The Press. — London, England, 1855-01-20 00:00:00

66 absence of all religious feeling is at the lowest ebb. Infanticide is a common crime, espe cially as regards female children, who are looked upon as encumbrances. Murder also is common, and suicide remarkably so, for, among other anomalies in China, if a man wishes to wreak vengeance upon his enemy he does not kill him, but he kills himself; and the paternal Government, ever alive to the benefit of its children, being fully impressed with this peculiarity of its subjects, has insti• tuted a law to meet the case by which the whole responsibility of the death of the suicide is visited upon those who are sup posed to be the occasion of his death, and heavy damages, torture, or ruin are frequently decreed. Passing by many passages relative to the domestic manners and customs of this singular people, we cannot omit a sketch of the only charitable institution in Pekin. The Chinese are not a benevolent people, and never yet have formed any societies for the relief of the sick and indigent, with the single exception of one society, which provides coffins gratis for the unclaimed dead, and another which surpasses in eccentricity, says M. Huc, all that the fertile imaginatiou of Fourier could have conceived : It is called Ki-mao-fan, that is, " House of the Hens' Feathers." By dint of carrying out the laws of progress, the Chinese have found means to furnish to the poorest of the community a warm feather-bed, for the small consider tion of one-fifth of a farthing per night. This marvellous establishment is composed of one great hall, and the floor of this great hall is covered over its whole extent by one vast thick layer of feathers. Mendicants and vagabonds who have no other domicile come to pass the night in this immense dormitory. Men, women, and children, old and young, all without exception, are admitted. Communism prevails in the full force and rigour of the expression. Every one settles himself and makes his nest as well as he can for the night in this ocean of feathers ; when day dawns he must quit the premises, and an officer of the company stands at the door to receive the rent of one sapeck each for the night's lodging. In deference, no doubt, to the principle of equality half-places are not allowed, and a child must pay the same as a grown person. On the first establishment of this eminently philan thropic and moral institution, the managers of it used to furnish each of the guests with a covering, but it was found necessary to modify this regulation, for the com munist company got into the habit of carrying off their coverlets to sell them, or to supply an additional garment during the rigorous cold of winter. The shareholders saw that this would never do, and they should be ruined, yet to give no covering at all would have been too cruel, and scarcely decent. It was necessary, therefore, to find some method of reconciling the interests of the establishment with the comfort of the guests, and the way in which the problem was solved was this. An immense felt coverlet, of such gigantic dimensions as to cover the whole dormitory, was made, and in the day time suspended to the ceiling like a great canopy. When everybody had gone to bed, that is to say, had laid down upon the feathers, the counterpane was let down by pulleys, the precaution having been previously taken to make a number of holes in it for the sleepers to put their heads through, in order to escape the danger of suffoca tion. As soon as it is daylight the phalansterian coverlet is hoisted up again, after a signal has been made on the tam-tam to awaken those who are asleep, and invite them to draw their heads back into the feathers in order not to be caught by the neck and hoisted into the air with the coverlet. This immense swarm of beggars is then seen crawling about in the sea of dirty feathers and inserting themselves again into their miserable rags, preparatory to gathering into groups and dispersing about the various quarters of the town to seek by lawful or unlawful means their scanty subsistence. We may observe that in both these instances the society is found to realise a handsome profit. We conclude with one more extract upon the remarkable stationary nature of the institutions, habits, and intelligence of the nation : Chinese civilisation (remarks M. Huc upon this point). originates in an antiquity so remote that we vainly endea vour to discover its commencement. There are no traces of the state of infancy among this people. This is a very peculiar fact respecting China. We are accus toured iu the history of nat►ons to find some well defined point of departure, and the historic documents, traditions, and monuments that remain to us generally permit us to follow, almost step by step, the progress of civilisation, to be present at its birth, to watch its development, its onward march, and, in many cases, its subsequent decay and fall. But it is not thus with the Chinese. They seem to have been always living in the same stage of advance- ment as in the present day ; and the data of antiquity are snob as to confirm that opinion. It would not be, then, very rash to conjecture that some mysterious event of tFe highest importance must have brought the Chinese suddenly to the point at which we find them, and this fact must have left a profound impression on the imagination of the people. Thence may proceed the respect, the veneration, the gratitude felt for the first founders of their ancient monarchy, who conducted them in so rapid a manna to a certain state of enlightenment, THE PRESS.S Thence the worship of ancestors, of all ancient things, of those who hold towards the state the place that the father and mother occupy in the family. The Chinese have in fact always attached the idea of something holy and mys. terious to whatever is antique, to all that has existed for ages, and this respect generalised has taken the name of filial piety. The translator of the work has executed his task with skill and fidelity, so that M. Hues narrative is read with almost as much ad vantage in the English version as it could be in the original French ; and it is only due to M. Huc to say that he has given in these volumes more information upon China and the Chinese, and conveyed it in a more lively, and, at the same time, more graphic and terse manner, than is often met with in books of travel. PERIODICAL LITERATURE. IN the Westminster Review of this quarter we have no less than four political articles upon the leading questions of the day—" The Anglo-French Alliance," " Prussia and Her Policy," " Poland and her Pros pects," "Austria in the Principalities "—sufficient, in one number, to satisfy the most ardent Liberal. We can do no more than glance slightly at the opinions expressed and the results hoped for of the Anglo-French alliance. The writer believes that we have at length enteredupon a new period of relation ship ; that the sympathy exists between the people more than the Crowns ; and that, although we do not yet understand one another's minds or share one another's tastes, and much remains to be done, commercially and otherwise, to consolidate the alliance, yet we have taken a step in the right direction, from which no power nor arbitrary force can drive either nation back. In alluding to Louis Napoleon, the writer cites the proclamation issued at the time of the Boulogne expedition, in which the Emperor of the French declares that an alliance be tween France and England is indispensable. We quote the words Habitants du departement du Pas-de-Calais! ne craignez point que les liens que vows attachent I vos voisins d'outre mer soient rompus. Lea depouilles mortelles de l'Empe reur et l'aigle Imperiale nereviennent de Paul qu'avec des sentiments d'amour et de reconciliation. This is a singular fact, forgotten by most people except the Emperor himself, and the present state of affairs speaks well for his consistency. The review of Prussian policy is in the tone of hostility to Frederick William just now so much in vogue. "Poland and Her Prospects" is a history of the country from the beginning of the sixth century to the present day. The restoration of the kingdom is of cc arse proposed as one great means of resisting the supremacy of Russia. Of the allied policy with regard to " Austria in the Principalities" no high opinion is expressed. The writer asserts that the Austrians are treating the inhabitants with more se verity than the Russians before them, and, as a natural consequence, the Wallachians and Molda. vians would much rather have their late masters back again : Thus has our miserable policy sacrificed four millions of our most natural and sincere adherents on the very frontier of Russia, and at the seat of war,—sacrificed them for the sake of an Austrian alliance, which, far from bringing ns aid, has, on the contrary, by its attitude and its known in tentions, given every facility to the enemy, and has been worth to it, in fact, the aid of several corps d'armie. The Slavonic race, especially of Servia, seeing this—they who abhor Austrian invasion and supremacy far more than even Russian—necessarily conclude that, far from aiding any people subject or semi-subject to the Turks to obtain in dependence or fling off the Russian yoke, we have on the contrary came to strengthen and extend the subjugation of the Christians in Turkey to the Christian despots of the north. The name of France, England, or of their alliance, has become a by-word of deception, and is as much detested in Bulgaria and Roumelia as it is in Greece, and as it is beginning to be in the principalities. Whilst throwing away these friends and these chances, whilst alienating and destroying every native aid and native element for the re generation of Turkey in Europe, whilst at the same time we are allowing the Turks to be nullified, to disgrace them selves by cowardice in the Crimea and by supineness on the Danube, as well as by incapacity at Constantinople, we keep demanding guarantees for the future defence and independence of these regions. Guarantees! where are they to be found? Is it in making over the principalities to Austria, and adding four millions more of discontented and oppressed subjects to the already disloyal, mutinous, impoverished, and anarchised millions previously beneath its sway ? Austria, from its very instinct, adopts the Rus sian party and agents in Wallachia, as the only instruments of its own rule. And what can this point to but a future compromise between Austria and Russia, between whom the principalities must thus be shared, to the exclusive profit finally of Russia, which is at least a stable and pro gressive empire, whilst that of Austria can never be other than what it is—a temporary piece of patchwork? Seeking guarantees in Austria is building on the quicksand or sow ing the whirlwind. TO humble Russia would be dearly purchased by aggrandising Austria, and the writer recommends the establishment of a compact federative State of the SATURDAY, Principalities. Of the other papers we can merely mention a very excellent article upon " The Ballads of the People," in which our agricultural, street, and sea songs are severally noticed. A review of th e state of iniversity reform, as applied to Cambridge, and the usual series of notices of British and foreign contemporary literature, now much enlarged and classified, complete the number. The excellent ar rangement now adopted enhances the value of this department of the Westminster Review. The slave interests of the United States have found in the Southern Quarterly Review for October (London : Triibner) an able and intelligent exponent of their principles and views. The articles generally are written with considerable ability. The writers are evidently earnest and sincere ; they proceed on the assumption that slavery was intended by Provi dence—that it is an agency for the advancement of mankind; and they do not scruple to carry out their principles to any extent which fair argument may demand. The first paper is suggested by Nott and Gliddon's " Types of Mankind " recently noticed in our columns. Without pretending to decide the question whether the whole family of mankind pro. ceeded from a single pair or not, the reviewer evidently leans to the conclusion that various races of men were created, and adapted by moral and physical constitution to the regions they were destined to inhabit and the parts they were designed to fulfil. The strongest argument in favour of this view is that stated by Noll and Gliddon, that the surface of our globe is divided into several zoological dis tricts, each of which, furnished with its peculiar flora, is marked out as a centre of creation with its own appropriate forms of animal life ; and that the human family conforms to this law, groups of races being found from the remotest antiquity settled in localities appropriate to their constitution. Admitting the soundness of this principle, it follows of course that the African race was created physically and mentally inferior to the Caucasian type, and that his servitude is a providential institution. We have no space for the argument, but may point to a remarkable passage in Dr. Dalton's " Guiana," quoted elsewhere, showing . . that under favourable circumstances the African, even when the pure blood is preserved, rapidly loses his peculiar characteristics, and rises to a higher standard of humanity. Our acutest thinkers and most learned investigators have pronounced savage man to be a degenerate animal. This is the only rational view which can be taken of savage races : through adverse circumstances they have sunk in the scale of being, and assume physical features appropriate to their moral degradation. A paper on "East Florida" exhibits the resources of that country and the great profit to be derived from slave-labour. An essay on " Marriage and Divorce " maintains the sanctity of the marriage tie, and demands a change in the laws of the States on divorce, Sb the existing practice is adverse to religion and morality. The critique on American society, contrasting the pursuits and principles of the northern and southern states, supposes, and with great appearance of fair ness, that it is in the latter where refined social de velopment is most naturally to be looked for. In the article entitled "Political Elements," there is a broad attack on what has usually been regarded as the very corner-stone of the American Constitution—the de claration of the natural equality of man : At the formation of our Constitution the principles of Rousseau were but slightly felt in our country. To Mr. Jefferson and Tom Paine we are indebted for the first in fusion. It first appears in the declaration of independence, when it declares, what was then, and ever has been, false — that all men were created equal. The laws of every State then gave the lie to it. The property then held in every State gave the lie to it. Mr. Jefferson's own estate gave the lie to it. Every election then held in Virginia gave the lie to it. The reviewer conceives that it is through adhe rence to this mischievous and impracticable theory that the nations of the Continent have uniformly failed in their efforts to improve their political state : Hence the hopeless struggle which wild enthusiasts are now maintaining, and will long maintain, against the royal governments of Europe, which, bad as they are, promise more peace and protection to the people than the red republicanism of Rousseau's disciples. Hence all the late failures on the Continent in their attempts to better their condition. Their excitement and their theorie begin to invade our shores, attended with equally ba results. The next paper, "On the Policy of the South," broadly advocates slavery as an institution favour able to progress and prosperity. The North, it is said, has outstripped the South in material increase solely because it has opened its ports to the surplus labour of other countries; but the South has de prived itself of this advantage by consenting to relin quish the slave trade : This influx of population is denied to the South by their concession to the general tiovernment of the power to close their ports to that population which nature declares shall alone constitute her labouring class. The presence of four millions of slaves is sufficient to dater tree