[316] It was only his soul that had left the house.
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[317] See No. LVI., [note 322].
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[318] See No. CXXIII., [note 234].
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[319] A common saying is “Foxes in the north; devils in the south,” as illustrative of the folk-lore of these two great divisions of China.
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[320] In no country in the world is adulteration more extensively practised than in China, the only formal check upon it being a religious one—the dread of punishment in the world below.
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[321] The text has here a word (literally, “mud”) explained to be the name of a boneless aquatic creature, which on being removed from the water lies motionless like a lump of mud. The common term for a jelly-fish is shui-mu, “water-mother.”
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[322] See No. LXXIII., [note 62].
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[323] There is a widespread belief that human life in China is held at a cheap rate. This may be accounted for by the fact that death is the legal punishment for many crimes not considered capital in the West; and by the severe measures that are always taken in cases of rebellion, when the innocent and guilty are often indiscriminately massacred. In times of tranquillity, however, this is not the case; and the execution of a criminal is surrounded by a number of formalities which go far to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. The Hsi-yüan-lu (see No. XIV., [note 100]) opens with the words, “There is nothing more important than human life.”
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[324] See No. [LXVIII.], [note 30].
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[325] This story is inserted chiefly in illustration of the fact that all countries have a record of some enormous bird such as the roc of the “Arabian Nights.”
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