The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1913-02-04

SeS
Chinese point of view. One who does
so bleeds in sympathy even though the
eye will not close on the cause OF it
all. The Chinese are not naturally
vicious; on the contrary. they are just
as human as we are. They are slaves
to custom. Centuries of ingrown
habit have made them callous in this
respect. Extreme observance of du-
ties supposed to be due to ancestors
has blunted their appreciation of hu-
man rights. The living must suffer
and die hat the dead may be honored.
Human life Is about the cheapest
thing in China. There is so much of
it that is already in the way. Their
system makes it SO easy to bring in
new life to resplace whatever is lost
by the Wayside.
A group of Chinese stand placidly
by while you, or even one~of their
own kind, struggles wildly in the
water. One or more finally agrees to
rescue o If you promise to pay so
much money. They may even hold
out for a higher sum as you are about
to go down for the last time. This is
not Unborn cruelty. 1t is blunted con-
s~cientiousness. Life is 50 very cheap,
even their own, that a few more or
less are of no account. When their
system forces them to destroy or give
away or sell their own children, with
equanimity If not pleasure, how can
they be expected to risk their lives, or
even to be exerted unduly, to save a
man who has foolishly or unwittingly
endangered his own? More than this,
the Chinaman on the shore reasons
that the person struggling for life in
a moment of. peril may have elected
to die prematurely and thus avoid fur
Their miseries incident to living. So
why interfere? If it is a case of
drowning, there is still less chance of
being pulled out, even though a for
eigner is concerned, for the reason
that the Chinese believe there are
spirits in the. waters to whom the
drowning n is going willingly or is
being called to the depths; hence, the
folly of trying to prevent such a death.
To do so might incur the i'll will of
the evil spirits and thus bring about
their own undoing n fasten dis
grace upon the name given them by
their revered ancestors. :
So it all works back to those wor-
shipful progenitors. From 10 to 20 per
cen Of the land in China is burdened
by graves. If a fairly Well-to-do
Chinese is beset by strange doubts by
day or bad dreams by night, some
priest tells him that the uneasiness of
some ancestor in his grave is the
cause. Whereupon the bones of the
roct1occ - - taLor ,,, ma Jorncit-
ed with due ceremony in another
place, for so much, to be sure. So
much significance is attached to bur-
ial that if a family hasn't enough
money to give the dead member the
funeral which custom DEGREES, the
body is coverd with stones and dirt
just outside the house. There it stays
until another death in the family,
when both are buried properly at the
same time. Years may lapse in the
Interim. Wind and rain and sun
loosen the dirt of the ~improvised
grave. This is one reason why a
Chinese village in some sections of
the country may be smelled a mile and
it also explains more than one fright
full epidemic that has moved down the
living for Tn sake of the dead.
Still the babies come with wonder
full regularity. The young women
marry at Is, 16 or II and their hus-
bands will average from two to four
years older. But one woman in a
thousand is unmarried, and the per-
centage among men is even lower.
Then the babies come as fast as ma
ture will permit, and some ONE
hasten reproduction by having the
babies already born sucked by an
other. And all to what purpose? Mall
nutrition and ignorance and dirt car
ries them off almost as fast as they
are born. Eighty per cent of the babies
die before they are n year old. Only
two-tenths Of the remainder grow up.
The death rate in China ranges from
so to IS per thousand, but the birth
rate is from SIS to so. In the United
States the birth rate is 20 per thou
sand. No other race in the world ere
ates as rapidly. Only a certain proper
ton of the Russians and a group Of
French Canadians equal the ratio of
the whole Chinese people. 1t is esti-
mated hat the ratio of population to
area averages 700 per qua mile
where people live. Some barren sec
lions have a very sparse population.
Here and there, on the other hand, the
ratio is 1900 per square mile, or two
per acre. China proper has 1,5OO, 900
square miles and about $50, 900, 900
people. At the same rate the United
States with its 5000, 900 square miles
would be trying to support today 700,-
900, 600. Compare our highly develop
ed scale of production with the misery
which still exists in our country not
W~ithstanding, and you begin to realize
the plight of the Chinese millions in
their undeveloped country.
Tomorrow: The Republic of China.
Xxx. The Chinese Women.