most melancholy features of this strange state of affairs,that the enforced sales of members of Chinese families to distant provinces was probably the best thing for all parties,and perhaps the only way in which the lives,both of those who were sold as well as the lives of those who sold them, could be preserved.

We have referred to the common neglect of sickness in the family because the victims are“only women and children.” Smallpox,which in Western lands we regard as a terrible scourge,is so constant a visitor in China that the people never expect to be free from its ravages. But it is not much thought of,because its victims are mainly children! It is exceedingly common to meet with persons who have lost the sight of both eyes in consequence of this disease.The comparative disregard of the value of infant life is displayed in ways which we should by no means have expected from the Chinese,who object so strongly to the mutilation of the human body.Young children are often either not buried at all,an ordinary expression for their death being the phrase"thrown out,"or if rolled in a mat,they are so loosely covered that they soon fall a prey to dogs.In some places the horrible custom prevails of crushing the body of a deceased infant into an indistinguishable mass,in order to prevent the“devil”which inhabited it from returning to vex the family!

While the Chinese are

While the Chinese are so indifferent to smallpox,our fear of which they fail to appreciate,they have a similar dread of typhus and typhoid fevers,which are regarded much as we regard the scarlet fever.It is very difficult to get proper attention,or any attention at all,if one happens to be taken with either of these diseases when away from home. To all appeals for help it is a conclusive reply,"That disease is contagious.”While this is true to some extent of many fevers,it is perhaps most conspicuous in a terrible scourge found in some of the valleys of Yunnan,and described by Mr.Baber:* "The sufferer is soon seized with extreme weakness,followed in a few hours by agonising aches in every part of the body; delirium shortly ensues,and in nine cases out of ten the result is fatal.”According to the native accounts:"All parts of the sick-room are occupied by devils;even the tables and mattresses writhe about and utter voices,and offer intelligible replies to all who question them. Few,however,venture into the chamber. The missionary assured me that the patient is, in most cases,deserted like a leper,for fear of contagion.If an elder member of the family is attacked,the best attention he receives is to be placed in a solitary room with a vessel of water by his side.The door is secured,and a pole laid near it,with which twice a day the anxious relatives,cautiously peering in,poke and prod the sick person to discover if he retains any symptoms of life.”

Among a people of so mild a disposition as the Chinese there must be a great deal of domestic kindness of which nothing is seen or heard.Sickness and trouble are peculiarly adapted to call out the best side of human nature,and in a foreign hospital for Chinese we have witnessed many instances of devotion not merely on the part of parents towards children, or children towards parents,but of wives towards husbands and also of husbands towards wives.The same thing is even more common among strangers towards one another. Many a Chinese mother nursing an infant will give of her overflowing abundance to a motherless child which else might starve

Unwillingness to give help to others,unless there is some special reason for doing so,is a trait that runs through Chinese social relations in multifold manifestations. It is a common and in many cases a perfectly valid excuse which is made when a bright boy is advised to try to learn to read a little,although he has no opportunity to go to school,that no one will tell him the characters,although there may be plenty of reading men within reach who have abundant leisure.The very mention of such an ambition is certain to excite unmeasured ridicule on the part of those who have had the longest experience of Chinese schools,as if they were saying:"By what right does this fellow think to take a short cut,and pick up in a few months what cost us years of toil,and then was forgotten in half the time which we took to get it?Let him hire a teacher for himself as we did.”It is very rare indeed to meet with a genuine case of one who has anything which can be called a knowledge of characters,even of the most elementary description,which he has“picked up”for himself,though such cases do occasionally occur.

The general omission to do anything for the relief of the drowning strikes every foreigner in China. A few years ago a foreign steamship was burned in the Yang-tze River,and the crowds of Chinese who gathered to witness the event did little or nothing to rescue the passengers and crew.As fast as they made their way to the shore many of them were robbed even of the clothing which they had on,and some were murdered outright.Yet it should be remarked in connection with such atrocities as this,that it is not so very long ago that wrecking was a profession in England.On the other hand,in the autumn of 1892 a large British steamer went ashore on the China coast,and both the local fishermen and the officials did everything in their power to rescue and relieve the survivors. It remains true,however,that there is in China a general callousness to the many cases of distress which are to be seen almost everywhere,especially along lines of travel.It is a common proverb that to be poor at home is not to be counted as poverty,but to be poor when on the high-road,away from home,will cost a man his life.

It is in travelling in

It is in travelling in China that the absence of helpful kindness on the part of the people towards strangers is perhaps most conspicuous.When the summer rains have made all land travel almost impossible,he whose circumstances make travel a necessity will find that“heaven,earth,and man”are a threefold harmony in combination against him.No one will inform him that the road which he has taken will presently end in a quagmire.If you choose to drive into a morass,it is no business of the contiguous tax-payers.We have spoken of the neglect of Chinese highways.When the traveller has been plunged into one of the sloughs with which all such roads at certain seasons abound,and finds it impossible to extricate himself,a great crowd of persons will rapidly gather from somewhere,"their hands in their sleeves,and idly gazing,"as the saying goes. It is not until a definite bargain has been made with them that any one of these bystanders, no matter how numerous,will lift a finger to help one in any particular. Not only so,but it is a constant practice on such occasions for the local rustics to dig deep pits in difficult places,with the express purpose of trapping the traveller,that he may be obliged to employ these same rustics to help the traveller out! When there is any doubt as to the road in such places,one might as well plunge forward,disregarding the cautions of those native to the spot,since one can never be sure that the directions given are not designed to hinder rather than help.

We have heard of one instance in which a foreign family, moving into an interior city of China,was welcomed with apparent cordiality by the people,the neighbours even volunteering to lend them articles for housekeeping until such time as they might be able to procure an outfit of their own.Other examples there doubtless are,but it is well known that these are wholly exceptional.By far the most usual reception is total indifference on the part of the people,except so far as curiosity is excited to see what the new-comers are like;a spirit of cupidity to make the most of the fat geese whom fate has sent thither to be plucked;and sullen hostility.In the case of foreigners who may have been reduced to distress, we have never heard of any assistance voluntarily given by Chinese,though of course there may have been such cases We have known of instances in which sailors have attempted the journey overland from Tientsin to Chefoo,and from Canton to Swatow,and during the whole time of their travel they were never once given a lodging or a mouthful of food.

It is often difficult,and frequently impossible,for those who are taking a dead body home to secure admission to an inn. We have known a case of this sort where the brother of the deceased was obliged to stand guard all night in the street,because the landlord would not allow the coffin to come within the gate. An extortionate price is exacted for ferrying a corpse over a river,and we have been cognisant of several instances in which a dead body has been doubled up into a parcel and tied with mat wrappings,to make it appear like merchandise,to avoid suspicion.It was reported during a recent severe winter in Shantung,that the keeper of an inn in the city of Wei Hsien refused to allow several travellers who were half dead with cold to enter his inn,lest they should die there,but turned them into the street,where they all froze to death!

There are some crimes committed in China for which the perpetrators are often not prosecuted before a magistrate, partly on account of the difficulty and expense of securing a conviction,and partly because of the shame of publicity. Many cases of adultery are thus dealt with by the law of private revenge.The offender is attacked by a large band of men,on the familiar Chinese principle that“where there are many persons,their prestige is great."Sometimes the man's legs are broken,sometimes his arms,and very often his eyes are destroyed by rubbing into them quicklime.The writer has known several instances of this sort,and they are certainly not uncommon.A very intelligent Chinese,himself not unfamiliar with Occidental ways of thought,upon hearing a foreigner remonstrate against this practice as a refinement of cruelty,expressed unfeigned surprise,and remarked that in China such a mode of dealing with a criminal is thought to be“extremely mild,”as he is thus merely maimed for life,when he really ought to be killed!

“What do you keep comi

“What do you keep coming here to eat for?”said a sister-in-law to her husband's brother,who had been away for several years,and having got into trouble had had his eyes rubbed out with quicklime."We have no place for you.If you want something hard,here is a knife;and if you want something soft,there is a rope;so get along with you."This conversation was mentioned incidentally by an incurably blind man,as an explanation of his desire to get a little sight if that were possible,but if not,he intimated that either the“hard”or the“soft”could be made to adjust his difficulties.It is rare to hear of any instances in which the victim of such outrages succeeds in getting a complaint heard before a magistrate.The evidence against him would be overwhelming, and nine officials out of ten would probably consider that the man who had been thus dealt with deserved it all,and more. Even if the man were to win his case,he would be no better off than before,but rather the worse,as the irritation of his neighbours would only be increased,and his life would not be safe.

It must be understood that despite the sacredness of human life in China,there are circumstances in which it is worth very little.One of the crimes which are most exasperating to the Chinese is theft.In a crowded population always on the edge of ruin,this is regarded as a menace to society only less serious than murder.In a time of famine relief one of the distributers found an insane woman,who had become a kleptomaniac,chained to a huge mill-stone as if she were a mad dog.If a person becomes known as a thief or in other ways is a public nuisance,he is in danger of being made away with by a summary process,not differing essentially from the vigilance committees of the early days of California.Sometimes this is done by stabbing,but the method most frequently adopted is burying alive.Doubtless there are those who suppose this expression to be a mere figure of speech,as when (according to some)one is said“to swallow gold.” It is,on the contrary,a very serious reality.The writer is acquainted with four persons who were threatened with death in this form. In two instances they were bound as a preliminary,and in one case the pit was actually dug,and in all cases the burial was only prevented by the intervention of some older member of the attacking party.In another instance,occurring in a village where the writer is well acquainted,a young man who was known to be insane was an incorrigible thief.A party of the villagers belonging to his own family only“consulted”(!) with his mother,and as the result of their deliberations he was bound,a hole made in the ice covering the river flowing near the village,and the youth was dropped in

During the years in which the refluent waves of the great T'ai-p'ing rebellion overspread so large a part of China,the excitement was everywhere intense.At such times a stranger had but to be suspected to be seized,and subjected to a rigorous examination.If he could give no account of himself which was satisfactory to his captors,it went hard with him. Within a few hundred yards of the spot at which these lines are written two such tragedies occurred,little more than twenty years ago. The magistrates found themselves almost powerless to enforce the laws,and issued semi-official notifications to the people to seize all suspicious characters.The villagers saw a man coming on a horse,who looked as if he were a native of another province,and who failed to give adequate explanations of his antecedents.His bedding being found to be full of articles of jewellery,which he had evidently plundered from somewhere,the man was tied up,a pit was dug,and the victim tumbled into it. While this was going on another was seen racing across the fields in a terrified manner,and it needed but the suggestion of some bystander that he was probably an accomplice,to secure for the second victim the same fate as the first.In some cases the strangers were compelled to dig their own graves.Any native of the provinces of China principally affected by the lawlessness of those lawless times,old enough to recollect the circumstances, will testify that instances of this sort were too numerous to be remembered or counted.In the epoch of terror caused by a mysterious cutting off of cues,in the year 1877,an intense panic seemed to pervade a large part of the Empire,and there can be no doubt that many persons who were suspected were made away with in this manner.Such periods of panic,however,under certain conditions,are common to all races,and must not be laid to the charge of the Chinese as a unique phenomenon.

One of the most striking of all the many exhibitions of the Chinese lack of sympathy is to be found in their cruelty.It is popularly believed by the Chinese that the Mohammedans in China are more cruel than the Chinese themselves. However this may be,there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who knows the Chinese that they display an indifference to the sufferings of others which is probably not to be matched in any other civilised country.Though children at home are almost wholly ungoverned,yet the moment their career of education is begun the reign of mildness ceases.The"Trimetrical Classic,"the most general of the minor text-books of the Empire,contains a line to the effect that to teach without severity is a fault in a teacher.While this motto is very variously acted upon,according to the temperament of the pedagogue and the obtuseness of his pupils,great harshness is certainly common.We have seen a scholar fresh from a preceptor who was struggling to induct his pupils into the mysteries of examination essays,when the former presented the appearance of having been through a street fight,his head covered with wounds and streaming with blood.It is not rare that pupils are thrown into fits from the abuse which they receive from angry teachers.On the other hand,it is not unusual for mothers whose children are so unfortunate as to be subject to fits,to beat them in those paroxysms,as an expression of the extreme disgust which such inconvenient attacks excite. It is not difficult to perceive that mothers who can beat children because they fall into convulsions will treat any of their children with cruelty when irritated by special provocation.

Another example of“abs

Another example of“absence of sympathy”on the part of the Chinese is their system of punishments. It is not easy, from an examination of the legal code of the Empire, to ascertain what is and what is not in accordance with law,for custom seems to have sanctioned many deviations from the letter of the statutes.One of the most significant of these is the enormous number of blows with the bamboo which are constantly resorted to,often ten times the number named in the law,and sometimes one hundred times as many. We have no space even to mention the dreadful tortures which are inflicted upon Chinese prisoners in the name of justice. They may be found enumerated in any good work on China, such as“The Middle Kingdom,"or“Huc's Travels.”The latter author mentions seeing prisoners on the way to the yamen,with their hands nailed to the cart in which they were conveyed,because the constables had forgotten to bring fetters. Nothing so illustrates the proposition that though the Chinese have"bowels,"they certainly have no“mercies,"as the deliberate,routine cruelty with which all Chinese prisoners are treated who cannot pay for their exemption.A few years ago the press of Shanghai chronicled the infliction upon two old prisoners in the yamen of the District Magistrate of that city of a sentence for levying blackmail on a new prisoner. They received between two thousand and three thousand blows with the bamboo,and had their ankles broken with an iron hammer. Is it strange that the Chinese adage advises the dead to keep out of hell and the living to keep out of yamens? *

Since the preceding paragraphs were written an unexpected confirmation of some of the statements made has appeared from a most unimpeachable source.The following is an extract from a translation of the Peking Gazette of February 7, 1888:

"The Governor of Yunnan states that in some of the country districts of that province the villagers have a horrible custom of burning to death any man caught stealing corn or fruits in the fields.They at the same time compel the man's relations to sign a document,giving their consent to what is done,and then make them light the fire with their own hands, so as to deter them from lodging a complaint afterwards. Sometimes the horrible penalty is exacted for the breaking of a single branch or stalk,or even false accusations are made, and men put to death out of spite. This terrible practice, which seems incredible when heard,came into use during the time of the Yunnan rebellion;and the constant efforts of the authorities have not succeeded in extirpating it since.”

Native Chinese newspapers have within a few years contained detailed accounts of an enforced suttee practised in a district near Foochow.Widows are compelled to strangle themselves,and their bodies are then burned,after which ornamental portals are erected to their virtuous memory! Magistrates have in vain endeavoured to stop this cruel custom,but their success has been only local and temporary.

China has many needs,a

China has many needs,among which her leading statesmen place armies,navies,and arsenals.To her foreign well-wishers it is plain that she needs a currency,railways,and scientific instruction.But does not a deeper diagnosis of the conditions of the Empire indicate that one of her profoundest needs is more human sympathy?She needs to feel with childhood that sympathy which for eighteen centuries has been one of the choicest possessions of races and peoples which once knew it not.She needs to feel sympathy for wives and for mothers,a sympathy which eighteen centuries have done so much to develop and to deepen.She needs to feel sympathy for man as man,to learn that quality of mercy which droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,twice blest in blessing him that gives and him that takes—that divine compassion which Seneca declared to be“a vice of the mind,” but which the influence of Christianity has cultivated until it has become the fairest plant that ever bloomed upon the earth, the virtue in the exercise of which man most resembles God.

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《中国人的性格》是美国传教士阿瑟·史密斯（明

《中国人的性格》是美国传教士阿瑟·史密斯（明恩溥）基于1872年赴华传教期间的社会观察撰写的著作，首版英文名《Chinese Characteristics》于19世纪末问世，。作者在华生活逾五十年，书中融合人类学视角与传教士立场，记录了晚清民众的性格特征与文化形态。

全书以27个主题章节剖析中国人行为模式，包含“保全面子”“省吃俭用”等生活哲学，以及“漠视精确”“因循守旧”等社会现象。通过对比西方工业文明，着重探讨东方特有的生存韧性，如环境适应力与疼痛耐受性。书中案例多源自山东乡村生活经历，涉及衣食住行、孝悌观念等主题，部分结论因宗教立场存在视角争议。该著作开创西方研究中国国民性先河，被译成多国文字，成为近代中西文化互鉴的重要文本。

我们已经考察了中国人的慈善活动。仁慈是一种善良的天性，同情也建立在它的基础上，我们姑且认为中国人的确做了些慈善事业，下面所要阐明的是中国人明显缺乏同情。

我们要时刻牢记，中国人口众多，各地会定期发大水或闹饥荒。很多国家的事实都表明，社会条件是控制人口增长的重要因素，但在中国，似乎不怎么灵验。传种接代是中国人的首要愿望。最穷的人家也要在儿子很小时就给他们娶媳妇，随后这些孩子又生出一大堆孩子，就好像他们生活有保障一样。还由于一些其他原因，结果使得中国人的生活简直就是干活，吃饭，吃饭，干活，几乎就像一个短工，这已经难以避免。如果一个外国人不能马上意识到，几乎所有的中国人都缺钱，他就不可能长期与中国人相处。事情一开始做，他们就要钱，因为他们一无所有，给了钱，做事的人才有饭吃。即使是小康人家，急需用钱的时候，也很难筹集到起码的数目。中国有个意味深长的说法，用以形容办丧事、打官司时被迫借钱的窘状：“过贱年”，就是说好像一个饥饿的人，不顾一切地寻求帮助。除了境况较好的人家外，谁都不可以指望能在孤立无援的情况下，独立操办这类事情。令人绝望的贫穷是帝国最突出的现实，它使得人与人之间明显变得冷漠。在物质困乏的压力下，人们已形成一些固定的习惯，即使是直接的生活需求不再紧迫时，他们仍保持艰苦的生活水平。中国的生活就像一个椭园，钱和粮是它的两个圆心，一切社会生活都围绕着它们旋转。

帝国民众的极度贫困、他们为生活所需而进行的长

帝国民众的极度贫困、他们为生活所需而进行的长期艰苦的抗争，以及在各种难以想像的条件下所遭受的令人同情的苦难，都是世人皆知的。中国人的慈善行为无论是出于何种动机，也都只不过是想从令人绝望的痛苦中解脱出来，哪怕是千分之一那么一点点。这些苦难一直沉重地压迫着他们，要是遇到灾荒年头，还不知要糟多少倍呢！中国的有识之士应该意识到他们那些缓和痛苦的办法是彻底行不通的。无论是靠个人的慈悲，还是靠政府的干预，即使做得再好，也只能改善表面的症状，对于根除疾病完全无效。就像发冰块给伤寒病人一样——每个人就这么多，没有医院，没有饮食，没有药物，没有护理。因此，一点也不奇怪，中国人没有变得更慈善，而是在全然缺乏制度、预见和管理的情况下，一直保持行善的习惯。我们都清楚，即使一个有教养的人，长期面对既无法阻止又无力帮助解决的灾难，会产生什么样的结果。现代的战争就是一个明证。第一次看见血，会精神紧张，产生难以消除的印象，但它很快就消失了，人也变得麻木了。对有经验的人来说，对血的恐惧一生只有一次。中国经常发生战争，人们对战争的结果也早已习以为常。

对残疾人的态度也能说明中国人缺乏同情；中国人一般认为，呆子、瞎子、尤其是独眼龙、聋子、秃子、斗鸡眼都应该避而远之。似乎生理上有缺陷，道德上也一定有缺陷。据我们观察，人们不会对这些人冷酷无情，但总是缺少同情。就像古犹太人认为的，这些人肯定暗中犯了罪，因此才遭到这样的惩罚。相反，西方人会对这种人产生发自内心的同情。

一个不幸残疾的人，无论是先天的还是后天的，不能忍耐嘲讽就不能活下去。对他最温和的方式是描述他的缺陷，以引起众人的注意，药铺的伙计会对一个病人说：“麻子老兄，你是哪村的？”一个斜眼人听到“眼斜心歪”也不足为奇，假如是个秃子，就会听到：“十个秃子有九个是骗子，最后一个如不哑巴，也一样。”这些不幸的人终生都必须逆来顺受，只有当他听到长年不断的嘲弄而不再温怒时，才能够安于生活。

对精神有问题的人，中国人同样坦率得过分。旁观者会说：“这孩子是个笨蛋！”可实际上，他也许并不笨。不断地重复说他不长脑子，很容易摧残他未发育完全的智力。以这种方式对待精神病患者或其他病人，也十分普遍。也许恰恰就是这种方式导致了疾病的产生，并使之更为严重。他们所有的毛病、生活的细节成了公众的谈资，而他们自己所能做的只是完全习惯于被称为“疯子”。“二百五”、“蠢货”等等。

在一个重视生男孩的民族中，因没有孩子而遭到谴

在一个重视生男孩的民族中，因没有孩子而遭到谴责与嘲骂，一点儿也不奇怪。就像传说中先知撒母耳的母亲，“为了激怒她，仇敌触动了她的痛处。”不管有意无意，一个母亲悄悄地闷死了她的一个孩子，人们对此并不大惊小怪，那一定是个女孩。

婚礼中新娘的遭遇也是中国人缺乏同情的典型例证。新娘一般都很年幼，也很害羞胆怯，突然置身于那么多陌生人当中，难免感到恐惧。尽管各地风俗差别很大，但都任凭众人盯着这些可怜的孩子，完全漠视她们此刻的心情。有的地方，人们可以随意拉开轿帘，盯着新娘看；还有的地方，新娘会成为尚未出嫁的姑娘们取乐的对象。她们站在新娘经过的道旁，大把大把地向她头上撒草籽或谷糠，新娘的头发是费了好长时间，仔细油过的，那些东西会牢牢地粘在上面。在公婆门前，新娘一下轿子，就立刻成了人们品评的对象，仿佛一匹刚买来的马，此时此刻，＊注：撒母耳，《圣经》中希伯莱的士师与先知。新娘的心情当然是不难想像的。

中国人一方面特别注意细节，另一方面又会做出对别人显然不合时宜的事。我的一位中国朋友，就说过一些失礼的话，可他一点儿都没觉察到。他描述他第一次见到外国人时，说他感到最惊奇的是他们脸上长满了胡子，像猴子一样，然后他还再三保证说：“我现在已经非常习惯了。”老师则会当着学生的面评价学生：靠门的那个最聪明，二十岁时一定会高中，而邻桌的那两个的确是他所见学生中最愚蠢的，这种评价会对学生产生何种影响，从来没人想过。

中国人缺乏同情还表现在他们的大家庭生活方面。尽管各家情况不同，我们仍然可以轻而易举地发现，他们的家庭生活并不幸福。他们也不可能幸福，因为缺少感情上的结合，而这一点在我们的现实生活中恰恰是至关重要的。中国人的家庭只是个人组成的团体而已，他们持久稳定地结合在一起，有共同的利益，也有不同的利益。这种家庭在我们看来根本不是家庭，因为家庭成员之间没有同情心。

在中国，女孩一出生，多多少少总不受欢迎。她们

在中国，女孩一出生，多多少少总不受欢迎。她们的遭遇中有大量有意义的事例，可以说明中国人缺乏同情。

在中国，母亲和女儿共同住在封闭狭窄的小院子里，难免会发生争吵，由于平时很少受到约束，她们便往往恶语相加。中国俗话说：“再骂总是亲闺女。”对于想了解中国家庭的人，这句话确实很有意味。女儿一旦结婚，除血缘关系，就与娘家没多少关系了，将她的名字从家谱中抹去，是出于一种根深蒂固的观念：她不再是我们家的女儿了，而是别人的媳妇了。但人的天性又促使女儿隔三差五回娘家走亲戚，这也是地方风俗，某些地方，女儿经常回娘家，而且住的时间很长；而另外一些地方，女儿则应尽量少回娘家，如果娘家人全死了，她就几乎再也不回去了。不管这些风俗有多少细微的差异，人们普遍认为，媳妇是婆家人。女儿回娘家，严格说来，是出于一种做活的考虑。她们常常带上婆家的一大堆针线活，而娘家的人必须帮她做完，每次还要尽量带上自己的孩子，这样，既可以避免自己不在时没人照看，最重要的是孩子能在姥姥家吃喝花销。对于女儿较多的家庭，频繁的造访会令全家人感到很可怕，简直是一种严重的盘剥。因此，父亲与兄弟常常阻挡女儿回来，母亲却暗中支持。但根据当地风俗，如正月里的某些日子，尤其还有节日，女儿回娘家是不能限制的。

女儿回婆家时，就像谚语中讲的贼，从未空手而归。她应给婆婆带些礼物，一般是些吃的。假如忽略了这一点，或者没能办到，婆婆就会演戏似地发一通脾气，女儿嫁到穷人家里，或者后来家道衰落了，假如她有一些结了婚的兄弟，她将会发现，回娘家就仿佛医生说的，“处置不当”。娘家的媳妇和已出嫁的女儿之间就会爆发战争，就像非利士人和以色列人一样，都把家看成自己的领地，把对方看成入侵者。如果媳妇在家里足够强大，她们就会像非利士人那样，对不能统统消失或赶走的仇敌索取贡品。媳妇在整个家庭中的地位，严格地说，形同奴仆。找仆人，当然要找健壮的，发育良好的，而且还要懂得烹调、缝纫等生活技艺，不论当地人如何谋生，她们总比没有力气和办事能力的孩子要强得多。因此，我们就明白了，为什么一个十岁左右瘦弱的男孩会要一个健壮丰满。二十岁的姑娘作媳妇了。婚后很长一段时间，姑娘还要尽心尽力照看生天花的小丈夫，天花是一种幼儿病。

中国媳妇的苦难简直罄竹难书。中国妇女一般结婚很早，她们一生中相当一部分时间是受婆婆的绝对控制，由此，人们大概可以想像出媳妇在倍受虐待的家庭中，遭受了多么令人难以忍受的痛苦。做父母的，在女儿遭受虐待时。只能对她的婆家表示抗议，或在女儿受虐自杀后，索取高昂的送葬费，除此之外，他们完全保护不了自己的女儿。如果丈夫严重伤害、甚至杀死了妻子，只要说她对公婆“不孝”，就可以逍遥法外了，我们有必要重复一遍，年纪轻轻的媳妇自杀，在中国司空见惯，有些地方，各村都会接二连三发生这类事。一位母亲曾责备已出嫁的女儿自杀未遂：“你有机会，怎么会死不成？”痛哉斯言！

在几年前的北京《邸报》上，河南总督偶然披露了

在几年前的北京《邸报》上，河南总督偶然披露了一种情况：不仅父母杀死孩子不需要负法律责任，而且作婆婆的杀死媳妇只需交一笔罚金就行了。在报告的案例中，有一位妇女用香柱烧她的童养媳，用烧红的火钳烙她的双颊，最后又用滚烫的开水把她烹死。这位总督的奏折里还提到了其他类似的例子，其可靠性是勿容置疑的。这类极端野蛮的行径大概并不多，不过，残酷的虐待导致自杀或企图自杀却是常见的。

中国有许多妇女嫁给人作妾，她们的生活也十分痛苦。她们生活的家庭，极少是幸福的，总是不断发幸争吵和公开的打斗。一位在中国住了很久的外国人写道：“我所居住的那个城市的长官，是个大富翁、大学者，诗人，也很有才干，通晓经典教义；但他任意欺骗、诅咒、搜刮和体罚百姓，以满足自己罪恶的欲念。他的一个妾逃跑了，抓到后，被剥光了衣服倒吊在梁上，严刑拷打。”

在中国这样的国家，穷人可不能生病。女人、孩子病了，男人根本不把它当做一回事，任其发展，到最后常常都是病人膏盲，因为男人没时间照料他们，有时是因为“付不起医药费”。

我们前面讨论的孝顺观念把年轻人看得无足轻重。他们的价值只在未来，而不是现是。西方的许多做法在中国常常是被反其道而行之。三个旅行者当中，最年轻的要吃苦在前。最年轻的仆人也一律最辛苦。百姓的生活穷困难熬，孩子们经常会因苛刻的压制而离家出逃。在外头，他们一般都能发现生存的希望，因为可以与别人合伙谋生。。出逃的原因多种多样，但据观察，最普遍是因为不堪虐待。我知道一个男孩，最近斑疹伤寒初愈，很想吃东西——这种病人一般都是这样。他觉得家里的粗糙的黑窝头实在难以下咽，就跑到街上，非常奢侈地买了大约两毛钱的点心吃了，但因此受到父亲的严厉责骂，于是一气之下，跑到东北去了，从此，杳无消息。

乔治·Ｄ·普林蒂斯说，男人是支配者，女人只不

乔治·Ｄ·普林蒂斯说，男人是支配者，女人只不过是“细枝末节”。这话用来形容妻子在中国家庭中的地位，非常恰当。人们认为，婚姻对女方家庭是为了不再抚养她，摆脱一个负担，对男方家庭则是为了传种接代。除非深究潜在的动机，人们对此都是闭口不谈。但是在中国，没有谁对此心里不清楚。

婚姻的这一目的，在较穷的阶层表现得更突出。寡妇再嫁，人们会说：“现在她不会饿死了。”俗话说：再嫁再娶，为了肚皮；没吃没喝，拆灶散伙。灾荒年头，丈夫抛弃妻儿，任其乞讨或饿死，己是司空见惯，有很多家庭把儿媳妇赶回娘家，由娘家赡养，或最终饿死。他们说：“你们的女儿，你们自己养活吧。”有时，发给哺育婴儿和妇女的特殊救济粮，会被男人吞吃，尽管这种事可能并不多，可总在发生。

仅仅通过灾荒年头的现象评价一个民族，显然有欠公允，然而，重要的是，特殊的岁月常常是检验社会基本原则的试金石，和平时相比，可能会更准确，更确实，在中国，卖妻卖儿，并不只发生在灾荒年头。只不过，这时人似乎忘记是在从事人口交易。了解真情的人都知道，早几年，很多灾区，买卖妇女儿童就像买卖牲口一样公开，唯一的区别就是前者不用赶到集市上去。1878年，大灾荒几乎席卷了整个东三省，并向南蔓延，买卖妇女随处可见，十分普遍。大量的妇女被运往内地。有的地方，运输都出现了困难，甚至连一辆马车都雇不到。人贩子千方百计转运刚买到的妇女，把年轻的从灾区或人口过剩的地方运往因造反而人口减少、或多年娶妻困难的地区。令人感到悲哀的是，这一奇怪的交易对买卖双方可能都是最好的出路。尽管卖方妻离子散，天各一方，但买者与卖者毕竟都能活下去。

我们说过，中国人之所以对病人熟视无睹，是因为他们“只不过是女人和孩子”。天花，在西方被当成可怕的灾祸，可中国人对它一点儿也不重视——尽管在中国经常有人染上这种病，而且几乎无人能逃，这也只因为害天花的主要是孩子。因害这种病而双目失明的人十分普遍。中国人对婴儿生命价值的忽视程度，令西方人难以想像。他们强烈反对毁坏人的尸体，但对婴儿的尸体经常不加掩埋。婴儿死了，人们都是说：“扔掉”，用芦席松松地卷了，抛到荒野里，不久就被野狗吃掉了。有的地方，还流行一种恐怖的习俗，把婴儿塞进乱坟岗的死人堆，以免“鬼魂”回家骚扰。

我们感到天花可怕，中国人却不在乎。可他们对斑

我们感到天花可怕，中国人却不在乎。可他们对斑疹伤寒与伤寒的恐惧，如同我们见了猩红热一般。一个人离家在外，得了上述其中任一种病，都难以得到妥善的护理，甚至一点护理也得不到。向其他人请求帮助，得到的回答肯定是：“那病传染。”尽管伤寒多少有些传染，可在云南的一些山沟里，它可能是最令人胆寒的灾难。巴伯先生描述说：“患者不久变得虚弱不堪，接着一连几小时，浑身疼痛难忍；随后神志不清，胡言乱语，患了这种病，十之八九，性命不保。”据当地人说：“病人房间的各个角落都被鬼占据了，桌子和床在里面四处移动，发出声音，清楚地回答人们的提问。”可是，很少有人冒险进屋。传教士向我证实，大多数情况下，由于害怕传染，人们像对待麻疯病人一样将病人丢弃不问。如果家里的老人患了这种病，最好的照顾就是把他挪进一间孤零零的小屋子，放上一碗水，锁上门。挂念他的亲人每天两次战战兢兢地从门缝往里看，用棍子捅捅病人，看他是不是还活着。中国人性情温和，在这样一个民族，每个家庭中肯定存在友爱行为，不过我们没有发现而已。疾病与灾难尤其容易唤起人类天性中最美好的一面。在一家为中国人开的西方医院里，我们耳闻目睹了很多实例，不仅父母与子女，丈夫与妻子真诚相爱，就连陌生人之间也彼此爱护。一位中国母亲见到失去母亲的婴儿，很愿意用自己的乳汁喂养他，因为不忍心看着他饿死。

除非有特殊的原因，没人愿意帮助别人，这是中国多重社会关系表现出来的一个特点。比如，一个聪慧的男孩，经过考虑，想去读书，即使他没机会入学堂，这也非常合乎清理。可他周围的很多读书人，宁愿闲着无事，也不愿教他识字。他一流露出读书的愿望，就会招来无穷的嘲讽，这些人曾经年累月待在学堂里，他们似乎认为：“这家伙凭什么走捷径，我们费了好多年时间辛辛苦苦学来的东西，怎么能教他，让他很快学会呢？还是让他和我们一样请老师吧。”尽管个别人可以自学，但是很少有人能真正学到知识，哪怕是最基本的识字也不可能。

见人落水，竟袖手旁观，所有在中国的西方人都对此大为震惊。几年前，一艘外国汽轮在扬子江上着火，岸上挤满了观望的中国人，但没人营救落水的乘客与船员。最后，那些拼命游到岸边的人，很多都被抢劫一空，甚至身上的衣服也被剥去了，还有一些人被当场杀死。不久前，英国也曾发生沉船事件，但没有出现不营救的现象，我们应该将这些事比较来看。1892年秋天，英国一艘庞大的汽船在中国海岸搁浅，当地渔民和政府官员都尽全力救助幸存者。不过，中国人对灾难麻木不仁，这是个普遍的事实，尤其离家在外，俗话说：在家千日好，出门一时难。

在中国旅行，人们普遍发现，沿途的人对陌生人缺乏友善与帮助。夏天遇到暴雨，无法继续旅行时，需要前进的人会发现，这时天公和人在合伙捉弄他。即使你走的路通向泥潭，也没人会提醒你。你走入泥潭，与附近修路的人无关。我们说过，中国人不重视公路建设。所有的路在任何时候都布满了深坑，旅行者一旦陷进去就难以自拔。这时，周围立刻会聚满看热闹的人，他们都像一句成语所说的：“袖手旁观”。直到答应给钱，旁观者中才会有一位站出来，帮你一把。不仅如此，当地的居民还经常故意在难走的地方挖一个深坑，这样，陷进去的旅客不得不花钱请他帮忙。在这种情况下，一个人若不了解道路情况，最好不要听当地人的劝告，只管照直往前走，只要不能肯定所走的是一条绝路，就比接受他们的“帮助”好得多。

可是，我们还听说过，一家外国人搬到中国内地的

可是，我们还听说过，一家外国人搬到中国内地的一个城市，受到了人们的热诚欢迎，邻居甚至主动借家具给他们，直到他们把家具备齐。类似的事情无疑还有，不过，谁都明白，这只是例外。人们一般除了对新搬来的人感到好奇外，更多的是表示冷漠，就好像肥鹅注定会招来贪婪与阴沉的敌意，最终被拔光羽毛。还没听说过，外国人遇到天灾人祸，中国人自愿帮忙的先例，当然，也可能出现过。我们只听说，曾有一些海员尝试从天津到烟台、从广州到汕头作陆上旅游时，自始至终没人给过他们一碗饭，或留住一宿。

在中国，将客死他乡的人运回家，途中住店非常困难，一般是住不成，我们曾听说，一位死者的兄弟，因店主不让住店，不得不在街头过夜。请摆渡者将尸体运过河，也会被狠狠地敲一笔。我们还晓得，有些人为免引起怀疑，就把尸体层层包裹，再外扎草席，使它看起来像一包货物。据说，前几年的一个寒冬，山东维县的一家店主因为怕几个快要冻僵的旅客死在店里，拒绝他们住店。结果，这几位旅客都冻死街头。

中国人作恶犯罪，很少有人告发，部分原因是没钱告状，另外也不愿惹人注意，通奸案一般私下了结。插足者会遭到一大帮人的毒打，中国人相信“人多势众”。有时，这个人的腿会被打折，有时是胳膊，更多的情况是被用生石灰弄瞎双眼。笔者知道几个这方面的例子，这类事情一点儿也不罕见。有一位聪明的中国人，他不了解西方人的思想“方式，当他听到外国人抗议这种极为残酷的做法时，毫不掩饰他的惊讶，他说，这种处理方法在中国已是“非常宽容”的了，就像他自己，仅仅残废而已，否则，早被杀死了。

“为什么老是到我家吃饭？”作嫂子的会对小叔子这样说，他已离家多年，在外头干了见不得人的事，双眼被人用生石灰弄瞎了，“这儿没地方让你住，硬的，有刀；软的，有绳，你只配要这些！”这是那位无法医治的盲人偶然告诉我的，如果有希望，他还想获得一丝光明；若是没希望，他暗示说，无论“硬的”，还是“软的”，都可以让他解除痛苦。我们很少听说过，这类暴行的受害者告官成功过。对他们不利的证据已经压倒了一切，而且官员们十之八九认为他们活该，罪有应得，甚至还应该加重惩罚。即便他打赢了官司，处境也不会有所改善，只会变得更糟。他的邻居会更加愤怒，那时，他连命也难保了。

中国人把人视为神圣的，但生活中很少重视人的价

中国人把人视为神圣的，但生活中很少重视人的价值、人的尊严。在中国，偷盗是最易惹人愤怒的罪恶之一。因为人口众多，而且经常濒临无法生存的境地，偷盗就被视为对社会的严重威胁，其危害仅次于谋杀。在一次救灾中，一位分发救济品的人，发现一位妇女像疯狗一样被锁在石磨上，她是个盗窃狂，早已精神错乱。如果一个人被发现是小偷，或因某种原因而被公众唾弃，他就可能在简单讯问后被公众处死，这和弗吉尼亚早些年治安维持会的做法没什么两样。有时用刀子刺死，更多是活埋。有人形象地称之为“吞金”，其实，这非常残酷。笔者认识四个人，曾差点被这样处死。有两例是已被捆上，有一例是坑已挖好，后来由于族人中一些长者的干预，才没有被活埋。另有一例，发生在笔者很熟悉的一个小村子里，一个年轻人偷东西，已经不可救药，人们也知道他神经不正常。他本家的一些人和他母亲“商量（！）”了一下，就在村口的小河上砸了个冰窟窿，把他捆紧，塞了进去。

太平天国起义闹得最凶的那段日子，到处都很紧张。一张生面孔，一旦有嫌疑，就会被抓起来，遭到严厉的盘查。若不能交待清楚，使抓他的人满意，马上就会遭殃。在离盘查点几百码远的地方，文告上写着将近二十年前发生的两件惨事。当时，官吏们发现，他们自己几乎无力执法，就发布了一个半官方的告示，让百姓捕捉所有的可疑人物。一次，村民们发现，一个人骑着马向村子里走来，不像是本省的。盘问中，那人怎么也说不清自己的来历，接着又发现他的包裹中塞满了珠宝，这显然是偷来的，村民们就把他捆起来，挖坑活埋了。这时，又看见一个人惊恐地从田野中跑过，有人猜测他可能是同伙，索性连他也一起埋了。有时，陌生人还被迫自己挖坑。在无法无天的时代，所有的人都会变得胆大妄为。一些老人回忆说，那时候，像这类事数不胜数。1877年，爆发了一场不可思议的剪辫运动，当时，大半个帝国都被白色恐怖所笼罩，许多有嫌疑的人都被活埋了。当然，特殊情况下，任何民族都会产生这样的恐怖时期，我们也不能太苛求中国人。

中国人缺乏同情，最突出的表现是残酷。他们一般认为中国的穆斯林比他们自己更残酷。尽管可能真的如此，但了解中国人的人，肯定都认为，对别人的痛苦漠然置之，世界上几乎没有任何文明国家能与中国相比。就拿孩子来说，在家里，他们几乎无拘无束；一旦开始上学，这个充满温情的天国就消失了。《三字经》是帝国最常用的启蒙教材，这本书中有句话，叫做：“教不严，师之情。”老师的性情与学生的天资都会影响老师对学生的态度。不过一般来说，都非常严厉。我们曾见过一个刚被老师惩罚过的学生，那情形就像在街头打了一架，头破血流。老师让他掌握写应试文章的秘诀，他没做到。老师发火，学生挨骂，更是常事。另外，不幸受罚的孩子还会遭母亲的毒打，一位平时拿孩子出气的母亲，遇到特别刺激时，更会残酷地对待自己的孩子。

中国人缺乏同情还表现在他们的刑法制度中，根据帝国的法典，很难判断哪些刑罚合法，哪些刑罚不合法，因为有一些不符合法令条文的做法会得到社会习俗的认可与支持，最能说明这一点的是打板子的数目，它们常常高出法律规定数目十倍，有的多达百倍。这里，我们没机会公正地评价中国人对囚犯惨无人道的严刑拷打。在像《中央王国》或者《胡克游记》这类有关于中国的优秀著作中，这样的事例不胜枚举，《胡克游记》的作者提到，他曾亲眼看见一批囚犯手被钉在囚车上，押往衙门，因为解差忘了带脚镣。囚犯没有钱来打通关节，平时就会受到蓄意的残酷折磨，中国人虽有“心肠”，却肯定没有“慈悲”，还有比这更有力的证据吗？几年前，上海的报纸报道了一个案子。两个老囚犯向一个新囚犯索取“孝敬费”，结果地方官员判他们重打两、三千大板，又用铁锤敲碎他们的脚踝骨。中国有谚语云：死不进地狱，活不进衙门。我们大概不会对此感到奇怪吧？＊

既然上文中，那些出人意料的结论是从表面上可靠

既然上文中，那些出人意料的结论是从表面上可靠的韩因章（HANYINZHANG）先生，一位在美国学习法律的中国留学生，他曾在一家重要的宗教杂志上发表过一篇论文，论述中国法治。前面在讨论中国人“不紧不慢”时已经引用过这篇文章。该文认为中国人并不把自己的刑罚当成残酷的。可我们对此不敢苟同，不能忘了，他们是中国人，他们的法律、习俗也是中国人的。他们在个人权利方面不进行彻底改革，他们的刑罚也许永不会有任何实质性的改善。在道德力量有条件充分发挥作用之前，一定不能放弃物质力量。例证得出的。下面我们将引用1888年2月7日北京《邸报》译文中的一段：

“据云南总督报告，该省的一些农村，流行一种可怕的陋习：抓到偷粮食的人，要活活烧死。同时，还强迫他的亲人书面表示同意这种做法，并要亲自点火，以免日后归罪于他人。有时，只不过折断庄稼的一个枝茎。有的出于怨恨，仅凭莫须有的罪名，就把别人置于死地，乍一听，这种残酷的做法实在令人难以置信。它也曾助长了云南的叛乱。政府一直努力铲除这一陋习，至今仍未成功。”

福州附近的一个地区，还有强迫寡妇自杀殉夫的恶习。几年前，当地的中国报纸曾作过详细的描述。乡人先是逼迫寡妇自缢，然后焚烧尸体，并建造一座牌坊，以彰其节。政府不断努力阻止这一残酷的做法，除了个别地方一时奏效外，基本上徒劳无功。

中国需要的东西很多，政治家认为需要海军、陆军和兵工厂，友邦人士认为显然需要货币、铁路和科学指导，但若进一步分析帝国的境况，难道她最深切的需要不是多一些人类的同情心吗？她需要对孩子同情，尽管人类从前没发现它，可十八世纪以来，它已成为人类最宝贵的财富。她需要对妻子和母亲同情，这种同情十八世纪以来已经获得长足发展，并深入人心。她需要把人当做人来同情，懂得仁慈之情有如天国的甘霖，既降临于祝福者，也降临于被祝福者——只有它才使人类最接近于上帝，塞内加称这种神圣的情感为“智力的缺陷”，但基督教培育的仁慈之花，要一直等到开满全世界才会停止。

XXI.THE ABSENCE OFSYMP

XXI.THE ABSENCE OFSYMPATHY

ATTENTION has been directed to that aspect of Chinese life which is represented by the term"benevolence,"the very first of the so-called Constant Virtues.Benevolence is well-wishing.Sympathy is fellow-feeling.Our present object, having premised that the Chinese do practise a certain amount of benevolence,is to illustrate the proposition that they are conspicuous for a deficiency of sympathy.

It must ever be borne in mind that the population of China is dense.The disasters of flood and famine are of periodical occurrence in almost all parts of the Empire.The Chinese desire for posterity is so overmastering a passion that circum- stances which ought to operate as an effectual check upon population,and which in many other countries would do so, appear to be in China relatively inefficient for that purpose. The very poorest people continue to marry their children at an early age,and these children bring up large families,just as if there were any provision for their maintenance.The result of these and other causes is that a large proportion of the population lives,in the most literal sense,from hand to mouth.This may be said to be the universal condition of day-labourers,and it is a condition from which there appears to be no possibility of escape.No foreigner can long deal with the ordinary Chinese whom he everywhere meets,without at once becoming aware of the fact that hardly any one has any ready money.The moment that anything whatever is to be done,the first demand is for cash,that those who are to do it may get something to eat,the presumption being that as yet they have had nothing.It is often very hard even for well-to-do people to raise the most moderate sums of money when it suddenly becomes necessary to do so.There is a most significant expression commonly employed on such oc- casions,which speaks of a man who is obliged to collect a sum with which to prosecute a lawsuit,to arrange for a funeral,and the like,as"putting through a famine,"that is,acting like a -,0 and the bearing of this fact upon the relations of the people to one another must be evident to the most careless observer. The result of the pressure for the means of subsistence,and of the habits which this pressure cultivates and fixes,even after the immediate demand is no longer urgent,is to bring life down to a hard materialistic basis,in which there are but two prominent facts.Money and food are twin foci of the Chinese ellipse,and it is about them as centres that the whole social life of the people revolves.

The deep poverty of the masses of the people of the Chinese Empire,and the terrible struggle constantly going on to secure even the barest subsistence,have familiarised them with the most pitiable exhibitions of suffering of every conceivable variety.Whatever might be the benevolent impulses of any Chinese,he is from the nature of the case wholly helples to relieve even a thousandth part of the misery which he sees about him all the time—misery multiplied many times in any year of special distress.A thoughtful Chinese must recognise the utter futility of the means which are employed to alleviate distress,whether by individual kindness or by government in- terference.All these methods,even when taken at their best, amount simply to a treatment of the symptoms,and do abso- lutely nothing towards removing disease.Their operation is akin to that of societies which should distribute smallpieces of ice among the victims of typhoid fever—so many ounces to each patient,with no hospitals,no dieting,no medicine,and no nursing.It is not,therefore,strange that the Chinese are not in practical ways more benevolent,but rather that,with the total lack of system,of prevision,and of supervision,be- nevolence continues at all.We are familiar with the phenom- enon of the effect,upon the most cultivated persons,of con- stant contact with misery which they have no power either to hinder or to help,for this is illustrated in every modern war. The first sight of blood causes a sinking of the epigastric nerves, and makes an indelible impression;but this soon wears away, and is succeeded by a comparative callousness,which, even to him who experiences it,is a perpetual surprise.In China there is always a social war,and every one is too accustomed to its sickening effects to give them more than a momentary attention.

One of the manifestati

One of the manifestations of Chinese lack of sympathy is their attitude towards those who are in any way physically de- formed.According to the popular belief,the lame,the blind, especially those who are blind of but one eye,the deaf,the bald,the cross-eyed,are all persons to be avoided.It appears to be the assumption that since the physical nature is defective, the moral nature must be so likewise. So far as our obser- vation extends,such persons are not treated with cruelty,but they excite very little of that sympathy which in Western lands is so freely and so spontaneously extended.They are looked upon as having been overtaken by a punishment for some secret sin,a theory exactly accordant with that of the ancient Jews.

The person who is so unfortunate as to be branded with some natural defect or some acquired blemish will not go long without being reminded of the fact.One of the mildest forms of this practice is that in which the peculiarity is employed as a description in such a way as to attract to it public attention. "Great elder brother with the pockmarks,"says an attendant in a dispensary to a patient,“from what village do you come?” It will not be singular if the man whose eyes are afflicted with strabismus hears an observation to the effect that“when the eyes look asquint,the heart is askew";or if the man who has no hair is reminded that“out of ten bald men,nine are de- ceitful,and the other would be so also,were he not dumb.” Such freaks of nature as albinos form an unceasing butt for a species of cheap wit,which appears never for an instant to be intermitted.The unfortunate possessor of peculiarities like this must resign himself (or herself)to a lifetime of this treat- ment,and happy will he be if his temperament admits of his listening to such talk in perpetual reiteration without becoming by turns furious and sullen.

The same excess of frankness is displayed towards those who exhibit any mental defects."This boy,"remarks a bystander, "is idiotic."The lad is probably not at all"idiotic,"but his undeveloped mind may easily become blighted by the con- stant repetition in his presence of the proposition that he has no mind at all.This is the universal method of treating all patients afficted with nervous diseases,or indeed with any other.A ll their peculiarities,the details of their behaviour, the method in which the disease is supposed to have originated, the symptoms which attend its exacerbations,are all public property,and are all detailed in the presence of the patient, who must be thoroughly accustomed to hearing himself de- scribed as“crazy,""half-witted,"“besotted in his intellect,” etc.,etc.

Among a people to whom the birth of male children is so vital a matter,it is not surprising that the fact of childlessness is a constant occasion of reproach and taunts,just as in the ancient days,when it was said of the mother of the prophet Samuel that“her adversary also provoked her sore,for to make her fret.”If it is supposed for any reason,or without reason,that a mother has quietly smothered one of her children, it will not be strange if the announcement of the same is pub- licly made to a stranger.

One of the most charac

One of the most characteristic methods in which the Chinese lack of sympathy is manifested is in the treatment which brides receive on their wedding-day.They are often very young,are always timid,and are naturally terror-stricken at being sud- denly thrust among strangers. Customs vary widely,but there seems to be a general indifference to the feelings of the poor child thus exposed to the public gaze.In some places it is allowable for any one who chooses to turn back the curtains of the chair and stare at her.In other regions,the unmarried girls find it a source of keen enjoyment to post themselves at a convenient position as the bride passes,to throw upon her handfuls of hay-seed or chaff,which will obstinately adhere to her carefully oiled hair for a long time.Upon her emerg- ence from the chair at the house of her new parents,she is subjected to the same kind of criticism as a newly bought horse,with what feelings on her part it is not difficult to imagine.

Side by side with the punctilious ceremony which is so dear to the Chinese heart is the apparent inability to perceive that some things must be disagreeable to other persons,and should for that reason be avoided.A Chinese friend,who had not the smallest idea of saying what would be deficient in politeness,remarked to the writer that when he first saw foreigners it seemed most extraordinary that they should have beards that reached all round their faces just like those of monkeys, but he added,reassuringly,“I am quite used to it now!”The teacher who is asked in the presence of his pupils as to their capacity,replies before them all that the one nearest the door is much the brightest,and will be a graduate by the time he is twenty years of age,but the two at the next table are certainly the stupidest children he ever saw.That such observations have any reflex effect upon the pupils,never for a moment enters into the thought of any one.

The whole family life of the Chinese illustrates their lack of sympathy.While there are great differences in different households,and while from the nature of the case generalisa- tion is precarious,it is easy to see that most Chinese homes which are seen at all are by no means happy homes.It is impossible that they should be so,for they are deficient in that unity of feeling which to us seems so essential to real home life.A Chinese family is generally an association of individuals who are indissolubly tied together,having many of their interests the same,and many of them very different. The result is not our idea of a home,and it is not sympathy.

Daughters in China are from the beginning of their existence more or less unwelcome. This fact has a most important bearing on their whole subsequent career,and furnishes many significant illustrations of the absence of sympathy.

Mothers and daughters

Mothers and daughters who pass their days in the nar- row confinement of a Chinese court under the conditions of Chinese life,are not likely to lack topics of disagreement,in which abusive language is indulged in with a freedom which the unconstraint of everyday life tends to promote.It is a popular saying,full of significance to those who know Chi- nese homes,that a mother cannot by reviling her own daughter make her cease to be her own daughter! When a daughter is once married she is regarded as having no more relations with her family than those which are inseparable from com- munity of origin.T here is a deep-seated reason for omitting daughters from all family registers.She is no longer our daughter,but the daughter-in-law of some one else.Human nature will assert itself in requiring visits to the mother’s home,at more or less frequent intervals,according to the local usage.I n some districts these visits are very numerous and very prolonged,while in others the custom seems to be to make them as few as possible,and liable to almost com- plete suspension for long periods in case of a death in the family.But whatever the details of usage,the principle holds good that the daughter-in-law belongs to the family of which she has become a part.When she goes to her mother's home, she goes on a strictly business basis.She takes with her it may be a quantity of sewing for her husband's family,which the wife's family must help her get through with. She is ac- companied on each of these visits by as many of her children as possible,both to have her take care of them and to have them out of the way when she is not at hand to look after them,and most especially to have them fed at the expense of the family of the maternal grandmother for as long a time as possible.In regions where visits of this sort are frequent,and where there are many daughters in a family,their constant raids on the old home are a source of perpetual terror to the whole family,and a serious tax on the common resources. For this reason these visits are often discouraged by the fathers and the brothers,while secretly favoured by the mothers. But as local custom fixes for them certain epochs, such as a definite date after the New-Year,special feast-days, etc.,the visits cannot be interdicted.

When the daughter-in-law returns to her mother-in-law,it is true of her,as the adage says of a thief,that she never comes back empty-handed.She must take a present of some sort for her mother-in-law,generally food.Neglect of this established rite,or inability to comply with it,will soon result in dramatic scenes.If the daughter is married into a family which is poor,or which has become so,and if she has brothers who are married,she will find that her visits to her mother are,in the language of the physicians,"contra-indicated."

There is war between the daughters-in-law of a family and the married sisters of the same family,like that between the Philistines and the children of Israel,each regarding the territory as peculiarly its own,and the other party as interlopers.If the daughters-in-law are strong enough to do so,they will, like the Philistines,levy a tax upon the enemy whom they cannot altogether exterminate or drive out.A daughter-in-law is regarded as a servant for the whole family,which is precisely her position,and in getting a servant it is obviously desirable to get one who is strong and well grown,and who has already been taught the domestic accomplishments of cooking,sewing,and whatever industries may be the means of livelihood in that particular region,rather than a child who has little strength or capacity.Thus we have known of a case where a buxom young woman of twenty was married to a slip of a boy literally only half her age,and in the early years of their wedded life she had the pleasure of nursing him through the smallpox,which is considered as a disease of infancy.

The woes of daughters-in-law in China should form the subject rather for a chapter than for a brief paragraph.When it is remembered that all Chinese women marry,and generally marry young,being for a considerable part of their lives under the absolute control of a mother-in-law,some faint conception may be gained of the intolerable miseries of those daughters-in-law who live in families where they are abused.Parents can do absolutely nothing to protect their married daughters,other than remonstrating with the families into which they have married,and exacting an expensive funeral if the daughters should be actually driven to suicide.If a husband should seriously injure or even kill his wife,he might escape all legal consequences by representing that she was “unfilial”to his parents.Suicides of young wives are,we must repeat,excessively frequent,and in some regions scarcely a group of villages can be found where they have not recently taken place.What can be more pitiful than a mother's reproaches to a married daughter who has attempted suicide and been rescued:“Why didn't you die when you had a chance?”

The Governor of Honan,

The Governor of Honan,in a memorial published in the Peking Gazette a few years ago,showed incidentally that while there is responsibility in the eye of the law for the murder of a child by a parent,this is rendered nugatory by the provision that even if a married woman should wilfully and maliciously murder her young daughter-in-law,the murderess may ransom herself by a money payment.The case reported was that in which a woman had burned the girl who was reared to become her son's wife with incense sticks,then roasted her cheeks with red-hot pincers,and finally boiled her to death with kettlefuls of scalding water.Other similar instances are referred to in the same memorial,the source of which places its authenticity beyond doubt.Such extreme barbarities are probably rare, but the cases of cruel treatment which are so aggravated as to lead to suicide,or to an attempt at suicide,are so frequent as to excite little more than passing comment.The writer is personally acquainted with many families in which these occurrences have taken place.

The lot of Chinese concubines is one of exceeding bitterness.The homes in which they are to be found—happily relatively few in number—are the scenes of incessant bickerings and open warfare."The magistrate of the city in which I live,"writes a resident of China of long experience,“was a wealthy man,a great scholar,a doctor of literature,an able administrator,well acquainted with the good teachings of the Classics;but he would lie and curse and rob,and torture people to any extent to gratify his evil passions. One of his concubines ran away;she was captured,brought back, stripped,hung up to a beam by her feet,and cruelly and severely beaten.”

In a country like China the poor have no time to be sick. Ailments of women and children are apt to be treated by the men of the family as of no consequence,and are constantly allowed to run into incurable maladies,because there was no time to attend to them,or because the man“could not afford it."

As we have noticed in speaking of filial piety,it is a constituent part of the theory that the younger are relatively of little account.They are valued principally for what they may become,and not for what they are. Thus the practice of most Western lands is in China reversed.The youngest of three travellers is proverbially made to take the brunt of all hardships.The youngest servant is uniformly the common drudge of the rest.In the grinding poverty of the mass of the people,it is not strange that the spirit even of a Chinese boy often rebels against the sharp limitations to which he finds himself pinned,and that he not infrequently runs away.The boy who has made up his mind to go will seldom fail to find some slight thread by which he may attach himself to some one else.The causes for this behaviour on the part of boys are various,but so far as we have observed,the harsh treatment of others is by far the most common.In a case of this sort,a boy recently recovered from a run of typhus fever, being possessed by the hearty appetite common to such patients, and finding the coarse black bread of the family fare hard eating,went to a local market and indulged in the luxury of expending cash to the value of about twenty cents.For this he was severely reproved by his father,upon which the lad ran away to Manchuria,an unfailing resort of lads all over the northeastern provinces,and was never heard of again.

It was a saying of Geo

It was a saying of George D.Prentice,that man was the principal object in creation,woman being merely“a side issue.” The phrase is a literal expression of the position of a wife in a Chinese family.The object had in view in matrimony by the family of the girl is to get rid of supporting her.The object on the part of the husband's family is to propagate that family. These objects are not in themselves open to criticism,except on the ground of a too complete occupation of the field of human motives. But in China no one indulges in any illusions on the subject.

That which is true of the marriages of those in the ordinary walks of life is pre-eminently true of the poorer classes.It is a common observation in regard to a widow who has remarried,that“now she will not starve.”It is a popular proverb that a second husband and a second wife are husband and wife only as long as there is anything to eat;when the food-supply fails each shifts for himself.In times of famine relief cases have often been observed where the husband simply abandons the wife and the children,leaving them to pick up a wretched subsistence or to starve.In many instances daughters-in-law were sent back to their mothers'family to be supported or starved as the event might be."She is your daughter,take care of her yourself.”In other cases where special food was given by distributers of famine relief to women who were nursing small infants,it was sometimes found that this allowance had been taken from the women and devoured by the men,although these instances were probably exceptional.

While it would be obviously unfair to judge a people only by the phenomena of such years as those of great famine,there is an important sense in which such occasions are a species of touchstone by which the underlying principles of social life may be ascertained with more accuracy and certainty than on ordinary occasions.The sale of wives and of children in China is a practice not confined to years of peculiar distress, but during those years it is carried on to an extent which throws all ordinary transactions of this nature into insignificance.It is perfectly well known to those acquainted with the facts,that during several recent years in many districts stricken with famine,the sale of women and children was conducted as openly as that of mules and donkeys,the only essential difference being that the former were not driven to market.During the great famine of 1878,which extended over nearly all parts of the three most northern provinces,as well as further south,so extensive a traffic sprung up in women and girls who were exported to the central provinces that in some places it was difficult to hire a cart,as they had all been engaged in the transportation of the newly purchased females to the regions where they were to be disposed of.In these cases young women were taken from a region where they were in a condition of starvation,and where the population was too redundant,to a region which had been depopulated by rebels, and where for many years wives had been hard to procure. It is one of the most melancholy features of this strange state of affairs,that the enforced sales of members of Chinese families to distant provinces was probably the best thing for all parties,and perhaps the only way in which the lives,both of those who were sold as well as the lives of those who sold them, could be preserved.

We have referred to the common neglect of sickness in the family because the victims are“only women and children.” Smallpox,which in Western lands we regard as a terrible scourge,is so constant a visitor in China that the people never expect to be free from its ravages. But it is not much thought of,because its victims are mainly children! It is exceedingly common to meet with persons who have lost the sight of both eyes in consequence of this disease.The comparative disregard of the value of infant life is displayed in ways which we should by no means have expected from the Chinese,who object so strongly to the mutilation of the human body.Young children are often either not buried at all,an ordinary expression for their death being the phrase"thrown out,"or if rolled in a mat,they are so loosely covered that they soon fall a prey to dogs.In some places the horrible custom prevails of crushing the body of a deceased infant into an indistinguishable mass,in order to prevent the“devil”which inhabited it from returning to vex the family!

While the Chinese are

While the Chinese are so indifferent to smallpox,our fear of which they fail to appreciate,they have a similar dread of typhus and typhoid fevers,which are regarded much as we regard the scarlet fever.It is very difficult to get proper attention,or any attention at all,if one happens to be taken with either of these diseases when away from home. To all appeals for help it is a conclusive reply,"That disease is contagious.”While this is true to some extent of many fevers,it is perhaps most conspicuous in a terrible scourge found in some of the valleys of Yunnan,and described by Mr.Baber:* "The sufferer is soon seized with extreme weakness,followed in a few hours by agonising aches in every part of the body; delirium shortly ensues,and in nine cases out of ten the result is fatal.”According to the native accounts:"All parts of the sick-room are occupied by devils;even the tables and mattresses writhe about and utter voices,and offer intelligible replies to all who question them. Few,however,venture into the chamber. The missionary assured me that the patient is, in most cases,deserted like a leper,for fear of contagion.If an elder member of the family is attacked,the best attention he receives is to be placed in a solitary room with a vessel of water by his side.The door is secured,and a pole laid near it,with which twice a day the anxious relatives,cautiously peering in,poke and prod the sick person to discover if he retains any symptoms of life.”

Among a people of so mild a disposition as the Chinese there must be a great deal of domestic kindness of which nothing is seen or heard.Sickness and trouble are peculiarly adapted to call out the best side of human nature,and in a foreign hospital for Chinese we have witnessed many instances of devotion not merely on the part of parents towards children, or children towards parents,but of wives towards husbands and also of husbands towards wives.The same thing is even more common among strangers towards one another. Many a Chinese mother nursing an infant will give of her overflowing abundance to a motherless child which else might starve

Unwillingness to give help to others,unless there is some special reason for doing so,is a trait that runs through Chinese social relations in multifold manifestations. It is a common and in many cases a perfectly valid excuse which is made when a bright boy is advised to try to learn to read a little,although he has no opportunity to go to school,that no one will tell him the characters,although there may be plenty of reading men within reach who have abundant leisure.The very mention of such an ambition is certain to excite unmeasured ridicule on the part of those who have had the longest experience of Chinese schools,as if they were saying:"By what right does this fellow think to take a short cut,and pick up in a few months what cost us years of toil,and then was forgotten in half the time which we took to get it?Let him hire a teacher for himself as we did.”It is very rare indeed to meet with a genuine case of one who has anything which can be called a knowledge of characters,even of the most elementary description,which he has“picked up”for himself,though such cases do occasionally occur.

The general omission to do anything for the relief of the drowning strikes every foreigner in China. A few years ago a foreign steamship was burned in the Yang-tze River,and the crowds of Chinese who gathered to witness the event did little or nothing to rescue the passengers and crew.As fast as they made their way to the shore many of them were robbed even of the clothing which they had on,and some were murdered outright.Yet it should be remarked in connection with such atrocities as this,that it is not so very long ago that wrecking was a profession in England.On the other hand,in the autumn of 1892 a large British steamer went ashore on the China coast,and both the local fishermen and the officials did everything in their power to rescue and relieve the survivors. It remains true,however,that there is in China a general callousness to the many cases of distress which are to be seen almost everywhere,especially along lines of travel.It is a common proverb that to be poor at home is not to be counted as poverty,but to be poor when on the high-road,away from home,will cost a man his life.

It is in travelling in

It is in travelling in China that the absence of helpful kindness on the part of the people towards strangers is perhaps most conspicuous.When the summer rains have made all land travel almost impossible,he whose circumstances make travel a necessity will find that“heaven,earth,and man”are a threefold harmony in combination against him.No one will inform him that the road which he has taken will presently end in a quagmire.If you choose to drive into a morass,it is no business of the contiguous tax-payers.We have spoken of the neglect of Chinese highways.When the traveller has been plunged into one of the sloughs with which all such roads at certain seasons abound,and finds it impossible to extricate himself,a great crowd of persons will rapidly gather from somewhere,"their hands in their sleeves,and idly gazing,"as the saying goes. It is not until a definite bargain has been made with them that any one of these bystanders, no matter how numerous,will lift a finger to help one in any particular. Not only so,but it is a constant practice on such occasions for the local rustics to dig deep pits in difficult places,with the express purpose of trapping the traveller,that he may be obliged to employ these same rustics to help the traveller out! When there is any doubt as to the road in such places,one might as well plunge forward,disregarding the cautions of those native to the spot,since one can never be sure that the directions given are not designed to hinder rather than help.

We have heard of one instance in which a foreign family, moving into an interior city of China,was welcomed with apparent cordiality by the people,the neighbours even volunteering to lend them articles for housekeeping until such time as they might be able to procure an outfit of their own.Other examples there doubtless are,but it is well known that these are wholly exceptional.By far the most usual reception is total indifference on the part of the people,except so far as curiosity is excited to see what the new-comers are like;a spirit of cupidity to make the most of the fat geese whom fate has sent thither to be plucked;and sullen hostility.In the case of foreigners who may have been reduced to distress, we have never heard of any assistance voluntarily given by Chinese,though of course there may have been such cases We have known of instances in which sailors have attempted the journey overland from Tientsin to Chefoo,and from Canton to Swatow,and during the whole time of their travel they were never once given a lodging or a mouthful of food.

It is often difficult,and frequently impossible,for those who are taking a dead body home to secure admission to an inn. We have known a case of this sort where the brother of the deceased was obliged to stand guard all night in the street,because the landlord would not allow the coffin to come within the gate. An extortionate price is exacted for ferrying a corpse over a river,and we have been cognisant of several instances in which a dead body has been doubled up into a parcel and tied with mat wrappings,to make it appear like merchandise,to avoid suspicion.It was reported during a recent severe winter in Shantung,that the keeper of an inn in the city of Wei Hsien refused to allow several travellers who were half dead with cold to enter his inn,lest they should die there,but turned them into the street,where they all froze to death!

There are some crimes committed in China for which the perpetrators are often not prosecuted before a magistrate, partly on account of the difficulty and expense of securing a conviction,and partly because of the shame of publicity. Many cases of adultery are thus dealt with by the law of private revenge.The offender is attacked by a large band of men,on the familiar Chinese principle that“where there are many persons,their prestige is great."Sometimes the man's legs are broken,sometimes his arms,and very often his eyes are destroyed by rubbing into them quicklime.The writer has known several instances of this sort,and they are certainly not uncommon.A very intelligent Chinese,himself not unfamiliar with Occidental ways of thought,upon hearing a foreigner remonstrate against this practice as a refinement of cruelty,expressed unfeigned surprise,and remarked that in China such a mode of dealing with a criminal is thought to be“extremely mild,”as he is thus merely maimed for life,when he really ought to be killed!

“What do you keep comi

“What do you keep coming here to eat for?”said a sister-in-law to her husband's brother,who had been away for several years,and having got into trouble had had his eyes rubbed out with quicklime."We have no place for you.If you want something hard,here is a knife;and if you want something soft,there is a rope;so get along with you."This conversation was mentioned incidentally by an incurably blind man,as an explanation of his desire to get a little sight if that were possible,but if not,he intimated that either the“hard”or the“soft”could be made to adjust his difficulties.It is rare to hear of any instances in which the victim of such outrages succeeds in getting a complaint heard before a magistrate.The evidence against him would be overwhelming, and nine officials out of ten would probably consider that the man who had been thus dealt with deserved it all,and more. Even if the man were to win his case,he would be no better off than before,but rather the worse,as the irritation of his neighbours would only be increased,and his life would not be safe.

It must be understood that despite the sacredness of human life in China,there are circumstances in which it is worth very little.One of the crimes which are most exasperating to the Chinese is theft.In a crowded population always on the edge of ruin,this is regarded as a menace to society only less serious than murder.In a time of famine relief one of the distributers found an insane woman,who had become a kleptomaniac,chained to a huge mill-stone as if she were a mad dog.If a person becomes known as a thief or in other ways is a public nuisance,he is in danger of being made away with by a summary process,not differing essentially from the vigilance committees of the early days of California.Sometimes this is done by stabbing,but the method most frequently adopted is burying alive.Doubtless there are those who suppose this expression to be a mere figure of speech,as when (according to some)one is said“to swallow gold.” It is,on the contrary,a very serious reality.The writer is acquainted with four persons who were threatened with death in this form. In two instances they were bound as a preliminary,and in one case the pit was actually dug,and in all cases the burial was only prevented by the intervention of some older member of the attacking party.In another instance,occurring in a village where the writer is well acquainted,a young man who was known to be insane was an incorrigible thief.A party of the villagers belonging to his own family only“consulted”(!) with his mother,and as the result of their deliberations he was bound,a hole made in the ice covering the river flowing near the village,and the youth was dropped in

During the years in which the refluent waves of the great T'ai-p'ing rebellion overspread so large a part of China,the excitement was everywhere intense.At such times a stranger had but to be suspected to be seized,and subjected to a rigorous examination.If he could give no account of himself which was satisfactory to his captors,it went hard with him. Within a few hundred yards of the spot at which these lines are written two such tragedies occurred,little more than twenty years ago. The magistrates found themselves almost powerless to enforce the laws,and issued semi-official notifications to the people to seize all suspicious characters.The villagers saw a man coming on a horse,who looked as if he were a native of another province,and who failed to give adequate explanations of his antecedents.His bedding being found to be full of articles of jewellery,which he had evidently plundered from somewhere,the man was tied up,a pit was dug,and the victim tumbled into it. While this was going on another was seen racing across the fields in a terrified manner,and it needed but the suggestion of some bystander that he was probably an accomplice,to secure for the second victim the same fate as the first.In some cases the strangers were compelled to dig their own graves.Any native of the provinces of China principally affected by the lawlessness of those lawless times,old enough to recollect the circumstances, will testify that instances of this sort were too numerous to be remembered or counted.In the epoch of terror caused by a mysterious cutting off of cues,in the year 1877,an intense panic seemed to pervade a large part of the Empire,and there can be no doubt that many persons who were suspected were made away with in this manner.Such periods of panic,however,under certain conditions,are common to all races,and must not be laid to the charge of the Chinese as a unique phenomenon.

One of the most striking of all the many exhibitions of the Chinese lack of sympathy is to be found in their cruelty.It is popularly believed by the Chinese that the Mohammedans in China are more cruel than the Chinese themselves. However this may be,there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who knows the Chinese that they display an indifference to the sufferings of others which is probably not to be matched in any other civilised country.Though children at home are almost wholly ungoverned,yet the moment their career of education is begun the reign of mildness ceases.The"Trimetrical Classic,"the most general of the minor text-books of the Empire,contains a line to the effect that to teach without severity is a fault in a teacher.While this motto is very variously acted upon,according to the temperament of the pedagogue and the obtuseness of his pupils,great harshness is certainly common.We have seen a scholar fresh from a preceptor who was struggling to induct his pupils into the mysteries of examination essays,when the former presented the appearance of having been through a street fight,his head covered with wounds and streaming with blood.It is not rare that pupils are thrown into fits from the abuse which they receive from angry teachers.On the other hand,it is not unusual for mothers whose children are so unfortunate as to be subject to fits,to beat them in those paroxysms,as an expression of the extreme disgust which such inconvenient attacks excite. It is not difficult to perceive that mothers who can beat children because they fall into convulsions will treat any of their children with cruelty when irritated by special provocation.

Another example of“abs

Another example of“absence of sympathy”on the part of the Chinese is their system of punishments. It is not easy, from an examination of the legal code of the Empire, to ascertain what is and what is not in accordance with law,for custom seems to have sanctioned many deviations from the letter of the statutes.One of the most significant of these is the enormous number of blows with the bamboo which are constantly resorted to,often ten times the number named in the law,and sometimes one hundred times as many. We have no space even to mention the dreadful tortures which are inflicted upon Chinese prisoners in the name of justice. They may be found enumerated in any good work on China, such as“The Middle Kingdom,"or“Huc's Travels.”The latter author mentions seeing prisoners on the way to the yamen,with their hands nailed to the cart in which they were conveyed,because the constables had forgotten to bring fetters. Nothing so illustrates the proposition that though the Chinese have"bowels,"they certainly have no“mercies,"as the deliberate,routine cruelty with which all Chinese prisoners are treated who cannot pay for their exemption.A few years ago the press of Shanghai chronicled the infliction upon two old prisoners in the yamen of the District Magistrate of that city of a sentence for levying blackmail on a new prisoner. They received between two thousand and three thousand blows with the bamboo,and had their ankles broken with an iron hammer. Is it strange that the Chinese adage advises the dead to keep out of hell and the living to keep out of yamens? *

Since the preceding paragraphs were written an unexpected confirmation of some of the statements made has appeared from a most unimpeachable source.The following is an extract from a translation of the Peking Gazette of February 7, 1888:

"The Governor of Yunnan states that in some of the country districts of that province the villagers have a horrible custom of burning to death any man caught stealing corn or fruits in the fields.They at the same time compel the man's relations to sign a document,giving their consent to what is done,and then make them light the fire with their own hands, so as to deter them from lodging a complaint afterwards. Sometimes the horrible penalty is exacted for the breaking of a single branch or stalk,or even false accusations are made, and men put to death out of spite. This terrible practice, which seems incredible when heard,came into use during the time of the Yunnan rebellion;and the constant efforts of the authorities have not succeeded in extirpating it since.”

Native Chinese newspapers have within a few years contained detailed accounts of an enforced suttee practised in a district near Foochow.Widows are compelled to strangle themselves,and their bodies are then burned,after which ornamental portals are erected to their virtuous memory! Magistrates have in vain endeavoured to stop this cruel custom,but their success has been only local and temporary.

China has many needs,a

China has many needs,among which her leading statesmen place armies,navies,and arsenals.To her foreign well-wishers it is plain that she needs a currency,railways,and scientific instruction.But does not a deeper diagnosis of the conditions of the Empire indicate that one of her profoundest needs is more human sympathy?She needs to feel with childhood that sympathy which for eighteen centuries has been one of the choicest possessions of races and peoples which once knew it not.She needs to feel sympathy for wives and for mothers,a sympathy which eighteen centuries have done so much to develop and to deepen.She needs to feel sympathy for man as man,to learn that quality of mercy which droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,twice blest in blessing him that gives and him that takes—that divine compassion which Seneca declared to be“a vice of the mind,” but which the influence of Christianity has cultivated until it has become the fairest plant that ever bloomed upon the earth, the virtue in the exercise of which man most resembles God.

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