The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, August, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, August, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
China now makes at home all the Prussian blue which was before
imported. The Chinese emigrant is active, shrewd. In Batavia he
ko-toos to the Dutch, and lets his tail down dutifully. In Singapore
he readily assumes a freer spirit, keeps his tail curled, and walks
upright among the Englishmen.
We are now sailing towards Shangae, no very long way northward from
Ningpo, to the last of the five ports we came out to visit. It is not
necessary to return to the Yellow Sea, for all this part of China is
so freely intersected with canals that we may sail to Shangae among
farms and rice-grounds. While among the farmers, we may call to mind
that the great lord of the Chinese manor is the Emperor, to whom this
ground immediately belongs, and who receives as rent for it a tenth of
all the produce. A large part of this tenth is paid in kind. The
Emperor is the great father also; his whole care of his enormous
family distinctly assumes the paternal form, and embodies a good deal
of the maxim, that to spare the rod will spoil the child. To govern is
expressed in Chinese by the symbols of bamboo and strike; and the
bamboo does, in the way of striking a vast deal of business. The
central legislation is as a rule beneficent, and based upon an earnest
desire to do good; for the father is answerable for the welfare of his
children. National calamities have, at all times, been ascribed by the
Chinese directly to their Emperors; who must by personal humiliation
appease the anger of the gods. So large a household as this father has
to care for requires many stewards, mandarins, and others; all these
officers of state are those sons who have proved themselves to be the
wisest, on examination into their attainments. A grand system of
education pervades China; and, above the first school, to which all
are sent, there is a series of four examinations, through which every
Chinese may graduate if he will study. Not to pass the first is to be
vile, and the highest degrees qualify for all the offices of state;
but Chinese education means, after reading and writing, and moral
precepts of Confucius, little beside a knowledge of Chinese ancient
history and literature. The Emperor, belonging to a Tartar dynasty,
bestows an equal patronage on Tartars and Chinese. The officers
throughout the provinces are, as a further precaution, obliged to
serve in places distant from their own connections, in order that no
private feelings may destroy their power to be just. They are scantily
paid, however; and, as a Chinese likes profit with his honor, the
minor officials drive a trade in bribery, which often nullifies the
central edicts, and which very directly helped to bring about the
Opium war. The Emperor himself is, of course, too sublime a person to
be often seen; the Son of Heaven, he robes himself in the imperial
yellow, because that is the hue of the sun's jacket; but, once a year,
in enforcement of a main principle of the Chinese political
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