Village Life in China: A Study in Sociology

by Arthur H. Smith

There are other methods than purchase of a degree, by which the candidate for literary honours, whose means admit of it, may try to weight the wheel of fortune in his favour. There are three common ways of providing oneself with examination essays without undergoing the labour of composing them. Of these the first is known as the “box plan,” (hsiang-tzŭ), and it is not so much cramming, as padding. The Four Books and Five Classics seem at first sight to afford an almost unbounded field for subjects of essays, and as the Chancellor does not announce his themes until he enters the hall, it is hopeless to attempt to ascertain them in advance. But the shrewd Celestial has an empirical, if not a scientific acquaintance with the doctrine of chances and of averages. He knows that in the course of years, the same themes recur, and that essays which were composed long before he was born are just as good in the present year as they ever were. The “padding” method consists in lining one’s clothing with an immense number of essays, the characters of which are of that minute kind known as “fly-eye,” scarcely legible without a magnifying glass. Upon this scale, it is easy to reduce an essay with 300 characters to a compass of extreme insignificance, and a moderately “padded” scholar might be provided with 8,000 or 10,000 such essays. Sometimes they are concealed in the baskets in which the students bring their provisions to the hall. By dint of a complete index, the student who is padded, can readily ascertain whether he is provided with an essay upon the passage desired, and though the withdrawal of an essay from a pack might seem a more difficult feat, it is easily done by the judicious expenditure of a fee to the guards both at the door and within the hall. A variation of the padding method is to have essays written all over the lining of the inner jackets, which are made of white silk for this purpose.

A second and very common way of obtaining essays without writing them, is by purchase. In furtherance of this plan, there is a special system of machinery, which (with appropriate financial lubrication) may be easily set in motion.

The purchase of an essay is one of those acts which in China can by no possibility be concealed. “There is no hedge that excludes the wind,” and the close proximity of so many witnesses would, in any case, render the transaction in a manner a public one. Why then do not those scholars who are honestly toiling for a degree, agree to expose the frauds by which every one of them is so seriously wronged? It is not, indeed, an unknown circumstance for a scholar to cry out, so as to attract the attention of the examiners, when he witnesses the transfer of essays, but it is not apparently a common act. The custom of selling essays, like other abuses in China, is too universal and too ancient to be broken up, without the steady coöperation of many forces, for which it is hopeless to look. The Chinese dread to give offence by any such burst of indignation as would be, for an Occidental, irrepressible. And so things go on in the old way. As to the morality of the affair, if the consideration of it ever occurs to any one, it is hard to make that appear culpable in a poor scholar, which is legitimate for the emperor.

The proportion of students who obtain their degrees unfairly must be large, but there is no means of ascertaining the facts, even approximately. No two examinations are alike, and in all of them much depends upon the temper and vigilance of the presiding officer. In one district in which the writer lived, there was an examination in which so many persons obtained their degrees by fraud, that even the patience of the most patient of peoples was exhausted. Some defeated candidate wrote a complaint of the wrong, and tossed it into the examination hall where it was brought to the attention of the Chancellor, who had all the successful candidates examined on their essays, an examination which eleven out of fifteen were unable to pass, having bought their essays, and the result was their summary disgrace. Since this occurrence, much greater care has been exercised at this particular examination than was formerly the rule. In another district a candidate known to the writer succeeded in passing the first of the two examinations before the Chancellor, but the second was too much for him. His essay and poem were adjudged bad, and he was beaten a hundred blows on the hand. It was then the custom to publish the names of those who passed the best examination on the first trial before the Chancellor, as already having attained a degree. This notice had already been sent to the home of the candidate, who now had the exquisite mortification of having his name erased, when the prize was already within his grasp. The subordinates in the yamên of the Chancellor kneeled to his Excellency, and implored him to overlook the amazing stupidity of this candidate, which the great man was kind enough to do, and thus a degree was wrested even from fate itself.

At all varieties of examinations, there are present many persons who act as essay brokers and as middle-men between those who have essays to sell, and those who wish to buy. It is supposed that both the seller of the essay and the purchaser will be among those examined, but the practical difficulty arises from the uncertainty whether their respective seats in the hall, which cannot be known in advance, will be within reach of each other. As any two persons are very liable to be so far apart that communication will be impossible, it is usual for the essay broker to introduce a number of essay vendors to each intending purchaser, so that the chances of effecting a transfer between any two of them may be increased. To bind the bargain, before the essay is composed, a brief but explicit contract is signed by the purchaser in the hall. The terms are arranged on a sliding scale, called “first two and after two,” “first five and after five,” etc. This signifies that it is agreed that the person who furnishes the essay shall receive in any event a first payment of 20,000 cash, or 50,000 cash, as the case may be, and should the purchaser win a degree, there is to be an after payment of 200,000 cash, or 500,000 cash, according to the terms. These payments are enforced by the brokers, who must be well acquainted with the financial circumstances of the several parties. These obligations, like gambling debts, cannot of course be legally prosecuted, but the Chinese have in all such cases simple ways of enforcing payment, such as raising a disturbance in an annoying and public way.

The reputation of having bought an examination essay is not one which any candidate wishes to have made public authentically, however notorious the fact may be, but the reputation of having bought an essay and of having declined payment, would be intolerable. Some essay vendors frequent examinations for a long series of years, with no view to obtaining a degree for themselves, but in order to reap more substantial benefits from their scholarship than a degree is likely to confer. If they have once taken a degree themselves, they can only carry on this trade by assuming the name of some candidate, to whom a fee must be paid for the privilege of personating him. Graduates of the rank of Selected Men also carry on this business, sometimes in a double way, taking a degree for the person whom they personate, and also having leisure to write essays for sale, after their own are finished, thus killing two birds with one stone. In either case, it is necessary to bribe the ling-shêng who is the guarantee of the identity of the undergraduate.

The third method of obtaining the essays of other persons, is called “transmission” (ch‘uan ti). This can only be accomplished by the coöperation of the inspectors (hsün ch‘ang) who, like all other mortals, are supposed to be perfectly open to considerations of temporal advantage, if only arguments of sufficient strength are employed. As soon as the Chancellor’s theme is announced, it is copied, and at a preconcerted signal thrown over the wall of the examination premises to persons waiting for it. Several scholars outside may have been previously engaged to write essays for different persons within the hall. When the essays are finished they are carefully done up, and at a signal, such as a call for a dog or for a cat, are thrown over the wall to the watchman, who has been previously paid to receive them. The inspector, also liberally fed, ascertains from a private mark on each essay, for whom it is intended, and while pacing back and forth through the hall, contrives to deliver them, without being seen by the Chancellor. In one case, six persons were known to have received their degrees, on the merits of essays which were brought into the hall after being thrown over the wall in a single bundle. Sometimes essays are concealed in the body of a harmless-looking bread-cake, which is tossed carelessly from one candidate to another when the lunches are eaten, with the connivance, no doubt, of the inspectors. The District Magistrates sometimes post the Secretaries at the corners of the examination hall, where it is easy to see all that goes on. But much more often, it is probable, that the Magistrate takes little interest in such details.

In some examinations, the Chancellors are very strict, and forbid any of the watchmen to enter the hall at all, which, of course, checkmates the plan last described. Such instances are much more than offset by others, in which the Chancellor does not remain through the examination himself, but entrusts the conduct of affairs to his Secretaries. These functionaries are then at liberty to furnish essays to candidates who can afford to pay the heavy price necessary. In such cases, while ostensibly examining the essays, the Secretaries find it easy to throw one of their own under a stool, or in some place from which it may be readily captured by the purchaser.

In a case reported in the Peking Gazette some years since, a bold vendor of essays succeeded in getting his paper conveyed to the individual for whom it was intended, by hooking it on the garments of the venerable Chancellor himself, who thus unconsciously became the bearer of the very documents which he was endeavouring to suppress! The candidates at the Chancellor’s examination are generally seated in such proximity, that including those on each side, most of the students are within easy reach of ten or fifteen other persons. This renders the transfer of papers an easy matter. In the second of these trials, when the number is reduced to a mere handful, the students are often seated just as compactly as before.

A scholar with whom the writer is acquainted, once found himself near a poor fellow, who was utterly at a loss how to treat the theme from Mencius, “Like climbing a tree to catch a fish.” A verbal arrangement was hastily made for the purchase of an essay, but the usual written agreement was omitted. The essay was indited in the lawless style of chirography known as the “grass character,” and handed to the purchaser to be copied. Here an untoward accident occurred, for the man who bought the essay mistook two characters, when he copied out the paper, for two others which they much resembled, thus ruining the chances of success. The poor scholar begged off from the amount which he had agreed to pay, (which was about ten dollars) on the plea of poverty. The angry essay-seller then raised a kind of mob of students, went to the lodgings of his debtor and made an uproar, the result of which was to extract from the latter about a dollar and a half, which was all that could be got! The preceptor of the man who sold the essay, who was himself one of the candidates at this examination, claimed, with many others, that the essay which was sold, as represented by the author, must certainly have resulted in a degree for the poor scholar if he had not blundered in inditing false characters.