Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1888-10-11
WAYS THAT ARE QUEER.
How the Chinese Show Their Respect fol
the Bodies of the Dead.

How the Chinese Show Their Respect for
the Bodies of the Dead.
The Pekin Gazette recently contained
an imperial rescript severely censur.
ing @ number of officials concerned in
the execution of G criminal who was
sentenced to death by strangulation,
but whos s'by a stupid piece of reck-
lessness and objectionable bungling,"
was decapitated instead. Comment
ing on this incident, the North China
Herald says that the Emperor only re-
fected Chinese sentiment in attaching
great Importance to the difference be-
tween the two, decapitation being re-
garded as a much more dishonorable
death than strangulation. The Chin
csc feel the utmost repugnance 90 any
mutilatiOn Of the body, not on account
of the pain or the fear of death, buf
because of the sentiment that it is Q.
mans duty to keep intact, as far as he
can, the body which his parents have
bequeathed to him. 1t forms part Of
that system of flial piety which is the
orthodox religion of China, and has
had its share in producing the Chinese
dislike OF wars and revolutions.
Patiently and uncomplainingly as most
Chinese will go through a surgical
operation, it is well known that they
strongly object to amputaticn, and it
is often difficult to induce them to SUBJ
NIT to it. They invariably ask for the
severed limb, which. they either keep
in box, to be buried with the original
owner on his death, or they eat it.
This latter method has the counten-
ance of antiquity; what is severed from
the body by accident or necessity is
returned to it. A work which has
been called the Chinese prose '.Iliad"
records of a certain hero that
when drawing out a stray ar
row which entered the eye in
battle the eye came with the weapon.
whereupon he swallowed the former
with great sang froid. Some common
tators on the work say that as a tenn
porary expedient this was quite allow
able, and even commendable, but that
the regular course would to wrap up
the eye. and keep it until death.
Teeth are treated in much the same
way. Milk teeth are regarded as a
mere makeshift of nature, and there
fore not possessed of the dignity Of
adult teeth. The latter are carefully
kept when they come out, or they are
ground to powder and swallowed in
water, for they are part of the par
ents' bequest. Another phase of this
subject is the practice, so frequently
commended by the Emperor, of max
ing broth for a sick parent out of flesh
cut from tho body of the child. The
efficacy OF the practice is that it re-
stores to the parent a portion of his
own essence. yiceroys are constantly
begging for special rewards to be be-
slowed on children who have mutilat-
ed themselves for this purpose. The
mother of late GeEernor of Yunnan,.
who was then eighty-seven years old,
was commended not long since In
these terms: ''She obtained reputa-
ton for the filial pfety shesdisplayed
towards her husbands parents, mutt
lating herself to mix Eher flesh with his
medicine when her father-in-law was
ILL.," A few years ago the Viceroy of
Szeehuen reported a case in which 3
dutiful son, who was too poor to sat
isfy a sudden craving on the part at
his sick mother for meat, cut piece
of flesh off his arm and made soup for
her: He felt, the report says. no pain
from the mutilation and the wound
healed at once-M 7. Times.
"A well-known English woman has
come to the conclusion that the works
of Byron, Shelley and Keats are not
sufficiently sfudied by her own sex