CHINESE AND DEATH.

Evening Star, Issue 14932, 19 July 1912, Page 6

CHINESE A ND DEATH.

Tn the Dublin ' Review' Mr C. J. L. Qflson, writing on "The Dsstiny 01 China,' calls attention to the extraordinary disregard of human life shown by the Chinese: '• The Chinese were ever a race much addicted to suicide. In spite of a marked scepticism with regard to the prospect of a life hereafter, they inerA. death with a stoical unconcern. rligh officials take poison in their yamens at the bidding of Imperial edicts. Criminals are led to execution talking pleasantly with their friends. The writer knows of a case in point, of a. long string of victims to be beheaded in that terrible potter's yard that the tourist can see in Canton, one of whom asked serenely of the executioner that he might be placed at the end of the line in order to have leisure to finish Ins cigarette. There, enjoying his final smoke, unmoved and scarcely interested, he witnessed the death of his comrades. To the Chinese in bondage life is no more than a series of troubles, a riddle that is birely worth the guessimr, and death the shortest ar.d simplest solution. There are many native proverbs to that effect, of which 'every man imst be possessed of lice' is highly representative. " Only to those who understand—as far a,s they arc comprehensible to ihe Occidental mind—Chinese temperament and character i* it credible that the payment of compensation for lives lost on the railway became.to aiar.v, an immediate inducement to commit suicide. Nor were these suicides confined to the inhabitants of the northern provinces of Chili and Shangtuns, but men walked hundreds of miles in order to get themselves killed that their families mijrhl; thereby profit, "Thus the initial expense cf the railway company became tremendous. The directors were obliged to stop payment for lives lost, ami the BuieM-p* im-ipdia+elv ceased."