A Woman In China

by Mary Gaunt

Said the thin baby: “How do you manage to keep so fat? My milk's sterilised, and the milkman's sterilised, and even the cart's sterilised, and yet look at me,” and he stretched out his thin, starved hands.

“Ah, so's mine,” said the fat baby serenely, “but, when no one's looking, I climb down and get a chew at the corner of the floor-rug, and get enough bacteria to keep a decent life in me!”

Listening to the talk of the missionaries, hearing of the foolishness of smoking, the wickedness of alcoholic drinks, and various forms of sinfulness, I have rather hoped, and more than suspected, that the converts sometimes got down and had a chew at the corner of the floor-rug when no one was looking.

Not that many of the missionaries don't endeavour to live up to their own moral code, many of them do, and many of them lead lives of abnegation and self-denial. We all know that the missionary of the Church of Rome gives up everything, and expects never again to see his country once he enters the mission-field, and many of the China Inland Missionaries, except in the matter of celibacy, run them close. Their pay is very, very small, no holidays can be counted upon, and their lives are isolated and lonely. Even the American missionary, who is far better paid, gives up his own individuality. The ministers earn more, I believe, than they would in their own country, because people give gladly to missions, while at home the minister's salary is often a burning question. “Far fields are ever fair,” but a clever surgeon who is kept hard at it from dawn to dark, once the Chinese appreciate him, certainly receives far less than he could earn working for himself. He is given a comfortable home, he may marry and have children without a qualm, for, for every child twenty pounds a year is allowed till he is of age; the societies see to it that a six weeks' holiday is given every year, and a year's furlough every seven years with passage paid home for wife and children. No business firm could afford to make more comfortable provision for its employees.

In China, service is cheap and good, the food and the cooks both excellent, and the climate, at least in the north, exhilarating and delightful. But the missionaries do their duty, and do it well, and they are pioneers of Western civilisation. In their wake comes trade, though that is the last thing the majority of them think about. The only trouble for the American missionary seems to me the danger that hangs over every dweller in China—a danger they share with every other foreign resident. It is hard to think of danger when one looks at the courteous, subservient Chinese, but Sir Robert Hart put it succinctly: “Anything may happen at any time in China.” And for all the New Republic, and for all the fair promise, his words are still worthy of attention.

“Do you really think,” said R. F. Johnston, the well-known writer on things Chinese, “that the Chinese knew nothing about charity till it was preached to them by Christian missionaries?”

I intimated that such had been my faith.

“The Chinese,” said he, a little indignantly, “are one of the most charitable peoples on earth.”

And then he told me what I, a stranger and ignorant of the language, might have gone years without learning. To begin with, family ties are far stronger in China than in European countries, and a man feels himself bound to help his helpless relatives in a way that would seem absurd to the average Christian, and in addition there are numerous societies for helping those, who, by some mischance, have no one upon whom they can depend. There are societies for succouring the sick, societies for looking after orphans, and other kindly institutions. There are even societies for paying poor folks' fares across ferries! There certainly are a good many rivers in China, but this society I must admit strikes me as a work of supererogation. I don't think much merit can really attach to the subscribers, for the majority of poor folks I have seen would be so much better for walking through the river, clothes and all.

However, we have a good few foolish charities of our own, and even if the Chinese charities do not cover all the ground, we must remember that China is, in so many things, archaic; and these charities run on archaic lines are naturally shocking to men steeped in the sanitary lore of the West, We have only to read the novels of Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë to see a few flaws in the way the charities of the Early Victorian era were administered; what would we think if we could take a peep into thetlazar-house of the Middle Ages—yet there were kind hearts, I doubt not, in the Middle Ages—and China, with her overflowing population, is yet in the matter of charity where we were some time about the reign of the seventh Henry. Could we expect much?