THE GREAT UNPROGRESSIVE PEOPLE 361 



practice reached the present lamentable pitch. But can we 

 believe that such a progressive unhealthiness of custom would 

 have been possible, had the folly and wickedness of mutilation 

 been impressed upon the nation by the ancient moralists ? I 

 believe too that the ancient oracles are silent on the subject of 

 infanticide. It is exactly where they have left the growth of 

 custom unchecked that it has become unhealthy. The code of 

 morals has never been allowed to slumber. Throughout the 

 empire it is perpetually being studied by all who wish to rank as 

 educated men, or who hope that their talents may earn for them 

 promotion to high office. The result has been that most per- 

 nicious tendencies have been nipped in the bud. Custom has 

 become unwholesome only in cases where the incompleteness of 

 the code has allowed it to grow unimpeded. 



The whole constitution of Chinese society seems admirably The 

 contrived to prevent disintegration. The family is the unit. 

 There are no isolated individuals except those who have been 

 expelled from their families for disgraceful conduct. This 

 social unit, which we speak of as a family, often includes three 

 or four generations living under one roof. The family council 

 sit in judgment on offending members and may even inflict 

 severe punishment. M. Simon mentions an instance of a man 

 who had reached the age of thirty-two and who was the father 

 of three children, being put in irons for three months by the 

 family tribunal. Whipping, exile, excommunication may be thus 

 inflicted without the intervention of the mandarin. 1 ' On the 

 outbreak of brigandage or the spread of disaffection every 

 householder has to exhibit a list of his family at the door 

 with the name of any other persons who may be staying with 

 him." '< When an atrocious crime is committed the law treats 

 the family and not only the individual as responsible. Not forty 

 years ago a Chinaman aided by his wife flogged his mother. 

 The list of the punishments inflicted on members of the family, 

 on the immediate neighbours, the graduates among whom he 

 ranked, and the ruler of the district covers a whole page in 

 Archdeacon Gray's account of the incident. 3 



1 China: its social, political and religious life, p. 55. 

 2 John Chinaman, p. 172. 3 China, vol. i., p 237. 



