610 CHAPTER XVI. OF CHINA: THE ASSERTION THAT INFANTICIDE (1) It is unnecessary to observe upon the fallacy of the proof of an excessive population in China, founded on the frequency and fatality of epidemics there; as any one, the least conversant with the history of any country, must be well aware that those calamities are evidences of a scanty population, and indeed result from it, in consequence of the imperfect state of cultivation which then exists. The annals of this country, and of all Europe, have placed this fact beyond dispute. It is, however, worthy of remark, that the climate of China seems favourable to health. Sir George Staunton says, "the atmosphere is dry, "and does not engender putrid disorders1;" and Du Halde expressly asserts, "that the country had been "free from the plague, and almost perpetually at peace:" disposing, therefore, of two of the main checks to population at once, and in a manner in which he is fully corroborated by subsequent testimony 3. (2) A few words concerning the preventive check, in reference to China. Perhaps a more striking example of the delusion into which a man may argue himself, in behalf of a favourite notion, could hardly be instanced, than the supposition, or rather assertion, 1 Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. 3 Grosier, Gen. Descrip. of China, ii., p. 156. vol, i., p. 390. 2 Du Halde, China, vol. i., p. 240. put forth, that the preventive check must operate to a very considerable degree in China. Notwithstanding that the institutions and customs of the country recommend and enjoin marriage', as a sacred and indispensable duty; and that it is therefore promoted and facilitated in every possible way, and especially by affording to every individual, on application for it, land for cultivation3, on the general terms of tenure, which are sufficiently favourable; notwithstanding it is the interest of all to enter into that state, and, as Sir George Staunton has explained, especially of the poor, with whom it is there a matter even of prudence; notwithstanding "the passion between the sexes," of the universality and effect of which so much has been needlessly said, and although celibacy is accounted infamous in China', and to be without offspring a disgrace; still our theorists pronounce that to be common, and this consequently still more so. This is reasoning to some purpose! Nor is this all. Though we are positively informed as to the effect of these institutions and customs, by competent and personal witnesses, and though they are what reason itself compels us to believe, namely, that marriage is general 10, that it takes place soon in life", and consequently "the small number of single men 12" is made matter of particular observation; in short, that "the system of early and universal marriage is established in China; still the theory of population 13 " requiring it to be otherwise, reason and fact and authority are in this, as in so many other cases, held as nothing. We are not, however, to be thus dispossessed of truth and common sense. The influence of the preventive, or, indeed, of any of the checks to population, among the Chinese, may be described in the language of a recent and intelligent witness. "They are for the most part sober; they marry early, "and are therefore less exposed to the temptations of "debauchery, and less liable to contract the diseases "which corrupt the springs of life; their lives are regular and uniform, &c.1" Such is the result of the experience of Sir George Staunton upon these subjects, who is almost the only modern authority which Mr. Malthus has quoted. (3) But of all the circumstances which have contributed to spread the idea of an excessive population in China, the supposed prevalence of infanticide has been the most conclusive. The very existence of such a crime, coupled with other relations regarding that country, has been held good evidence of the abject misery into which the mass of the community is plunged from that cause, though nothing can be conceived to be a less unequivocal proof of it. Whether this "prevailing stubborn vice of antiquity," which has affected all ancient states, and has continued to be practised, if not tolerated, wherever Christianity has not been established, especially where the inhabitants are few in number, and wholly uncivilized in their condition, infests China or not, to a much greater extent, or more openly than it does other countries, is not the question; it is, whether it exists in consequence of the general indigence of the people, and is 1 Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. ii., p. 374. p. 56. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vol, vai, so prevalent as to diminish, in any sensible degree, the amount, and check the growth, of the general population. To this inquiry we may happily answer, and with the fullest confidence, in the negative. (4) Were we to take the largest calculation given to us of the loss of life occasioned by this practice in the Chinese Empire, the sum is too insignificant to have the slightest perceptible effect on the total amount of the inhabitants'. But there are reasons suggested even by those who have presented us with these accounts, inducing us to believe that many of the exposures which they enumerate, are, in no manner whatsoever, connected with this crime, and considerable grounds of hope, that even none of them may be so they are these. (5) The number of infanticides is principally calcalculated by the exposure of the dead bodies of children, especially in the capitals; for, elsewhere, even Du Halde almost denies the practice. But, let this circumstance be explained, not by writers "in "the heart of Europe, who are busying themselves" in building theories upon the condition of the Chinese, but by those who have witnessed the fact. "The "dead bodies of children, which the police of Pekin "collect in the streets, are those of infants who have died, and which have been thus disposed of by their "indigent parents, to avoid the expense of a burial." So far Bell, and De Guignes. Barrow gives precisely the same relation, with further particulars. "Still-born infants," says he, "or infants who may "die in the first month, are laid in baskets, even by persons in comfortable circumstances, knowing that they will be taken up by the police, to avoid the 66 'Barrow, Travels in China, pp. 170, 175, 176. Du Halde, China, vol. i., p. 277. Bell of Autermony, vol. iii, p. 383. De Guignes, China, vol. ii., p. 285 -290. is expense of a funeral," which, he observes, "more extravagantly expensive than an European "can well conceive1." A very simple calculation in political arithmetic will soon shew us that these exposures must, under such circumstances, be numerous enough to originate the most exaggerated of the suppositions regarding Chinese infanticide, on the part of those who were strangers to the fact and the country. (6) There is, however, doubtless, in the cities of China, a description of persons who exist equally in all the capitals and great towns of Europe, who, either from poverty, think themselves authorized, or from less justifiable motives, are induced, to abandon the support of their offspring to others who are more wealthy, or to institutions provided for that purpose. Regarding the latter, different forms of introduction prevail in different places; in some foundling hospitals, I believe the infant had only to be deposited in a certain place, and a bell rung. In China, where the climate fully admits of the variation, it is placed in a certain part of the streets; regarding these, Bell, a traveller, who has been often deservedly eulogised, says, that persons are sent out through the streets every morning to pick up and carry such children as they may find exposed, to public hospitals appointed "for their reception "." Barrow also speaks of the "foundling hospitals of China 3." But we have the same information even in the Edifying and Curious Letters, "There are here," says one of the missionaries, "two sorts of deserted children," (enfans abandonnés,) "the one are carried to an hospital "which the Chinese call House of Mercy: they 66 'Barrow, Travels in China, p. 175. Bell of Autermony, vol. ii., p. 105. 3 Barrow, Travels in China, p. 176. |