D
CHINESE REFORMERS AND THE QUEUE.
[+
6.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
I
}
(Daily Press, 28th June.) It may or may not be a disappointment for the missionaries, but it has to be admitted that, not withstanding the large importations of Biblical history into. China, there are Chinamen who refuse to take warning by the fate of SAMSON, who lost his virile vigour when he had his hair cut. A knot of Chinese debaters in Selangor are respon- sible for the new movement, the pioneers of which refuse to keep their hair on. The Shanghai Mercury sees in this birsutory reform the cue for the entrance upon the world's stage of a Japanned China, a China as keen after modern civilisation as are its whilom vassals. What Singapore thinks to-day," says our northern contemporary, Hongkong will think to-morrow, and China the week after next." The modern Chinese-babit and association being as strong with them as with most folk-will probably for some time to come share the prejudice of the foxes of the fable, and look askance upon their tailless brethren, noisily advocative of this significant curtailment. It is not inconceivable that there are sons of HAN, as well as subjects of H.M. EDWARD VIL, who think of the “ good old times" as infinitely superior to contem- porary days. In the case of the British reactionist, he would point to an age of courtliness, chivalry, sport, and pluck, when the Englishman's hot head was covered by the queue just as the cooler Celestial's cranium is to-day. It is a matter of taste, of course; but a comparison of the Occidental powdered pigtail of that period with the well-greased rope of the modern Oriental does not seem altogether fi ting. The significance of the respective tonsorial fashions certainly share nothing in com- топ. The one was au outcome of a sort of aesthetic evolution, for which, artistically considered, the Roundhead crop was an uncheerful and graceless successor, with perhaps no great compensation by way of improved brain power for loss of thatch. In the other case, the capillary cable was, according to the Sinologues, a badge of servitude, a rope of bondage for a conquered race. Even now, in passing, what would the native policemau do without this con- venient handle ? We have referred to the generally accepted origin of the Chinese. pigtail as an arbitrary fashion insisted upon by the conquerors from the north; and confess to some mild amazement that our
northern contemporary should Bee any inconsistency therewith in Mr. R. K. DOUGLAS's reference in the book on
China" in the "Story of the Nations" series. It is quoted as casting some doubt on the historical explanation already spoken of-perhaps inadvertently, for it fully con. firms the popular belief. Putting facetious- ness aside, we are inclined to join issue with the members of the Kuala Lumpur Debating Society on their assertion that "the first step in Chinese reform is the cutting off the queue." The first step should be in the direction of real reform- towards eufranchisement from the slavery of superstition and prejudice, before the badge of slavery is cast aside with flourish of trumpet. Once outside the prison walls, there will be plenty of time to discard the distasteful broad arrow.
The Peking and Tientsin Times states that in consequence of the intimation received from the
General Officer Commanding at Hongkong that that Port has been declared infected owing to plague, all details proceeding from the North China Command to India will be sent via Shanghai, until further orders.
CHINESE RAILWAY ENTER- PRISE.
[July 2, 19
belongings," would be given, but we are not aware that a publisher was found for those twelve volumes, or indeed whelber they were ever written,
เ
(Daily Press 28th June,)' We have alrealy drawn attention to the We had imagined that the author of this fact that the Chinese in various parts of the Quixotic little volume entitled Epitome of country are showing a surprising re diness the Ancient History of Japan was entirely to invest in railway enterprises in China, singular in his beliefs, and we are not a but it would appear that the promoters rely little surprised to observe that this some- very largely on the subscriptions of the what whimsical theory of the origin of the wealthy Chinese living in Shanghai, Hong-Japanese has been propagated in Russiaand kong and Singapore. The capital for a is apparently meeting with acceptance in met with rather important line of railway to run from unexpected quarters. If it ever Swatow to Tsaochow has recently been any acceptance among the missionaries subscribed mainly in these three ports, and in Japan, as the publication of a look now we learn from a memorial addressed to
dedicated by one missionary to another the Throne by the Acting Viceroy of Sze-
would seem to suggest, the idea has long chuan that officials have been dispatched to since been given up as untenable. Never- Shanghai, Hongkong and Singapore for the theless, in view of the attraction the idea purpose of raising among Chinese the capital
possesses for the Anti-emitic party in necessary for building a line of railway from Russia, it will interest many readers to know Chengtu to Hankow. The capital required something of the grounds on which the is estimated to be Tls. 30,000,000. One of theory is based. It is, in the first place, de- the Chinese papers states that a French clared that the Empire of Japan is peopled syndicate is trying hard to secure the con- principally by three separate races, viz (1) tract for building this line, but the Viceroy the Aino race, the aborigines of the noth wishes to keep the work entirely in Chinese (2) a little race (of Malay extraction) des hands. Another project mentioned in the
cribed as the aborigines of the south; and Chinese official Gazettes is a branch line (3) the Jewish race, who are represented as from Shenchow to Changsha, which will
"the descendants of the princes, samurai The author form a section of what will be known as the and people of JINMU TENNO." Hunan-Szechuan line, which will of course claims that the ethnology, and all their connect with the Cantor-Hunkow trunk belongings" prove the Japanese to be the line at Changsha, The capital required for descendants of SHEM, HAM, and JAPHET. this particular section is only five million The descendants of JAPHET are the Aiños ; taels, and we note that the desire of the the Jewish race are referred to as the des- promoters is to prevent foreigners securing cendants of SHEM; while the little mare any more railway concessions, and they are
must be set down as the descendant of "Chinese officers HAM. We are naturally interested to dis therefore appealing to and merchants in China and abroad" for
cover in the first place how this alleged the necessary capital. China is in short Jewish race which the author discovered in waking up, aud nothing will accelerate the Japan travelled so far away from the land of process more than rapid communications.
Israel, and it is needless to say Mr. Mood is not very convincing on this point. we
the understand
somewhat involved and incoherent statements in the book aright, the lost Jewish tribes who had been “inured to labour in building thecas- tellated cities of the Medes" occupied China and Corea in their progress across the con- tinent of Asia, and reached Japan shout 660 B.C. and it is to this conquering race, he argues, that the country owes its castles. Ancient pictures represent the princes of JINMU TENNO "clad in the au- "cient armour of Assyria and Media and Ishod like the Princes of Israel with " badger skius; they are represented wearing "the tachi or Persian sword, and some ave "the spear formerly worn by the antient "Median infantry." Other ancient pictures, both Chinese and Japanese, show Jewish belongings, he says, mentioning among others Jewish temple instruments and weapons of war, while the physiognony the people in these pictures he declares to There is much be peculiarly Jewish. quotation from the Bible, including the Apocrypha intended to confirm or hawe better not say bolster up?-the theory which the author sets himself to establish, Thus we are told that, as it is written in II Kings xvii, 14, 15 16, these lost fribes forsook the LORD their God, broke the covenant he made with their fathers and did as the heathen around them.
Thefact
ARE THE JAPANESE OF
JEWISH ORIGIN.
(Daily Press, 30th June.) Are the Japanese the "lost ten tribes of Israel"? This strange question seems to be commanding no small amount of at- tention in Russia just now. A paragraph in a London contemporary refers to the subject in these terms:-" The highly fanci- "ful theory has beau started in Russia that The "the Japanese are the lost ten tribes. "idea would be grotesq ie were it not that "the anti-Semitic Press has seized hold of "it and is using it as a means for stirring up a new anti-Jewish outbreak. Not only "does the Novoe Fremya back the theory for "all it is worth, but day after day it de- "clares that the Jews of Russia are sending money and cruisers to their new-found brethren of Japan. There is, unfortunate. ly, no story too ridiculous for Russian popular consumption at the present "moment, and there is some misgiving in "Jewish circles at home as to the effect of "this new campaign."
<f
蒙着
To be sure the notion of the Japanese being of Hebraic descent does appear ex- tremely grotesque, but the theory is not so new as the writer of the paragraph quoted above hastily assumes. Nor did the idea originate in Russia. Thirty years ago an English, or rather Scottish, Missionary for his name was MCLEOD-propounded the theory in a badly-written and equally ill. printed book issued from a Nagasaki print. ing office. It was a work which the author states in the preface was "the result of "much personal research and observation," and it was to be followed by a work of twelve volumes in which "a more accurate and detailed account of the origin of the Japa with a description of their Jewish
nese,
|
•
of
that the Japanese have not retained the Jewish religion is accordingly take as proof of their identity with the lost tibes. That they have completely lost the Hørew language is accounted for by the staten at that when the tribes of Judah and Ben min returned from captivity they had compitely lost their mother tongue after an abence of seventy years; and as to the absege of Jewish names in Japan, the explanatin offered that the captive Israelites of the
[
is