Imperial protection. Mr. E. H. Parker, after twenty years'
experience in China, writes,


``The Chinese are undoubtedly a libidinous people, with a decided
inclination to be nasty about it. . . . Rich mandarins are the most
profligate class. . . . Next come the wealthy merchants. . . . The
crapulous leisured classes of Peking openly flaunt the worst of vices.

Still, amongst all classes and ranks the moral sense is decidedly
weak. . . . Offenses which with us are regarded as almost capital--
in any case as infamous crimes--do not count for as much as petty
misdemeanours in China.[8]


[8] ``China,'' pp. 272, 273


More patent to the superficial observer is a cruelty which
appears to be callously indifferent to suffering. This manifests
itself not only in most barbarous punishments but in a thou-
sand incidents of daily life. The day I entered China at
Chefoo, I saw a dying man lying beside the road. Hundreds
of Chinese were passing and repassing on the crowded
thoroughfare. But none stopped to help or to pity and the sufferer
passed through his last agony absolutely uncared for and lay
with glazing eyes and stiffening form all unheeded by the
careless throng. Twenty-four hours afterwards, he was still lying
there with his dead face upturned to the silent sky, while the
world jostled by, buying, laughing, quarrelling, heedless of the