Sidelights on Chinese Life

by J. Macgowan

In the meanwhile the son had been advanced from one post to another, until finally he was summoned to the capital by the Emperor and made Prime Minister. During these years his wealth had been accumulating, until now he had a large fortune at his command, which, true to Chinese nature and to Chinese traditions, he had sent to his old home, and which he had spent largely in the purchase of lands which he added to his own, and of farms which he let out to farmers, who had lost their own, to cultivate for him.

At length the time came for him to die, and with the strong passion for his home where he was reared that supplies the place of patriotism to the Chinese, he made arrangements that his body should be carried to the place where he was born, and should be buried in one of the fields in sight of his old home, where his grave could be cared for, and where his spirit could be sacrificed to by the members of his own family.

This meant a journey of over a thousand miles, over great plains and up and down hills and mountains, and across wide rivers, and months of steady journeying for a large retinue that would have to follow the dead statesman in a kind of triumphal march across the Empire.

At length the great procession reached the place where the illustrious dead was to be laid. The whole country round had gathered to witness the proceedings, for never before, in this region at least, had such a magnificent funeral been witnessed by any one. There were civil mandarins of various ranks, dressed in their official robes, with their retinues and attendants and gorgeous sedan chairs. There were also the highest military mandarins of the province, with long lines of soldiers, that had been ordered by imperial edict to do honour to the dead by their presence.

And now the coffin was lowered into the grave amid the blare of trumpets and the loud wailing of the mourners dressed in sackcloth, whilst crowds gazed on the scene from every little rising ground, and the proud and haughty officials pondered with solemn faces upon the honour that had been done that day to a man who had risen from such a humble condition in life.

One would have imagined that as the mandarins, or rulers of the country, are all recruited from the ranks of the people, they would naturally be in sympathy with them, and would do their utmost to deliver them from the tyranny and oppression from which they too often suffer, but this is not the case. The fact is the mandarins, as a whole, are the great curse of the nation. They are rapacious and exacting. They have no regard for justice or mercy, when these conflict with their own self-interests, and they are the bitter opponents of any plans of reform, knowing that the carrying out of such would endanger their own vested interests, and deprive them of the arbitrary powers they now possess.

In order to give the reader some practical idea of what are the duties and responsibilities of a mandarin, I propose to select one and describe him as graphically as I can, so that one may have a picture of him before the mind’s eye. For this purpose, I shall take the “County Mandarin,” for though there are many others that are superior to him in rank, there is not one whose duties are so multifarious, or who is so responsible for the order and good government of his district as he is.

He has three titles by which he is equally well known throughout the whole of the Empire. The first of these is the “County Mandarin,” because he is the chief official in it, and his authority is the predominant one throughout the whole of the county. Even in cases where his immediate superior wishes any action to be carried out within his jurisdiction, he has to request the county mandarin to see it executed. The second of his titles is “The man that knows the County,” from the fact that it is assumed that he is so intimately acquainted with everything that goes on within his district that nothing can possibly happen in it without his being thoroughly cognizant of it. This assumption of course is an utterly ridiculous one, as it would be manifestly absurd to suppose that any mortal man could know what is happening by day or night throughout a large county. The title, however, which has come down from the past, and which the man accepted when he took office, serves to make him responsible for all that goes on within his jurisdiction. The theory of the Chinese Government that every one in some way or other is responsible for what may take place in society, enables it to at once put its finger on the person who has to be dealt with in the case of any infraction of the law, though he himself may not be the individual who has committed the offence.

A murder, for example, is committed during the darkness of the night. It was done in some alleyway and there is no trace of those who killed the man. The bailiff of the ward is summoned to appear before the local mandarin, and he is asked if he has apprehended the murderer. He makes the excuse that the whole thing happened during the night when the whole city was asleep, and therefore he could not possibly be cognizant of what all the scamps and ruffians were doing when honest men were in their beds and were fast asleep.

That excuse, which would at once be accepted in England, would be laughed at in China, and the bailiff would be reminded that it was his business to know everything that went on in his ward, and very likely he would receive a hundred blows to refresh his memory, and the promise of as many more if the culprit were not captured within a certain limited time. By this same doctrine of responsibility, “The man that knows the County” is held by the Government to be one that must bear on his shoulders the consequences of whatever may happen in any part of the county over which he rules.