252 CHINESE PAINTINGS. All the medical books that could be collected in the empire were put in requisition to form this work, and I doubt not it is a very curious production. I meant to give you a description which I lately met with, of a series of Chinese paintings, after the manner of Hogarth. There are six of them in the series, and they set forth an excellent moral. The account given of them is as follows: "The son of a gentleman of fortune, his father dying whilst he was yet but a youth, comes into possession of the whole family estate. The young man, however, having no inclination for business or books, gives himself up to smoking opium and to profligacy. In a little time his whole patrimony is squandered, and he becomes entirely dependant upon the labour of his wife and child for his daily food. Their poverty and misery are extreme. "No. 1. This picture represents the young man at home, richly attired, in perfect health and vigour of youth. An elegant foreign clock stands on a marble table behind him. On his right is a chest of treasure-gold and silver; on the left, close to his side, is his personal servant, and, at a little distance, a man whom he keeps constantly in his employ, preparing the drug for use from the crude article purchased and brought to the house. “No. 2. In this he is reclining on a superb EFFECTS OF SMOKING OPIUM. 253 sofa, with a pipe in his mouth, surrounded by courtezans, two of whom are young, in the character of musicians. His money now goes without any regard to its amount. "No. 3. After no very long period of indulgence, his appetite for the drug is insatiable, and his countenance sallow and haggard. Emaciated, shoulders high, teeth naked, face black, dozing from morning till night, he becomes utterly inactive. In this state he sits moping on a very ordinary couch, with his pipe and other apparatus for smoking lying by his side. At this moment his wives-or a wife and a concubine-come in. The first, finding the chest emptied of its treasure, stands frowning with astonishment; while the second gazes with wonder at what she sees spread upon the couch. "No. 4. His lands and his houses are now all gone; his couch exchanged for some rough boards and a ragged mattress; his shoes are off his feet; and his face half awry as he sits bending forwards, breathing with great difficulty. His wife and child stand before him, poverty-stricken, suffering from hunger; the one, in anger, having dashed on the floor all his apparatus for smoking, while the little son, unconscious of any harm, is clapping his hands and laughing at the sport. But he heeds not either the one or the other. "No. 5. His poverty and distress are now extreme, though his appetite for opium grows 254 EFFECTS OF SMOKING OPIUM. stronger than ever-he is as a dead man. In this plight he scrapes together a few 'cash,' (copper coins so called,) and hurries away to one of the smoking-houses, to buy a little of the scrapings from the pipe of another smoker, to allay his insatiable cravings. "No. 6. Here his character is fixed-a sot. Seated on a bamboo chair, he is continually swallowing the fæces of the drug, so foul that tea is required to wash them down his throat. His wife and child are seated near him, with skeins of silk stretched on bamboo reels, from which they are winding it off into balls; thus earning a mere pittance for his and their support, and dragging on from day to day a miserable existence." CHAPTER XXVII. SOMETHING ABOUT PUNISHMENTS, MALADIES, AND MEDICINE. Chinese Punishments in Description are often overdrawn.Rice-Paper Drawings.-The Bamboo, the Canque, the Cage, Banishment, Death.-Frequency of Executions.-Instance of great Severity.-Maladies.-Rule of a Chinese Physician. -Symptoms of Disease.-Modes of Cure. TO EXPECT that between three and four hundred millions of people, even the most civilized on the earth, could be kept in order without punishment, would be somewhat unreasonable; but to entertain any hope that such a number of semi-barbarians could be represt without some provision being made to punish their outbreaks, would be still more visionary. Taou Kwang, the "father of his people," at the head of such a hopeful family, no doubt lays his account in being called upon to order, now and then, a little salutary chastisement. The punishments of China are not light, but they are often in description much overdrawn and caricatured. It is possible that you may have seen some of the rice-paper drawings executed by 256 CHINESE PUNISHMENTS. Chinese artists, wherein culprits are represented as undergoing horrible tortures and punishments, the most barbarous instruments of cruelty being used. These are, to a great extent, monstrous productions, wherein the truth is most extravagantly distorted. Whether the object of the mandarins in encouraging these outrageous libels on the character of the empire be to frighten the people, or to alarm foreigners, I cannot say; but certain it is, that, for the most part, these punishments take place on rice paper only. In uncommon cases punishments are very heavy, as they are even in European countries; nor can we dispute the truth that the Chinese are habitually unfeeling and cruel, but that is no reason why they should be misrepresented. Foreigners buy up these pictures of imaginary horror, too ready to believe them copied from the life, and thus unfounded tales of terror get abroad. The most common punishments in China are those of the bamboo, the canque, the cage or imprisonment, banishment, and death. I will rapidly describe them all. No sooner is the sentence pronounced by the magistrate against a culprit for a trifling crime, than a number of bamboo slips are taken by the latter from a jar well supplied with them, standing on the table before him; these being flung on the ground, make known to the executioner the number of blows to be inflicted. To work he goes at |