The Mandarin Class.
In China there are no hereditary nobles, indeed no nobles at all, unless it be the rather numerous descendants of Confucius who dwell together and enjoy certain social privileges, in this somewhat resembling the Shorfa (descendants of the Prophet) in Muhammadan lands. If any titles have to be awarded for great deeds they fall, not on the hero, but on his forefathers, and thus at a stroke of the vermilion pencil are ennobled countless past generations, while the last of the line remains unhonoured until he goes over to the majority. Between the Emperor, "patriarch of his people," and the people themselves, however, there stood an aristocracy of talent, or at least of Chinese scholarship, the governing Mandarin[489] class, which was open to the highest and the lowest alike. All nominations to office were conferred exclusively on the successful competitors at the public examinations, so that, like the French conscript with the hypothetical Marshal's bâton in his knapsack, every Chinese citizen carried the buttoned cap of official rank in his capacious sleeve. Of these there are nine grades, indicated respectively in descending order by the ruby, red coral, sapphire, opaque blue, crystal, white shell, gold (two), and silver button, or rather little globe, on the cap of office, with which correspond the nine birds—manchu crane, golden pheasant, peacock, wild goose, silver pheasant, egret, mandarin duck, quail, and jay—embroidered on the breast and back of the State robe.
Theoretically the system is admirable, and at all events is better than appointments by Court favour. But in practice it was vitiated, first by the narrow, antiquated course of studies in the dry Chinese classics, calculated to produce pedants rather than statesmen, and secondly by the monopoly of preference which it conferred on a lettered caste to the exclusion of men of action, vigour, and enterprise. Moreover, appointments being made for life, barring crime or blunder, the Mandarins, as long as they approved themselves zealous supporters of the reigning dynasty, enjoyed a free hand in amassing wealth by plunder, and the wealth thus acquired was used to purchase further promotion and advancement, rather than to improve the welfare of the people.
They have the reputation of being a courteous people, as punctilious as the Malays themselves; and they are so amongst each other. But their attitude towards strangers is the embodiment of aggressive self-righteousness, a complacent feeling of superiority which nothing can disturb. Even the upper classes, with all their efforts to be at least polite, often betray the feeling in a subdued arrogance which is not always to be distinguished from vulgar insolence. "After the courteous, kindly Japanese, the Chinese seem indifferent, rough, and disagreeable, except the well-to-do merchants in the shops, who are bland, complacent, and courteous. Their rude stare, and the way they hustle you in the streets and shout their 'pidjun' English at you is not attractive[490]." But the stare, the hustling and the shouting may not be due to incivility. No doubt the Chinaman regards the foreigner as a "devil" but he has reason, and he never ceases to be astonished at foreign manners and customs "extremely ferocious and almost entirely uncivilised[491]."
FOOTNOTES:
[375] Ethnology, p. 300.
[376] Geogr. Journ., May, 1898, p. 491. This statement must of course be taken as having reference only to the historical Malays and their comparatively late migrations.
[377] For the desiccation of Asia see P. Kropotkin, Geogr. Journ. XXIII. 1904; E. Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, 1907.
[378] See J. Cockburn's paper "On Palæolithic Implements," etc., in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1887, p. 57 sq.
[379] "Le type. primitif des Mongols est pour nous dolichocéphale" (Les Aryens au Nord et au Sud de l'Hindou-Kouch, 1896, p. 50).