Evening star., 1900-09-29
BEGGARY IN CHINA.
1t Is a Well Recognized and Organic
ed Institution.
From the London Telegraph.


From the London Telegraph
Beggary in the Chinese empire is highly
organized institution, and a perfectly re-
spectacle calling Like all other indus
tries, 1t has it's trade society, and the
king OF the beggars is local power Of no
mean order The mendicant has his ap-
pointed place in the ordered scheme of
benevolence which the Chinese have made
the first of the five constant virtues. In
Pekn and in other walled cities the guild
of beggars levies local rate on all shop
keepers and well-to-do residents, which is
in the nature of compounding for the free
gifts that would otherwise be exacted ac-
cording to custom day by day. Supposing
that trader were SO i'll advised to re-
fuse to pay the recognized tax. he would
be surrounded by a crowd of rogueS and
yagabonds-of the class aimed at by our
own medieval statutes-who would soon
reduce him to charity and reason.
The Rev. Arthur Smith tells an amusing
story to show the dangers of unregulated
and casual benevolence: "A missionary liv-
ing in an interior province was asked by
some native gentleman to do kind act
for poor beggar, who was totally blind,
and restore him his sight. 1t proved to be
a case of cataract. and excellent vision was
secured. When the result became certain
the missionary was waited upon by the
same gentleman and told that, as he had
destroyed the only means by which the
blind man could get living-that is. by
begging-it was the duty of the missionary
to make it up by taking him into employ
ment as a gatekeeper.
Like everything else, 1.-The practice OF
virtue" in China is laid down by rule. and
if foreigner ignores the regulation he
does so at his peril. One of the sights of
the imperial capital is the Bridge of Beg
gars, and on its dilapidated pavement
there is an accumulation of filth and mon
strosity that has no equal, even in eastern
dafn T.
lation by which our mortal clay can be
bent and beaten out OF all likeness to the
gedlike type is on view, drawing attention
to its peculiar horrors by unceasing lamen-
tation and unchecked solicitation. In fact.
it would be difficult for the most morbid
and realistic of artists to conjure up a
scene more repulsive to the modern eye
and the modern stomach. Perhaps 1t is
as we'll that NJ. Zola has never travelled to
the far east. Leprosy and smallpox are but
ordinary incidents Of city life, which neither
attract nor surprise the native wayfarer,
nor even, after time, horrify the stranger
within the gates.
Beggars have their conventional costume,
like all other grades of society. 1t Is not
that they are poorer than any others of the
coolie class-probably they are less so-but
all must be habted in the foulest and film
siest Of rags, torn and cut into hundred
rents and shreddings. The very hair must
be matted and dust-begrimed. Certainly, as
l walked the streets of Pekin. the very
scent of the begging fraternity was a pow
erful motive of almsgiving, that cone might
be rid OF their variation upon the normal
atmosphere of China. Besides the bolster
Gus vagrant. male and female, there is the
novice in course OF training, and no de-
vice of an hereditary profession Is neglected
or forgotten. One child 1 walked over in
the street of city wrapped up and covered
from head to foot by the coarsest of reed
mating. All that was human In the filthy
bundle that lay prone across the pavement
was small voice that was never still. Re-
turning some days later. l found the same
bundle in the same place. How 1t had been
fed how 1t had breathed, was an unfath-
omable mystery; but there 1t was, and
there, imagine, 1t is even unto this day.
A people is to be judged not only by its
way of living. but by it's way of dying. II
1t cannot be said that nothing becomes the
Chinese so well in life as the leaving of 1t.
at least 1t is true that they lay down their
lives passing well. Quiet. dignified and re-
signed is the Chinese manner of meeting
death. the hour and place Of which they
seem able to foretell with strange exact-
tude. As revivalists would say. they have
their warnings. and a Celestial will take
leave Of his employer. round off his duties
and start on a far journey to his own home
the instant he expects to behold deaths
awful visage, and this expectation is seldom
disappointed. In the classics Of Filial Piety
1t is laid down that OF the 5000 crimes
parents. % Is ar and Of the 100 virtues filiai conduct
is the chief. To provide a father or mother
with fit and proper funeral Is the whole
duty of man, for which any sacrifice is ex-4
cusable. More than probable is 1t that the
lucky father of family finds himself IN
possession Of a coffin presented to him by
his son. and euphemisticaily called the
boards Of old age or 1.-THE clothes of old
age" but II ne be not thus blessed dying
man will go and order his own coffin to
make sure Of its being OF standard make.
An English railway inspector in Chih-L
told me that week or two before one OF
his Chinese fore1nen felt himself to be dy-
ing of opium poisoning. The man made no
fuss; he quietly came to the Office and asked
for weeks leave In order to buy and fetch
his own coffin. He went and returned with
in the week, and at the hour he had himself
appointed quietly gave up the ghost.
Organism is a disease. possibly. but not