The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-15 00:00:00

and debouch upon the Bund—the broad embank-
ment, having on one side the wide river, with
square-rigged vessels lying at easy anchor in its
noble reach ; and on the other side the " com-
pounds)" or ornamental grounds, each containing
the hong and the godowas of some one of the prin-
cipal European commercial houses. The only
building on the Bund which is of Chinese architec-
ture is the Custom-house, which is like a josshouse.
There is something going on at the Custom-house.
The Toutai's suite fill the outer courtyard. Some
20 fellows wearing mandarins' caps, with fox-tails
sticking out behind, have swords at their sides and
form the military escort. Their trousers are much
patched and their odour is not fragrant; yet, if one
of these ragged ruffians would come to London and
submit to be washed Mrs. Leo Hunter would ask
lords and ladies to meet him and present him to
her guests as " a mandarin from China." There
are two curious creatures having enormous gilt
hares on their heads and pheasant feathers pro-
truding behind. They are rather shabbier and
dirtier than their military comrades, and look
as thongh they had been turned out of Mr. Richard-
son's booth. for lack of cleanliness. There are two
executioners, conspicuous by their black conical
caps, their dark costume, and their iron chains,
worn like a sword belt. The larger one is said to
be of wonderful skill in taking off heads; the smaller
excels in producing torture with the bamboo. Let
,us go inside. There is incense burning, and priests
are chanting. Mandarins, with white or recillut-
tons to their caps, silk dresses, and very dirty
hands, are knocking their heads upon the ground
before a little joss. It is a Chinese ceremonial day.
They have turned the Custom-house into a joss-
house for the nonce, and are come here to " chin-
chin" the God of Wealtb, which means to pray for
a good harvest of import and export duties. The
rite is soon performed, the Toutai comes forth, the
procession is formed. It would look splendid in
drawing or photograph, but it is squalid and ludi-
crous in its shabby reality. The Toutai mounts
his pony, the large crimson parasol is raised above
his head—

_
" Interque signs tnrpe militaria
Sol adepicit conopium"—
and the cortege moves off.
About this Custom-house there is a grave matter
to be debated. At the instance of the three treaty
Powers the Chinese authorities have established at
this port a triumvirate of European inspectors, or
collectors of Customs, an Englishman, a Frenchman,
and an American. They were originally selected by
their respective Governments. They etch receive
2,0001. a-year—a salary not too great to compen-
sate them for the odium which the discharge of
their duties involves. The English Government
has ceased to interfere or to recognise Mr. Lay as
haying any other capacity than that of an officer of
the Chinese Government. The French and Ameri-
can Consuls retain an influence in the nomination
and control of the inspectors of their respective
nations.
The effect of this Custom-house arrangement is
that the duties of the port of Shanghai are received
in full. At the other ports the old system of cor-
ruption prevails, and the Chinese collectors make
their private bargains—usually about one-half of
the tariff prices. Nothing but strong intrinsic
vitality has enabled the trade of Shanghai to
thrive, in spite of this great disadvantage. The
English merchants are divided iu opinion upon this '
subject of duty collecting. Some think that the
Chinese should be left to themselves ; that we
should deal with the officials as we do in England
with the farmers of turnpike tolls, every man
making his own contract bargain. Others think
that the inspecting system should be extended to
all the ports. A third party are in favour of the
abolition of all duties at the ports, allowing the
Chinese to collect their own import and export
duties inside. It is a difficult subject, almost im-
possible to be satisfactorily arranged by any treaty
which shall give to the Chinese Government the
action of an independent Power ; but the difficulty
arises from the incurable corruption of the Chinese
magistracy and the crumbling rottenners of the
Government; Having to deal with such a nation,
the necessities of self-protection give us rights
which we should not have if we were dealing with
honest men.
There is a mind of gongs, and a crepitation of
small crackers at the north end of the bund, and
the coolies leaving their work to look on. As it is
a day for sight-seeing, and eight-seeing is our busi-
ness, let us follow the crowd.
It is a burial procession. The mother of a Chinese
opium broker is going to her last home. She
carries with her all her little comforts and necessi-
ties wherewith to begin life in the next world.
Many palanquins appear at unequal distances, pre-
ceded and followed by coolies marching four abreast.
These litters contain small joss-houses, and bmins
holding fruits, and sweet meats, and bean cakes,
and other orthodox Buddhist comestibles. There
is good store also of silvered and gilded paper made
to resemble solid ingots of gold and silver. This is
5 the wealth wherewith she is to appear in the land
of ghosts as a respectable, well-to-do matron. But
if this bullion pass current among the ghosts, they
have lost the qualities which most distinguish them
in the flesh. In life a Chinaman can distinguish
the exact fineness of a piece of silver by the touch,
so much so that the word "touch" is used as a
technical term to indicate the quality of each de-
scription of bullion ; it must be very harrowing to
the feelings of the ghost of a Chinese comprador to
find himself obliged to deal in these shadowy in-
gots. On marches the procession. There are little
boys blowing shrill trumpets and other stranger
wind instruments, men excruciating our oars with
cymbals and gongs, and grave adults exploding
strings of crackers. Then comes the coffin—a strong
wooden case like a carved and ornamental trunk of
a tree. It is half covered by draperies, and is
borne by 12 coolies. It is hermetically sealed with
that tenacious plaster the Chinese call " chunam."
It will be borne to a joss-house in the city, and
thence to a spot in one of her son's fields. Here it
will rest on the surface of the ground. After the
time of mourning is past a few spadefulls of earth
will be shovelled upon it, then year by year a few
more till a mound arises and rank gra,a and Chinese
lilies spring up, and this old lady's habitation adds
another unit to the myriads of sacred burrows
which cumber the rich soil, and serve no purpose
but a harbour for the pheasants when the crops
are cut. Our English books upon China say
that only bills are set apart for this purpose.
Sir John Davis falls into this error. But
our English writers, for the most part, write
only of what they have seen on the banks of
the Canton River. Between Shanghai and Keehing
I have seen thousands of acres of alluvial soil which
the plough never turns because they are sacred to
tee dead.
We have plenty of time to look about us, for the
procession yet drags its slow ler,grh along. The
denizens of the Bund have turned out to leok, and
business is proceeding. There is an English mer-
chant arranging the sale of a cargo of rice with a
Chinaman.
" Wantee nunibe, one bad licee for that sojer—
numba one bad licee ?"
" Number one bad rice for your soldiers," says
the indignant Briton. " Why, we always have the
best provisions we can obtain for our soldiers and
sailors." Heaven forgive the patriotic man of coin- '
merce ! but he never saw a weavelly biscuit, or
opened a tin of Crimean preserved meat. "0,
maskee, numba one bad licee too much good for
sojer man."
We are separated from those bargains by a fisher-
man and his wife, who push their way by. The
lady, who is not in her premiere jeunesse, has large
natural feet, and, having tucked up her trowsers,
displays a pair of calves which an Irish porter might
envy. Taking advantage of their wake, stiffly totters
upon her small deer's feet an ordinary Chinawornan
of the urban population. She has no calves what-
ever. The muscles of her leg were destroyed by
the operation which produced that beautiful foot,
and from the knee downwards her leg is but skin
and bore. Do you ask how this strange deformity
is produced ? Stand back out of the crowd, inside
the entrance to Mr. Heard's compound, and I will
tell you.
There are small-footed ladies at Hong Kong who
gain a very fair livelihood by exhibiting their
pedal extremities to sea captains and other curious
Europeans at a dollar a-head ; but as so super-
ficial an examination of this national peculiarity
did not satisfy me, I had recourse to some of my
good friends among the missionaries. By their
aid I obtained that some poor Chinese women
should bring me a complete gamut of little
girls from the missionary schools. Many of these
female children probably owed their lives to the
persuasion (aided by opportune donations of rice)
of my missionary friend and his lady, but their in-
fluence had been powerless to prevent tho torture
of their feet. On the appo'nted day they wire all
seated in a row in my a-load's library, and their
feet-, which I suspect had undergone a inspiratory
washing, were unbound by their mammas. Tne
first was a child of two years old. Her penance
had just commenced. When the bandage of blue
cotton was taken off I found that the great toe had
the knuckle
been IP-ft untouched but the others had been forced
red and intlanae
clown under the bail of the foot, and cies ly bound
I in that position. The child, therefore, walked up n
pain. In the ninetx't
joints of her four toesThetoes were
atnhdreetheeligraetnu(r;eolcoafuasegdeseavaidveaitilt-
the :ante extent
ever, wthasesecofnouft
intervals) the preparation was only 10
ci ng at small
four
confined
eteo, fourteheeding t
o toesth e;
'l w
pressure,
andlost their
e articulations and their
continualgradtially
amalgamated with
identity as limbs,
the sole of the foot. In the
eldest of the four the
and inflammation had .
1 redness entirely disa—
ppeared,