Tunovow tHe Deacon's Eves—Fi Yours' Experinees of Fopetgnce the Chinese: Government Service. By L. C. 'Anlington, Commissiones Chinese. Pos (retired). With' Foreword. by E. Alabaster, loner of Chinese Customs With thirteen plates in colour, half-tone snd. 8 ble, London, 21/=
Mr. Avlington's ability with the en is known to China, 'The details of his adventurous cateer are perhhaps not so. well known and itis doing the main chapters of this book no injustice to say that the biographical note, running. into about thirty-five' pages, is as interesting as any of the passages Which succeed "it. Mx. Arlington's father was of English and Sectch Parentage, born "in Spain. Hi mother was part French, part Irish, and born in Strasburg,' the capital Alsace Lorraine." But Mr. 'Antington was born in California, Where his father was' steuggli For a livelihood "as a rising engineer in the big gold rush of the middle of the nineteenth century, Mr. Arlington himself trueborn Californian, although. his patents were actually" married in madrid, ten years before he came into the world, As befitted his Parentage, Mr. "Arlington becom:
cow-boy in Mexico, lending life far more adventurous than any yet depicted on the films. Then, after returning nome to his parts, he 3 put on the training ship Famestown to be turned into a allor, Tt was a rough school, but it is not surprising that when he Teturned home vowing never to go to sea again the good resolution was a very brittle one. Put to igh school, the ex-cow-boy ex-sailor was involved in a fight with one of the teachers, was expelled, fand so lured again to the sea. Th Ture took an unexpected form, because while young Arlington' was, thinking about the sea-and haunting the waterfront he suddenly found Aimself on board a whaling ship, After having been drugged and Kidnapped in' the night. This was Rot his only experience of being shanghaied, because on the return from his trip, which involved more Adventures, ho was again forcib enrolled in the crew of an English ship bound for Cork. More adventures all over the world, until finally, after having had sufficient excitement for a full-sized career, he fetched up at Tientsin and joined the Chinese Navy at the-tender age of twenty. The reader will not be {nelined too scrupulously to. study Mr. Arlington's dates and journey dates because the book is so vive cious and, be it admitted, fascinating. Still it does remind the reader of the hard-bitten ex-Staff Sergeant of the Victorian age, Who still flourishes in a certain Part-of the British Empire, with high-sounding name given' him by scion of the peerage, and who recounts adventures of such diversity that it has been estimated that the census return which gives him the age of seventy-nine is out by something like a quarter of a century, Perhaps this mild suggestion that Mr. Arlington's sense of the dramatic has hypnotized. his, Memory on occasion is not out of Place, because in the course of his narrative of his career in China he breaks off now and then to pass Judgment on, personalities and Policies, and the judgment is not entirely' free from personal prejudice and a lively imagination, Mr. Alabaster, in his preface to the book, says that Mr. Arlington is inclined to be somewhat sweeping and rather biting in his judgment of personalities. This is not an unfair etiticism,—indeed it errs on the side of lenieney—but looking at Mr, Arlington's early training it is notto be wondered at that he fails to-achieve that judicial "and passionate note which might have been produced had there Leen behind him more academic and less practical education. Cowboys and sailors do more than call a spade a spade, as everyone knows, and in spite' of his subsequent official employment, Mr, Arlington has not The merit of the book lies in its acute appreciation of the Chinese character. Mr. Arlington is no blind admirer; he puts the shadows, well as the bright lights into his picture. Tu fact, he says the
only more so. The reader will Ghinese are very like other people inclined to think sometimes that the, "more wins the day, and perhaps Arlington would be these Prepared to agree that some of his adverse criticisms might have been more happily worded. While the critic will be prepared to endorse his view that the abolition of extraterritoriality would be a most serious matter for the foreigners now protected by that privilege, and although there must be considerable loathing of certain shapes of Chinese punishment, into which Mr. Arlington goes with great wealth of detail, itis perhaps carrying it too far to suggest that the: idea of torture is still. palatable to the mind of the most highly edueat-Chinese, But Mr, Arlington is no sparing avitic of his own people, and his affection for the dramatic leads him exceedingly franz in his character sketches of some of the curious personalities, especially of the beachcomber variety, wish Whom the came in contact in his long career in the Chinese service. Incidentally, towards the end of the book, there is given an alleged ver-report of the dialogue simpson Colonel Hayley" Bell during the seizure of the Maritime Customs at Tientsin Los 'There again, Mr. Arlington's version cannot b accepted as unbiassed, ignores the important point that he and Mr. Lenox Simpson, in ti interview with Colonel Hayley Bel were, in fact, grossly trading on their' position' as foreigners. The reader imagines that Colonel Hayley's version, as indeed that of the official heads'of the Customs Service, would differ markedly from Mr. Arlington's account.
It is idle to pretend that Mr. Arlington has written a boo' that is likely to Lo treated as a serious contribution to modern Chinese his-Its attempt, in. passing, to]
Customs policy, in particular, imagination sonal is highly coloured by an unrestrained
prejudice. It ever, that it ing personal narrative, and read such, long after weightier, and possibly more valuable treatises have been forgotten—E.M,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.