Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1853-11-16
From the London .Netrs.
The Ancient and Modern Chinese

From he London .Ners.
The Ancient and Modern Chinese
The news from China, brought by th'
: overland mail, agrees with all that has re
; Gently arrived from the same quarter
Success is still with the insurgents. "Th'
government of Pekin is in the greatest dis
f trcss for money. A scarcity of grain wa
, beginning TO be felt in Pekin, owing to th'
districts by which the capital was princi
pally supplied being now in possession o
the rebels" The lmperialists have made
another unsuccessful attempt to recapture
Annoy and from the accounts received o.
the spiritess behaviour of the Tartar troops
} it is now evident that all is up with the
Manchoo dynasty. Such.is the news, and
the last paragraph gives graphically enough
the conclusion to which the rebellion has
evidently for some time past been tending
T The last of line of kings is topping tc
overthrow his throne is undetermined, his
prestiege nearly gone his exchequer emp,
ty; his troops puslllanimous his star about
to set.
To appreciate the bearings and probable
consequences of this political convulsion,
now upsetting the hitherto stationary en-
pire of China, it is necessary to remember
the social and political pecuiarities Of this
extraordinary and enlightened people. We
must cease to regard them simply as dark
colored wearers of plated tails and linn
pers from deformed feet; as mere produ-
GERS OF tea, fans, folding screens, fireworks
and floss silk as carvers of ivory puzzles,
or burlesque chessmen, as makers of paper
kites, curious boxes, grotesque porcelain,
and Indian ink. We must assure ourselves
that the whole three hundred millions do
not habitually reside in boats, or in bamboo
rabbit butches, surrounded by dwarfed trees
and groesque gardens; that they do not all
eat birds-nests or rats, Or call foreigners
"barbarians, or spend their days in slipping
tea out of toy-cups, or their nights in light
ing paper lanterns and opium pipes. A
great many of them doubtless do these
things but they have done, as a nation,
and still do, vast deal more.
The Chinese are, especially with refer
ence to the past, emphatically great peo-
pie. When England was mixture of
swamp and forest, the kingdom of China
was covered with towns and cities in state
of complete political and municipal govern
ment. When the ancient Britons wore
paint, and huddled themselves under wick
er-work huts, the Chinese were dressed IN
silk, and resided ia palaces. While many
of the European rivers had yet to be explor-
ed, China was intersected with canals, bear
ing travellers and merchandise on their
waters from the Yellow Sea to countries be-
yond the Great Wall. While the wisest of
the Grecians believed in soothsayers, and
drew augures from the stars, the Chinese
studied astronomy and computed the an
nual orbit Of the earth when nobod y In
Europe could read but monks, the city OF
Nankin was daily placayded with advertise
ments of books and bills of popular plays
plays the success of which put, to shame
the boasts of European managers for some
of them have run, not hundreds of nights,
but hundreds of years. many being per
J formed, we will venture 10 assert, at the
same moment that some of our readers scan
these lines. When the most that could be
done here in foreign commerce was to sell
little Cornish tin to the Phenicians, the
Chinese supplied the whole of India with
uxuries, and had invented printing, gun
powuer, the mariners compass and bank
! notes. Those again who have studied the
governmental policy of the Chinese, declare
it to be, theoretically (but not only in the
ory) as near perfection as is conceivable
The country is ruled, down 10 the minutest
details and observances of private life, moi
by dynasty of tyrants, nor by this or that
political faction, but according to the writ
ten laws of their sages. By these laws ev-
cry sort Of power in China is limited and
checked. The Chinese originated what
Sydney Smith expressed such horror Of
select committees. Every department
of the state is governed by board-the
army the navy, the laws, sc. China is
the only nation upon earth which, repudia-
ting the idea of hereditary legislators, pro-
fesses TO admit no one to the ranks of the
noble who has not earned his nobility by
learning-that is to say, by knowledge Of
the laws, precepts and general literature OF
their classical sages. The son of the En-
peror himself while his father lives, has nc
higher rank than the meanest tracker on a
canal until he has earned rank at school,
The consequence is, that to borrow SEN
tence from Gutzlaf-there are In China
more books and more people who can read
them, than in any other nation under the
sun.
Vanity may therefore be an excusable
| in h,r oh, n
while the rest of the world was in state
of barbarism, or at best semi -barbarism.-
But unhappiy, the vanity Of the Celestials
(as they are so good as to call themselves
is so thoroughly national, and so intense,
that the first and fastest article of their
creed is that they are perfect. They say
the institutions and prccepts of our an
cient sages have made Us what we are
perfect; consequently to believe for an in
slant in anything different from what we
find in our books and institutions, is simple
t insanity and to put grain of faith in the
possibility Of improvement is flat blasphe-
my. Hence originality in a Chinese is q
crime actually punishable with death
Watt, ,Arkwright and Professor Wheatstone
would inevitably have suffered the extreme
penalty of the law had they invented the
steam engine, the spinning jenny, or the
electric telegraph in China. Those 'mer
made perfect" their sages, have (they say,
laid down the limit to invention, and eve
rything must be wrong. Conservative con
tent has for several thousand years beer
the religion of China. For that reason they
have shut up every avenue from the outer
world. For any native to leave the conn
try, or anv foreigner to enter it, was deatl