May 4, 1907.1
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
it all.
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of many phrases employed is amazing. One | Chinese. As to the value of the Conference, visitor who wrote casually of the " com- a writer points out that missionary work is placeut bigotry" of the Chinese is perhaps being neglected, and much money spent to the most inonumental instance of this. One little purpose. If mission funds are used. of them humorously suggests that Shangbai" it means the withdrawal of that amount deserves to be called at present, instead of from what might be more profitably used the "
Sink of Iniquity," the "Fount of in direct work." Many of the men will Religion," We suggest as an amendment stay in Shanghai "till after the hot season," the "Temporary Reservoir of Condensed | perspiration being a branch of martyrdom and Complacent Bigotry," for the fifteen not heroic enough for them. One of them hundred are bigotted if that word retains wonders what ROBERT MORRISON think of its meaning, and their complacence is
Whether he knows of, and is glad ostentatious. The conference sat under an at, the Conference is a question for theolo embroidered motto containing the words gians If that be so, there is not so much Unum in Christo, and one of the con- to mock at in the Chinese practice of trying tributors referred to says:
to please their ancestors by votive offerings. The Chinese papers have been commenting on the exclusion of nativ delegates from the Conference, and we cannot see that there is any valid excuse for thus debar- ring Chinese colleagues and co-workers. The missionaries ought to be more than willing 10 welcome every native Christian anxious to take part, for from them the most practical advice is likely to be forthcoming. It is quite fair, this being a gathering of public interest, to demand that the members of it should strive after correctness in all details; but there seems to be a shyness to deal with them faithfully on the part of many journals. It is conven tional and respectable to publicly applaud good works." even if privately there be more disposition to criticise.
"It has long been the habit of certain writers to represent the Protestant missionaries as divided into varying sects. They are described a settling down, three or four varieties of them, in the one city where each spends his time in telling the uninstructed heathen not to believe what the others teach. To see them all met now in unity, peace and concord, anxious for nothing but to advance the common diuse, should nail that lie to the ōonnier at last.
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In the very next column, cheek by jowl, the lie is un-nailed again by a com- munication with reference to efforts to restore Christian Unity, to avoid "needless collisions or unwise duplication of labour," which quotes the Lambeth Conference's citation of bitter dissensions." If it were a lie, then that Anglican Conference father- ed it; and unless the Shanghai newspapers are wickedly misreporting the doings of these representatives of 83 sects, it is the embroidered motto which is false. We read that "there was a good deal of feeling on the exclusion of certain Delegates; and when the
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Rev. G. H. Bondfield mentioned that it was desired to include illustrations in the volume of proceedings, and it was hoped, if possible, to have a photograph of the Conference; that there was no other structure in Shanghai that would ac commodate all the visitors and delegates but the Grand Stand; and that the Stewards of the Race Club had kindly placed this at their disposal,
Mr. WATSON from Changsha said that ho for one would not go near the Race
Course, and others moved that there be no such contact with such an evil place as that devoted to horse-racing. Countless other inconsistencies that look like insin- corities could be raked up. The phrase "faithful unto death is a favourite, yet everybody knows that these men have the commonsense to scuttle when warned of danger. There was too much talk of "notables" and " prominents," considering that it is a body of men whose profession it is to glory in lowly service; the REV. LORD WILLIAM CECIL might consider the propriety of dropping at least one of his titles, for instance, if he has come to pour precious ointment over the feet of the humble coolie. However, if we were LO note all such minor shortcomings, the lack of meekness, the failures to turn the other cheek, and so on, there would be no end to the indictment. One paper writing a sort of apologia! for the Couference referred to the service the missionaries have rendered in adding to our knowledge of China. This is an argument becoming popular of late, and it is perhaps time to point out that it is a weak if plausible one. Other men could have done it just as well, if they had had the leisure that some missionaries seeu to have had; and it is to be noted that the missionaries whose contributions to sinology have been worth anything have been few enough to count on the fingers. The vast majority who attend this Conference have probably not yet learned enough to exercise the necessary tact in dealing with the
CREMATION OF CHINESE.
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of the Chinese wish visitation of
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and abandon them, no religious scruples or sentimental respect for the dead can be said to weigh against the comfort of
The COLONIAL SECRETARY in a dispatch personally avoiding trouble and expense. to the Board discounted in advance the argument that dumping" was a result escape the
While quite conviuded that in many the disinfecting officers.
ways the Sanitary Board has made unreasonable demands upon poor Chinese tenants AS well as 011 landlords, in their fatile fight with regularly imported contagion, we think the COLONIAL SECRET- any right in his conclusion that “ dumping" is not promoted by those considerations. We are surprised that the discussion did not lead any one to guess at other causes. Mr. LAU CHU-PAK approached nearest to the obvious issue when he remarked that shouldiavestigate the conditions under which this class lives. We venture to assume that a very little investigation would dis- cover the true cause of "dumping." We suspect it to be found in the one word
we
poverty." It is a a curious thing that East and West do meet in one particular, the ostentation and expense which convention demands should accompany the advent of Death in a poor family. The best argument for cremation in Eoghand, in our opinion, apart from the undoubted fact that it is the most sensible and hygienic treatment of dead bodies, should be that it simplifies and cheapens funerals. It will be when it is generally adopted add so less expensive. Paupers often pinch and starve themselves, and lie and obtain relief on false pretencos, that they may board up money so as not to be
The
(Daily Press, 2nd May.) The Hongkong Sanitary Board has not often lately had a subject of such wide
buried by the Parish," so that they interest to discuss as it had at the last meeting on Tuesday, when the problem of face when that time comes
may not, poor, misguided fools, "lose when the abandoned corpses and their treatment was opinions of their neighbours shall have brought forward. The Government's efforts ceased to matter to them. It is hourt. to have a stop put to the certainly objection-breaking to observe the waste of badly able practice of "dumping corpses on the public streets have not met with success, and the number recorded for the first quarter of the current year seems to have inspired the authorities with a determination to make a desperate stand against this shocking and dangerous custom, for custom it may now fairly be said to have become, The Sanitary Board was asked to offer suggestions for the mitigation of the evil, and the Medical Officer of Health hit upon the idea of cremating all corpses found abandoned. There 18 not the slightest doubt from his remarks that he regarded his moans as a probable deterrent, but the President, while supporting the suggestion on other grounds, held that as a deterrent it would be sure to fail. Mr. LAU CHƯ. PAK therefore was quits pertinent when he said that as the Government's desire was for some deterrent, they had no busi-
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to be discussing the question of cremation on the lines laid down by the President, as the most sanitary and the most reverent method of disposing of these bodies." The Hon. Mr. BREWIN made the same point, and Mr. FUNG WA-CHUN echoed it, and the practical result of the discussion was that an apparently irrelevant motion was lost and the Governmen's request for practical sugges ions ignored. We would not like to say th the motion, for cremation was quite irreletant, nor do we agree that the adoption of cremation would ultimately fail as a deterrent of dumping." It would fail, we dire say in one way; that is, it would not shock the Chinese because of its being, as Mr. Lav CHU-PAK alleged, against the Chinese religion." Obviously with people who throw corpses down on the public street
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needed money at obsequies in poor districts, and we have oft thought that the con- science of an undertaker with such clients must be deader than that of a dishonest company promoter. The sime phenomenon may be witnessed her and in China. poorest of the poor indst have their ghastly procession, with the quaint banners and symbols, and hyp critical hired mourners. We may be told that these shabby, tawdry manifestations of woe cost less than at an English funeral, but proportionately we have no doubt they are as great a tax. Now, while the repugnance to pauper funerals is as great among the English poor as is, say, the Chinese objection to dumping, there are still very many such burials at public expense. We suggest that there are so many cases of dumping "-1,447 in 1906 —for a like reason, mere inability to face the cost of the conventional funeral. But, it will be asked, why do they not rather apply for the free interment that are offered ? Here again we suggest that the fear of "what people will say applies. The poor Chinese (and poverty has not lessened in the Colony within the list two years, by the way) cannot afford to do what is expected of them. Of the remaining alternatives, both distasteful and from their point of view shameful, they choose the least trop some, That, briefly, is why we do consider the proposal to adopt cremation altogether irrelevant, and why we regret thất it was not a lopted. We would go further, and recommend.co opalsory cremation 'all round, in the interests of economy as opposed to wickel waste, and in the interests of public health. As for it being
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· against the Chinese religion,”- that is all stuff and nonsense. It may be against