Bert Wilson, Wireless Operator

by J. W. Duffield

“You will notice,” said the captain when the laugh had subsided, “that the doctor uses the son as an illustration. The poor daughter wouldn’t even be inquired about. She is regarded as her father’s secret sorrow, inflicted upon him by a malignant decree of fate. In a commercial sense, the boy is an asset; the girl is a liability. You hear it said sometimes, with more or less conviction, that the world we live in is a ‘man’s world.’ However that may be modified or denied elsewhere, it is the absolute truth as regards China. If the scale of a nation’s civilization is measured by the way it treats its women,—and I believe this to be true,—then the Celestial Kingdom ranks among the very lowest. From the time she comes, unwelcomed, into the world, until, unmourned, she leaves it, her life is not worth living. She is the slave of the household, and, in the field, she pulls the plough while the man holds the handles. In marriage, she is disposed of without the slightest reference to her own wishes, but wholly at the whim of her parents, and often sees the bridegroom’s face for the first time when he comes to take her to his own house. There she is as much a slave as before. Her husband can divorce her for the most flimsy reasons and she has no redress. No, it isn’t ‘peaches and cream’ to be a woman in China.”

“It doesn’t seem exactly a paradise of suffragettes,” murmured Ralph.

“No,” interjected Tom, “the Government here doesn’t have to concern itself about ‘hunger strikes’ or ‘forcible feeding.’”

“To atone to some extent for this hateful feature of family life,” said the doctor, “they have another that is altogether admirable, and that is the respect shown to parents. In no country of the world is filial reverence so fully displayed as here. A disobedient son is almost unthinkable, and a murderer would scarcely be regarded with more disapproval. From birth to old age, the son looks upon his father with humility and reverence, and worships him as a god after he is dead. There is nothing of the flippancy with which we are too familiar in our own country. With us the ‘child is father of the man,’ or, if he isn’t, he wants to be. Here the man always remains the father of the child.”

“Yes,” said Bert, “I remember in Bill Nye’s story of his early life he says that at the age of four ‘he took his parents by the hand and led them out to Colorado.’”

“And that’s no joke,” put in the captain. “All the foreigners that visit our country are struck by the independent attitude of children to their parents.”

“Another thing we have to place to the credit of this remarkable people,” he went on, “is their love for education. The scholar is held in universal esteem. The road to learning is also the road to the highest honors of the State. Every position is filled by competitive examinations, and the one who has the highest mark gets the place. Of course their idea of education is far removed from ours. There is no attempt to develop the power of original thinking, but simply to become familiar with the teaching and wisdom of the past. Still, with all its defects, it stands for the highest that the nation knows, and they crown with laurels the men who rise to the front rank. Of course they wouldn’t compare for a moment with the great scholars of the Western world. Still, you know, ‘in a nation of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,’ and their scholars stand out head and shoulders above the general level, and are reverenced accordingly.”

“I suppose that system of theirs explains why the civil service in our own country is slightingly referred to as the ‘Chinese’ civil service by disgruntled politicians,” said Ralph.

“Yes,” said the captain, “and speaking of politicians, our Chinese friends could give us cards and spades and beat us out at that game. They’re the smoothest and slickest set of grafters in the world. Why, the way they work it here would make our ward politicians turn green with envy. We’re only pikers compared with these fellows. Graft is universal all through China. It taints every phase of the national life. Justice is bought and sold like any commodity and with scarcely a trace of shame or concealment. The only concern the mandarin has with the case brought before him is as to which side will make him the richest present. It is a case of the longest purse and little else. Then after a man has been sent to prison, the jailer must be paid to make his punishment as light as possible. If he is condemned to death, the executioner must be paid to do his work as painlessly and quickly as he can. At every turn and corner the grafter stands with his palm held out, and unless you grease it well you might as well abandon your cause at the start. You’re certainly foredoomed to failure.”

“Well,” said Bert, “we’re badly enough off at home in the matter of graft, but at least we have some ‘chance for our white alley’ when we go into a court of justice.”