The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1871-02-25

highest. circles and best literature Clearl
there is NO hope from such men. But the mo,
mel inchOly fact is, there j. A. little hopes apsI
> from these hungry tiger Sup. rstition cloud
the hnest intellect. A far : c,n ser Iher
is no hope for China in Clini itseii. We hav
at different times, and in different connection
inquired separately Of the Ablest Europeans an
Americans in Pekin men who had the bes
opportunities of knONins"
The reply has invariably been i
the negative"
And here | may remark that the Chimes
are cultivated and educated already, NOR
than you are on the average, my Caucasian
and Christian friends that they have beer
so longer and more thoroughly than you
have f; and that it would seem in fact, as fa
as we can gather, that they have been cul
tivated up to or beyond the limit at which
their minds have the capacity to fructify
Tat is to say, the Chinese knew the use o.
types and had printed books long before
the days Of Gutenberg, and before you
knew the use Of types; that, pro rata,
there are more Chinese who can read, that
they read more books, and that they have
more men whose heads are stuffed with
more of the contents Of those volumes, than
among your American and European eau
casans.
Remember, too, that while your alphabet
has only twenty six letters, and that to
learn 10 read and write is comparatively
easy operation, the Chinese have to master
about thirty thousand harscters-numer-
Gus az the words Of whole languagc-and
hence, that mere reading or writing with
them is as difficult to acquire as for us tc
learn strange or foreign tongue.
1t may be true that the learning with
which the hterGti, and the Chinese general
y are stuffed is only useless rubbish, de-
fusion, sophistry, or quaint conceits, but be
has an Immense amount oft stored away,
respectable to him through boar antiquity,
# from nothing else, and be looks on the
mushroom knowledge Of your men OF yes
terday with tie save contempt with which
It would have been regarded by some black
letter scholar Of the Middle Ages, whose
brain was exclusively crowded with the
contents of Innumersble tones of long since
forgotten theological controversy, aud who
would nave burneG Calico or Newton, if
they had not recanted their opinion that the
earth moved around the sun. The conse-
quence is that bis mind, his nature, and
that Of his whole people, which has been
nodded after bis own, presents one feature
which is equipotent with ancestral reverence
aud worship lie alfd all bis race are i'm
bued with an inconceivable self conceit All
nations have cOnceit We have 1t. Indi
viduals, fragments Of such nations, get
over it in proportion to their oPpOrtuni
ties of travel OF investigation, and the ma
tiOns in ratio OF their intercourse with 9th
eTs
But no conceit with which other nations
or individual members thereOiaTo imbued
renders to them any conceivable idea Of
that Of the Chinese. They conscientious
ly, from high to low, believe US to be, as
teA4E call us, s'outside berbarians," in con- |
tradlets.-~--r- -
their dominion, or adjacent thereto, and to
the Asiatic Outsiders, by whom they have
been overrun, and to a comparative hand
ful Of whom they have bowed subTlissively
and abjcctly But even these the ridieul-
ed and despised, and who merged in their
vast masses, they finally managed and
nodded to their will and supposed cultivat-
ed intellectual superiority, triumphing, as
they think and say, by the evontful ascen-
dency OF mind and learning over brute force
and matter OF that brute force they con
slider the Caucasians the exponents, barbar-
ians, ingenious and expert in some Of its
arts nothing more.
Steam navigation, railroads, the electric
all our discoveries in arts and
science, medicine and arms, they regard as
the accidental or mischievOus discoveries
Of barbarians those which are patent and
material to be accepted and used only as
our Caucasian civilization received the
Peruvian bark from South American bar
barians and savagcs, and that we might
have taken from that bark the poisons with
which they tip their spears and arrows if
we had no preferable arms.
An Englishigentleman, an officer, since
killed on the Amazon river, and with whom
I was acquainted, related, eighteen years
ago, the story Of the capture OF the island
Of Chusan, on the coast Of China, and Of
its chief city, in which he participated, and
had with him copies of the proclamation of
the Chinese authorities mandarins, as
we conveniently call them, though the term
derived from the Portuguese or Spanish
verb of "mdndar," or command" is up
known to the Chinese themselves. The
proclamation set forth to the Chinese
troops that they we're about to be attacked
by the "blue and red devils" of The outside
barbarians, meaning the British soldiers
and mariners clad in scarlet, and the sailors
in blue:
"That every Chinese soldier was to provide
himself t. Two swords with shields reprc-
senting dragons heads, Of which the Jaws would
open and shut by pulling string and with al
abundance Of gongs aud tom toms. When the
barbarians advanced lhe instruments were sud
denly TO sound, the swords TO be knocked to-
gether and the dragons Jaws to be snapped,
| which would strike such terror into their alto
/ Erther detestaole and stupid souls q at they
/ would assuredly all PROSTATE upon their faces
On the ground hrough fear. Then, As it il
/ well known tDdL bnelT LFOWsers were strapped
dowL so tightly lit was IN the civil ard militia
~ period Of irowser straPs) that once fall r
they could not rise, and they, the Chinese
braves, would have nothing To do but to rush
in and cut their throsts with one sword auC
disembowel them With the other"
This gentleman further stated that th,
British commander was very cautious anC
suspected that there was plan laid to eh-
trap him. When the advance was Md
the orders were carried out fully Oh ~
part Of tile hinesc. and shots we're tire,
from lngals and matchlocks, but .'nobod,
was hurt A vol!cy from The Britis
skirmish line senl them all back, pell-melI
into the gates Of the city. The commanlcr
fearing that they designed to draw hm u
side the walls and over power him by nun
bers, waited until the next dav. when. w,t