[342] See No. V., [note 48].
[return to text]
[343] Gambling is the great Chinese vice, far exceeding in its ill effects all that opium has ever done to demoralize the country. Public gaming-houses are strictly forbidden by law, but their existence is winked at by a too venal executive. Fantan is the favourite game. It consists in staking on the remainder of an unknown number of cash, after the heap has been divided by four, namely whether it will be three, two, one, or nothing; with other variations of a more complicated nature.
[return to text]
[344] See No. XLVI., [note 271].
[return to text]
[345] See No. LIII., [note 288].
[return to text]
[346] The virtuous conduct of any individual will result not only in happiness and prosperity to himself, but a certain quantity of these will descend to his posterity, unless, as in the present case, there is one among them whose personal wickedness neutralizes any benefits that would otherwise accrue therefrom. Here we have an instance where the crimes of a descendant still left a balance of good fortune surviving from the accumulated virtue of generations.
[return to footnote anchor 346]
[return to footnote anchor 456]
[return to footnote anchor 617]
[347] One of the six departments of State administration.
[return to text]
[348] This seems a curious charge to bring against a people who for a stolid and bigoted conservatism have rarely, if ever, been equalled. Mencius, however, uttered one golden sentence which might be brought to bear upon the occasionally foolish opposition of the Chinese to measures of proved advantage to the commonwealth. “Live,” said the Sage, “in harmony with the age in which you are born.”
[return to text]
[349] Only slave-girls and women of the poorer classes, and old women, omit this very important part of a Chinese lady’s toilet.
[return to footnote anchor 349]
[return to footnote anchor 400]
[350] Alluding probably to the shape of the “shoe” or ingot of silver.
[return to text]
[351] See No. XLVI., [note 271].
[return to text]