Some Observations Upon the Civilization of the Western Barbarians, Particularly of the English / made during the residence of some years in those parts.

by John B. Swazey

I wonder no more at the changes which I observed. Nor do I wonder at the improved appearance of the couple when, after a few weeks of rational life in usual pursuits, something like the health and cheerfulness of old returned!

Yet I was informed that very many couples never recover from the Honey-moon (as my informant had it, Matrimonial Discovery), but from bad grew worse, soured and sickened entirely, could not, at length, endure each other, separated by consent, or sought the Divorce Court!

The thing, therefore, seems characteristic of the coarse humour of the Barbarians, who appear to find a comedy in an absurd, irrational trial of respect and affection, dangerously near the tragic at best, and often absolutely so! Absurd and irrational after marriage—one can conjecture its use before! However, it is quite of a piece with the general disorder, and want of knowledge and practice of sound principles.

When a child is born, the event is duly announced in the public Gazette, and relatives send compliments. When the infant is about eight days old, it is taken to a Temple to be baptised and christened. It is a singular rite, and one of the most astonishing in the Superstition. The Bonze who officiates before the Idol, takes the little thing upon his arm and sprinkles some water upon its face. At the moment he does this, he makes a curious Invocation to all the three-gods-in-one of the Worship, and pronounces aloud the Christian name of the babe, by which it shall ever after be known. This is called Christening, that is, making a Christian of the infant. The ceremony, it is believed, exorcises the Evil One, and makes it very difficult for him to get hold of the baptised (no matter how diabolically he may act) in after life—the water, duly made holy by the Priest, is a barrier over which Satan, with all his wiles, shall find it well-nigh impossible ever to get—some Bonzes say it is absolutely impossible!

Women, as soon as strong enough to attend the Temples, are churched (we have no term of the kind), a rite much like an ordinary thanks offering, for the happy deliverance and new birth. The Bonze makes Invocations, and refers to the various superstitions and barbarous pretensions of the Worship, devotion to which is inculcated under fearful penalties. However, on all occasions in the Temples, these dreadful intimations of Hell and the Devil are most frequent!

When a death occurs, it is also announced in the public Gazette, with honours and titles; and, if a High-Caste, with a long notice of the chief events of his life, and loud praises of his valour, as where he led, in his youth, a hand of fierce Barbarians like himself to the plunder and burning of some distant tribe! His virtues are also proclaimed—to the astonishment of all who knew him!

The tombs of the High-Castes are something like those of our Literati—though, instead of being in the country amid the pleasing scenes of Nature, they are generally in the holy grounds of the Temples, and even within the Temples themselves—for the superstitious Barbarians think that, even after death, the body is safer from the Devil there than elsewhere! But the common people lie hideously huddled together, without distinguishing marks (or with so slight as to be quickly obliterated), and are soon totally neglected and forgotten—happy, indeed, if their despised dust may mingle with holy earth within the precincts of Temples.

The Bonzes pray and sing the usual invocations and prayers over the body of the dead, before it is placed in the tomb—but there is no real respect for the dead—it is not to be looked for in the rough, barbaric nature. In our Flowery Kingdom regard for the dead, respect for their memory, tombs carefully preserved amid the quiet groves of the country, tablets and busts set up in the Halls of Ancestors—these are ordinary things. With the English, in general, the dead is a hideous object turned over to the undertaker and his minions to be buried out of sight, as soon as decency allows! With us, the poorest will have the coffin ready, prepared, and carefully honoured and cared for. With the English, the thought of one is repulsive, and he looks upon it with loathing! No doubt the horrid superstition has much to do with this feeling.

The undertakers (a hateful crew) drape everything in black. They take possession of everything, and turn the whole house into a charnel. They place the defunct (as the Barbarians, with a kind of contempt, call the dead) in a black vehicle, drawn by black horses, and draped with black cloth—black feathers and scarfs, hideously flaunted, with men clothed in black, attend—the dismal Hearse, with its wretched accompaniments, disappears—but only to disgorge the body. Soon after these Vultures maybe seen returning, seated upon the Hearse, clustering there, like carrion birds, who have gorged themselves! When they have feasted and drunk at the House of Woe (woe, indeed, whilst deified by them), and generally spent as much money as is possible—they, at last, disappear—and the family breathe again!

An English Barbarian once told me that these creatures, in tricks of plunder and cheating, surpass the Lawyers; in truth, the fashion is to show respect to the dead by a lavish expenditure in black draperies, and is almost wholly confined to that. It is an object to speak of the cost as a measure of that respect! The whole thing being a sham, though a most disagreeable one, the Undertaker sees well enough that he might as well pocket a large sum as a small one. A certain sum is to be spent, for respect, not for any tangible thing. The Undertaker takes care to furnish more respect than anything more tangible—and to charge for it! In fact, the mode of plunder is reduced to a system; and it just as well satisfies the real purpose—which is, to do all that is customary, and to submit to all the customary cheating.