Ch. xii. China and Japan. 221 



covered with bodies sufficient to infect the air to 

 a great distance ;* and the expression of years of 

 contagionf occurs soon after, in a manner which 

 seems to imply that they are not uncommon. On 

 the first and fifteenth day of every month the 

 mandarins assemble, and give their people a long 

 discourse, wherein every governor acts the part 

 of a father who instructs his family.^ In one of 

 these discourses, which Duhalde produces, the 

 following passage occurs: " Beware of those 

 " years which happen from time to time, when 

 " epidemic distempers, joined to a scarcity of 

 " corn, make all places desolate. Your duty is 

 " then to have compassion on your fellow-citizens, 

 " and assist them with whatever you can spare. "§ 

 It is probable that the epidemics, as is usually 

 the case, fall severely on the children. One of 

 the Jesuits, speaking of the number of infants 

 whom the poverty of their parents condemns to 

 death the moment that they are born, writes thus: 

 " There is seldom a year, in which the churches 

 " at Pekin do not reckon five or six thousand 

 " of these children purified by the waters of bap- 

 " tism. This harvest is more or less abundant 

 " according to the number of catechists which we 

 " can maintain. If we had a sufficient number, 

 " their cares need not be confined alone to the 

 " dying infants that are exposed. There would 



* Lettres Edit', torn. xix. p. 126. 

 f Id. p. 127. 



% Dukalde's China, vol. i. p. 254. 

 § Id. 256. 



