The absence of Counsel is no hardship to the people, for in China professional lawyers--as we understand the term--are unknown. "A man who attempted to appear for another in a Court of Justice," as Sir Robert Douglas says, "would probably render himself liable to a penalty under the clause in the Penal Code which orders a flogging for any person who excites or promotes litigation."[66] In Weihaiwei only once has a native--in this case a Christian convert--made the least attempt to conduct a case for and on behalf of another individual, and he, though it was impossible under British methods to have him flogged, was duly punished for this as well as for other offences. In the courts of Weihaiwei, then, as in those of China, each of the parties to a suit argues out his own case in his own way, though it is upon the magistrate himself that the duty devolves of separating the wheat from the chaff and selecting such parts of the litigant's argument as appear to have a real bearing on the points at issue. In all essentials, therefore, cases are heard and dealt with in Weihaiwei very much as they are heard and dealt with in China; thus a man from the Chinese side of the frontier who comes into court as plaintiff in Weihaiwei finds himself--especially if he is used to litigation in his own country--quite at home. As may be easily imagined, lawsuits are not conducted with the frigid decorum that usually marks the hearing of a civil case in England; the facts that plaintiff and defendant appear in person, each to conduct his own case, and that each enjoys practically unlimited freedom to say what he likes about his opponent and about things in general, introduce a dramatic element which is lacking in the more stately procedure of Western law-courts. Instead of the patient discussion of minute points of law and the careful citation of precedents and authorities, there are clamorous recitals of real or imaginary woes, bitter denunciations, passionate appeals for justice. A rather remarkable feature of all this, however, is the absence of gesturing. Hands are not clasped or raised to heaven, the movements of the body show no signs of deep feeling, even the features--though their owner is inwardly seething with emotion--seem to remain almost passive. Is this a sign of remoteness from savagery? The people of England have been singled out as examples of those who make a minimum use of gesture: but Englishmen cannot be compared in this respect with the Chinese.