We remarked, lately, that the terror which prevails at Woosih about tail-cutting and incubi is evidently a genuine one. The ignorance and superstition of the people are such that they are ready to believe any story, no matter how absurd, and can be goaded by their terror to any act, however extravagant. Bat this very ignorance and superstition, and the savagery exhibited in the recent murders in Szechuen, go to show how absurdly overrated are the so-called education and civilisation of China. This estimate is probably due in some measure to the glowing accounts given by the earlier European travellers, who found here, some centuries ago, a civiliza. tion equal to that they had left in Europe. The profusion of the literature which the country was discovered to possess, no doubt helped to perpetuate the delusion. Quantity was mistaken to imply quality; and the devotion evinced by the literati for their classics, to mean that they were worthy of that devotion. Then the autonomy of the Empire was in itself imposing. That so vast a country should exist under one sovereign, and be governed by one sys tem, seemed to imply a high degree of organisation. But how very superficial are all these evidences of civilisation, is at once disclosed when one penetrates a little deeper than the surface. " G@rattez lo Russe et vous trouverez lo Tartare," said Napoleon. Grattez lo Chinois et vous trouverez lo sauvage, might be said with at least equal troth, What rank in civilisation is to be allotted to a Government which issues passports and gives secret instructions to have them ignored? What rank in civilisation is to be allotted to people who commit such atrocities as those described very recently by our correspondent from Szechuen? In country supposed to be well organised and well governed, people are murdered by the score and their houses pillaged, without the officials lifting a finger. On the contrary, the Literary Chancellor of the province is accused as the head and front of the offending. Several thousands of these educated, civilised, and enlightened people draw a cordon round a market place, in order to catch a few Christians, whom they proceed to lash to a cross, and then cut to pieces. Among them is a young girl, whose crime consists in her brother having embraced Christianity, and who is stripped naked and cut to pieces for that offence. How far do such proceedings differ from the acts of the Red Indians, who tied their captives to a tree as targets for their boys to practise at? Yet one is called a civilised and the other a savage people. Chinese soldiers still eat the hearts and livers of their enemies, to gain courage! And the darkest days of the dark ages hardly witnessed grosser instances of popular delusion and superstition than are now prevailing at Soochow, one of the very first cities in China, The instinctive liking the Chinese have for peace and quietness enables the maintenance of some order among the vast population. But the result is due more to the goodwill of the people than to any inherent force in the Executive. The institution of com. petitive examination has been much landed as a mark of intelligence, and really is an advanced con. ception; but its excellence stops short at the conception. We are doubtful, even in England, whether the effect of the system is to bring in usefal men; in China, the system of education itself so dwarfs and narrows the intellect, that the effect is simply to produce men most imbued with the defects and prejudices which that system fosters. So far from enlightening, the "classics," which are the backbone of Chinese lore, tend to cramp and deaden the mind. The theory that the humblest peasant can by means of this institution enter the official ranks and work his way to the highest office,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.