# Inside Canton/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V.
The Chinese have an antipathy to everything like symmetry in the decoration of an apartment. Anyone, on seeing the inside of their rooms, would say that diversity is their only motto; in everything, however, relating to costume and the exteriors of their habitations, the Chinese restrict themselves to fixed rules, which impart the most monotonous character to their apparel and architecture. People following the same profession, and having the same social habits, are dressed uniformly, and housed uniformly. Thus the description I am about to give applies exclusively to all the houses with signboards, whether the sign be that of a druggist or a jeweller, a glassman or an enameller, a weaver or a tailor—the only difference is their stock-in-trade. A tradesman's house has only one storey; it consists of the shop, or principal room, on the basement; a back-shop; an upper gallery, communicating with the storey below by means of a staircase; two rooms adjoining the gallery, and an uncovered terrace. The back shop, according to the profession, serves ​as a store, a laboratory, or a dining-room; the gallery is, properly speaking, nothing more than a warehouse for the shop, containing a reserve of the articles sold, which are arranged in it with great order; the two little rooms adjoining, usually encumbered with chests and bales, afford an asylum during the night to two or three shopmen, while the terrace is used for airing goods that have been a long time warehoused, to beat stuffs, and, in the case of the druggists, to dry plants.
As I have already said, the shop-fronts are encircled outside by magnificent signs, admirably varnished, and having gilt characters; those which are placed vertically present a double front, forming an angle towards the street, so that you perceive them from whichever side you come. You enter the shop by a broad opening, destitute of anything like windows or doors. To the left, on the threshold itself, you perceive in the wall, a small niche consecrated to the Chinese Mercury, the God of Riches, before whom chips of wood, more or less odoriferous, are burning incessantly.
The jolly little god is seated, with his legs crossed; he has got a pot-belly, and smiles, as though he meant to say: "Of all the gods, I am the most honoured," and, upon my word, he is right. His little cell is most carefully attended to; the roof of his small temple is always smoked by the offerings; and, on a little red tablet, is traced ​an inscription, which I translate thus: "You who enter, say a friendly word to the god, that he may not forget to make my fortune."
The counter, placed either on the right or left of the entrance, though more frequently on the left, stretches quite to the back of the shop, where it forms a right angle, and is continued, facing the door, up to the wall. This arrangement isolates the purchaser, and separates him completely from the trader. Behind the latter, in pigeon holes, kept very neat, and on charming shelves, are ranged the articles in which he deals: ironmongery, drugs, or stuffs. The part reserved for customers is only remarkable for the fine inscriptions which line the wall, and a row of elegant chairs. The inscriptions are commercial sayings, equivalent to "Credit is dead," or very ingenious puffs. Somebody translated me one of them, relating to a kind of Pâte Regnauld, and which is called at Pekin, paste of ass's skin! A certain French doctor is not the only person who has rivals in China; there is also a whole host of Giraudeau-de-Saint-Gervaises, whose prospectuses are displayed on the walls of the druggists' shops. Who will say, after this, that the civilisation of this country does not resemble ours!
The portion of the shop which faces the door is that which the Chinese ornament with most care. The centre of this space is frequently occupied, in the case of the druggists, by a handsome nickel urn, ​and, in that of other tradesmen, by the most striking stuffs, and the most precious vases. About four inches above this display is an altar consecrated to some tutelary genius, or to the paternal lares; styled by foreigners the altar of ancestors. The little chapel is, in some sort, surrounded by a kind of wood lace; the solid parts of these specimens of carved work are gilt and varnished in different colours; red drapery is seen behind the openings, and little figures dressed in silk, and arranged upon kinds of obelisks, are half concealed under tinsel pinking and artificial flowers, similar to those which Hoffman saw blooming in the gardens of his dreams.
The head of the establishment is seated gravely behind his counter, at the spot nearest the entrance. If he is a druggist, and happens to be old, he wears an enormous pair of tortoise-shell barnacles, the lenses of which, made of rock crystal, are as big as the bottom of a glass. This optical apparatus is kept on the nose by two strings, each having at the end a small weight of jade or lead hanging behind the ear like the pear-shaped ear-drops of a fine lady of former times; the strings replace the branches of our spectacles. From the place where he is seated, the master keeps an eye on the shopmen, smiles at his customers, talks to them while they are being served, and writes his letters. The abacus with ​the moveable balls, is always near him, as well as his account-books, his pincers, and the piece of granite, marble, or slate, which serves as his ink-horn.
When business is over for the day, the tradesman makes up his accounts; superintends the closing of the establishment; and then, leaving one or two persons in care of it, goes into the walled city, or some distant street of the suburbs, to his wife, or his wives, and children, thus leaving behind the counter, to resume them next day, the cares of business, and the bore and mistakes of speculation. This is a general custom in China. Tradesmen of anything like importance never let their wives and children reside in their houses of business; there are too many dun-flies buzzing about those noisy places. The Chinese let the objects of their affections share in the comfort they have laboriously acquired, and in their domestic enjoyments, but spare them the material cares and anxieties of life. I have, however, seen numerous exceptions to this rule, especially in the northern part of the empire; in the southern portion, you find only a few poor tradespeople, in a little way of business, who depart from it.
A large portion of the houses in the suburbs resembles the one I have just described; thus the streets, so lively during the day, are deserted at ​night, and the watchman who keeps guard over their tranquillity may frequently sleep all night without being disturbed. This requires explanation. Immediately night has closed in, the entrance of each street is secured by a gate, and every citizen who leaves his house is bound to carry, or have carried before him, a lantern, with his name written on it. When any one wants to pass from one quarter to another, his name is entered in a register at every street through which he passes. The next day, if any offence has been committed, all the strangers, who have passed by the scene of the crime the previous night, are hunted up, but if they can give an account of their actions they are not molested. In this case, notice is given to the inhabitants of the district, that they have to discover the culprit. If they do not succeed, they all pay a fine proportioned to their fortune, in order to indemnity the persons wronged.
Thus we see that, by this system, all the citizens are interested in preventing crime; consequently, they pay for watchmen, for the light that burns at the entrance to each street, and the look-out men, at certain distances, upon bamboo scaffoldings, to discover any fires. These men correspond with each other by means of signals, which appear to be borrowed from Sudre's system; it is by means of gongs that they transmit their discoveries to each ​other. The vibrations of these instruments, booming through the silence of the night, fill the air with a lugubrious harmony, which, on more than one occasion, has caused the traveller, recently arrived in this strange city, to shudder.