h estimate, by
very careful inquiries, as to the number of cases brought periodically
before the notice of a district magistrate or his deputies, and we
have come to a conclusion unfavourable in the extreme to western
civilisation, which has not hesitated to dub China a nation of
thieves. We have taken into consideration the fact that many petty
cases never come into court in China, which, had the offence been
committed in England, would assuredly have been brought to the notice
of a magistrate. We have not forgotten that more robberies are
probably effected in China without detection than in a country where
the police is a well-organised force, and detectives trained men and
keen. We know that in China many cases of theft are compromised, by
the stolen property being restored to its owner on payment of a
certain sum, which is fixed and shared in by the native constable who
acts as middleman between the two parties, and we are fully aware that
under circumstances of hunger or famine, and within due limits, the
abstraction of anything in the shape of food is not considered theft.
With all these considerations in mind, our statistics (save the mark!)
would still compare most favourably with the records of theft
committed over an area in England equal in size and population to that
whence our information was derived. The above refers specially to
professional practice, but when we descend to private life, and view
with an impartial eye the pilfering propensities of servants in China,
we shall have even less cause to rejoice over our boasted morality and
civilisation. In the first place, squeezing of masters by servants is
a recognised system among the Chinese, and is never looked upon in the
light of robbery. It is _commission_ on the purchase of goods, and is
taken into consideration by the servant when seeking a new situation.
Wages are in consequence low; sometimes, as in the case of official
runners and constables, servants have to make their living as best
they can out of the various litigants, very often taking bribes from
both parties. As far as slight raids upon wine, handkerchiefs, English
bacon, or other such luxuries dear to the heart of the Celestial, we
might ask any one who has ever kept house in England if pilfering is
quite unknown among servants there. If it were strictly true that
Chinamen are such thieves as we make them out to be, with our eastern
habits of carelessness and dependence, life in China woul