xt7vt43hxt9z https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7vt43hxt9z/data/mets.xml La Motte, Ellen Newbold, 1873-1961. 1919  books b92-225-31182892 English Century, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. China Social life and customs. World War, 1914-1918 China. Peking dust  / by Ellen N. La Notte ; illustrated with photographs. text Peking dust  / by Ellen N. La Notte ; illustrated with photographs. 1919 2002 true xt7vt43hxt9z section xt7vt43hxt9z 
PE KI NG

DUST



A



ELLEN N. LA MrTE

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PEKING DUST

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Loading coolies at Wei-Hei--Wei

 

PEKING DUST



             BY
     ELLEN N. LAMOTTE
     Author of "The Backwash of War"



  ILLUSTRATED
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS



  NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
     1919

 























Copyright, 1919, by
THE CENTUBY CO.

Published, May, 1919

 




INTRODUCTION



  Two classes of books are written about
China by two classes of people. There are
books written by people who have spent the
night in China, as it were, superficial and
amusing, full of the tinkling of temple bells;
and there are other books written by people
who have spent years in China and who know
it well,-ponderous books, full of absolute
information, heavy and unreadable. Books of
the first class get one nowhere. They are de-
lightful and entertaining, but one feels their
irresponsible authorship. Books of the second
class get one nowhere, for one cannot read
theni; they are too didactic and dull. The
only people who might read them do not read
them, for they also are possessed of deep,
fundamental knowledge of China, and their
views agree in no slightest particular with the
views set forth by the learned scholars and
theorists.

 
viii       INTRODUCTION
  This book falls into neither of these two
classes, except perhaps in the irresponsibility
of its author. It is compounded of gossip,
-the flying gossip or dust of Peking. Take
it lightly; blow off such dust as may happen
to stick to you. For authentic information
turn to the heavy volumes written by the
acknowledged students of international. politics.
                     ELLEN N. LA MOTTE.

 










      ACKNOWILEDGMTENT

  The writer wishes to thank the fol-
fowing friends who have been kind
enough to lend the photographs used
in the illustrations: Warren R. Austin,
F. C. Hitchcock, Margaret Frieder,
T. Severin and Rachel Snow.

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              CONTENTS


                 PART I

LETTERS WRITTEN OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER, 1916
CHAPTER                                'A1;E
   I POOR OLD CHINA   . . .    . .   .   3
   II PEKING  .  .  .  .  .  .  . .  .  13
 III CIVILIZATION. . . . . . . . 24
 IV RACE ANTAGONISMS . . . . . . 29
   V  SPHERES OF INFLUTEN CE.. . . . 39
   VI ON THE SACREDNESS OF FOREIGNERS . 50
 VII DONKEYS GENERALLY   .  . . . . 61
 VIII ADVISERS AND ADVICE .  . . . . 71
 IX  CHINESE HOUSES. .   . . . . . 77
 X  HOW IT 's DONE IN CHINA.  . .     86
 XI THE LAO-HSI-KAI OUTRAGE . .  . . 94
 XII THE LAO-HSI-KAI AFFAIR . . . . 101
XIII THE LAO-HSI-KAI "INCIDENT" . . . 108


                 PART II

LETTERS WRITTEN FtEBRtTARY AND MARCH, 1917

   I THE RETURN TO PEKING .    . . . 115
   II THE OPIUTM SCANDAr  .  . . . . 124
 III THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER . . 132
                    ix

 



x             CONTENTS
CHAPTER                               PAGE
  IV CHINA'S COURSE CLEAR.  . . . . 139
  V  FEAR OF THE PLUNGE .  . . . . 145
  VI A DUST-STORM  .  . . . . . . 150
  VII A BOWL OF PORRIDGE  .  . . . . 164
VIII FROM A SCRAP-BOOK  .  . . . . 172
IX  THE GERMAN REPLY   . . . . . 182
  X  DUST AND GOSSIP .   . . . . . 189
  XI DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BROKEN     . . 198
XII WALKING ON THE WALL    . . . . 202
XIII MEETING THE PRESIDENT OF CHINA . . 208
XIV  GREAT BRITAIN'S TWELVE DEMANDS . 220
XV  CONCLUSION .  . . . . . . . 229
     APPENDIXES.  . . .    . . . . 231

 







     LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


Loading coolies at Wei-Hei-Wei .  . Frontispiece
                                         FACING
                                         PAGE
M ap  .  .  .  .   .  .  .  .  .  .   .  .  3
Coolies  .  .  .  .   .  .  .  .  .  .   .  20
Camel caravan, Peking .  .  .  .  .   .  .  21
Peking car .   . . . . . . . . . 32
Fruit stall in the bazaar.  .  .  .   .  . 33
Entrance gate to compound of Chinese house . 84
Compound of Chinese house.    .   .   .     85
Chinese funeral.   .  .  .  .  .  .   .  . 120
Chinese funeral.   .  .  .  .  .  .   .  . 121
Vice-President Feng Kuo-Chang  .  .   .  . 128
View of Peking .  .   .  .  .  .  .   .  . 129
Village outside walls of Peking..  .   .  . 204
Fortune teller .   .  .  .  .  .   .  .  . 205
President Li Yuan-Hung   .  .  .  .   .  . 216
Entrance to Winter Palace.  .  .  .   .  . 217



xi

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PART I

 


0) 0




 e.



L



11"

 







        PEKING DUST


                    I

             POOR OLD CHINA

W       7t rHEN I came awiay last August, you
     V  said you wanted me to tell you about
our travels, particularly about China. Like
most Americans, you have a lurking sentimen-
tal feeling about China, a latent sympathy and
interest based on colossal ignorance. Very
wNell, I will write you as fully as I can. Two
months ago my ignorance was fully as over-
whelpiing as yours, but it is being rapidly (is-
)elled. So I '11 try to do the same for you,
as you sai(l I might. Rash of you, I call it.
  I '1 take it that you have just about heard
that China is on the map, and occupies a big
portion of it. You. know that she has a ruler
of some kind in place of the old empress dow-
                    3

 
PEKING DUST



ager who died a few years ago. Come to
think of it, the ruler is a president, and China
is a republic. Vaguely you may remember
that she became a republic about five years
ago, after a revolution. Also, in the same
vague way, you may have heard that the coun-
try is old and rich and peaceful, with about
four hundred million inhabitants; and beyond
that you do not go. Sufficient. I 'l go no
further, either.
  After six weeks in Japan, we set out for
Peking, going by way of Korea. On the boat
from Kobe to Shimonoseki, passing through
the famous Inland Sea of Japan, which, by
the way, reminds one of the eastern shore of
Maryland,-we met a young Englishman re-
turning to Shanghai. We three, being the
only first-class passengers on the boat, natur-
ally fell into conversation. Hle said he had
been in the East for ten years, engaged in
business in Shanghai, so we at once dashed into
the subject of Oriental politics. Being quite
ignorant of Eastern affairs, but having heard
vaguely of certain phases of them, we asked if



4

 

POOR OLD CITINA



he could tell us the meaning of "sphere of in-
fluence." The Orient seems full of spheres of
influence, particularly China.
  "How do the European nations acquire
these 'spheres of influence' in China" I asked.
"Do they ask the Chinese Government to give
them to them-to set apart certain territory,
certain provinces, and give them commercial
and trading rights to these areas"
  "Ask the Chinese Government" repeated
the young man, scornfully. "Ask the
Chinese I should say not! The European
powers just arrange it among themselves, each
decides what provinces it wants, agrees not to
trespass upon the spheres of influence of one
another, and then they just notify China."
  "Just notify China" I exclaimed. "You
mean they don't consult China at all and find
out whether she's willing or not You mean
they just decide the matter among themselves,
partition out the country as they like, select
such territory as they happen to fancy, and
then just notify China"
  "That's the idea," he returned; "virtually



5

 

X           PEKING DUST
that's all there is to it. Choose what they
want and then just notify China."
  "Dear me!" said I.
  I 'm glad we met that young man. I like
things put simply, in words of one syllable,
within range of the understanding. More-
over, incredible as it seems, what he told us is
true. Oh, of course, as I 've found out since,
there are treaties and things to be signed after
China has been notified. She is then com-
pelled to ratify these treaties or agreements;
it looks better. Forced to sign them at the
pistol's point, as it were. However, this rati-
fication of treaties is more for the benefit of
the European powers than for China. 1av-
ing staked out their claims, they officially re-
cord them; that's all. And you know what
used to happen in our country during the good
old days of the "forty-niners" if some one
jumped another's claim.
  To show to what extent poor old China is
under the "influence" of the great European
powers, I shall have to give you a few statis-
tics; otherwise you won't believe me. The to-

 

           POOR OLD CHINA                           7

tal area of the Chinese Republic is about
4,300,000 square miles. The spheres of influ-
ence of some of the important nations are as
follows:
                                  Squtare miles
England: Tibet .........     ......... 533,000
        Szechuen.                  218,000
        Kwan'tung......     ....    86,000
        Provinces of Yangtse Valley..... 3i2.000
           Total   1,1)1199000 or 27.8-,f,
Russia:   Outer Mongolia ................1,000,000
        Che-Kiang .518,000
        Three-quarters of Manchuria .... 273,00O(
           Total .1,821,000 or 42.3-;0
France:   Yunnan ....................... 146,700 or 3.4Z0
Germany: Shan-tung    5...................... 5,000 or 1.3'
Japan:    South Manchuria ........ .......  90,000
        Eastern Inner Mongolia ......... 50,000
        Fu-kien  ................ ........  46,000
           Total ...................... 186,000 or ].3"
   Total area under foreign influence. .         79 

Don't forget these figures; turn back to them
from time to time to refresh vour memory.
But remember one thing: it is not customary
to sI)eak of anything but of Japanese aggres-
sion. WVhenever Japan acquires another
square mile of territory, forestalling some one
else, the fact is heralded round the world, and
the predatory tendencies of Japan are de-
nounced as a menace to the world. But pub-

 

PEKING DUST



licity is not given to the predatory tendencies
of other powers. They are all in agreement
with one another, and nothing is said; a con-
spiracy of silence surrounds their actions, and
the facts are smothered, not a hint of them
getting abroad. The Western nations are in
accord, and the Orient-China-belongs to
them. But with Japan it is different. So in
future, when you hear that Japan has her eye
on China, is attempting to gobble up China,
remember that, compared with Europe's total,
Japan's holdings are very small indeed. The
loudest outcries against Japanese encroach-
ments come from those nations that possess the
widest spheres of influence. The nation that
claims forty-two per cent. of China, and the
nation that claims twenty-seven per cent. of
China are loudest in their denunciations of the
nation that possesses (plus the former German
holdings) less than six.
  Our first actual contact with a sphere of in-
fluence at work came about in this wise:
After we had spent two or three weeks in
Korea, we took the train from Seoul to Peking,



8

 
POOR OLD CHINA



a two-days' journey. In these exciting days
it is hard to do without newspapers, anf(l at
Mukden, where we had a five-hours' wait, we
came across a funny little sheet called "The
Manchuria Daily News."    It was a nice little
paper; that is, if you are sufficierntlv cosmio-
politan to be emancipated from    American
standards. It was ten by fifteen inches in
size,-comfortable to hold, at any rate,-with
three pages of news and advertisements, and
one blank page for which nothing was forth-
coming. Tucked in among advertisements of
mineral waters, European groceries, foreign
banking-houses, and railway announcements
was an itemn. But for our young man on the
boat, I should n't have known what it meant.
lre read:

         ALLIES PROTEST TO CHINA
  Great Britain, France and Russia have lodgred
their respective protests with China on the ground
that the Sino-American railway loan agreement
recently concluded, infringes upon their acquired
rights. The Russian contention is that the con-
struction of the railway from Fengchen to Ninghsia



9

 

10           PEKING DUST
conflicts with the 1899 Russo-Chinese Secret Treaty.
The British point out that the Hangchow-Wcnchow
railway under scheme is a violation of the Anglo-
Chinese Treaty re Hunan and Kwanglhsi, and that
the proposed railway constitutes a trespass on the
British preferential right to build railways. The
French Government, on behalf of Belgium, argues
that the Lanchow-Ninghsia line encroaches upon the
Sirio-Belgian Treaty re the Haichow-Lanchow Rail-
way, and that the railway connecting Hangehow
with Nanning intrudes upon the French sphere of in-
fluence.

  There you have it! China needing a rail-
way, an American firm willing to build a
railway, and Russia, England, France, and
even poor little Belgium blocking the scheme.
All of them busv with a tremendous war on
their hands, draining all their resources of both
time and money, yet able to keep a sharp eye
on China to see that she does n't get any im-
provements that are not of their making.
And after the war is over, how many years will
it be before they are sufficiently recovered
financially to undertake such an expenditure
China must just wait, I suppose.

 

          POOR OLD CHINA                 11
  On each side of the rocking railway carriage
stretched vast arid plains, sprinkled with in-
numerable villages consisting of mud houses.
The fields were cut across in every direction
b1 dirt roads, unpaved, full of deep ruts and
holes. At times these roads were sunk far be-
low the level of the fields, worn deep into the
earth by the traffic of centuries; so deep in
places that the tops of the blue-hooded carts
were also below the level of the fields. Yet
these roads afford the only means of communi-
cation with the immense interior provinces of
China---these sunken roads and the rivers.
  .Just then we passed a procession of camels,
an(l for a moment I forgot all about the arti-
cle in "The Manclihuria Daily News." WVho
woul(l n't, seeing camllels on the landscape! A
whole long caravan of them, several hundred,
all heavily laden, and moving in slow, majes-
tic dignity at the rate of two miles an hour!
Coming in from some unknown region of the
great Alongolian plains, the method of trans-
portation employed for thousands of years!
Yes, undoubtedly, China needs railways; but

 

12          PEKING DUST
she can't have any more at present, for she has
no money to construct them herself, and the
great nations who claim seventy-nine per cent.
of her soil have n't time at present to build
them for her. And they object to letting
America (l0 it. A sphere of influence is a dog
in the manger.

 







II



                   PEKING

H     ERE  we are in Peking at last, the
       beautiful, barbaric capital of China,
the great, gorgeous capital of Asia. For Pek-
ing is the capital of Asia, of the whole Orient,
the center of the stormy politics of the Far
East. We are established at the Grand
Il-6tel des Wagons-Lits, called locally the
"Be(d-Wagon Hotel," or, as the marines say,
the "WAagon Slits," It is the most interesting
hotel in the world, too, where the nations of the
world meet, rub elbows, consult together, and
plan to "do" one another and China, too. It is
entertaining to sit in the dark, shabby lounge
and watch the passers-by, or to (line in the big,
shabby, gilded (lining-room, an(l see the vari-
ous types gathered there, talking together over
big events, or over little events that have big
                     13

 
PEKING DUST



consequences. Peking is not a commercial
city, not a business center; it is not filled with
drummers or traveling-men or small fry of
that kind, such as you find in Shanghai and
lesser places. It is the diplomatic and po-
litical center of the Orient, and here are the
people who are at the top of things, no matter
how shady the things. At least it is the top
man in the concern who is here to promote its
interests.
  Here are the big concession-hunters of all
nationalities, with headquarters in the hotel,
ready to sit tight for a period of weeks or
months or as long as it may take to wheedle or
bribe or threaten the Chinese Government into
granting them what they wish-a railroad, a
bank, a mine, a treaty port. Over in a corner
of the lounge sits a so-called princess, a Chinese
Ia(ly, very modern, very chic, very European
as to clothes, who was f formerlv one of the
ladies-in-waiting to the old empress dowager.
And, by the way, it took a woman to hold
China together. Next to her sits a young
Chinese gentleman, said to be the grandson of



14

 


one of the old prime ministers, a slim, dapper
youth, spectacled and intelligent. I may say
that the lady is almost completely surrounded
by the young man, but no one gives them more
than a passing glance. WNIe do, because we
are new-comers, but the others are used to it.
The British adviser to the Chinese Government
passes, a tall, distinguished, gray-haired man,
talking with a burly Englishman, hunter of
big game, but now, according to rumor, a mem-
ber of the secret service. Concession-hunters
and business men sit about in groups, repre-
sentatives of great commercial and banking
firms from all over the world. A minister
from some legation drops in; there are curio-
buyers from Europe, with a sprinkling of
tourists, and a tired-looking, sallow group of
anemic men and women who have just come
up from Manila on an army transport.
  The approach to Peking is tremendously
impressive. Lying in an arid plain, the great,
gray wvalls, with their magnificent towers, rise
dignified and majestic. Over the tops of the
walls nothing is to be seen. There are no sky-



15



PEKING;

 

PEKING DUST



scrapers within; no house is higher than the
surrounding, defending ramparts. Peking is
divided into several areas, each called a city,
each city surrounded by its own walls. There
is the great, populous Chinese City, where
only the Chinese dwell. The Tartar, or Man-
chu, City has several subdivisions. It contains
the legation quarter, and all the foreign lega-
tions are clustered together in a small, coin-
pact area, surrounded by a small wall for dIe-
fensive purposes. Beyond the legation quar-
ter, on all sides, extends the Tartar City itself.
Foreigners also live in this part of Peking, and,
as far as I can see, always hold themselves in
readiness to dash to the protection of their le-
gation if anything goes wrong. They tell one
that it is quite safe, that nothing can go wrong,
that the Boxer troubles can never be repeated;
but all the same, they always appear to have a
bag packed and a ladder leaning against the
compoun(l walls in case of emergency. Which
gives life in Peking a delightful flavor of sus-
pense and excitement.
  Also within the Tartar City lies the Imperial



16

 

PEKING



City, inclosed by towering red walls, and
within that lies the Forbidden City, resi(lence
of the rulers of China, containing the palaces,
and the dwelling-places of the mandarins.
Now, except for certain parts of the Forbid-
den City, such as the palace of the President,
Li Yuan Hung, the city is no longer forbid-
dlen. It is open to the public, and the public
may come and go at will; coolies, hucksters,
beggars, foreigners-all may move freely
within the sacred precincts where formerly
none but the high and mighty might venture.
  The streets are marvelous. Those in the
legation quarter are well paved, European,
and stupi(l; but those in the Chinese and Tartar
cities are full of excitement. A fews are wide,
but the majority are narrow, wilding alleys,
and all alike are packed an(d crowded with peo-
ple and animals and vehicles of all kinds.
Walking is a matter of shoving oneself through
the throng, dodging under camels' noses'
avoiding wheelbarrows, bumpinig against don-
keys, standing aside to let officials' carriages
go by,-antiquated European carriages, very



17

 

PEKING DUST



shabby but surrounded by outriders, mounted
on shaggy Mongolian ponies, who gallop ahead
and clear the way. The horses can't be guided
from behind; the coachman sits on the box and
holds the reins and looks impressive, but the
real work is done by the mafu or groom.
When it comes to turning a corner, passing a
camel-train, or other obstacle, the mnafu is
obliged to leap down from his seat, seize the
bridle, and lead the horses round whatever ob-
struction there may be. At other times, when
not leading the horses, the mafu sits on the box
and shouts to clear the way. I tell you, prog-
ress in a carriage is a noisy affair,-what with
the rattling of the old vehicle, the clanking of
the brass-mounted harness, the yells and
screams of the groom, and the yells and shouts
of the crowds refusing to give way. It 's bar-
baric, but has a certain style and swing.
  Don't think there is any speed to a carriage.
Oh, no. Despite the noise and rattle and ap-
parent progress, the progress itself is very
slow. At the rate of two miles an hour, pos-
sibly.  WVe went out for a drive in the inin-



18

 
PEKING1



ister's carriage the other day, a comfortable
victoria, drawn by a pair of very fat, veryv sor-
rel horses, and we skimmed along, as I say, at
the rate of two miles an hour when the going
was good. All we passed were the pedestri-
ans,-a few of them,-and we usually found
ourselves tailing along behind a camel-train
or waiting for a wheelbarrow to get out of the
way. In the side streets, or hutungs, we
shouted ourselves along at a snail's pace, cleav-
ing the dense throngs of inattentive citizens,
whose right to the middle of the road was as
great as ours, and who did n't purpose to be
disturbed. Once on turning a corner, the
groom pulled the bridle off one of the horses.
Off it slipped into his hand, and the horse
tossed his head and ran. The mafi velled,
the coachman yelled, every one else yelled, and
for a few moments there was intense excite-
ment. Later on, that same afternoon, we went
out to tea somewhere, this time going by rick-
shaw. In comparison to the spee(l of a car-
riage, the pace of a rickshaw-runner is prodi-
gious. W\e were positively dizzy.



19

 

PEKING DUST



  There is a great difference between the speed
of the rickshaw-runners in Tokyo and in Pe-
king. In Japan they go rather slowly, and re-
fuse to overexert themselves, and quite right,
too; but here they go at top speed. There
are such enormous numbers of them, and com-
petition is so keeni, that the swift young runners
make capital of their strength. It is pathetic
to see broken-down old coolies, panting and
blowing, making painful efforts to compete
with the younger men. I am not yet used to
being taken about by man-power. It seems
wrong somehow, demoralizing, for one human
being to place himself in that humiliating rela-
tion to another, to become a draft animal, to be
forced to lower himself to the level of an ox
or an ass. It must have an insidious, demnoral-
izing effect, too, upon the persons who ride in
these little vehicles. I am not yet used to see-
ing able-bodied young foreigners, especially
men, being pulled about by thin, tired, ex-
hausted coolies. I feel ashamed every time I
enter a rickshaw and contrast my well-being
with that of the ragged boy between the shafts.



20

 







































c
C

 
















































Camel caravan, Peking

 
PEKING



I suppose I shall get over this feeling, think
no more about it than any one else does, but
at present it is new to me. Every time we
leave the hotel, twenty boys dash forward, all
clamoring for us; and if we decide to walk,
twenty disappointed, half-starved boys wheel
their little buggies back- to the curb again
and wait. Well, what can one do They are
so desperately poor! One way or the other, it
seems all wrong.
  We got caught in a block in the Chinese City
the other (lay. At the intersection of two
cross streets, narrow little hutungs about eight
feet wide, four streams of traffic collided, and
got hopelessly entangled in a yelling, unyield-
ing snarl. From one direction came a camel-
train from Mongolia; from another, three or
four blue-hooded, long-axled, Peking carts.
Along a third street came a group of water-
carriers an(l wheelbarrows, and from the fourth
half a dlozen rickshaws. All met, and in a mo-
ment became thoroughly mixed up. There be-
ing no traffic regulation of any kind, no right
of way of any sort, there was no idea in the



21

 

PEKING DUST



mind of any one but that of his unalterable
right to go ahead. It was pandemonium in a
minute, with yells and curses, pushing and
blows, men whacking one another and the
beasts indiscriminately. Over the tops of the
blue-hooded carts the tall camels raised their
scornful heads, and surveyed the commotion
with aloof disdain. In all the world there is
nothing so arrogant and haughty as a camel,
and they regarded from their supercilious
height the petty quarreling of man. In fifteen
minutes, however, the snarl cleared itself up,
and it was the camels who first managed to
slither by, after which each vehicle unwound
itself from the mess and passed on.
  You know, the lobby of this hotel seems a
little like that block of traffic. There is such
a heterogeneous massing of nationalities and
of people within these shabby walls-officials,
soldiers, concession-hunters, tourists, attaches,
journalists, explorers. All those camels, cool-
ies, rickshaw-boys, and water-carriers each felt
that he had the right of way; and so all these



22

 
                PEKING                  23
people think that they have the right of way
in China. There must be a hundred different
opinions about China in these corridors of the
hotel. I '11 see what I can discover.

 







III



               CIVILIZATION

T    HE longer we stay here, the more we
      are impressed with the fact that in China
there is no sympathy for the Allies. The at-
mosphere is not at all pro-German, however.
There is no special feeling for the Central
powers any more than there is for the Entente
Allies. It can best be described as neutrality,
or, rather, complete indifference as to which
group wins. Coming as we have direct from
France,-two years of France in war-time,-
it is very curious to find ourselves plunged into
this atmosphere of total indifference to the
outcome and objects of the war.   Wie have
gathered these impressions from many talks
with the Chinese and from a diligent perusal
of Chinese papers,-papers printed in Eng-
lish, but owned and edited by the Chinese, and
                    24

 
CIVILTZATONT



which may therefore be said to reflect their
sentiments. Also we heave talked with maniy
foreigners who have lived in China for a long
time, who have many Chinese friends and ac-
(quaintances, and understand the Chinese point
of view, and these also tell us that China has
no sympathy with the Allies or with any other
powers.
  The explanation is not hard to find. De-
spite what foreigners may think of them, the
Chinese are by no means fools. They possess
the wisdom of the ages,-of their own peculiar
kind. They have had a long experience with
foreigners, saddening  and enriching, and
cynicism is the outgrowth of such experience.
China has suffered at the hands of the great
powers has suffered at the hands of England,
Russia, France, and Germany alike. She is
virtually in the position of a vassal state, not
to any one of these nations but to all of them,
and they have pillaged and despoiled her for
a century and a half. To one of them she
owes the curse of opium, which was forced upon
her for commercial reasons-a curse which she



25

 
26          PEKING DUST
is about ready to throw off. She is weak and
corrupt, but it is to the advantage of her for-
eign masters to keep her in a state of weak-
ness and corruption. At the present moment
she is paying huge indemnities to various Eu-
ropean powers as compensation for the losses
they sustained during the Boxer uprising in
1900, the Boxer trouble being an attempt on
the part of China to rid herself of the foreign
invader. To one of these countries, Russia,
she is paying an indemnity part of which con-
sists of the expenses of thousands of troops
which had no existence except on paper. It
is hardly possible for the Chinese to believe, in
the light of their own experience, that the
various European nations at death-grips in
this war are actuated by the noble sentiments
they profess to be fighting for. The assur-
ances from Europe, cabled daily to the Chi-
nese press, that the Allies are fighting for
liberty, for justice, for civilization, for the pro-
tection of small nations, mean nothing to the
Chinese. Such professions leave them cold.
To the Oriental mind this gigantic struggle

 
CIVILIZATON



is between a nation who is mistress of the world
(and the world's markets) and a nation who
wishes to become mistress of the world (and the
world's markets). WVith seventy-nine per
cent. of her territory under foreign control,
China can hardly believe in the disinterested
motives of the fighting nations.
  The other day I saw a little incident on
the street that puts the case in a nutshell.
Two big Mongolian dogs were locked together
in a fight to the death. Each had the other
in a death-grip, and they rolled over and over
in the (lust, surrounded by a great crowd of
people who stoo(l by in(lifferently and watched
them fight it out. This is the attitude of China
toward the European WCar, the attitude of
the calm, indifferent spectator.
  The structure of civilization that Europe
has erected for itself is imposing and beau-
tiful. 'We in America are confronted with
the faqade of this great building, and beheld
from our side of the Atlantic it looks magnifi-
cent and superb. Even when we enter it in
Europe, and behold its many ramifications,



27

 
28          PEKING DUST
we still have cause to admire. But there is a
back side to this structure of civilization; there
are outbuildings, slums, and alleys not visible
from the front. These back on the Orient,
and the rear view of the structure of European
civilization, seen from the Orient, is not inmpos-
ilg at all. The sweepings and refuse of WVest-
ern civilization and1 Western morality are
dumped out upon the Orient, where they do
not show.

 






IV



             RACE ANTAGONISMS

IT is a crisp, cold morning, l)ut nothing to
     what it will be, they tell us, when the
autumn is over, and the bitter winter settles
down upon North China. After all, come to
think of it, we are abutting on two extremely
Northern provinces, Manchuria and Mongolia,
and these adjoin Siberia, which all the world
knows is cold. So this sharp October day,
with its brilliant blue sky and hard, glittering
sunshine, is only a foretaste of the weather
that will come later.
  To-day we went into the Chinese City and
visited a native (lepartment storc. At the
best speed of our rickshaw-boys we 1)assed out
of the Chi'en Men, the principal gate, and once
beyond the towering, embattled wall that sepa-
rates the Chinese from the Tartar City, we lost
ourselves in the maze of narrow, winding
                     29

 
PEKING DUST



streets that open on all sides from the main
road leading from the Chi'en Men, which, by
the way, has been in the possession of the
American troops since the Boxer uprising. In
the narrow liutungs our progress was slow;
we literally shoved our way through crowds
of rickshaws and thousands of pedestrians, and
as there are no sidewalks, we were alternately
scraping the walls and shop fronts oin one
hand, or locking wheels with Peking carts on
the other, and feeling the warm breath of a
camel or donkey down our necks whenever the
traffic brought us to a halt. Finally our boys
stopped before a large building about three
stories high, emblazoned with gold dragons,
and with gorgeous red and yellow banners and
flags all over the front of it. It stoo(l some
distance back from the street, and the wide
courtyard in front was filled and crowded with
the carts and carriages of the high-class women
who had gone inside to shop.
  I have already told you that Chinese horses
can't be driven; they mu