His Excellency fixed his eyes on me and uttered a deliberate, musical sentence. "He says," translated Mr. Sowerby, "that you have come to help China." I am afraid I blushed at this. It had not occurred to me to state my mission in just those words. I replied that I had come, as a journalist, to learn the truth about the opium question. We talked for an hour about the wonderful warfare which China is waging against her besetting vice. "China is sincere in this struggle," he said. "Public opinion was never more determined." He asked me if I had investigated the new Malay drug which had lately been heralded as a specific for opium-poisoning. "If," he said, "you should learn of any real cure, while you are investigating this subject, I wish you would advise me about it."
I promised him I would do so. I had already heard from a number of sources that Ting was personally giving two to three thousand taels a month (a tael is about seventy-five cents) to the support of opium refuges and for the purchase of drugs for distribution among the poor. "China is sick," he said; "she must be cured so that she may hold up her head among the nations."
Shortly after we had driven back through the rain and had mounted the stairs to Mr. Sowerby"s library, a Yamen runner was shown into the room, bearing presents from the provincial judge. The runner bowed to me and presented his tray. On it, beside the large red "card" of Ting Pao Chuen, were four bottles of native wine, or "shumshoo," two cans of beef tongue, and two cans of sauerkraut!
V
SOWING THE WIND IN CHINA--SHANGHAI
In her development China is dependent on the adoption of Western ideas and is influenced by the example set by Western civilization. This modernizing influence is strongest at the point where the Westerner meets the Chinaman, where the two civilizations come into direct contact. At Shanghai, Tientsin, Hankow, Hongkong, and the other ports there are some thirty to forty thousand Europeans, Englishmen, and Americans. They build splendid buildings and lay good pavements. They bring with them the best liquors. The life they live gives about as accurate an impression of Western civilization--of what the Western nations stand for--as the great majority of the Chinese (a most observing race) are ever likely to receive. We have examined into China"s sincerity, now let us examine into the honesty of purpose of the foreign "concessions" and "settlements"
which fringe the China Coast. If these communities are representing our civilization out there, it seems fair to ask whether they are representing it well; for if they are misrepresenting us, if they are contributing to the sort of international misunderstanding which breeds trouble, we may as well know it.
When, in the course of her gropings and strugglings towards civilization, China turns for enlightenment to the great, successful nations of Europe and America, what does she see? Well, for one thing, she sees Shanghai.
Shanghai has been called the Paris of the extreme East. It is the paradise of the adventurer and the adventuress, of the gambler, the beach-comber, and the long-chance promoter. Midway of the China Coast, at the mouth of the mighty Yangtse River, it is the princ.i.p.al port of entrance into China.
From England, Germany, France, Australia, j.a.pan, the United States, and Canada comes an endless column of steamships to Shanghai. To Hongkong, Saigon, Bangkok, Singapore, Chefoo, Tientsin, and the uppermost ports of the Yangtse, 1,250 miles inland, go endless columns of steamships from Shanghai. And of the travellers on these ships nearly all have, or expect to have, or have had, business or pleasure at Shanghai.
It is the most truly cosmopolitan city in the world; for Paris, after all, is mainly French; London, after all, is mainly English; New York, after all, is mainly American. Shanghai has its French hotels, its imposing German Club, its English Country Club, its race-track, its Russian Bank, its j.a.panese mercantile houses, its American post-office. It is ruled by a council of Englishmen, Germans, and Americans. It is policed by English bobbies, Irishmen, Sikhs from India, and Chinamen. On the Bubbling Well Road, of a sunny spring afternoon, where the latest thing in motor cars weaves through the line of smart carriages, you may see Spaniard elbowing Filipino, Portuguese jostling Pa.r.s.ee, Austrian chatting with Bavarian; and they all talk, gamble, drink, and buy in pidgin English.
This settlement of fifteen thousand Europeans, living apart from that public opinion which compells the maintenance of a social standard in every European country, and indifferent to that local public opinion which keeps up a certain curious standard among the Chinese themselves, seems to have practically no standard at all. The problem of every decent American or Englishman who finds himself established in business is whether he dare bring his wife and family and introduce them into circles so degraded that families disintegrate and children grow up under disheartening influences. The heavy drinking of the China Coast ports is proverbial, yet the drinking seems little more than an incident in a city where the social atmosphere is tainted and altogether unwholesome.
I stood one night in the barroom of one of the big hotels. It was one o"clock in the morning, and nearly every one of the dozen white men in the room was more or less drunk. They were roaring out maudlin songs, and shouting incoherent cries. Two men, well-dressed gentlemen, were on the floor. And behind the bar, yawning, waiting for an opportunity to close up and go to sleep, stood two Chinese men and one boy. They were neat, respectful, and perfectly sober. Their almond eyes flitted about the room, taking in every detail of that beastly scene. It would be impossible to say what they were thinking, but I observed that they did not smile as a Chinaman usually does. Perhaps, to the reader who does not know the China Coast, it seems unfair to cite this case as an example of the active influence of our civilization in China. I will not do so. I will merely ask if you could ever hope to make those three young Chinamen believe that our civilization is superior to theirs.
Where such a low moral tone prevails, in a self-governing community, it is bound to limit the perception and the power of the government of that community. Let any observing visitor acquaint himself with Shanghai and its social and moral standards (which will not be difficult, for these will be thrust upon him soon after his arrival) and he will soon see for himself that the residents of Shanghai, while they freely and hotly criticize their council, never accuse it of priggishness or of moral restraint. This is enough to show that the council makes no effort to oppose the prevailing sentiment. The gambling business attains, in Shanghai, to the alt.i.tude of a considerable industry. During the race weeks, spring and fall, the vacant lots near the race-track are rented at high rates by those gamblers of all nations who have no regular quarters, and the games go on merrily in the open air, within full view of the crowds in the road. Now seven of the nine members of the council are Englishmen. English ideas are supposed to prevail in the settlement, feebly seconded by German and American. And the laws under which Shanghai is theoretically governed forbid gambling.
All the lower forms of organized vice combine to form a large and highly profitable branch of Shanghai"s commerce. Partly because of the willingness of the locally stronger nations to shoulder off the responsibility for a disgraceful state of things, and partly because of the number of adventurous and unprincipled Americans who have drained off to the China Coast, America has had to endure more than her share of the blame for this condition. For years every degraded woman who could speak the language has called herself an "American girl"; until the term, which at home arouses a natural pride, has grown so unpleasant that decent Americans have chafed under the insult. To-day it is best not to use the phrase "American girl" on the China Coast.
Of the other and less vicious sorts of adventurers who turn up like bad pennies at Shanghai, the beach-comber is easily the most picturesque. Many writers, notably Robert Louis Stevenson, have employed him as a character in fiction. The majority of the beach-combers probably are or have been seafaring men. Next in numerical order, probably, come the discharged soldiers and the deserters. It takes either a certain amount of money or a certain amount of ability for any unattached American or European to get out to the China Coast, and an equal amount for him to get back. Therefore the stranded soldiers and sailors, brought out there at the cost of nation or ship owner, beating their way from port to port, drinking, gambling, starving, ready for any dubious enterprise that promises quick returns on a small investment, are a sorry lot. The sharps, swindlers, and shadowy promoters, on the other hand, are men necessarily possessed either of money or wit sufficient to get them out to China, and not unnaturally they represent the higher grades of their various crafts. From Peking to Hongkong, the coast is infested with these gentlemanly rascals, each with impressive garments and a convincing story. Josiah Flynt once wrote a tale of some enthusiastic young promoters who undertook, at a considerable outlay in capital and in personal risk, to sell a steam calliope to the Grand Lama of Thibet. After a brief acquaintance with the diverse and ingenious schemes that sprout, flower, and go to seed on the China Coast, this tale seems not nearly so improbable as it perhaps sounds to the casual reader.
Other, and more recent, types of adventurers are the stranded free-lance journalist and camp-followers who were lured Eastward by the prospect of pickings along the trails of the j.a.panese and Russian armies during the late war, and who later found themselves unable to get back home. In 1906, Consul-General Rodgers, of Shanghai, reported as follows on the subject of unscrupulous Americans who have been imposing on the Chinese to the detriment of American trade:
"There are many things which can be given as current reasons for r.e.t.a.r.ding American trade in the Orient. The advent of a cla.s.s of Americans, like those who came from Manila after a brief experience there, and those who tried their fortunes in connection with the events of the Russo-j.a.panese War, has done a great deal to injure the American name and reputation with the Chinese. This cla.s.s, usually indigent, has, by reason of imposition upon the Chinese, destroyed to some extent a confidence which has existed for many years and which had borne good fruit. There are good reasons for saying that every American firm which contemplates sending a representative to China should be very certain of his character, and, other things being equal, should choose the quiet, orderly person rather than the reverse type, in spite of the current opinion that such are indicated for the Orient."
If Shanghai is the sort of a place that it would here appear to be, if it sets a vicious example in its government, in its business practice, and in the character of many of its inhabitants, the fact would seem to indicate that it is most decidedly misrepresenting out there the sort of civilization that we, Europeans as well as Americans, have always supposed that we stood for. It would appear that the Chinese, at the point of contact with our civilization, are getting a false impression of us. It would be easy to dismiss as remote and unimportant the vicious example set by a group of adventurers and promoters on the China Coast; but unfortunately this little group is the most important single contributing factor in the exceedingly delicate matter of the rapidly developing relations between China and the great Christian nations.
The influence of the Shanghai example on China is real and positive.
Geographically, Shanghai commands the trade of the middle coast, the immense Yangtse Valley, and the Grand Ca.n.a.l. Every night a big river steamer leaves for Hankow and the intermediate river ports. Every day a big river steamer comes in from the same cities. Trading junks and small steamers innumerable ply between the river and coast ports and Shanghai.
Chinese merchants come from hundreds of miles around to trade with the foreigners or with the native "compradores" attached to foreign houses. On their return to their various interior cities or villages these traders spread tales of the foreign devils who inhabit the great city near the sea. Foreign merchants, travelling salesmen, engineers, and insurance agents travel up and down the great river, up and down the coast; they penetrate, by steamer, railroad, mule-litter, or cart, into the interior cities of the great provinces, leaving everywhere on plastic minds distinct and ineffaceable impressions of their manners, business methods, and morals.
In the foreign settlement of Shanghai, and apart from the population of the native city which adjoins it, there are, roughly, 450,000 Chinese who have chosen to dwell in the territory and under the laws of the white men.
This population is not fixed, but fluctuates as the floating element comes and goes; and everywhere that this floating element travels when out of the city it leaves an impression--a story, a bit of gossip, an example of the sharp dealing learned from the foreigner--of the manners, business methods, and morals of Shanghai. The native newspapers comment frankly on life and conditions in the great seaport, and their comments are reprinted in the papers of the interior. Shanghai exerts a direct and result-breeding influence on fifty to seventy-five million native minds, and an indirect influence on all China. How many scores of fair-minded, straightforward merchants, how many thousands of scattered missionaries and teachers will it take, think you, to counteract that influence?
China, grappling with the problem of decay, fighting desperately against an evil which the most nearly Christian of the Christian nations has fastened on her, looks westward for enlightenment, and sees--Shanghai. And Shanghai--well Shanghai plays the races and the roulette wheel, and drinks, and forgets the sacred significance of marriage and the economic importance of the home, and goes to the club, and except in casting up profits gives never a thought to that vast, muttering populace that waits--waits--for the day of the under-dog to come.
Such was the condition of things when the Chinese war on opium began to a.s.sume effective proportions during the spring of 1906. Now, Shanghai--the "settlement," that is--was in a peculiar, an unfortunate, condition as regarded the anti-opium crusade. I have already given, in an earlier chapter, the estimate of Robert E. Lewis, general secretary of the Y. M.
C. A., at Shanghai, that there were, in 1906, nearly 22,000 places in the international settlement, little and big, where opium could be purchased, more than 19,000 of which kept pipes, lamps, and divans on the premises for smokers. All of the dens which were openly conducted were paying a regular license fee to the munic.i.p.al government, amounting last year to 98,000 Shanghai taels, or about $70,000 in gold. It is against the law to permit women or children to enter the smoking-dens, and a clause to this effect is printed on the license as a condition in granting it; yet when Captain Borisragon, the chief of police, was asked how many regular women inmates were in the dens, he replied, in writing, that there were at least 3,200 women so kept, and doubtless a great many more who did not appear on his records. When the tax and license department was asked why this clause was not enforced, the reply was made, without the slightest attempt at excuse or explanation, that when a license was issued to the keeper of an "opium brothel" the clause prohibiting women inmates was erased.
These curious facts combine to present an appearance familiar to one who has studied the munic.i.p.al protection of vice in this country. It is asking too much of human credulity to expect one to believe that this clause was regularly erased for nothing. But apart from what individual graft there may have been in it, that $70,000 in revenue was an item not to be lightly given up by the hard-headed munic.i.p.al council. And the amount of money put into circulation by the patrons of these dens was also an attractive item, as Shanghai sees things. The prevailing opinion among the foreigners of "the settlement" was simply and flatly that the settlement could not afford to close the dens. The leading English newspaper hastened to defend the sordid att.i.tude of the council by explaining that, as the licenses were issued for a year, they had no right to close the places, at least before the spring of 1908.
The interesting and significant fact is that while this miserable condition of affairs was allowed to drag along in the international settlement, where the white men rule, the Chinese native city, immediately adjoining, was strictly enforcing the anti-opium edicts. The Chinese authorities went about the enforcement in a thoroughly effective manner.
The date set for the closing of the dens was May 22, 1907. There was some fear that the closing down might precipitate a riot, and, accordingly, the authorities took measures to keep the populace in hand. Chinese soldiers were placed on guard at the places where crowds would be most likely to gather, the dens were quietly closed, padlocked, and the shutters put up; and red signs, calling attention to the imperial edict prohibiting opium, were pasted up on doors or shutters. It was quite evident that the proprietors of these dens took the enforcement most seriously. Some of them went immediately into other lines of business; others made their places over into tea-houses.
[Ill.u.s.tration: IN AN OPIUM DEN, SHANGHAI]
[Ill.u.s.tration: OPIUM SMOKING]
So at Shanghai the Chinese warfare on the "foreign smoke" was waged earnestly and effectively in the native city. The Chinese authorities closed the dens--permanently, it seems fair to believe. And the only result of their heroic action,--and it is an heroic action to suppress a prosperous and thoroughly established branch of commerce in any city,--the only result was that the opium business went over to the adjoining city of the foreigners, who gladly accepted it, and took the money which had formerly been spent in the native city. The foreigners live wholly outside of and above Chinese law. They have their own strips of land, their own courts, their own local government, all guaranteed to them by the treaties which China has, at one time or another, been forced to sign. When the Chinese first proposed to stamp out opium, these foreigners laughed, and talked about the chronic insincerity of the Chinese government. When the yellow men did stamp out opium in that native city a mile or so away, these foreigners said that it would not be fair to the holders of licenses to close down in the settlement. As I have had occasion to say before, the Chinese are not fools. They grasped the significance of the situation, and spoke out frankly. The local mandarins protested to the settlement council. The native newspapers called attention to it. And all this clear insight into an extraordinary situation and the frank comment on it were communicated, by the routes and the means which I have described earlier in this chapter, to the fifty or seventy-five million Chinese who are directly influenced by conditions at Shanghai. Now, in the light of these facts, in the light of what they see and know, it is time to ask, and to ask with feeling--How can you hope to make those fifty to seventy-five million Chinamen believe that our civilization, with its science, and its whisky, and its keen grasp on "revenue," and its contradictory and confusing teachings of Christianity, is superior to their civilization?
And if they do not believe that our civilization is superior, how long do you suppose they will endure the treatment they receive from us? As time rolls on, there will be more "Boxer" uprisings in China, more crazy and disastrous protests against foreign domination and exploitation. When these troubles come, it will be well to recall that Shanghai,--not the individual inhabitants, but the government of that little "settlement" of foreigners which lies upon the west bank of the Woosung River,--officially and for profit maintained its traffic in the drug that is China"s curse after the Chinese had stopped their own opium traffic. It will be well to recall it, because it is quite certain that the Chinese themselves will not have forgotten it.
I have gone thus at length into the deplorable example which Shanghai, the most important foreign settlement in China, exhibits to the struggling, opium-ridden yellow men, because it is typical of the whole course of the foreigner in China. In the next chapter we shall consider further evidence in looking into the conditions of life and of the opium problem at Hongkong and Tientsin. It is of course peculiarly unfortunate that Shanghai, when the great opportunity came to extend a helping hand to China in the opium fight, should have failed, utterly, ignominiously. But the slightest acquaintance with the place is enough to make it plain that Shanghai, as it has been and still is, is not likely to extend a helping hand to anybody. The helping hand is not exactly what Shanghai stands for.
It really stands for the domination of the great Yangtse Valley, for the exploitation of China, and, incidentally, for a sort of snug harbour for criminals and degenerates. There can be no doubt that the fifty to seventy-five millions of Chinese who come directly within the radiating influence of Shanghai know this perfectly well. It is also quite likely that these and the few hundred other millions who make up "the Middle Kingdom" know perfectly well, that the complicated commercial establishments of all the various foreign nations in China stand for similar principles. And they doubtless know further that the very important and very cynical gentlemen who represent the great and prosperous foreign powers at Peking, are there for no other purpose than diplomatically to put on the pressure whenever China chances to block a move or gain a piece in this sordid and unholy game of chess. So perhaps we had better give up, once and for all, any serious consideration of the charges made by certain foreign powers that China is insincere in her warfare on opium. Such charges and insinuations, coming from such sources, hardly command respect.
It is plain that this greedy exploitation, going so far as even to s.n.a.t.c.h a profit out of the opium struggle, is not a healthy basis of intercourse between great nations. If the Chinese were a Congo tribe, or a race of American Indians, this policy might pay commercially; for in that case it would be a matter for the Christian nations of simply killing off the Chinese or driving them off the land, and then of fighting among themselves over the division of the spoils. But this policy, which succeeds against weak and numerically small nations, will hardly succeed in China. Driving four hundred million Chinese off the land would be a large order, a very different thing, indeed, from wiping out a tribe of "Fuzzy Wuzzys" with machine guns. All of the military observers with whom I have talked in China show a tendency to grow thoughtful over the subject of China"s potential military strength. From the days of the T"ai Ping Rebellion and "Chinese" Gordon"s "ever victorious" army, down to the review of 30,000 of Yuan Shi K"ai"s troops, with modern weapons and modern drill, in Honan Province in the summer of 1906, it has been plain that the Chinese make splendid soldiers when properly led. And yet it seems to have occurred to few white statesmen that the deepest interests of trade itself, sordid trade, demand that China be treated fairly and that the relations between China and the powers be established on a basis that makes for mutual respect and for peace, rather than on a basis that makes for exploitation, outrage, ma.s.sacre, warfare, "indemnity," and smouldering hate. John Hay saw over the balance-sheet, when he established the "open door" policy. Elihu Root has seen over the balance-sheet in arranging to waive the future claims of this country for indemnity money. And Lord Elgin, for England, saw over the balance-sheet when he outlined that sound policy which he was afterwards one of the first to violate--"Never to make an unjust demand of China, and never to recede from a demand once made."
To-day it seems apparent that the great nations cannot be brought together to agree on any really enlightened policy in China. Even had such a thing been possible a few years ago, the untrustworthy methods of Russia and the growing ambitions of j.a.pan would make it impossible to-day. Nations which, when brought together in a "Peace Conference," cannot even agree upon the rules of war, will hardly forego the chance of seizing some special advantage in the colossal grab-bag which is China. And so it seems likely that the genial commercial adventurers and gamblers and vice promoters of Shanghai will go on sowing the wind in China--and that the sullen hate of those silent, observing millions of yellow men will deepen and smoulder until the final day of reckoning, the day of reaping, shall come.
There is one ray of light which, to-day, illuminates the China Coast. It is a small ray, when we consider the number of dark corners to be illuminated, and yet there is the bare possibility that it may prove the beginning of better conditions. Somewhat less than two years ago the United States government established a wholly new inst.i.tution, the United States Court for China. L. R. Wilfley, one of the legal officers whom Judge Taft had trained in Manila during his governorship of the Philippines, was appointed the first judge of this court, and was sent out, with a district attorney, a marshal, and a clerk, to administer justice to Americans up and down the China Coast and along the Yangtse River. By treaty, all American citizens are exempt from judgment under the Chinese law, that peculiar jumble of tradition, superst.i.tion, common sense, and Oriental severity. Formerly, justice had been dealt out in courts presided over by the consul-generals and the consuls in their respective districts.
Now it should be obvious to the most casual observer that the peculiar conditions and the peculiar industries which thrive in the treaty ports give rise to a considerable number of legal entanglements. There is, of course, a large volume of legitimate business transacted on the Coast, which gives legitimate employment to a few lawyers; but there is a volume of illegitimate and semi-legitimate business which would also naturally give employment to other lawyers. At the time of Judge Wilfley"s appointment one thing was clear to the enlightened heads of our Department of State at Washington; the consular courts, thanks to the skill and resource of the American lawyer on the Coast, were in a constant tangle of perplexed inefficiency, and the American name was sinking steadily lower in China.
It is likely that no American judge ever faced so peculiar and difficult a task as that a.s.signed to Judge Wilfley. It was his duty to take the place of a lacking public opinion, and to raise the drooping prestige of his country. He had behind him no settled code of laws, but merely a few treaties and a few orders from the Department of State. He had not only to judge cases between Americans, but also cases between Americans and citizens of other nationalities, including the Chinese themselves. He had to establish rulings on the most complicated matters of coastwise commerce, in a land where coastwise commerce is involved with perplexing local customs and superst.i.tions. Above all, he had, from the start, to fight a well-organized, well-entrenched band of shady characters who had run their course for so long without anything in the nature of a public opinion to hold them in check that they resented his advent as an encroachment on their vested right to do as they chose. The last and most perplexing of his problems was that in rooting out these evils he was in danger at every turn of arraying against him the citizens of other nationalities and even of arousing the active enmity of the courts and the officials of other nations, most of whom had been content to let Shanghai jog along in its easy-going, sordid way.
It is to Judge Wilfley"s everlasting credit that, with a full knowledge of the difficulties and dangers before him, he went straight to the heart of the problem. Seeing that certain American lawyers had long stood between the old consular courts and anything which could be called justice, he set to work first to solve the problem of the lawyers. His campaign for a higher standard on the Coast has not been without its humorous moments.
Mr. Ba.s.sett, his shrewd young district attorney, preceded him to Shanghai to "look the ground over." The little group of American lawyers at Shanghai made haste to get acquainted with him. One of the ablest among them invited him, casually and informally, to dinner. When Ba.s.sett arrived at the dinner he found himself, to his astonishment, confronted with thirty or forty "leading citizens," including all the American lawyers and several men of questionable business character whom he rather expected to be prosecuting a little later on.
After the coffee and cigars, the host rose, and in a neat little speech called on Ba.s.sett to tell the company something about Judge Wilfley and what work he meant to do in Shanghai. It was a difficult situation. A slow-witted man might have found himself in a fix. But Ba.s.sett, if I may credit the account which reached me, was equal to the situation. He rose, and looked around the table from face to face.
"Gentlemen," he said, "as I have come unprepared for this pleasure, I shall have to fall back on story-telling. In the small hours, one morning, two men who had been having rather too good a time were navigating from street corner to street corner. Said Smith, "Jonesh, shtime to go home.
Shgetting broad daylight. Theresh sun shining up there."
""No, Shmith," replied Jones, "you"re mistaken. Tha"sh moon up there, and it"s night." They staggered down the street, Smith insisting that it was day, Jones insisting that it was night, until they met a fellow inebriate clinging to a fire plug. To him they appealed their dispute. He heard them out, and then looked thoughtfully up at the moon. For a long time he puzzled over the problem, and finally, giving it up, turned to them and said politely, "Gentlemen, you"ll have to "scuse me. I"m a stranger in town."
"And, gentlemen," said Ba.s.sett, again looking about from face to face, "you"ll have to excuse me. I"m a stranger in town."
Judge Wilfley began by calling upon every American lawyer who was practicing in Shanghai to bring a certificate of good moral character and to pa.s.s an examination before he could be admitted to practice in the new court. The examination was given, and only two of the lawyers pa.s.sed. At once there was a hubbub. The judge was attacked hotly. One of the lawyers who failed to pa.s.s hurried over to this country, making a speech at Honolulu, on the way, in which he insinuated charges of corruption against Judge Wilfley. Shortly after his arrival at San Francisco, he prevailed upon the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, on the Pacific Coast, to reverse one of Judge Wilfley"s decisions without having the facts of the whole case in hand and without a hearing from the China court. He went on to Washington, and within a month or two last winter actually got a bill through the United States Senate reinstating all the disqualified lawyers.
The bill is before the House at this present session. He has conducted a newspaper campaign against Judge Wilfley in this country since his return last year. It seems only fair to call attention to these facts on a fearless and able man, because Judge Wilfley is too hard at work in a distant country to be able to defend himself. In the course of my travels from port to port last year, it became clear to me that this new court was the one uplifting factor in a distressing general condition.
Judge Wilfley, like his district attorney, seems to hold no visionary theories, in spite of the high standard he has set. Before leaving China, I made it a point to call on him and talk with him about the work he is doing in the interest of the American name. He seemed to recognize clearly enough that vice and depravity can no more be put down out of hand in Shanghai than they can be put down out of hand in New York or Chicago or Boston. But he maintained that the disreputably open flaunting of vice can be stopped. In fining the "American girls" $500 (gold) each, and driving a number of them off the Coast, his attack has been directed mainly against the dishonourable use of an honourable phrase. In imprisoning or driving away the American gamblers, he has been trying to put gambling down more nearly to the place it occupies, in this country, as a minor rather than as a major branch of industry. Judge Wilfley has undertaken an Herculean task. It seems to be the hope of all that patient minority, the better cla.s.s of Americans on the China Coast, that he will be permitted to continue his fight unhampered by political machinery "back home."
There are two other points, besides Shanghai, at which the two kinds of civilization, Western and Eastern, come into contact--Hongkong and Tientsin. Each is different from the other as well as from Shanghai; and each plays a curious part in the opium drama. We shall take them up in the next chapter.