CONTROL OF BEGGARS AND FIRES IN CITIES.
Shops are closed at nightfall, and persons going abroad carry a lantern or torch. Over the thoroughfares slender towers are erected, where notice of a fire is given and the watches of the night announced by striking a gong. Few persons are met in the streets at night, and the private watch kept by all who are able greatly assists the regular police in preserving order and apprehending thieves. These watchers go up and down their wards beating large bamboos, to let “thieves know they are on the lookout.” Considering all things, large Chinese cities are remarkably quiet at night. Beggars find their lodgings in the porches and squares of temples, or sides of the streets, and nestle together for mutual warmth. This class is under the care of a headman, who, in order to collect the poor-tax allowed by law, apportions them in the neighborhoods with the advice of the elders and constables. During the day they go from one door to another and receive their allotted stipend, which cannot be less than one cash to each person. They sit in the doorway and sing a ditty or beat their clap-dishes and sticks to attract attention, and if the shopkeeper has no customers he lets them keep up their cries, for he knows that the longer they are detained so much the more time will elapse before they come again to his shop. Many are blind and all present a sickly appearance, their countenances begrimed with dirt and furrowed by sorrow and suffering. The very difficult question how to assist, restrain, and employ the poor has been usually left to the mercy and wisdom of the municipal officers in the cities; and the results are not on the whole discreditable to their humanity and benevolence. Many persons give the headman a dollar or more per month to purchase exemption from the daily importunity of the beggars, and families about to have a house-warming, marriage, or funeral, as also newly arrived junks, are obliged to fee him to get rid of the clamorous and loathsome crowd.
When fires occur the officers of government are held responsible; the law being that if ten houses are burned within the walls, the highest officer in it shall be fined nine months’ pay; if more than thirty, a year’s salary; and if three hundred are consumed, he shall be degraded one degree. The governor and other high officers, attended by a few troops, are frequently seen at fires in Canton, as much to prevent thievery as to direct in extinguishing the flames. The engines are hurried through the narrow streets at a fearful rate; those who carry away property are armed with swords to defend it, and usually add to the crash of the burning houses by loud cries. The police do not hesitate to pull down houses if the fire can thereby be sooner extinguished, but there is no organized body of firemen, nor any well-arranged system of operations in such cases, though conflagrations are ordinarily soon under control. Cruel men often take the opportunity at such times to steal and carry off defenceless persons, especially young girls.
At Canton the usage is general of levying a bonus on the owners of the houses adjacent to the burnt district, whose dwellings were saved by the exertions of the firemen, the appraisement decreasing as the distance increases; the sum is divided among the firemen. The householders thus saved also employ priests to erect an altar near by, whereon to perform a service, and “return thanks for Heaven’s mercy.” On the whole, the fire control in China is superior to that in Turkey, where the firemen pay themselves for their efforts by extortions practised upon house-owners.
PAGODAS, THEIR PURPOSE AND CONSTRUCTION.
The pagoda is a building considered as so peculiar to the Chinese that a landscape or painting relating to China without a pagoda perched on a hill—like one of Egyptian scenery destitute of a pyramid—would be considered deficient. The term pagoda is used in its proper sense by most of the French and Portuguese writers to denote a temple for idols, but in English books it has always been appropriated to the polygonal towers seen throughout the country. Some confusion has arisen in consequence of applying the account of an immense temple full of idols to these towers. The English use is the most definite in China, although its misapplication is indefensible if we regard its derivation.
The form of the Chinese tah is probably derived from the spire on the top of the Hindu dagoba, as its name is doubtless taken from the first syllable; but their purpose has so long been identified with the geomantic influences which determine the luck of a place that the people do not associate them with Buddhism. Mr. Milne explains this in his remark that “the presence of such an edifice not only secures to the site the protection of heaven, if it already bears evidence of enjoying it, but represses any evil influences that may be native to the spot, and imparts to it the most salutary and felicitous omens.”[355] Those in the southern and central provinces seldom contain idols of any pretensions. They are ascended by stairways built in the thick walls on alternate sides of the stories. In the north there is another kind, designed to contain a shé-lí, or relic of Buddha, having a large room near the base for worshipping the idol placed in it, but otherwise entirely solid and nearly uniform in size to the top; the stories are merely numerous narrow projections, like eaves or string courses, on which hundreds of small images are sometimes placed. These structures more nearly resemble the Indian dagoba than the other kind, and are always connected with a monastery, while those are not uniformly so placed, though under a priestly oversight.
No town is considered complete without a pagoda, and many large cities have several; there must be nearly two thousand in the Empire, some of which are quite celebrated. It is rare to see a new one, and the ruinous condition of most of them indicates the weakness of the faith which erected them. They vary in height from five to thirteen stories, and are mostly built in so solid a manner that they are likely to remain for centuries. One at Hangchau is octagonal, each face twenty-eight feet wide and the wall at the base eighteen feet thick; the top is reached by a spiral stairway between the walls; a covered gallery on the outside of each story affords resting-places and ever-changing views to the visitor; it is one hundred and seventy feet high, and was built during the Sung dynasty, in the twelfth century. The prospect from its summit is superb; the picturesque combination of sea and shore, land and water, city and country, wilderness, gardens, and hills, with many historical and religious associations interesting to a native, make it one of the most charming landscapes in China.