Family Li f spite of the dissoluteness of the Chinese, their family life is pure. Every man has one wife in indissoluble marriage—that is, one principal wife, but he may possess a number of other wives, whose children are legitimate. The parents are devoted to the children, who obey them most implicitly and show them the greatest respect. Home rearing and schools protect the children in moral and educational respects. Great stress is laid upon the acquiring of a fine and courteous deportment, of which the Chinese most properly think very highly, and feel themselves therein superior to Europeans. Marriages, births, and birthdays are cele brated with merrymakings.
state, according to an oft-repeated Chinese saving, is regarded as a large family, the emperor being the father or head of it, upon whom the duty consequently devolves of caring for everything, great and small. The emperor appoints his successors. lie stands nearer the gods than other men; therefore he receives divine honors, wears the color of the sun, and is styled "son of heaven;" and he alone sacrifices to heaven and to the highest gods. There arc numerous civic bodies, and the officials are countless, to which latter a large but not always effective police force belongs, whose duties extend into the night hours. Special night-watchmen (J1. 57, fig. 6) are found in all quarters of the cities, whose duty it is to arrest all who may be upon the street at a late hour, as well as to strike the watches every two hours upon a bell or drum. The popu lace is divided into classes—nobility, officials and scholars, farmers, mer chants, and ships' people, and finally artisans and artists. Executioners, actors, servants, etc. are not included in the bourgeoisie.
and powers in war are by no means remark able. In olden times the Chinese used various siege engines which remind us of those employed by the Greeks and Romans (pl. S7, fig. 9; pl. &Vic. 5); and the equipment of the warriors was different from that of the pres ent. Some characteristic figures of the olden time are shown on Plate 6r (fig. I). The shield splendidly painted with a kind of Gorgon's head deserves particular attention; also the heavy war-vestments and bow and arrows of the warrior on the left, and the sabre of the middle figure. Other weapons, defensive and offensive, are shown on Plate 58, as hel mets (figs. 4, 5), a bow-case (fig. 6), battle-axes (figs. 7, 9, II), a mace (fig. 8), swords (figs. 13, 14), etc.
their religion the clear sense of the Chinese shows itself. They honor heaven, Tian (Tien), as the supreme being and foundation of all things, father of all people, regarding it as abstract spiritual perfection, but also taking part in the affairs of the world. By its side are the earth, countless demons, protecting spirits, genii, and the souls of the dead, which are mighty according to their rank when on earth. They offer sacrifices and prayers to the gods, the head of each house for his own family, and the emperor for the whole land. There are no priests or temples, but many superstitions.
It was Kong-fu-tsc (Confucius) who in the sixth century B. C. built upon these old and fundamentally pure ideas his system of a pantheistic and purely practical philosophy of life; and his teachings flourish still with all prominent Chinamen. We find also the teachings of Lao-tse, a contemporary of Confucius, whose supreme being is the Tao, a kind of abstract idea of reason; and Buddhism, the religion of the Fo, which has points in common with the Tao, and is much spread among the lower classes; the imperial family belongs to the sect of the Fo.
The religion of the Chinese is best expressed by Neumann's words: " Prophets have never appeared in China. All its ideas come from men and are calculated for temporal welfare. The Chinese were the utilita rians of the ancient world. What they do not understand with their natural reason has no existence for them and is to them a mockery." But Christianity and Islamism have taken a firm hold.
Funeral are very solemn. Great luxury is displayed in the coffins, and even the poorest man strives to provide one during his lifetime. The coffins are often kept for years in the house. The dead are first laid out in the best room of the house, where relatives and friends bring incense and candles as last gifts.
The corpse is taken to the burial-place in solemn procession; in the van large pictures are carried which represent the valuable possessions of the deceased as well as mythical subjects, and which are burnt at the grave. Then follow the mourning music and persons carrying lamps, flags, censers, and then, before or behind the coffin, the mourners clothed in white, with white caps and white boots; other mourners and wagons with female relatives follow the coffin. All present appear much cast down, and loud weeping is a part of the proceedings (pl. 6o, f'. 2).