Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1886-08-06

oped two notable faculties in an inor-
dinate degree: one, that of deceit and
trickery, by which punishment may
be avoided and personal benefit OBJ
tanned; the other that of avarice, the
desire for the accumulation of wealth
and the enjoyment Of physical ease.
For it is law of nature that people
appreciate and value most that which
they are in the most danger Of losing.
Out of the same conditions, also, has
sprung a disregard of human life
which permeates all classes of society.
When, thirty years ago, new Emper-
er ascended the throne, he put to death
the counsellors Of his father, who un-
der the stress Of necessity, had added
somewhat to the privileges of the Eur
opeans. Among the lower orders, the
same merciless spirit is shown in the
common practice OF infanticide; and
incidentally and in less degree, by
the almost uniform neglect of the
boatmen on the Chinese waterways to
rescue those whom they may see
drowning in their immediate neighbor-
hood. A French traveller recalls an
instance in which number of prison
ers who were being carried through
the country, had their hands spiked
to the cart in default of ropes with
which to tie them; and it has been
recorded as frequently occurring, that
gamblers, after having lost even their
clothing, have, in the northern prov
inces, been deliberately allowed in the
depth of Winter to freeze to death.
The propensity for gaming, it may be
remarked, exists among the Chinese
to an extent seen nowhere else in the
world. When his last coin or his last
rag is gone, the Chinaman has been
known to gamble for his fingers-each
player, as he loses, suffering the finger
to be chopped from his hand. 1t
would be almost impossible to COM
prehend character so frantic or so
debased, were it not that the state
ments are made on authority that can
hardly be doubted.
As seldom there is a wide discrep-
ancy between the social cir ,umstances
of a people and the laws under which
they live, the social condition of the
Chinese might be inferred from what
has been already said. 1t is best
proven, however, by their treatment
of women. There is every reason to
suppose that jealousy was the original
motive that led to the mutilation OF
the feet of females, common from the
remotest times among all except the
very lowest classes of the population
and the custom may also serve as an
example of the brutal directness with
which the Chinese pursue any object
they may have in view. The women
are treated as slaves; are presumed to
have no souls; and are in many cases
subjects of established and regular
traffic. A member of the British Leg.
islative Council at Hong Kong said
nearly fifty years ago, the traffic in
females is too disgusting to detail
the facts are revolving to humanity y
Their place in the household is one ol
abject drudgery; and as in infancy
they are believed to be hardly worth
the trouble of maintenance, go in
youth they are not thought to be
worth the expense of education, save
in the arts of embroidery and the like
and when fully grown, are measured
only by their value as instruments ol
labor or pleasure. 1t is said that the
experience of the Chinese women, alb.
ject and degraded as it is, has led
many of them to faith, repudiated
by their masters, in a hereafter where
sorrow does not exist-a faith spring.
ing from suffering; the strange fruit
of earthly despair.
1t may be very easily conceived that
in such society religion can hardly
exist. That the Chinese worship the
spirits of their ancestors we have al.
ready seen; and as this is the Oldest
faith that they have ever known, SC
also it is the only one in which the be.
lief can be said to be sincere. The
creed of Confucius held by the edu-
Gated classes is simply formula Of
materialism in which morality is
taught because of its benefcent re-
suits on earth, but in which there is
no gleam or glimmer of the higher
truth which leads humanity to loftie1
levels of thought or emotion, or which
finds in a future life the rewards OF
punishments OF good or evil. Mahom-
etanism in China is even less in morals
and ethics than it is in Turkey or in
the Barbary States; and Buddhism
there retains no spark of the lambent
light which shone on India in the
earlier days of the cult of Guatama.
The Chinese character-intellectual
moral or emotional-appears to have
in it nothing of the religious element,
as the term is understood among other
races. 1t has successfully resisted or
debased creed after creed that has
found either temporary or perma.
nent place within its borders. The
soiled streams of Mahometan and
Buddhistic belief found deeper soilure
in the degraded ideas of the Chinese,
while the purer faith taught by the
HISTORIANS thousand years ago was
extinguished by fire and sword; and
tho offnrta Of tho Roman rn;oe;nuo~-