The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-23
offence. The prisoner is twenty-seven years old.
HOW Lrs SON SAVED HIM.
A Battle With Chinese Superstition

A Battle With Chinese Superstition.
 A comparatively recent episode In the viceroy's life showed pretty clearly the attitude which he assumed to the mag ic and the sorcery which are so univer- sally dominant among his countrymen.
 Toward the end of 1891 Lii Hung Chang was taken with influenza, which had by that time become we'll estab- lished in China. The epidemic did not originate in that country, as was some times alleged, but invaded 1t from the west by two different routes-by sea from the south and by land from the north.
 Ii Hung Chang is a remarkably TO- bust man, and the influenza attack was probably the only serious Illness he ever had. But 1t was very severe, and brought him near to the verge of life, for he was already seventy. The course of the illness brought out some familiar Chinese characteristics which it may not be uninteresting at this time to recall, and it also Illustrated in rather luminous manner the real ditfi- culty of Joining the new cloth of west ern civilization on to the old garment of Chinese tradition.
 The Chinese, as we have said, are known to be swathed in superstitions of the grossest kind, the accumulation of some thousands of years of uninter- rupted legend. Their cast of mind is not so much unscientific as antiscien- tific, inasmuch as they rarely seek nat ural explanations of the most ordinary phenomena, but supernatural. With loII I1..a. z lar, ,tx,.r lAayr have not been able to throw off the most primitive form of fetichism. If an enterprise is to succeed the fortune teller must be conciliated, a lucky day chosen to commence it, and proper cer- emonial observed. The repute of the sorcerers varies greatly, as their fees do also, and certain temples are much resorted to for tokens of what will hap pen, even by the best educated and highly placed Chinese. It is universal. When a child is sick the parents do not ask what 1t has eaten, or whether 1t has been exposed to contagion, but l what has bewitched it. Foreign mis- sionaries often supply ready answer l to this query, much to their own incon- venience, and often to their damage and loss. So, although there are many I clever doctors and even wonderful bone -setters among the Chinese l though how they obtain their knowl- I edge is a mystery-yet the whole art and practice of medicine is overlaid with charms and occult procedure.
 I It has been no unimportant part of Iii Hung Chang's scheme of innovation to adopt for himself and his family for l eign medicine, and to found a medical school under competent foreign teach CTS. For many years, and up to the l day of her death, the yiceroy's wife, a l most liberal, wise and practical woman. l had a lady doctor to attend her and her daughters, between whom a genuine attachment grew up. The viceroy him. l self has been attended for many years l by the gentleman who is with him now, | Dr. Andrew Irving.
 The serious illness of Lii Hung Chang l in 1891 was severe test not only of his own faith in western medicine but of ! his power of resistance to the Chinese l traditional practice, which pressed | heavily or him. For only the viceroy and his wife were converted, the rest of the family remaining devoted to the native folklore; and under the yice-re- gal roof were two veritable champions of reaction, his eldest true son and his on-in-laW. The latter, as imperial ! commissioner, distinguished himself at 1 the French attack on Foo-Chow, in I 1884, by combined buster and coward 1 ice But he showed no coWardice in his l attacks on the sick-bed of his father l in-law The two reactionaries took il 1 in turn to weary the old man with their congratulations against foreign medi- l cine, and, having won over his daugh- I ter the wife of Chang-Pei Lun, she I knelt at the sick-bed and implored hel l father to dismiss the foreign doctor ] Then the oracle was consulted, and the response obtained Change the treat ment;'' whereupon the efforts of the re dictionaries were redoubled Weak as 1 he was, however, the patient held firm
 being greatly supported by the pluck oi
 a younger son, Ii Ching Mai. This lac was at the time enjoying the advantage of foreign education, and was conse- l quertly better able to appreciate the western science of medicine than the rest of the family He therefore charged himself with the duty of seeing ! the doctors directions carried out | This was no easy task in a Chinese house, where the sick-room is managed much more in the fashion of the tive immortals, Sairey and Betsy, than ac-
 cording to our modern prescriptions
 Neither physiological nor pathological processes being in the least degree
 reckoned with, the innumerable deli
 cate attentions needed to sustain g
 flickering life are entirely absent. In stead of these there is an outcry o1 magic pills, spiritual incantations and quaek nostrums of every description
 some of them monstrous.
 All the while the patient is being talked to death by the family, who hold their councils at the bedside where they discuss the issues of life
 and death aloud in the hearing of the helpless victim of their loquacity. IT these noisy conclaVes at the bedside o1
 Ii Hung Chang the leaders of the de
 bate were in the habit of smoking theil
 acrid tobacco, attendants standing by
 to fill and hand them the long pipe This alone was death to a man who
 could scarcely get his breath. The doc tor peremptorily forbade the smoking and was effectively backed by youne Ching Mai, who would not allow his el- ders to fumigate the sick chamber. IT the matter of nourishment, too, whicf
 "the family" would have restricted te