The Chinese reverence their dead and venerate the spots in
which they lie. From a Chinese view-point it is an awful thing
to desecrate them. Not only property and those sacred feelings
with which all peoples regard their dead are involved but
also the vital religious question of ancestral worship. Accordingly
Chinese law protects all graves by heavy sanctions, imposing
the death penalty by strangling on the malefactor who
opens a grave without the permission of the owner, and by decapitation
if in doing so the coffin is opened or broken so as
to expose the body to view. Imagine then their feelings
when they see haughty foreigners run a railroad straight as an
arrow from city to city, opening a highway over which the
dreaded spirits may run, and ruthlessly tearing through the
tombs hallowed by the most sacred associations.

No degree of care can avoid the irritations caused by railway
construction. In building the line from Tsing-tau to Kiao-chou,
a distance of forty-six miles, the Germans, as far as practicable,
ran around the places most thickly covered with graves.
But in spite of this, no less than 3,000 graves had to be removed.
It was impossible to settle with the individual owners,
as it was difficult in many cases to ascertain who they were,
most of the graves being unmarked, and some of the families
concerned having died out or moved away. Moreover, the
Oriental has no idea of time, and dearly loves to haggle,
especially with a foreigner whom he feels no compunction in
swindling. So the railway company made its negotiations
with the local magistrates, showing them the routes, indicating
the graves that were in the way, and paying them an
average of $3 (Mexican) for removing each grave, they to