SUICIDE

Suicide, condemned among western nations by human and divine laws alike, is regarded by the Chinese with very different eyes.  Posthumous honours are even in some cases bestowed upon the victim, where death was met in a worthy cause.  Such would be suicide from grief at the loss of a beloved parent, or from fear of being forced to break a vow of eternal celibacy or widowhood.  Candidates are for the most part women, but the ordinary Chinaman occasionally indulges in suicide, urged by one or other of two potent causes.  Either he cannot pay his debts and dreads the evil hour at the New Year, when coarse-tongued creditors will throng his door, or he may himself be anxious to settle a long-standing score of revenge against some one who has been unfortunate enough to do him an injury.  For this purpose he commits suicide, it may be in the very house of his enemy, but at any rate in such a manner as will be sure to implicate him and bring him under the lash of the law.  Nor is this difficult to effect in a country where the ends of justice are not satisfied unless a life is given for a life, where magistrates are venal, and the laws of evidence lax.  Occasionally a young wife is driven to commit suicide by the harshness of her mother-in-law, but this is of rare occurrence, as the consequences are terrible to the family of the guilty woman.  The blood relatives of the deceased repair to the chamber of death, and in the injured victim’s hand they place a broom.  They then support the corpse round the room, making its dead arm move the broom from side to side, and thus sweep away wealth, happiness, and longevity from the accursed house for ever.

The following extract from the Peking Gazette of 14th September 1874, being a memorial by the Lieutenant Governor of Kiangsi, will serve to show—­though in this case the act was not consummated—­that under certain circumstances suicide is considered deserving of the highest praise.  In any case, public opinion in China has every little to say against it:—­

“The magistrate of the Hsin-yu district has reported to me that in the second year of the present reign (1863) a young lady, the daughter of a petty official, was betrothed to the son of an expectant commissioner of the Salt Gabelle, and a day was fixed upon for the marriage.  The bridegroom, however, fell ill and died, on which his fiancee would have gone over to the family to see after his interment, and remain there for life as an unmarried wife.  As it was, her mother would not allow her to do so, but beguiled her into waiting till her father, then away on business, should return home.  Meanwhile, the old lady betrothed her to another man belonging to a different family, whereupon she took poison and nearly died.  On being restored by medical aid, she refused food altogether; and it was not until she was permitted to carry out her first intentions that she would take nourishment