Preface

The reader is invited to the perusal of an original work on the inner life of the most ancient and populous, but least understood and appreciated of nations. In it an attempt is made to describe many of their singular customs and opinions relating to almost all subjects of interest, and also to give their own explanation of the origin or the rationale of some of them. If an undue coloring or prominence has been given to any custom, or a false statement has been made in regard to any subject, no one will regret it more sincerely than the author.

Nearly two thirds of the contents of these volumes appeared in 1861–4 in the China Mail, a newspaper published at Hong Kong, in anonymous letters, headed ‘Jottings about the Chinese’. On the writer’s temporarily returning to his native land last year, some of the oldest and most intelligent residents in China, both American and English, strongly recommended the republication of the letters they had seen in a permanent form, in order to supply a manifest want in the books already accessible relating to the Chinese, viz., DETAILED AND RELIABLE INFORMATION CONCERNING THEIR SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS PRACTICES AND SENTIMENTS. The published and the unpublished ‘Jottings’, accordingly, have been rearranged, abridged, and thrown into the form of chapters. Only three or four chapters — those at the commencement and the close — have been written in this country. If circumstances had favored, a more extensive pruning of words, phrases, and sentences could have been made to advantage. As the work appears, it makes no pretensions to a high literary style, but is a simple and unpolished account of some of the most singular, interesting, and important phases of Chinese life and manners.

Though specially relating to Fuhchau and vicinity, the description of many of the social and superstitious customs is generally applicable to other parts of the empire. Such customs in the different provinces sometimes vary as greatly as do the productions of the soil in different latitudes, or the customs prevalent in different countries in Europe; and a book which is equally true in regard to life and manners in all parts of the empire must deal only in vague generalities, and relate to only a few subjects. One of the grave faults of most writers on China is, that what they affirm in general terms of the Chinese is true only of the people living in the part of the country where they made their observations, not of the Chinese as a nation.

The illustrations are derived chiefly from photographic views, and from pen and ink sketches drawn by Chinese artists.

The spelling of Chinese terms is principally according to the system adopted at Fuhchau for writing the local dialect. The tonal marks are not always inserted ; the Mandarin sound is given in a few instances.

These volumes, it is believed, will reveal to the careful reader many phases of Chinese life and manners which he will admire and commend. But if he should tire with the senseless and useless opinions cherished, and the strange and superstitious customs practiced among all classes of society, let him reflect that for over twenty centuries China has been in bondage to the writings of Confucius and Mencius, and, for nearly the same period, to the religions of Tauism and Buddhism. This fact satisfactorily accounts for many of the absurd, superstitious, and stereotyped opinions and customs prevalent in that empire. Its people need, above all other things, the peculiar influences which the Bible — the great enlightener and enfranchiser — invariably exerts over those who make it their lamp and their law.

J. D.

RUTLAND (Middle Road), N. Y., July 20, 1865.