To the Editor of the "NonrH-Cauna Dairy News."
Sit,—A Chinese was quoted not Jong ago ago in no less respectable fan organ than the English "Specta-for" as having "aptly remarked England is the only country that has a Society for the Preventation of Cruelty to Children because it the only country that needs one! That is just the sort of thing one can imagine the Chinese venturing in England where everyone is so ready at present to listen to him with respect. Such a speech sounds witty, and at any rate turns the English veadar away from the fact that the Chinese are among the greatest adepts at cruelty to children or to anything else from a sparrow to a wife. The reputed: special Kindness of the Chinese to children is entirely eevemé is confined to male chil Jet us not be misunderstood: ar a race the Chinese treat their children, boys and girls, with average Kindness;.with doubtless a bias in favour of the boys. But the reputation which they have acquired over and above that is based entirely on the extravagant value set upon sons in the ancestral hall. We might perhaps say that the famous practice of female infanticide is also due to the same things Ddeenuse, daughters being of no value in the ancestral hall, when poverty cor heartlessness prompt a reduction the family the females have to go.
The object of this article being to examine the Chinaman's apt remark ax to the reason for the founding in England of a Society for the presentation of cruelty to children, we can fitly ignore actions that are born of ceremony and heartlessiess, and try to get at the elemental attitude of the Chinaman's mind. is a big subject, and also execedingly dificult to get away from the results of extraneous culture to the yock-bottom of Chinese human, nature, The Chinese realize the value of humanism to make ® man gentle, There is. more than one teresting Wdeogrs ing that proves it; examples among China's great men who are proofs of its power; but this article cannot do more "than postulate that, Tt is well for us to try to define cruelty, What do we mean when we say a person is cruel? Strictly speaking, cruelty is an active principle: is that frame of mind which takes a delight in watching discomfort in another from whatew cause; and the more aewte that discomfort is, that ix the more xuffering is entailed, the more docs the really cruel person delight in the spectacle. Such natures are rare Decunise average human nature not actively cruel. Active cruelty, however, is by no means the only guilty kind; in fact we might most argue that if a man seems to be born cruel he is an object for pity rather than blame. We do not blame a tiger, but we week to destroy him; we not not blame a man Aye desire to change Nim. "Even tile man who seems to be born cruel amongst races that have attained to such humanistic culture as the Chinese, knows that it is wrong: therefore his sin remains, ie great bulk of the cruelty in this world is born of thoughtlossness or selfishness or other such secondary cause; and it was such cruelty as this that called into istence the two societies that e: for the presentation of cruelty. If it is true that England is the only country which has such societies, it is not "because she is the only one who needs them but because she the only one who has grace enough to realize that she needs them. If 8 Chinese mother came to England and roused the antipathy of all her English neighbours by the eries of her Tittle git! undergoing the tortures of foot-binding, it is quite probable she would, be prosecuted by the S.P.C.C.: for' that is gross cruelty born of insensate bondage to an absurd convention. More than tone Chinese woman has lost her, feet because of this practice, 'One day in the province of Kansit a foreigner saw half-a-dozen sol-Giers forcing along some weary. wretches whom they' had: compelled. to carry their impedimenta. The condition of these poor creatures called forth a remonstrance from the foreigner whose command of Chinese was too-fatally fluent for this occasion. He told the fellows: "You would not treat your mules like that." 'They took him and beat him for'his pains. Doubtless they wished to impugn the suggestion {that they would not treat their males 0 badly, for long trains of mules may be' seen constantly, trailing along under burdens that make them [gaunt and groan, and too often their bodies are covered with sores: but there is no 8.P.C.A. in China, unless it be in foreign settlements." Dogs, cats, and other animals all. suffer from this callousness of disposi tion, The condition of thousands of children in China is beyond words. In these matters the Chinese are extraordinary and will treat even those they love with strange cal-Iousness for the sake of a conversation or social duty, and often this may be noted as an extenuation of what seems gross cruelty. The famous story found in the Tso Chuan of the mother who in fleeing from the rs left her own small son to come along as best he could while she hurried the bigger child of her brother away to safety is a case that is very representative. When asked, the explained that her dead brother had only left this son; she herself might have another, but he. depended on this son for ancestral rites. Here we see the ceremonial at the base of what is an unnatural and cruel act.
Cruelty in punishment is still ery common, and it is as bad ax it was in European countries two or three hundred years ago. We may be thankful that public opin-fon in England has changed, and the thought of our past should help to keep us humble. 'The Chinese have been struggling' against this defect for more than 2,000 yea The Em. peror Wenti of the Han Dynasty abolished punishments by mutilation; but law in China has been too much at the caprice of individuals to pass into permanence as part of the constitution. Not long ago in the city of Mienchu a young soldier-boy had both his thumbs ext off as puthishment for deserting. A com. mon method of conducting a legal examination is by tying the thumbs to the great toes of the accused; and then torturing the truth out of him. We need not Inbour our thesis. If the Chinese would be guided by the teaching of their excellent litera. ture they would he much less eruet Szechuan, Oct. 18, 1924, To the Editor of the "Nontu-Ciixa Daly News."
Sit—What excess of fortune is this, for a se writer of Engish, his very' first attempt at! public correspondence, to be understood and appreciated nay, even to be thought of ax a foreigner in dis-aviso? But Iam no foreigner; 1 plain F. D. Z, " Chinese; and, if my sentiments' are similar to those to be expected from a for-ignor, it is only because we after all are made of the same clay, foreigners and Chinese alike. If 1 write n tolerably good English, it because earnest thought will ways find true expression, be it in any language whatever.
'Much have T wri anti foreignism," attacking foreigners for their' arrogance and false icing prejudice. It is only just for ime to view the matter also in the other direction and say that in part the foreigners are justified in assuming such attitude of superior! towards the Chinese. In a the Chinese themselves are to blame, and they deserve, if any nation ever Jdeserves, to be slighted and despised.
T say the Chinese deserve to be! despised, Because they have first of all despised themselves.
How much foreignism" tendency has been, and still is, visible in this country' By "foreignism" I mean as before that attitude to worship all foreigners, to accept their words blind-lly. And the worst part of it is, such attitude is not so much the ex-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.