79 



it with the same authority, interest and affection as the father 

 of a famil}' superintends and manages the concerns of private 

 life.* 



It is much to be lamented (Mr. Barrow adds) that a system 

 of government so plausible in theory, should be liable to so 

 many abuses in practice, and that this fatherly care and af- 

 fection in the governors, and filial duty and reverence in the 

 governed, should with much more propriety be expressed by 

 the terms of tyranny, oppression and injustice in the one, 

 and by fear, deceit and disobedience in the other. The ex- 

 ecutive administration is so faulty, that the man in office ge- 

 nerally has it in his power to govern the laws, which makes 

 the measure of good or evil depend greatly on hi* moral eha- 

 racter-j-. Nay property is more insecure here than elsewhere. 

 The condition of women, who form one half of the human 

 species, arid that perhaps the best half, without whom the 

 two extremes of human life, as a French writer well remarks, 

 would be helpless, and the middle of it joyless, is as misera- 

 ble in China as can be well imagined.|. Fathers sell their 

 daughters for presents^. Polygamy is allowed by the laws. 

 But it is only among the rich that plurality of wives can be 



found 



* Barrow's Travels in China, p. 359, &c. •(■ Ibid. 380. 



* Ibid. 140. § Ibid. MS. 



