THE ETHICS OF CONFUCIUS. 95 



the American flag over them, for a fee from the real owners. 

 Merchants of all classes are taxed five per cent on gross sales, and 

 liave to submit their books for inspection freely to the tax-collect- 

 ors ; and detected efforts to get around the tax, other than by 

 bribing the collectors, which is not at all difficult to do, results in 

 the confiscation of their entire possessions. Once I witnessed the 

 novel transaction of a foreigner who wanted to purchase a milch- 

 cow, and the farmer drove the cow to the outside limits of the 

 tax station on the outskirts of the town, and tied her there and 

 came for the buyer to accompany him outside to complete the 

 purchase. He could pass the cow without taxation, but the native 

 owner could not. This is why the Chinese in California show 

 such skill and fertility of resource in smuggling in opium. Their 

 past training in subterfuges to beat their own tax-collectors has 

 trained them in the business. And they do not regard it as any 

 crime to beat the Government if they can. In this freak they are 

 not wholly unlike many of our own race, as our custom-house 

 officers are aware. 



"We can not, of course, determine what would have been the 

 condition of China, in the matter of the relationship between ruled 

 and rulers, had Confucianism never impressed its doctrines on 

 the subject, but certainly he has not achieved any striking success 

 in this first of the five relations. 



Second Relation : Husband and Wife. — The husband is 

 regarded as holding much the same relation to the wife as the 

 Emperor to the people — that is, he has absolute authority over 

 her. But that authority must be exercised with justice and sym- 

 pathy. The wife shall obey the husband, but he must be worthy 

 of obedience. Polygamy is now practiced in China, but it seems 

 not to have been at the time of Confucius. At least I have ob- 

 served no reference to the matter in his treatise on the second 

 relation, which seems probable would be the case if it was recog- 

 nized at the time he wrote. His plan elaborated the most minute 

 provisions for the conduct of married people, and, were his ideal 

 carried out, a most happy state of married life would result ; but, 

 judging from appearances, he has more signally failed on this 

 point than on the first relation. Chinese marriages are not con- 

 ducted on the plan most conducive to harmony. Their matches 

 are not made in heaven, as poets sometimes declare of this matter, 

 but in a broker's office. They are not the result of a personal 

 courtship between the parties to the compact, but are a matter 

 of barter and sale. Fathers negotiate for wives for their infant 

 sons, and infant betrothals are in reality infant purchases. Both 

 husband and wife being entirely passive in the matter, there can 

 not be anything approaching to personal attachment between 

 them. Marriage being a matter of purchase, there is no provision 



