Part 10

"The above method of dropping blood on the bones may be used even by a grandchild, desirous of identifying the remains of his grandfather; but husband and wife, not being of the same flesh and blood, it is absurd to suppose that the blood of one would soak into the bones of the other. For such a principle would apply with still more force to the case of a child, who had been suckled by a foster-mother and had grown up, indebted to her for half its existence. With regard to the water method, if the basin used is large and full of water, the bloods will be unable to mix from being so much diluted; and in the latter case where there is no water, if the interval between dropping the two bloods into the basin is too long, the first will get cold and they will not mix."

Not content with holding an inquest on the bones of a man who may have been murdered five years before, a Chinese coroner quite as often proceeds gravely to examine the wounds of a corpse which has been reduced to ashes by fire and scattered to the four winds of heaven. No mere eyewitness would dare to relate the singular process by which such a result is achieved; but directions exist in black and white, of which the following is a close translation:--

"There are some atrocious villains who, when they have murdered any one, burn the body and throw the ashes away, so that there are no bones to examine. In such cases you must carefully find out at what time the murder was committed and where the body was burnt. Then, when you know the place, all witnesses agreeing on this point, you may proceed without further delay to examine the wounds. The mode of procedure is this. Put up your shed near where the body was burnt, and make the accused and witnesses point out themselves the very spot. Then cut down the grass and weeds growing on this spot, and burn large quantities of fuel till the place is extremely hot, throwing on several pecks of hempseed. By and by brush the place clean, and then, if the body was actually burnt in this spot, the oil from the seed will be found to have sunk into the ground in the form of a human figure, and wherever there were wounds on the dead man, there on this figure the oil will be found to have collected together, large or small, square, round, long, short, oblique, or straight, exactly as they were inflicted. The parts where there were no wounds will be free from any such appearances. But supposing you obtain the outline only without the necessary detail of the wounds, then scrape away the masses of oil, light a brisk fire on the form of the body and throw on grains mixed with water. Make the fire burn as fiercely as possible, and sprinkle vinegar, instantly covering it over with a new well-varnished table. Leave the table on for a little while and then take it off for examination. The form of the body will be transferred to the table and the wounds will be distinct and clear in every particular.

"If the place is wild and some time has elapsed since the deed was done, so that the very murderer does not remember the exact spot, inquire carefully in what direction it was with regard to such and such a village or temple, and about how far off. If all agree on this point, proceed in person to the place, and bid your assistants go round about searching for any spots where the grass is taller and stronger than usual, marking such with a mark. For where a body has been burnt the grass will be darker in hue, more luxuriant, and taller than that surrounding it, and will not lose these characteristics for a long time, the fat and grease of the body sinking down to the roots of the grass and causing the above results. If the spot is on a hill, or in a wild place where the vegetation is very luxuriant, then you must look for a growth about the height of a man. If the burning took place on stony ground, the crumbly appearance of the stones must be your guide; this simplifies matters immensely."

Such, then, are a few of the absurdities which pass muster among the credulous people of China as the result of deep scientific research; but whether the educated classes--more especially those individuals who devote themselves in the course of their official duties to the theory and practice of post mortem examinations--can be equally gulled with the gaping crowd around them, we may safely leave our readers to decide for themselves.

INQUESTS, NO. II

Section IV. of the valuable work which formed the basis of our preceding sketch, is devoted to the enumeration of methods for restoring human life after such casualties as drowning, hanging, poisoning, &c., some hours and even days after vitality has to all appearances ceased. We shall quote as before from our own literal translation.

"Where a man has been hanging from morning to night, even though already cold, a recovery may still be effected. Stop up the patient's mouth tightly with your hand, and in a little over four hours respiration will be restored. Or, Take equal parts of finely-powdered soap-bean and anemone hepatica, and blow a quantity of this--about as much as a bean--into the patient's nostrils.

"In all cases where men or women have been hanged, a recovery may be effected even if the body has become stiff. You must not cut the body down, but, supporting it, untie the rope and lay it down in some smooth place on its back with the head propped up. Bend the arms and legs gently, and let some one sitting behind pull the patient's hair tightly. Straighten the arms, let there be a free passage through the wind-pipe, and let two persons blow incessantly into the ears through a bamboo tube or reed, rubbing the chest all the time with the hand. Take the blood from a live fowl's comb, and drop it into the throat and nostrils--the left nostril of a woman, the right of a man; also using a cock's comb for a man, a hen's for a woman. Re-animation will be immediately effected. If respiration has been suspended for a long time, there must be plenty of blowing and rubbing; do not think that because the body is cold all is necessarily over.

"Where a man has been in the water a whole night, a recovery may still be effected. Break up part of a mud wall and pound it to dust; lay the patient thereon on his back, and cover him up with the same, excepting only his mouth and eyes. Thus the water will be absorbed by the mud, and life will be restored. This method is a very sure one, even though the body has become stiff.

"In cases of injury from scalding, get a large oyster and put it in a basin with its mouth upwards somewhere quite away from anybody. Wait till its shell opens, and then shake in from a spoon a little Borneo camphor, mixed and rubbed into a powder with an equal portion of genuine musk. The oyster will then close its shell and its flesh will be melted into a liquid. Add a little more of the above ingredients, and with a fowl's feather brush it over the parts and round the wound, getting nearer and nearer every time till at last you brush it into the wound; the pain will thus gradually cease. A small oyster will do if a large one is not to be had. This is a first-rate prescription.

"Where a man has fallen into the water in winter, and has quite lost all consciousness from cold, if there is the least warmth about the chest, life may still be restored. Should the patient show the slightest inclination to laugh, stop up his nose and mouth at once, or he will soon be unable to leave off, and it will be impossible to save him. On no account bring a patient hastily to the fire, for the sight of fire will excite him to immoderate laughter, and his chance of life is gone.

"In cases of nightmare, do not at once bring a light, or going near call out loudly to the sleeper, but bite his heel or his big toe, and gently utter his name. Also spit on his face and give him ginger tea to drink; he will then come round. Or, Blow into the patient's ears through small tubes, pull out fourteen hairs from his head, make them into a twist and thrust into his nose. Also, give salt and water to drink. Where death has resulted from seeing goblins, take the heart of a leek and push it up the patient's nostrils--the left for a man, the right for a woman. Look along the inner edge of the upper lips for blisters like grains of Indian corn, and prick them with a needle."

The work concludes with an antidote against a certain dangerous poison known as Ku, originally discovered by a Buddhist priest and successfully administered in a great number of cases. Its ingredients, which comprise two red centipedes--one live and one roasted--must be put into a mortar and pounded up together either on the 5th of the 5th moon, the 9th of the 9th moon, or the 8th of the 12th moon, in some place quite away from women, fowls, and dogs. Pills made from the paste produced are to be swallowed one by one without mastication. The preparation of this deadly Ku poison is described in the last chapter but one of Section III. in the following words:--

"Take a quantity of insects of all kinds and throw them into a vessel of any kind; cover them up and let a year pass away before you look at them again. The insects will have killed and eaten each other until there is only one survivor, and this one is Ku."

In the next chapter we are informed that spinach eaten with tortoise is poison, as also is shell-fish eaten with venison; that death frequently results from drinking pond-water which has been poisoned by snakes, from drinking water which has been used for flowers, or tea which has stood uncovered through the night, from eating the flesh of a fowl which has swallowed a centipede, and wearing clothes which have been soaked with perspiration and dried in the sun. Finally,

"A case is recorded of a man who tied his victim's hands and feet, and forced into his mouth the head of a snake, applying fire at the same time to its tail. The snake jumped down the man's throat and passed into his stomach, but at the inquest held over the body no traces of wounds were found to which death could be attributed. Such a crime, however, may be detected by examination of the bones which, from the head downwards, will be found entirely of a bright red colour, caused by the dispersion of the blood; and moreover, the more the bones are scraped away, the brighter in colour do they become."

It is difficult to speak of such a book as "Instructions to Coroners" with anything like becoming gravity, and yet it is one of the most widely-read and highly-esteemed works in China; so much so, that native scholars frequently throw it in the teeth of foreigners as one of their many repertories of real wonder-working science, equal to anything that comes from the West, if only foreigners would take the trouble to consult it. To satisfy our own curiosity on the subject we bought a copy and translated it from beginning to end; but our readers will perhaps be able to determine its scientific value from the few quotations given above, and agree with us that it would hardly be worth while to learn Chinese for the pleasure or profit to be derived from reading "Instructions to Coroners" in the original character.

CHRISTIANITY

The extraordinary feeling of hatred and contempt evinced by the Chinese nation for missionaries of every denomination who settle in their country, naturally suggests the question whether Christianity is likely to prove a boon to China, if, indeed, it ever succeeds in taking root at all. That under the form of Roman Catholicism, it once had a chance of becoming the religion of the Empire, and that that chance was recklessly sacrificed to bigotry and intolerance, is too well known to be repeated; but that such an opportunity will ever occur again is quite beyond the bounds, if not of possibility, at any rate of probability. Missionary prospects are anything but bright in China just now, in spite of rosily worded "reports," and annual statistics of persons baptized. A respectable Chinaman will tell you that only thieves and bad characters who have nothing to lose avail themselves of baptism, as a means of securing "long nights of indolence and ease" in the household of some enthusiastic missionary at from four to ten dollars a month. Educated men will not tolerate missionaries in their houses, as many have found to their cost; and the fact cannot be concealed that the foreign community in China suffers no small inconvenience and incurs considerable danger for a cause with which a large majority of its members has no sympathy whatever. It would, however, be invidious to dwell upon the class of natives who allow themselves to be baptized and pretend to accept dogmas they most certainly do not understand, or on the mental and social calibre of numbers of those gentlemen who are sent out to convert them; we will confine ourselves merely to considering what practical benefits Christianity would be likely to confer upon the Chinese at large. And this we may fairly do, not being of those who hold that all will be damned but the sect of that particular church to which they themselves happen to belong; but believing that the Chinese have as good a chance as anybody else of whatever happiness may be in store for the virtuous, whether they become Christians or whether they do not.

In the course of eight years' residence in China, we have never met a drunken man in the streets. Opium-smokers we have seen in all stages of intoxication; but no drunken brawls, no bruised and bleeding wives. Would Christianity raise the Chinese to the standard of European sobriety? Would it bring them to renounce opium, only to replace it with gin? Would it cause them to become more frugal, to live more economically than they do now on their bowl of rice and cabbage, moistened with a drink of tea, and perhaps supplemented with a few whiffs of the mildest possible tobacco? Would it cause them to be more industrious than--e.g., the wood-carvers of Ningpo who work daily from sunrise to dusk, with two short intervals for meals? Would it make them more filial?--justly renowned as they are for unremitting care of aged and infirm parents. More fraternal?--where every family is a small society, each member toiling for the common good, and being sure of food and shelter if thrown out of work or enfeebled by disease. More law-abiding?--we appeal to any one who has lived in China, and mixed with the people. Would it make them more honest?--when many Europeans confess that for straightforward business they would sooner deal with Chinamen than with merchants of certain Christian nationalities we shall not take upon ourselves to name. Should we not run the risk of sowing seed for future and bloody religious wars on soil where none now rage? To teach them justice in the administration of law would be a glorious task indeed, but even that would have its dark side. Litigation would become the order of the day, and a rapacious class would spring into existence where lawyers and barristers are now totally unknown. The striking phenomenon of extreme wealth side by side with extreme poverty, might be produced in a country where absolute destitution is at present remarkably rare, and no one need actually starve; and thus would be developed a fine field for the practice of that Christian charity which by demoralisation of the poorer classes so skilfully defeats its own end. We should rejoice if anything could make Chinamen less cruel to dumb animals, desist from carrying ducks, geese, and pigs, hanging by their legs to a pole, feed their hungry dogs, and spare their worn-out beasts of burden. But pigeon-shooting is unknown, and gag-bearing reins have yet to be introduced into China; neither have we heard of a poor heathen Chinaman "skinning a sheep alive." (Vide Daily Papers of July 12, 1875.)

Last of all, it must not be forgotten that China has already four great religions flourishing in her midst. There is Confucianism, which, strictly speaking, is not a religion, but a system of self-culture with a view to the proper government of (1) one's own family and of (2) the State. It teaches man to be good, and to love virtue for its own sake, with no fear of punishment for failure, no hope of reward for success. Is it below Christianity in this?

Buddhism, Taoism, and Mahomedanism, share the patronage of the illiterate, and serve to satisfy the natural craving in uneducated man for something supernatural in which to believe and on which to rely. The literati are sheer materialists: they laugh at the absurdities of Buddhism, though they sometimes condescend to practise its rites. They strongly object to the introduction of a new religion, and successfully oppose it by every means in their power. They urge, and with justice, that Confucius has laid down an admirable rule of life in harmony with their own customs, and that the conduct of those who approximate to this standard would compare not unfavourably with the practice, as distinguished from the profession, of any religion in the world.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN LYRICS

The following inflammatory placard, which was posted up last year at a place called Lung-p'ing, near the great tea mart of Hankow, will give a faint idea of native prejudice against the propagation of Christianity in China. The original was in verse, and evidently the work of a highly-educated man:--

Strange doctrines are speedily to be eradicated: The holy teaching of Confucius is now in the ascendant. There is but one most sacred religion: There can be but one Mean. By their great virtue Yao and Shun led the way, Alone able to expound the "fickle" and the "slight;"[*] Confucius' teachings have not passed away, Yet working wonders in secret[+] has long been in vogue. Be earnest in practising the ordinary virtues: To extend filial piety, brotherly love, loyalty, and considerateness, is to benefit one's-self. Be careful in your speech, And marvels, feats of strength, sedition, and spirits,[:] will disappear from conversation. I pray you do not listen to unsubstantiated words: Then who will dare to deceive the age with soft-sounding phrases. Our religion is for all who choose to seek it; But we build no chapels to beguile the foolish. Our true religion has existed from of old, up to the present day, undergoing no change. Its true principles include in their application those of the middle and outside nations alike. Great is the advantage to us! Great is the good influence on this generation! Of all religions the only true one, What false doctrine can compare with it? The stillness and cleanliness of Buddhism, The abstruseness and hollow mockery of Taoism-- These are but side-doors compared with ours; Fit to be quitted, but not to be entered. These are but by-paths compared with ours; Fit to be blocked up, but not to be used. How then about this one, stranger than Buddhist or Taoist creed? With its secret confusion of sexes, unutterable! More hurtful than all the dogmas of the other two; Spreading far and wide the unfathomable poison of its mysteries. Herein you must carefully discriminate, And not receive it with belief and veneration. Those who now embrace Christ Call him Lord of heaven and earth, Worshipping him with prayer, Deceiving and exciting the foolish, Dishonouring the holy teaching of Confucius. I laugh at your hero of the cross, Who, though sacrificing his life, did not preserve his virtue complete. Missions build chapels, But the desire to do good works is not natural to them. The method of influencing the natures of women Is but a trick to further base ends. They injure boys by magical arts, And commit many atrocious crimes. They say their religion is the only true one, But their answers are full of prevarication. They say their book is the Holy Book, But the Old and New Testaments are like the songs of Wei and Cheng.[!] As to the people who are gradually being misled, I compassionate their ignorance; As to the educated who are thus deceived, I am wroth at their want of reflection. For these men are not of us; We are like the horse and the cow;[@] If you associate with them, Who will expel these crocodiles and snakes? This is a secret grievance of the State, A manifest injury to the people! Truly it is the eye-sore of the age. You quietly look on unconcerned! I, musing over the present state of men's hearts, Desire to rectify them. Alas! the ways of devils are full of guile! But man's disposition is naturally pure. How then can men willingly walk with devils? You, like trees and plants, without understanding, Allow the Barbarians to throw into confusion the Flowery Land. Is it that no holy and wise men have appeared? Under the Chow dynasty, when the barbarians were at the height of their arrogance, The hand of Confucius and Mencius was laid upon them! Under the T'ang when Buddhism was poisoning the age, Han and Hsi exterminated them. Now these devils are working evil, Troubling the villages and market-places where they live. Surely many heroes must come forward To crush them with the pen of Confucius. Turn then and consider That were it not for my class[#] None would uphold the true religion. I say unto you, And you should give heed unto me, Believe not the nonsense of Redemption, Believe not the trickery of the Resurrection. Set yourselves to find out the true path, And learn to distinguish between man and devil. Pass not with loitering step the unknown ford, Nor bow the knee before the vicious and the depraved. Wait not for Heaven to exterminate them To find out that earth has a day for their destruction. The shapeless, voiceless imp-- Why worship him? His supernatural, unprincipled nonsense Should surely be discarded. Ye who think not so, When the devils are in your houses They will covet your homes, And they will take the fingers and arms of your strong ones To make claws and teeth for imps. They excite people at first by specious talk, Not one jot of which is intelligible; Then they destroy your reason, Making you wander far from the truth. You throw over ancestral worship to enjoy none yourselves; Your wives and children suffer pollution, And you are pointed at with the finger. Thus heedlessly you injure eternal principles, Embracing filth and treasuring corruption, To your endless shame And to your everlasting misfortune. Finally, if in life your heads escape the axe, There will await you the excessive injury of the shroud.[$] Judging by the crimes of your lives, Your corpses will be cast to scorpions and snakes. The devils introduce this doctrine, Which grows like plants from seeds; Some one must arise to punish them, And destroy their religion root and branch. Hasten, all of you, to repent, And walk in the way of righteousness; We truly pity you. A warning notice to discard false doctrines!

CONCLUSION

"Surely it is manifest enough that by selecting the evidence, any society may be relatively blackened, and any other society relatively whitened."[*] We hope that no such principle of selection can be traced in the preceding pages. Irritation against traducers of China and her morality[+] may have occasionally tinged our views with a somewhat rosy hue; but we have all along felt the danger of this bias, and have endeavoured to guard against it. We have no wish to exalt China at the expense of European civilisation, but we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that her vices have been exaggerated, and her virtues overlooked. Only the bigoted or ignorant could condemn with sweeping assertions of immorality a nation of many millions absolutely free, as the Chinese are, from one such vice as drunkenness; in whose cities may be seen--what all our legislative and executive skill cannot secure--streets quiet and deserted after nine or ten o'clock at night. Add to this industry, frugality, patriotism,[:] and a boundless respect for the majesty of office: it then only remains for us to acknowledge that China is after all "a nation of much talent, and, in some respects, even wisdom."[!]