BANDITTI AND TRAMPS.
Clannish banditti often supply themselves with firearms, and prowling the country to revenge themselves on their enemies, soon proceed to pillage every one; in disarming them the government is sometimes obliged to resort to contemptible subterfuges, which conspicuously show its weakness and encourage a repetition of the evil. Parties of tramps, called hakka, or ‘guests,’ roam over Kwangtung province, squatting on vacant places along the shores, away from the villages, and forming small clannish communities; as soon as they increase, occupying more and more of the land, they begin to commit petty depredations upon the crops of the inhabitants, and demand money for the privilege of burying upon the unoccupied ground around them. The government is generally unwilling to drive them off by force, because there is the alternative of making them robbers thereby, and they are invited to settle in other waste lands, which they can have free of taxation, and leave those they have cultivated if strictly private property. This practice shows the populousness of the country in a conspicuous manner. To these evils must be also added the large bodies of floating banditti or dakoits, who rove up and down all the watercourses “like sneaking rats” and pounce upon defenceless boats. Hardly a river or estuary in the land is free from these miscreants, and lives and property are annually destroyed by them to a very great amount, especially on the Yangtsz’, the Pearl River, and other great thoroughfares.
The popular associations in cities and towns are chiefly based upon a community of interests, resulting either from a similarity of occupation, when the leading persons of the same calling form themselves into guilds, or from the municipal regulations requiring the householders living in the same street to unite to maintain a police and keep the peace of their division. Each guild has an assembly-hall, where its members meet to hold the festival of their patron saint, to collect and appropriate the subscriptions of the members and settle the rent or storage on the rooms and goods in the hall, to discuss all public matters as well as the good cheer they get on such occasions, and to confer with other guilds. The members often go to a great expense in emulating each other in their processions, and some rivalry exists regarding their rights, over which the government keeps a watchful eye, for all popular assemblies are its horror. The shopkeepers and householders in the same street are required to have a headman to superintend the police, watchmen, and beggars within his limits. The rulers are sometimes thwarted in their designs by both these forms of popular assemblies, and they no doubt tend in many ways to keep up a degree of independence and of mutual acquaintance, which compels the respect of the government. The governor of Canton in 1838 endeavored to search all the shops in a particular street, to ascertain if there was opium in them; but the shopmen came in a body at the head of the street, and told the policemen that they would on no account permit their shops to be searched. The governor deemed it best to retire. Those who will not join or agree to what the majority orders in these bodies occasionally experience petty tyranny, but in a city this must be comparatively trifling. Several of the leading men in the city are known to hold meetings for consultation in still more popular assemblies for different reasons of a public and pressing nature. There is a building at Canton called the Ming-lun Tang, or “Free Discussion Hall,” where political matters are discussed under the knowledge of government, which rather tries to mould than put them down, for the assistance of such bodies, rightly managed, in carrying out their intentions, is considerable, while discontent would be roused if they were forcibly suppressed. In October, 1842, meetings were held in this hall, at one of which a public manifesto was issued, here quoted entire as a specimen of the public appeals of Chinese politicians and orators:
MANIFESTO ISSUED AGAINST THE ENGLISH.
“We have been reverently consulting upon the Empire—a vast and undivided whole! How can we permit it to be severed in order to give it to others? Yet we, the rustic people, can learn to practise a rude loyalty; we too know to destroy the banditti, and thus requite his Majesty. Our Great Pure dynasty has cared for this country for more than two hundred years, during which a succession of distinguished monarchs, sage succeeding sage, has reigned; and we who eat the herb of the field, and tread the soil, have for ages drank in the dew of imperial goodness, and been imbued with its benevolence. The people in wilds far remote beyond our influence have also felt this goodness, comparable to the heavens for height, and been upheld by this bounty, like the earth for thickness. Wherefore peace being now settled in the country, ships of all lands come, distant though they be from this for many a myriad of miles; and of all the foreigners on the south and west there is not one but what enjoys the highest peace and contentment, and entertains the profoundest respect and submission.
“But there is that English nation, whose ruler is now a woman and then a man, its people at one time like birds and then like beasts, with dispositions more fierce and furious than the tiger or wolf, and hearts more greedy than the snake or hog—this people has ever stealthily devoured all the southern barbarians, and like the demon of the night they now suddenly exalt themselves. During the reigns of Kienlung and Kiaking these English barbarians humbly besought entrance and permission to make a present; they also presumptuously requested to have Chusan, but those divine personages, clearly perceiving their traitorous designs, gave them a peremptory refusal. From that time, linking themselves in with traitorous traders, they have privily dwelt at Macao, trading largely in opium and poisoning our brave people. They have ruined lives—how many millions none can tell; and wasted property—how many thousands of millions who can guess! They have dared again and again to murder Chinese, and have secreted the murderers, whom they have refused to deliver up, at which the hearts of all men grieved and their heads ached. Thus it has been that for many years past the English, by their privily watching for opportunities in the country, have gradually brought things to the present crisis.
“In 1838, our great Emperor having fully learned all the crimes of the English and the poisonous effects of opium, quickly wished to restore the good condition of the country and compassionate the people. In consequence of the memorial of Hwang Tsioh-sz’, and in accordance to his request, he specially deputed the public-minded, upright, and clear-headed minister, Lin Tseh-sü, to act as his imperial commissioner with plenipotentiary powers, and go to Canton to examine and regulate. He came and took all the stored-up opium and stopped the trade, in order to cleanse the stream and cut off the fountain; kindness was mixed with his severity, and virtue was evident in his laws, yet still the English repented not of their errors, and as the climax of their contumacy called troops to their aid. The censor Hwang, by advising peace, threw down the barriers, and bands of audacious robbers willingly did all kinds of disreputable and villainous deeds. During the past three years these rebels, depending upon their stout ships and effective cannon, from Canton went to Fuhkien, thence to Chehkiang and on to Kiangsu, seizing our territory, destroying our civil and military authorities, ravishing our women, capturing our property, and bringing upon the inhabitants of these four provinces intolerable miseries. His Imperial Majesty was troubled and afflicted, and this added to his grief and anxiety. If you wish to purify their crimes, all the fuel in the Empire will not suffice, nor would the vast ocean be enough to wash out our resentment. Gods and men are alike filled with indignation, and Heaven and Earth cannot permit them to remain.
“Recently, those who have had the management of affairs in Kiangnan have been imitating those who were in Canton, and at the gates of the city they have willingly made an agreement, peeling off the fat of the people to the tune of hundreds of myriads, and all to save the precious lives of one or two useless officers; in doing which they have exactly verified what Chancellor Kin Ying-lin had before memorialized. Now these English rebels are barbarians dwelling in a petty island beyond our domains; yet their coming throws myriads of miles of country into turmoil, while their numbers do not exceed a few myriads. What can be easier than for our celestial dynasty to exert its fulness of power and exterminate these contemptible sea-going imps, just as the blast bends the pliant bamboo? But our highest officers and ministers cherish their precious lives, and civil and military men both dread a dog as they would a tiger; regardless of the enemies of their country or the griefs of the people, they have actually sundered the Empire and granted its wealth; acts more flagitious these than those of the traitors in the days of the Southern Sung dynasty, and the reasons for which are wholly beyond our comprehension. These English barbarians are at bottom without ability, and yet we have all along seen in the memorials that officers exalt and dilate upon their prowess and obstinacy; our people are courageous and enthusiastic, but the officers on the contrary say that they are dispirited and scattered: this is for no other reason than to coerce our prince to make peace, and then they will luckily avoid the penalty due for ‘deceiving the prince and betraying the country.’ Do you doubt? Then look at the memorial of Chancellor Kin Ying-lin, which says: ‘They take the occasion of war to seek for self-aggrandizement;’ every word of which directly points at such conduct as this.
“We have recently read in his Majesty’s lucid mandate that ‘There is no other way, and what is requested must be granted;’ and that ‘We have conferred extraordinary powers upon the ministers, and they have done nothing but deceive us.’ Looking up we perceive his Majesty’s clear discrimination and divine perception, and that he was fully aware of the imbecility of his ministers; he remembers too the loyal anger of his people. He has accordingly now temporarily settled all the present difficulties, but it is that, having matured his plans, he may hereafter manifest his indignation, and show to the Empire that it had not fathomed the divine awe-inspiring counsels.
“The dispositions of these rebellious English are like that of the dog or sheep, whose desires can never be satisfied; and therefore we need not inquire whether the peace now made be real or pretended. Remember that when they last year made disturbance at Canton they seized the Square fort, and thereupon exhibited their audacity, everywhere plundering and ravishing. If it had not been that the patriotic inhabitants dwelling in Hwaitsing and other hamlets, and those in Shingping, had not killed their leader and destroyed their devilish soldiers, they would have scrupled at nothing, taking and pillaging the city, and then firing it in order to gratify their vengeance and greediness: can we imagine that for the paltry sum of six millions of dollars they would, as they did, have raised the siege and retired? How to be regretted! That when the fish was in the frying-pan, the Kwangchau fu should come and pull away the firewood, let loose the tiger to return to the mountains, and disarm the people’s indignation. Letting the enemy thus escape on one occasion has successively brought misery upon many provinces: whenever we speak of it, it wounds the heart and causes the tears to flow.