The Press. — London, England, 1857-06-06 00:00:00

probation of the spirit of the changes made in 1832, the right hon. gentleman proceeded : " I have always loosed, not I believe without "reason, to the remedial agency which would be " exercised on some of the arrangements that " might have been very factiously brought " about by the good sense and common feeling of " Englishmen, influences which would in the "long run tend to alleviate some of the in " justice that marked the settlement of 1 832." A measure such as Mr. Harris advocates would be too " newfangled " to commend it self to " the good sense and common feeling " alluded to by Mr. Disraeli. It is true that we live in an ago when eclecticism, or an artificial mixture of something of everything, has exercised an unwholesome influence on our public mind, which, in its natural charac teristics, prefers the solid to the showy, and distrusts speculative refinements. A more practical method than Mr. Harris proposes should be required to preserve the Conserva tive interest. The crudeness of his scheme can be shown at a glance : By a disfranchisement of a number of the smaller boroughs which represent no particular interest, a suffi cient reduction might be made in the House of Commons to admit of the enfranchisement of the learned, profes sional, and commercial bodies alluded to, and of the increase of certain of the town and of the county members, if necessary. The members of the house might, per haps, be advantageously limited to 600, allowing WM to England, where the greater part of the corporate bodies who would send members exist, 150 to Scotland, and 100 to Ireland. The Irish Protestants and Romanists would never submit to the degradation of Scotland having fifty more members than Ireland, and Mr. Harris overlooks the serious fact that the Conservatives of England have suffered severely since the Reform Bill from the one sided character of the Scotch representation. The importance of the subject, and the ability shown in some parts of this philoso phical treatise, have thus induced us to criti cise this production. A Residence amity the Chinese : Inland, on the Coast, and at Sea. By Robert Fortune. London : Murray. China and its Inhabitants. By Sir John Davis. New Edition. Two Vols. London : Murray. China. A Popular History. By Sir Oscar Oliphant. London : Blackwoods. THE probable deluge of works upon " Cbina and the Chinese " is heralded by Mr. Fortune's Travels, by a new edition of Sir John Davis' well-known work, and by a pleasant, chatty, half-a-crown volume by Sir Oscar Oliphant. Mr. Fortune is well known to the pub lic as the clever author of " Three Years' Wanderings in China," as well as of " A Visit to the Tea Countries of China and the Hima laya ;" and the present volume may be ac cepted as a continuation of its predecessors, for it was in 1852 that, for the second time, Mr. Fortune was despatched by the East India Company to China to collect tea plants and procure teamakers for the ex perimental tea-farms in India ; and on this occasion his investigations led him not only over the tea districts of Chekiang, but to reside for some time in the heart of the great silk dihtrict, upon which some very interesting chapters are given But the great feature of Mr. Fortune's book lies in his personal vindication of the Chinese from the charge of being " barbarians." Singularly enough, it is a national peculiarity of ours to under estimate or despise all other nations on earth ; and as indolent or ignorant persons are prone to generalise, this piece of vulgar electioneering claptrap being accepted on high authority, John Chinaman was unhesitatingly set down as a very " bloodthirsty barbarian." We all know that the Chinese as a nation are jealous, selfish, and conceited, yet a nation is to some extent only the reftexof the ruling power; and although the Chinese of the towns under the pressure of the local Tartar Government may exhibit a greathatred of foreigners, yet the edu cated classes in the country display towards strangers the greatest hospitality and goodwill. But for us tojudge a nation of four hundred mil lions by the ordinary conduct towards "peculiar strangers" of the villszions rabble et a sea• THE PRESS. port city like Canton, would be as consistent as a Mandarin with his pigtail and fan, landing in Wapping and estimating our character for hospitality by the reception he would meet with from the enlightened fraternity of that district. The only! disadvantage Mr. For tune laboured under arose from the ignorance of the people. He was looked upon as a species of beast of prey. "Oh, if Igo near " him ho will bite me !" said a child on one occasion ; and the women of the family, he tells us, at first always " bolted " the moment they saw him ; but, so soon as they discovered that being cooked and eaten was not a ne cessary consequence of his acquaintance, they would sit out with him in their verandah, and work and chat as agreeably as their civilised sisters of Western Europe. Indeed, under most circumstances in life, the Chinese deserve to be regarded favourably. They are good parents, good husbands, excellent wives, and, when not cruelly overtaxed or starved, loyal subjects ; then they are sober, regular in their habits, industrious in business, and faithful to their engagements. Then, again, the coastmeu make capital sailors; whil as emigrants in a foreign country, the Chinaman, in his constant and steady application to labour or business, where his spare diet, sober habits, and muscular development give him great advantages, rivals or beats all competitors. Now, these are great qualities for an Asiatic, and, when called a " barbarian," all must allow that John Chinaman has been most unjustly characterised. He is a fine type of the Asiatic race, and though ho has his little peculiarities, is rather given to some of the seven deadly sins, is a little obstinate in his temper and bigoted in his opinions, and perhaps partial to a pet prejudice or two—and ho is not singular here—yet he is a very good fellow after all, and, taken on the whole, is quite as civilised as those who drink his tea when they can get it, wear his silks, or pur chase his porcelain. . . In this view Mr. Fortune's adventures for three years off the north coast and in the interior fully bear us out. Here is his first visit by water, in March, '53, to Tse-kee, a city about ten or twelve miles north-west of Ningpo Leaving my servants to prepare my breakfast and to get their own, I sauntered into the city. I found it a very ancient place, and famous as being the residence of many of the wealthiest persons in this part of China. Its walls seemed to be about three miles in circumference, but they inclosed numerous fields and gardens as well as houses. The dwellings of the rich were mostly surrounded with high walls, and were not visible from the streets. This is a common mode of building, as it secures the privacy of the female members of the family in a country like China, where it is the custom to keep them much secluded. I had entered the city by the north gate, and in a few minutes had a crowd of people at my heels. " Where had I come from ?" " where was I going to?" and " what was I wanting to buy ?" were questions which were put on all aides. The crowd appeared to be perfectly good-humoured, and treated me with the greatest deference and respect. Some ran on before me, and seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in spreading the information of my arrival. The consequence was, that every door and window was full of people anxious to get a look at the foreigner. It was per. fectly useless to remonstrate or to get angry, so I was all smiles and took everything in good part. One day a Mandarin, hearing of Mr. Fortune's entomological tastes, inspected his collection. A crowd collected, and as soon as the Mandarin had taken his leave, incessant applications were made to come on board the boat. The only way to gratify the crowd was to throw back the roof of the boat, and display in detail to them each box : My table, bed, the floor of the boat, and every inch of space was completely covered with examples of the natural history of the place. " Can all these things have been col. lected here?" was on every lip; "for many of them wo have never seen, although we are natives of the place and this is our home." And when I pointed out some of the more remarkable amongst the insects, and gave them the names by which they are known to the natives, I was complimented and applauded on all sides And so the conversation went on, every one being in the best possible humour. When I had shown them the greater portion of my collections, the cover of the boat was let down, and everything put away into its proper place. I was now anxious to die. perse the crowd, and for that purpose informed them that, as the afternoon was getting cool, I was now going out to make further additions to my collections. " Thank you, thank you," said many of them, making at the same time many most polite bows after the manner of the country, which I did not fail to return. And so we parted tho best of friends This picture is not very like many which have been given of China and the Chinese, but it is true SATURDAY, to nature nevertheless. I trust it may give g higher idea of the civilisation of this people than we are accustomed to form front the writings of those whose 'prin cipal knowledge was derived from views at the great southern seaports of the empire. At every town he stopped Mr. Fortune was well received, and experienced " kindness and civility" from the natives with whom ho daily came in contact. He entered the cities and their neighbouring villages, conversed with the natives, looked into their shops, vi sited their theatres, and though regarded with intense curiosity as a " white devil," ho rarely met with anything like incivility. One of the most agreeable traits in the cha racter of the Chinese is their reverence for tho dead. The most beautiful spots are chosen for the tombs, which are preserved with reverent care:-- It is a pretty sight, and yet a painful one too, to see the relations of the dead visiting the tombs of their ancestors, which they do at stated periods for the purpose of burning sycee paper and incense, and chanting prayers to the gods or spirits of the departed. Sometimes a mother may be seen with her children, the youngest probably still an infant in her arms, assembled in front of the grave of the husband and father. The widow is wailing and lamenting her bereavement, and the poor little ones look on so seriously, while every now and then they prostrate them selves befure the grave. Or, it m:ly be, it is the aged who are paying the same respect to the last resting-place of those who had been taken away in early life, and to whom they had looked forward as the stay and prop of their declining years. Or again, a so'itary individual might be seen performing the same rites—young, middle-aged, or old, as the case might be—which suggested the idea that he was poor and friendless, the last of his race. It has been asserted that there is little genuine feeling in all this, that it is a custom which must be observed, and that it would be just as well if such a custom did not exist. I believe, however, there is as much genuine sorrow amongst the Chinese for the loss of relatives as there is amongst ourselves ; and if we consider the way they dote upon their children, and the reverence and love they have for aged parents, we can come to 113 other conclusion. During the capture of Shanghae by the rebels on the 7th September, 1853, Mr. Fortune happened to be present, and he gives the following account of the manner in which wo observed our neutrality : The sympathies of foreigners generally were all enlisted on the side of the rebels and against the Government of the country. It was no secret that we as a body, instead of opposing an attack upon the city, would hail it with pleasure, and wish it success, although we would otherwise remain neutral. Civil and naval officers, missionaries, merchants, and shopkeepers, all—with a few honourable exception—were in favour of the debauched band of robbers who took the city of Shanghae on the 7th of September. The unprejudiced observer of these events had now to witness a most extraordinary and anomalous proceeding, namely, that of our men•of war gallantly putting down the hordes of pirates which were infesting the coast, while the land pirates, such as those who took the city of Shanghae, were encouraged and applauded. And why ? Because the latter spent their days and nights in smoking opium, in drunkenness, and in all kinds of debauchery, and gave ont they were followers of Tai•pingisang, or, as he was called, the Christian King. The rebels held possession for about a year, closely besieged by the Imperialists. Again, the conduct and policy of the British authori ties is worth noting:— The object of the Imperialists appeared to be not so much to drive them out by hard fighting as by gradually cutting off their supplies to starve them into capitulation. Here again their plans were to a certain extent frustrated by neutral foreigners. l'he foreign settlement, as it is called, occupies a large tract of ground situated ou the northeast side of the city just outside the walls, and is bounded on the east by the Shanghae river. Notwith standing the complaints and remonstrances of the Govern ment of the country, many persons were unscrupulous enough to keep supplying the insurgents with arms and ammunition of all kinds in large quantities, for which they were liberally paid with the spoils stolen from the public treasury or wrung from the inhabitants. Some were in the habit of making large sums of money by running cargoes of gunpowder, carrying it into the city, advising and counselling the rebels, and then when danger approached sneaking back to the foreign settlement for the protection which the flags of England or America afforded them. Nor was this conduct effectually checked by either of these Governments for a considerable length of time, although they had full power to have done so. And this is what we call being neutral ? After such conduct as this at Shanghae, can we be surprised at the disinclination of Yeh to admit us into Canton, when that province is in a state of similar insurrection? We have no interest, and infinitely less right, to support rebels against their sovereign; and if those principles of our Liberal European foreign policy are to be transplanted to China, we can readily conceive that our reputation only, and not our rights, in any disputed question, should be recognised by the Sovereign or his viceroys.