"are there entertained at the expense of the emperor. "The edifice is vast and magnificent, where every thing is provided which is necessary for the sus"tenance of these poor children. The other aban"doned children are taken to our church 1."

(7) But, in addition to these, there are other powerful reasons for believing that infanticide cannot prevail, or, at least, in more than a very slight degree, in China. As to being driven to this act by necessity, in the first place, we are informed, that "Every male child 66 may be provided for, and receive a stipend from the "moment of his birth, by his name being enrolled in "the military list." Then, as to female children, to whom infanticide, if it exist at all, must be, in great measure, confined, owing to the prevalence of the absurd doctrine of Yin and Yang, which sets so superior a value upon every thing masculine 3; these, it is sufficiently well known, are valuable even as an article of sale, concerning the disposal of whom, De Guignes says, "that if misfortune is often the cause "of this unnatural act, interest is yet oftener so, as

many female children are not found upon sale, "without a great number of purchasers 6." We are not all this while to imagine that the Chinese are divested of natural affection; on the contrary, Lord

1 Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, tom. xix., p. 248.

2 Barrow, Travels in China, p. 588. Milne, Retrospect of Protestant Missions to China, p. 38. Du Halde, China, vol. ii., p. 112.

Marco Polo, Travels, p. 542. Du Halde, vol. i., p. 305. "The girls bought up elsewhere, are brought up in the cities of Yoing-cheu and Su-cheu." Barrow, Travels in China, p. 518. Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. ii., p.

366.

- De Guignes, tom. ii., p. 292. Respecting these sales, whether of boys or girls, to which Mr. Malthus pointedly

alludes, the author, in the text, speaks as to the tenderness and affection with which they are treated: an account which perfectly comports with what we meet with elsewhere on the same subject. I heartily wish the same could be truly asserted respecting the apprenticing of the children of paupers of large towns, in this country, too often sent to distant parts, and to toilsome occupations. But we are apt to be imposed upon by specious names; and conduct to these unfortunates is passed by unnoticed, which, were it transferred to the slave, would not be endured.

Macartney, as well as Ellis and others, notice their extreme parental fondness'," and strong desire for posterity. We may, therefore, suppose, without any outrage of probability, that this very transfer of their children is even dictated by it: indeed, we read in Marco Polo, that "the indigent sell their children to "the rich, in order that they may be fed and brought up in a better manner than their own poverty would "admit." But we must stretch our credulity, regarding human wickedness and cruelty, to the utmost possible extent, to believe that, under all these circumstances, infanticide can be prevalent in China.

(8) Enough, it is presumed, has been already advanced on this head as it respects the argument, but not as much as is consistent with truth, or necessary to the defence and consolation of humanity. It is pleasing to add, that the crime of child murder, if it prevail at all in China, prevails to a very slight degree. In proof of this, I might adduce the authority of many writers who have founded their opinion upon long personal observation, such as Mr. Wilkinson, who declares that he never saw a single instance of it; of De Guignes, who, with every opportunity which long and varied observation could afford, asserts the same thing, and of several others; but a quotation from the work of a gentleman connected with our last embassy to that country shall suffice. Mr. Ellis remarks, "that supposing any of the statements respecting in"fanticide had been well founded, it will scarcely be "believed that in passing over its populous rivers, "through upwards of sixteen hundred miles of country, we should meet with no proofs of its mere existence.

1 Lord Macartney, Journal of an Embassy to China, p. 416. Ellis, Embassy to China, p. 234.

2

* Du Halde, China, vol. i., p. 304.

Marco Polo, Travels, p. 542. Wilkinson, Sketches of Chinese Customs, &c., p. 127.

De Guignes, China.

"Yet such has been the fact; for not even that very "equivocal and variously explained circumstance of "infants supported above water by gourds fastened to "their necks, fell under our notice, nor indeed any

thing which could lead to a belief in its practice. "The experience of De Guignes, whom," says he, "I "have so often quoted, and of whose accuracy we all "had frequent proofs, was of a similar nature. He has "had occasion to declare, 'that in his route through the "whole extent of China, in travelling by water he "never saw an infant drowned; and in travelling by

land, although he had been early in the morning in "cities and in villages, and at all hours on the high

ways, he never saw an infant exposed or dead'.'

He goes on to remark that Mr. Barrow spoke of it merely on report, but that the infanticide which is said to occur in dreadful scarcities ever materially affects the population, he says, "the entire absence of "all evidence within our experience, even of its mere "existence, does not allow me to believe." The same writer elsewhere observes, that of the degree of distress which might drive parents to such a crime there was no appearance, nor did any fact of the description come within his knowledge.

Ellis, Journal of an Embassy to China, p. 234.

2 Ibid., p. 431.

618

CHAPTER XVII.

OF CHINA: THE ARGUMENT OF ITS EXCESSIVE POPULATION FOUNDED ON THE SUPPOSED INDIGENCE AND DISTRESS OF ITS INHABITANTS, DISPROVED.

(1) LET us now advert to the condition of the people of China, in disproof of its alleged excess of population. Mr. Malthus, as we have seen, attributes to the "extraordinary encouragements to marriage," that redundancy of inhabitants which he asserts "has "completely interrupted the happiness which the "rest might have enjoyed"," and that the country "is "already insufficient to support the overflowing mul❝titude;" hence those sufferings and crimes, which I will not distress the reader's feelings by again enumerating.

(2) In controverting this statement, I do not mean to deny that there is in China, as every where else, indigence. No state of society ever was or ever can be exempt from it; and that in which the population is scanty, least of all. Nor will it be confined to those who, in the humbler walks of life, are incapacitated from labour by sickness or debility, whether of mind or body. In a country where the soil is appropriated, it will, on the contrary, be found to take its rise also from occasional want of employment. From distress, attributable to these causes, the population of China, no more than that

1 Malthus, Essay on Population,

p. 154.

Ibid., p. 153. 3 Ibid., p. 158.

of any other country, is exempt; but it no more amounts to a proof that it is over-peopled, than the necessity for instituting a legal relief of the poor in the early stages of American colonization demonstrates that the settlements were then surcharged with people. I am aware that it is held by the anti-populationists, that continuing to afford this relief, especially where the population is already considerably increased in numbers, involves a physical impossibility; but I will leave them to solve the difficulty into which they have precipitated themselves, by explaining how their views of the immensity and excess of the inhabitants of China, comports with a legal system for the relief of indigence, more comprehensive, perhaps, than exists in any other country in the world. In the extensive districts of that empire, land, as before observed, may be obtained by any one upon application, and on favourable terms1; while all the waters of the empire, the lakes and rivers of which are very numerous, and which, we are informed, yield fish in " prodigious quantities 3," are free to every inhabitant. In the cities, where other pursuits prevail, the distressed and unemployed poor have not merely to depend upon the alms of private charity; but can be supported, as Lord Macartney observes, in public hospitals provided for that purpose. And this provision is of

1 Laws of China, Staunton, Book ii., I will assist them, and believe it to be § 90, p. 95.

* Barrow, Travels in China, p. 558. 3 Du Halde, China, vol. ii., p. 303. * Barrow, Travels in China, p. 558.

If the moral precepts published in China have any influence on public feeling and conduct, the duty of charity must be extensively practised in that country. "When I see," says one of these, "that any one is dipt in misfortune, and that he has not wherewithal to extricate himself, or that another suffers a great deal from want, though I may not have much to spare myself, yet

my duty to support them as far as I am able."-Du Halde, Maxims of the Chinese, vol. ii., p. 77. And again, the following extract contains a sentiment worthy of Christianity, though exceedingly de cried by our modern theorists :-" If you relieve a poor man, never be soli citous to know by what means he came into misfortune, for such a knowledge might raise your indignation against him, and stifle the first sentiments of your compassion."-Ibid., p. 65.

6

• Macartney, Journal of an Embassy, &c., p. 458.