Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1890-08-07
DEBT-PAYING IN CHINA.
Curious Results Of Practice of the
Country.

SoohnJs
A writer in the North China Herald of
Shanghai, lately takes for his theme the
peculiar Chinese practice of settling debts
just before New Years Day, which has
often been praised by Western observers
but which he does not applaud so much.
The custom has, he says, its roots in three
causes First, that everybody owes some
thing; secondly, that great necessity ex-
lists for short settlements; and thirdly,
that no one will pay debt until he is
forced to do so. Tyrannical custom com
pels most persons to live beyond their
means. Marriagesand funerals are the ruin
ofthe people. The farming classes are in
perpetual difficulties, while the small ira
ders work on such narrow margin that
frequent " accommodation is essential.
On the other hand, the balances in the
hands of creditors are so small that no one
can afford to leave his money out of call
formore than few months. Finally the
universal habit as to avoid discharging
liabilities if possible. So at New Years
time there Is a perpetual sequence of
flight and pursuit. Creditors hunting re-
luctant debtors are hunted themselves by
hungry creditors of their own. The ma
tion, in short, revolves in vicious circle,
and its only period of brief pause is New
Years Day. The double anxiety of Chi
nese in the twelfth moon is to find some
one else and not to be found himself. Any
particular creditor hunting any particular
debtor will find that he is himself antici-
pated by swarm of other creditors hunt
ing the same game. 1t is greatly to the
interest of all parties that no claim for
debt should get into the courts of law,
for this would mean that not only the
amount in dispute, but all the rest of the
property of both parties, would be in
danger of being wasted.
For these reasons it is the role of the
debtor to represent that he is harassed by
importunate creditors to such an extent
that he knows not which way to turn.
In ninty-nine cases out Of one hundred
the creditor is compelled to call again,
then the debtor sets his wits to work to
invent new occasions for begging for
Writ nolle prossequi. If the creditor were
to relax his hold and cease his claims,
that would be the end of them for an in
definite period, perhaps forever, and this
he knows as well as any one. Therefore,
once having taken hold, he keeps his
grip, like the jaw of bulldog, till he
gets his pound of flesh. Eternal vigilance
Is the price at which this is to be won;
eternal vigilance is what the Chinese cred
itor has large supply of.
To avoid the creditor altogether is a
prime object of many debtors during the
trying period which follows the winter
solstice. Many are the individuals who
feign sickness, and who cannot, therefore,
be seen; who do not venture on the street
for many days before the close of the
year. Then they emerge from their OBJ
security in time to get their heads shaved
for the new year, and have the keen JOY
of knowing that they have eluded the
vigilance of their remorseless foes. The
Chinese debtor who succeeds in evading
or parrying the claims of his creditors at
this critical epoch finds ga city of refuge"
in which for the time he is safe. On New
Years Day or one soon after, he may pos
sibly call upon his creditor, or his creditor
may call upon him. Each is arrayed in
his best, and each is full of polite phrases.
The creditor may be inwardly swelling
with wrath and fury at the thought that
this cunning wretch did, after all the
pains taken to prevent it, make his escape.
The debtor may be full of smiling self
complacency to think how well he played
some of the numerous tricks of the season.
But neither the one nor the other would
ever dream of alluding to such affairs at
this festive time. Business is taboo,
contraband of war, interdicted by the law
of the realm, and so the debtor is out upon
another stadium of his existence, the fangs
of the adversary whetted in secret are re
strained from the flesh for the time, and
he walks the earth with sense of in
constraint to which he has long been
stranger.