THE FLOWERY KINGDOM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 51, 20 December 1900, Page 3

THE FLOWERY KINGDOM.

BITS OF CHINA, OLD AND NEW. A PECULIAR BTBIKB. A Tery peculiar ' strike ' is recorded as having 1 been in progress in Canton. China. The executioners, who do the beheading, are complaining 1 that, unless they get more money, they will starve. It appears from their complaint that they are paid 500 cash (la) per head, and they demand 2s. One shilling is a small fortune to a poor Chinaman, bat it seems that business has fallen off to a deplorable extent, or there is too much competition, and the executioners are suffering. THE EARLY MISSIONARIES. The Attach^ at Peking is a book recently published in London from the pen of Mr. A. B. Freeman-Mitford, C.B. The Spectator of September 29 had a lengthy review of the work, in the course of which it said :—: — • In a preface written since the relief the Legations, he (Mr. Freeman-Mitford) expresses the decided opinion that the hostility of the Chinese towards Europeans is not due to missionary enterprise, and he fortifies this opinion by a singularly interesting sketch of the relations of the early Jesuit missionaries, such as Ricci, Schall, and Verbiest with the conrt of China. Father Ricci's treatise on the "True Doctrine of God," written in admirable Chinese, and revised, oddly enough, by a Minister of State called Sin, was included in an Imperial list of the beet Chinese books. The daughter of one of his converts, baptised Candida, built 39 ohurchea, and the Emperor gave her the title of "the virtuous woman. 1 This, it is true, was early in the seventeenth century. Fifty years later Father Schall was actually tutor to the young Emperor, Kang Asi, afterwards one of the greatest of Chinese rulers, under whom Father Verbiest became court astronomer and constructed those beautiful bronze instruments which are still among the wonders of the observatory at the southern corner of the Tartar city.' [A few weeks ago we were informed by cable that these instruments had been removed by some of the representatives of the Powers, and were to be sent to Europe.] CHINESE POLITENESS. The Rev. Betrand Cothonay, 0.P., writing in the Dominicana, says : — We have all heard of Chinese politeness as something exquisite. Indeed, it is remarkable 1 One of the literati comes to see me. He bows in a gracious manner. I acknowledge it. Afterwards he addresses to me some conventional, stereotyped platitudes, to which lam bound to make the conventional answers. He will ask what 1b my precious name, and I mast answer that my vile name is anoh, He will tell me that he admires my palace ; 1 must answer that my wretched hat is not worthy to receive his excellency. I muftt not inquire for his wife ; it would be scandalous. Besides, he may have three or four. However, if the turn of the conversation brings my visitor to ■peak of his wife, he will not oall her by name. Generally she has

no name. He will mention ' the abject oreatnre of my interior apartments,' or ' the vile enoloeed ont>,' or something similar. Nor may I inquire for his children ; it; is not permitted. They are so little to him I Nor may I ask for anybody else ;it would be an injury to him. During the conversation he freely expectorates, regardless of surroundings ; he despises a handkerchief, but in meanest ways avails of one's tablecloth or curtains. Tea having been served, he first rinses his mouth with it and ejects it on the floor. Then another deep bow and more conventional sentences, and he departs Tflib IIGKT AT TIEX-TSIN. Onionel Meade, who commanded all the American forces at Tien-tsin, arrived at Honolulu on September 1 on the transport Solace en route to San Francisco. Colonel Meade, who is a soldier of 35 years' experience, says the slaughter of Chinese at Tien-tain was the worst he ever saw. ' I have been in the war business for 85 yeare, and went through the American Civil War,' said Colonel Meade, ' and I never saw such slaughter as was inflicted at Tientein on the 13th and 14th of July. When we finally entered the walled city there were dead and mangled bodies every few feet, it seemed. They lay all over the streets. There was no special attempt made to get the figures of the enemy's loss. The dead were simply buried as quickly as possible, and the Chinese started along the Pekin road with what wounded they could look after. There were about 2000 of these. The Japanese troops are most enthusiastically praised br Colonel Meade. He says that their behaviour was Bimply splendid. They showed themselves as brave as any of the forces engaged, and their discipline and intelligence were np to the highest standard. FAIB STATEMENT OF THE POSITION. A correspondent of Harper's Weekly, writing from China says : The Roman Catholic Christians were often oppressed by nonChristians, members of their oomm unity, and as a result the Church appointed two of her priests to attend to no other duties except the investigation of evidence in case of litigation, and the oonduct of such oases as they thought unjußt before the official. The fact that they had official rank, and the other very important • fact that they were foreigners, added to their power, and they were thus able to meet the official not only on his own ground, bat with the additional power of understanding foreign law. The Christians were, therefore, enabled to obtain justice. CHINESE CUSTOMS. Among the peculiar customs that prevail among the Chinese (says an exchange) a not interesting one is that of the Merit System, or keeping account of the merits or demerits of a man. For the leaning of an umbrella, or freeing a bird from imprisonment, he is entitled to one merit. If he gives a coffin to a bereaved family he may add 30 merits to his list. If he pays the debts of his father 10 merits go to his list. It is worth 50 marks to save a child's life. Two good works that each entitles a man to 100 marks is first to publish a good book ; second, to marry after having become rich, an unattractive girl whom he had promised to wed before he had acquired wealth. One of the minor Bins is to dig an insect out of its snng nest in winter. This unkindness is punished with one demerit. The penalty of five demeriti is attached either to having blotted a book or become intoxicated. In some parts of China it is considered just as wicked to eat beef as ito kill a child. Either offence is punished by 100 demerits. THE FUTURE OP CHINA. Colonel Charles Denby, late Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to China, has an article in a recent issue of the Forum entitled ' The future of China and the Missionaries.' Having stated that for 200 years (he might have said many more) the Catholios had been in China, while the Protestants came only in this century, he goes very straight to the Berthemy Convention, saying : ' France, the natural protector of the Catholic missionaries, secured the adoption of what was called the Berthemy Convention, under which the French missionary has the right to go into any province and buy land, build houses, and permanently reside.' And now he says that the world declares the missionary to be the cause of the recent outbraaks in China, and that one of the problems is whether his work there shall be given up ; to which Colonel Denby replies categorically, first, that he does not find, in the accounts published of existing disturbances, that a distinct anti-missionary feeling was the impelling force of the riots ; nor, secondly, that the missionary was driven out because he was a missionary, but because he was a foreigner. Then, in regard to the question whether the work should be abandoned, he says that the undoubted fact should be recognised that the Catholic powers — the Pope, Spain, Italy, France — will never consent that their missienaries shall be driven from Chihli. Their interests there, he says, are immense, with twenty-eight bishops in the empire, three being in China alone, and with rait establishments over the country, with schools, colleges, asylums, industrial schools, carpenters' and other shops, and all the forms of labor. The chief religious societies — Jesuits, Benedictines, Augustinians, Lazarists, Franciscans — are found in many places. ' Ton cannot turn the dial of progress back. You cannot revoke all the treaties. You cannot undo the work of the three centuries. .... It is not in Christias nature to disregard the divine command to go into the world and teach all nations. The subject transcends the scope of human laws.' And then Colonel Denby again declares his belief that the troubles were not caused by missionaries, but by racial feeling. He cannot think such serious disturbances arose from antagonism to men and women with lives mostly devoted to charity.