962 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1804. 



his last stake, to risk the loss of 

 what the law has sanctioned hina to 

 dispose of. Yet we are gravely as- 

 sured, hy some of the missionaries, 

 that, " the Chinese are entirely ig- 

 " norant of all games of chance ;" 

 that " they can enjoy no amuse- 

 " ments but such as are authorised 

 *' by the laws/' 



" These gentlemen surely could 

 not be ignorant that one of their 

 most favourite sports is cock-fight- 

 ing, and that this cruel and unman- 

 ly uiHii Liiicnt, as they are pleased 

 to consider it, is full as eagerly pur- 

 sued by the upper classes in China, 

 as, to their shame and disgrace be 

 it spoken, it continues to be by 

 those in a similar situation in some 

 parts of iMirope. The training of 

 quails for the same cruel purpose of 

 butchering each other, furnishes 

 abundance of employment for the 

 idle and dissipated. They have 

 even extended their enquiries after 

 fighting animals into the inse6l tribe, 

 in which they have discovered a 

 species of grjjUiis, or locust, that will 

 attack each other with such fero- 

 city, as seldom to quit tiieir hold 

 without bringing away, at the same 

 time, a limb of their antagonist. 

 These little creatures are fed jind 

 kept apart in bamboo cages ; and 

 the custom of making them devour 

 each other is so common, that, dur- 

 ing the summer months, scarcely a 

 boy is seen without his cage and his 

 grasshoppers. 



" I have already had occasion to 

 observe, that the natural disposition 

 of the Chinese, should seem to have 

 suffered almost a total change by the 

 influence of the laws and maxims of 

 government, an influence which, 

 in this country more than elsewhere, 

 has given a bias to the manners^ sen- 



timents, and moral chara6tcr of the 

 people ; for here every ancient pro- 

 verb carries with it the force of a 

 law. While they are by nature 

 quiet, passive, and timid, the state 

 of society and the abuse of the laws 

 by which they are governed, have 

 rendered them indifferent, unfeeling, 

 and even cruel, as a few examples, 

 which, among many others,occurrcd, 

 will but too clearly bear evidence ; 

 and as the particular instances, from 

 which [ have sometimes drawn an 

 inference, accorded with the com- 

 mon actions and occurrences of life, 

 I have not hesitated to consider them 

 as so m:vny general features in their 

 moral chara6ter ; at the same time 

 I am aware that allowances ought 

 to be made for particular ways of 

 thinking, and for customs entirely 

 dissimilar from our own, which are, 

 therefore, not cxadliy to be appre- 

 ciated by the same rule as if they 

 had occurred in our own country. 

 The public feasts of Sparta, in which 

 the girls danced naked in the pre- 

 sence of young men, had not the 

 same effect on the Lacedemonian' 

 youth, as they might be supposed 

 to produce in Europe ; nor is the 

 delicacy of the Hindoo women of- 

 fended by looking on the Lingam 

 Thus the Chinese are entitled to our 

 indulgence by the peculiar circum- 

 stances under which they are placed, 

 but I leave it in the breast of the 

 reader to make what allowance he 

 may think they deserve. 



" The common pra6tice of flogging 

 with the bamboo has generally been 

 considered hy the missionaries in 

 the light of a gentle correction, ex- 

 ercised by men in power over their 

 inferiors, just as a father would 

 chastise his son, but not as a pu- 

 nishment to which disgrace is at- 

 tached, 



