of time, and has besought with what the Geneva arbitrators styled "due diligence," would be liable to an invasion of a horde of famished wretches, who would render the existence even of a stolid Chinese a burden, and who would utterly prevent the transaction of any business until their continually rising demands should be met. Both the shopkeepers and the beggars understand this perfectly well, and it is for this reason that benevolences of this nature flow in a steady, be it a tiny rill.
The same principle, with obvious modifications, applies to the small donations to the incessant stream of refugees to be seen so often in so many places. In all these cases it will be observed that the object in view is by no means the benefit of the person upon whom the "benevolence" terminates, but the extraction from the benefit conferred of a return benefit for the giver. Every such object of Chinese charity is regarded as a "little Jo," and the main aim of those who have anything to do with him is to make it reasonably certain that he will "move on."
To the other disabilities of Chinese benevolence must be added this capital one, that it is almost impossible for any enterprise, however good or however urgent, to escape the withering effects of the Chinese system of squeezes, which is as well organised as any other part of the scheme of Chinese government. It is not easy to possess one's self of full details of the working of any regular Chinese charity, but enough has been observed during such a special crisis as the great famine, to make it certain that the deepest distress of the people is no barrier whatever to the most shameful peculation on the part of officials entrusted with the disbursement of funds for relief. And if such scandals take place under these circumstances, when public attention is most fixed on the distress and its relief, it is not difficult to conjecture what happens when there is no outside knowledge either of the funds contributed or of their use.
