THE MARRIAGE CHAIR.

In which a bride of the upper classes is carried to her husband’s home. It is often a very beautiful thing, gorgeous with its embroidery in silk and colours. People who are not rich enough to have one of their own can hire them for the occasion. In China large families are the rule. If a mother dies, the women of the village suckle and bring up the child between them, and children are not weaned until they are from three to five years of age. Chinese women are very modest and kind-hearted, are faithful wives, and, according to their own notions, good mothers. In Sze Chuan there is no trace of infanticide, but it is practised in many parts of the Empire.

THE MARRIAGE CHAIR

MODE OF CARRYING
CASH AND BABIES.

In travelling, the carriage of money is a great annoyance, owing to the smallness of its value and the large number of coins or “cash” necessary to make up an amount of any size. Exchanging eighteen shillings English for brass cash, the weight of them amounted to seventy-two pounds, which had to be carried by the coolies. These cash have a square hole in the middle, and are strung together upon a piece of straw twist. Should the straw break, the loss of time in getting up the pieces is much more than the loss of the money. The Chinese are honest, very keen at a bargain, but when the bargain is made the Chinaman may be depended on to keep it.

MODE OF CARRYING
CASH AND BABIES

A PAI-FANG,
OR WIDOW’S ARCH.

These are often very fine structures in stone, wonderfully carved, or in wood highly decorated. It is not uncommon to enter a town under quite a succession of them. Very fine ones are often found at the entrance of very squalid villages. They are erections put up to honour widows who, faithful to the memory of their husbands, have remained widows, devoting themselves to good works and to the service of their parents-in-law, which is the great duty of every good wife. Permission of the Emperor has to be obtained for their erection. The various towns and villages take pride in their “widows’ arches.” It is not uncommon to find a shrine for the burning of incense beside the arch.

A PAI-FANG,
OR WIDOW’S ARCH

TWO SOLDIERS OF
SZE CHUAN.

The military are usually dressed in picturesque but unserviceable, not to say grotesque costumes, the carnation red, beloved of the Chinese, and blue being the prevailing colours. They carry fans, and often paper umbrellas. They are ill-trained and indolent, lounging about the gates of the cities or the streets gambling and smoking. Their curse is that they have nothing to do.

TWO SOLDIERS OF
SZE CHUAN

OPIUM CULTURE
ENCROACHING
ON THE RICE LANDS,
SZE CHUAN.

The great system of irrigation at Sze Chuan was intended for the cultivation of rice only; but the great and terrible growth in the demand for opium has caused the cultivation of the poppy so to increase that it is encroaching on the rice lands.

This may be regarded as the saddest and most terrible fact as regards the future of China.

The use of opium is of comparatively recent date, but the growth and spreading of the habit has been most rapid.

At the first, both local and government officials did their best to stop it and to stamp out the culture of the poppy; but although laws were passed making death the penalty for its cultivation they became a dead letter, until to-day it is estimated that eighty per cent. of the men and fifty per cent. of the women, in one or two populous provinces, are opium smokers. They do not all smoke to excess. There are moderate smokers as we have our moderate drinkers; but all through the province of Sze Chuan the opium shops are as thick as the gin shops in the lower parts of London.

It is not necessary to dilate on the effects of opium when freely indulged in. They are too well known. China’s only hope is to emancipate herself from the vice that is eating away her manhood. But will she be able to do it?

OPIUM CULTURE
ENCROACHING
ON THE RICE LANDS,
SZE CHUAN

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Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage,

London, E.C.