sures, and the want of virtuous female society, so may their lying be attributed partly to their truckling fear of officers, and their thievery to the want of sufficient food or work. Hospitality is not a trait of their character; on the contrary, the number and wretched condition of the beggars show that public and private charity is almost extinct; yet here too, the sweeping charge must be modified when we remember the efforts they make to sustain their relatives and families in so densely peopled a country. Their avarice is not so distinguishing a feature as their love of money, but the industry which this desire induces or presupposes is the source of most of their superiority to their neighbors. The politeness which they exhibit seldom has its motive in goodwill, and consequently, when the varnish is off, the rudeness, brutality, and coarseness of the material is seen; still, among themselves, this exterior polish is not without some good results in preventing quarrels, where both parties, fully understanding each other, are careful not to overpass the bounds of etiquette. On the whole, the Chinese present a singular mixture; if there is something to commend, there is more to blame; if they have some glaring vices, they have more virtues than most pagan nations. Ostentatious kindness and inbred suspicion, ceremonious civility and real rudeness, partial invention and servile imitation, industry and waste, sycophancy and self-dependence, are with other dark and bright qualities, strangely blended. In trying to remedy the faults of their character by the restraints of law and the diffusion of education, they have no doubt hit upon the right mode; and their shortcomings show how ineffectual both must be until the Gospel comes to the aid of ruler and subject, in elevating the moral sense of the whole nation. This has now commenced, and every day adds fresh proof of the necessity of missionary labors among this remarkable people. Facts of daily occurrence brought to the knowledge of the missionaries reveal the prevalence of the most fearful immoralities, and furnish a melancholy insight into the desolating horrors of paganism. Female infanticide in some parts openly confessed, and divested of all disgrace and penalties everywhere; the dreadful prevalence of all the vices charged by the apostle Paul upon the ancient heathen world; the alarming extent of the use of opium (furnished too by British and American merchants), destroying the productions and natural resources of the people; the univer SUMMARY OF CHINESE CHARACTER. 99 sal practice of lying and dishonest dealings; the unblushing lewdness of old and young; harsh cruelty towards prisoners by officers, and tyranny over slaves by masters;-all forming a full unchecked torrent of human depravity, and proving the existence of a kind and degree of moral degradation, of which an excessive statement can scarcely be made, or an adequate conception hardly be formed. We do not wish to depict the Chinese worse than they are, nor to dwell so much on their good qualities as to lead one to suppose they stand in no need of the Gospel. Barrow says missionaries "might have had their motives for setting the Chinese in the fairest point of view;" and he goes on to criticise them for their too favorable coloring. On the other side, McCulloch remarks, speaking of China, "that it is so obviously the interest of the missionaries, by depreciating the moral and religious character of those they are laboring amongst, to exalt their own utility and importance, and to justify their claims to the patronage and support of the Christian public, that their statements can hardly be supposed to be free from bias."* Who shall decide? It is abundantly easy for persons in their closets, as these gentlemen were, to criticise; but until they have themselves engaged in such labors, and speak from personal knowledge, let not their opinion be taken for more than it is worth. McCulloch's Geographical Barrow's Travels in China, page 30. CHAPTER XV. Industrial Arts of the Chinese. THE superiority of the Chinese over their neighbors in the enjoy ments of life, and the degree of security individuals can look for under the protection of law, are owing chiefly to their industry. Agriculture holds the first place in their estimation, among the branches of labor, and the honors paid to it by the annual ploughing ceremony are given from a deep sense of its importance to the public welfare; not alone to provide a regular supply of food and labor for so ignorant a population, but also to meet the wants of government by moderate taxes, and long experience of the greater ease of governing an agricultural than a mercantile or warlike community. Notwithstanding the encouragement given to tillage, vast tracts of land still lie waste, some of it the most fertile in the country; partly because the people have not the skill and capital to drain and render it productive, and partly because they have not sufficient security or prospect of remuneration to encourage them to make the necessary outlay. Landed property is held in clans or families as much as possible, but it is not entailed, nor are overgrown estates frequent. The land is held as a freehold so long as the sovereign receives his rent, which is estimated at about one tenth of the produce, and the proprietors record their names in the district magistrate's office as responsible for the tax, feeling themselves secure in the possession while that is paid. The paternal estate and the houses upon it descend to the eldest son, but his brothers can remain upon it with their families, and devise their portion in perpetuo to their children, or an amicable composition can be made; daughters never inherit, nor can an adopted son of another clan succeed. A mortgagee must actually enter into possession of the property, and make himself personally responsible for the payment of the taxes, before his mortgage is valid; unless explicitly stated, the land can be redeemed any time AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. within thirty years on payment of the original sum. 101 Secs. xc. to c. of the Code contain the laws relating to this subject, some of which bear a resemblance to those established among the Hebrews, and intended to secure a similar object of retaining the land in the same clan or tribe. The Chinese are rather gardeners than farmers, not only in the small size of their grounds, but in their ignorance of those operations whereby soils naturally unfruitful are made fertile, those which produce few kinds of plants made to bring forth a greater variety, and their natural fertility sustained at the cheapest rate by a proper manuring and rotation of crops. They make up for the disadvantages of poor implements by hard work, repeatedly turning over the soil, and sustaining its productiveness by constant manuring. Their agricultural utensils are few and simple, and are probably now made similar to those used centu ries ago. The broad hoe, a less efficient tool than our spade, is used more than any other; the edge of the large wooden blade is guarded with iron, and the weight adds impetus to the blow. Spades, shovels, and mattocks are employed in kitchen gardening, and the plough and harrow in rice cultivation. The plough is made of wood, except the iron edged share, which lies so flat that it cannot penetrate the soil more than five inches. The whole implement is so simple and rude that one would think the invent. or of it was a laborer, who, tired of the toil of spading, called the ox to his aid, and tied his shovel to a rail ;-fastening the animal at one end and guiding the other, he was so pleased with the relief, that he never thought of improving it much further than to sharpen the spade to a coulter, and bend the rail to a beam and handle. The harrow is a heavy stick armed with a single row of stout wooden teeth, and furnished with a framework to guide it; or a triangular machine, with rows of teeth, on which the driver rides. The buffalo is most used in rice cultivation, and the ox and ass in dry ploughing; horses, mules, cows, and goats likewise render service to the farmer in various ways, and are often yoked in most ludicrous combinations. But the team which Nieuhoff describes of a man driving his wife and his ass yoked to the same plough is too bad for China often to present, though it has been so frequently quoted that one almost expects on landing to see half the women in the harness. The early rain is so necessary to the preparation of rice fields that the work is delayed in case of drought, except where watercourses can be turned upon them. The grain is first soaked in water, and when it begins to swell, is sown very thickly in a small plat, in which liquid manure has been previously mixed. When about six inches high, the shoots are taken up and transplanted into the adjacent grounds, which, from being an unsightly marsh, are in a few days transformed to fields clothed with living green. Holding the seedlings in one hand, the laborer wades through the mud, sticking five or six of them into it at every step, which take root without further care; six men can transplant two acres a day, one or two of whom are engaged in supplying the others with shoots. The amount of grain required to sow a Chinese mau in this way is 37 catties, or 330 lbs.—about 2 bushels to an English acre. The produce is on an average tenfold. Land is usually rented at half the crop, the landlord paying the taxes, and the tenant stocking the farm; leases are for three, four, or seven years, but the terms vary according to the crop and goodness of the soil. Wheat, barley, and millet are planted in holes or rows, not so much because the farmer thinks they produce a better crop than when sown broadcast, though that is often done, as to allow of interspacing them with other plants, which will ripen at a different season. Barrow describes a sort of drill-plough for sowing he saw in Kiangsu designed to economize time and seed. "It consisted of two parallel poles of wood shod at the lower extremity with iron to open the furrows; these poles were placed upon wheels; a small hopper was attached to each pole to drop the seeds into the furrow, which were covered with earth by a transverse piece of wood fixed behind, that just swept the face of the ground." The extent to which terrace cultivation has been supposed to be carried in China is a good instance of the way in which erroneous impressions concerning that country obtain currency from accounts not exactly incorrect, perhaps, but made to convey wrong notions by the mode of their description. The hills are seldom terraced except for rice cultivation or to retain the soil which would otherwise be washed away; and this restricts their graduation generally speaking to the southern and eastern provinces. Most of the hills in Kwangtung and Fuhkien are unfit |