It is much more probable that extreme poverty and hopeless indigence, the frequent experience of direful famines, and the scenes of misery and calamity occasioned by them, acting on minds whose affections are not very powerful, induce this unnatural crime which common custom has encouraged, and which is not prohibited by positive law. That this is the case, and that future advantages are not overlooked, will appear from the circumstance of almost all the infants that are exposed being females, who are the least able to provide for themselves, and the least profitable to their parents; and the practice is most frequent in crowded cities, where not only poverty more commonly prevails, but so many examples daily occur of inhumanity, of summary punishments, acts of violence and cruelty, that the mind becomes callous and habituated to scenes that once would have shocked, and is at length scarcely susceptible of the enormity of crimes.
I am afraid, however, it is but too common a practice even in the remotest corners of the provinces. A respectable French missionary, now in London, who was many years in Fo-kien, told me that he once happened to call on one of his converts just at the moment his wife was brought to-bed. The devoted infant was delivered to the father in order to be plunged into a jar of water that was prepared for the purpose. The missionary expostulated with the man on the heinousness of an act that was a crime against God and nature. The man persisted that, having already more than he could support, it would be a greater crime to preserve a life condemned to want and misery, than to take it away without pain. The missionary, finding that no argument of his was likely to divert him from his purpose, observed "that, as a Christian, he could not refuse him the satisfaction of saving the infant's soul by baptism." During the ceremony, as the father held the infant in his arms he happened to fix his eyes on its face, when the missionary thought he perceived the feelings of nature begin to work; and he protracted the ceremony to give time for the latent spark of parental affection to kindle into flame. When the ceremony was ended; "Now," says the missionary, "I have done my duty in saving a soul from perishing." "And I," rejoined the man, "will do mine, by saving its life," and hurried away with the infant to deposit it in the bosom of its mother.
How very weak then, in reality, must be the boasted filial affection of the Chinese for their parents, when they scruple not to become the murderers of their own children, towards whom, according to the immutable laws of nature, the force of affection will ever be stronger than for those whom the laws of China, in preference, have commanded to be protected and supported when rendered incapable of assisting themselves. The truth of this observation, which I believe few will call in question, is a strong proof that, as I have already remarked, filial piety among the Chinese may rather be considered in the light of an ancient precept, carrying with it the weight of a positive law, than the effect of sentiment.
It is right to mention here (what however is no palliation of the crime, though a diminution of the extent of it) a circumstance which I do not recollect to have seen noticed by any author, and the truth of which I have too good authority to call in question. As every corpse great and small must be carried to a place of burial at a considerable distance without the city, and as custom requires that all funerals should be conducted with very heavy expences, people in Pekin, even those in comfortable circumstances, make no hesitation in laying in baskets still-born children, or infants who may die the first month, knowing that they will be taken up by the police. This being the case, we may easily conceive that, in a city said to contain three millions of people, a great proportion of the nine thousand, which we have supposed to be annually exposed, may be of the above description. According to the rules of political arithmetic, and supposing half of those who died to be exposed, the number would be diminished to about 4000. The expence attending a Chinese funeral is more extravagant than an European can well conceive. A rich Hong merchant at Canton is known to have kept his mother near twelve months above ground, because it was not convenient for him to bury her in a manner suitable to his supposed wealth and station.
I am informed also that foundling hospitals do exist in China, but that they are on a small scale, being raised and supported by donations of individuals, and their continuance is therefore as precarious as the wealth of their charitable founders.
These unfavourable features in the character of a people, whose natural disposition is neither ferocious nor morose; but, on the contrary, mild, obliging, and cheerful, can be attributed only to the habits in which they have been trained, and to the heavy hand of power perpetually hanging over them. That this is actually the case may be inferred from the general conduct and character of those vast multitudes who, from time to time, have emigrated to the Philippine islands, Batavia, Pulo Pinang and other parts of our East Indian settlements. In those places they are not less remarkable for their honesty, than for their peaceable and industrious habits. To the Dutch in Batavia they are masons, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, shopkeepers, bankers, and, in short, every thing. Indolence and luxury are there arrived to such a height that, without the assistance of the Chinese, the Dutch would literally be in danger of starving. Yet the infamous government of that place, in the year 1741, caused to be massacred, in cold blood, many thousands of these harmless people who offered no resistance; neither women nor children escaped the fury of these blood-hounds.
In these places it appears also, that their quickness at invention is not surpassed by accuracy of imitation, for which they have always been accounted remarkably expert in their own country. Man is, by nature, a hoarding animal; and his endeavours to accumulate property will be proportioned to the security and stability which the laws afford for the possession and enjoyment of that property. In China, the laws regarding property are insufficient to give it that security: hence the talent of invention is there seldom exercised beyond suggesting the means of providing for the first necessities and the most pressing wants. A man, indeed, is afraid here to be considered as wealthy, well knowing that some of the rapacious officers of the state would find legal reasons to extort his riches from him.
The exterior deportment of every class in China is uncommonly decent, and all their manners mild and engaging; but even these among persons of any rank are considered as objects worthy the interference of the legislature; hence it follows that they are ceremonious without sincerity, studious of the forms only of politeness without either the ease or elegance of good-breeding. An inferior makes a sham attempt to fall on his knees before his superior, and the latter affects a slight motion to raise him. A common salutation has its mode prescribed by the court of ceremonies; and any neglect or default in a plebeian towards his superior is punishable by corporal chastisement, and in men in office by degradation or suspension. In making thus the exterior and public manners of the people a concern of the legislature, society in many respects was considerably benefited. Between equals, and among the lower orders of people, abusive language is very unusual, and they seldom proceed to blows. If a quarrel should be carried to this extremity, the contest is rarely attended with more serious consequences than the loss of the long lock of hair growing from the crown of the head, or the rent of their clothes. The act of drawing a sword, or presenting a pistol, is sufficient to frighten a common Chinese into convulsions; and their warriors shew but few symptoms of bravery. The Chinese may certainly be considered among the most timid people on the face of the earth; they seem to possess neither personal courage, nor the least pretence of mind in dangers or difficulties; consequences that are derived probably from the influence of the moral over the physical character. Yet there is perhaps no country where acts of suicide occur more frequently than in China, among the women as well as the men: such acts being marked with no disgrace, are not held in any abhorrence. The government, indeed, should seem to hold out encouragement to suicide, by a very common practice of mitigating the sentence of death, in allowing the criminal to be his own executioner. The late viceroy of Canton, about two years ago, put an end to his life by swallowing his stone snuff-bottle, which stuck in the oesophagus; and he died in excruciating agonies.
In a government, where every man is liable to be made a slave, where every man is subject to be flogged with the bamboo at the nod of one of the lowest rank of those in office, and where he is compelled to kiss the rod that beats him or, which amounts to the same thing, to thank the tyrant on his knees for the trouble he has taken to correct his morals, high notions of honour and dignified sentiments are not to be expected. Where the maxims of the government commanding, and the opinions of the people agreeing, that corporal punishment may be inflicted, on the ground of a favour conferred upon the person punished, a principle of humiliation is admitted that is well calculated to exclude and obliterate every notion of the dignity of human nature.
A slave, in fact, cannot be dishonoured. The condition itself of being dependent upon and subject to the caprice of another, without the privilege of appeal, is such a degraded state of the human species, that those who are unfortunately reduced to it have no further ignominy or sense of shame to undergo. The vices of such a condition are innumerable, and they appear on all occasions among this people celebrated (rather undeservedly I think) for their polished manners and civilized government. A Chinese merchant will cheat, whenever an opportunity offers him the means, because he is considered to be incapable of acting honestly; a Chinese peasant will steal when ever he can do it without danger of being detected, because the punishment is only the bamboo, to which he is daily liable; and a Chinese prince, or a prime minister, will extort the property of the subject, and apply it to his private use, whenever he thinks he can do it with impunity. The only check upon the rapacity of men in power is the influence of fear, arising from the possibility of detection: the love of honour, the dread of shame, and a sense of justice, seem to be equally unfelt by the majority of men in office.