"That is somewhat an old but rather fitting remark of yours, Mrs. Bantam, and every year brings new proof that while the childless know all about training children, they make sad failures whenever they really have a chance to try their hand. I have often noticed that the poorest of mothers is an old ma- pardon me, ladies -a woman who is advanced in life before she becomes a wife. There is a great difference, as you say, in training other people's children and one's own. I once sat at the table of a friend who had just returned from a visit where, as it seems, a child had behaved very unseemly. My friend told the story of the child's 'wrongs' over very definitely, describing at our dinner-table, with dramatic pathos and fatherly ire, the sauciness of the said little fellow, while at the same time his own little Willie was giving living illustrations of his father's direful story! 'Didn't the father notice it? Not a bit of it! His own Willie was perfect. "Another friend of mine, who had a very saucy lot of children, entreated me one day, if I knew anything out of the way in his boys, to let him know. I knew enough to make up a book entitled 'Acts of Scapegraces,' and did gently hint a fault or two in this anxious father's ears. It would be so kind in me, he said, to give him information. I did, I say, give him an item or two. Well for me, I did not give him more, for, speaking hyperbolically, I thought I should lose my head. 'I was misinformed; I must be mistaken; it could not have been his boys; he knew his boys too well; they were above such things, and he would not believe a word of it; it was so unreasonable, it could not be so.' I backed out, and learned this lesson: Most men that ask you to tell them of their faults, or of the faults of their children, think themselves and children perfect, and are merely giving banters to show a flaw in their diamond character if you can. "As you observe, Mrs. Bantam, it is difficult to tell just how far nature and how far education are responsible for faults and virtues. I look at the matter in this light: Nature sends forth children of various minds. Nature intends there shall be a difference in the capacities of men. We can never make all men to be alike; but education, mental and moral, may warp, model, change, and remodel the natural propensities of the heart and mind. Here is the rough iron bar; you may beat it into sledge-hammers, or work it out into fine Damascene blades; you can never make gold of it, however; it will, in the sledge or the razor, be iron still. So, too, you may take the golden ingot and work it up into baubles for show-beautiful jewel tinsel work; turn it into the nimble coin, or beat it into the polished watch-casement; but in jewel, eagle, watch, it is always gold. Have you not noticed that there are iron, utilitarian minds that can never be turned into gold? You can make of them great sledge-hammer-minded men, or educate them to Yankee 'cuteness' and shrewdness. So, too, your Evas and Ida Mays, your poets and painters of golden mind, may be molded into what you will. There is the bauble Bulwer; and the useful Greenleaf Whittier, who issues golden coin; the time-warning Kirk White; and the jewel Byron, who pampered the pride and passions of men. (I have run from the mind to its products I see; but do not the thoughts of men pass as portions of the pure gold of mind?) "I am fearful that I shall get into sermonizing here at the table, but at the expense of a little interest let me rattle off a disquisition on child training. The commonest idea prevailing among parents is, that though the child have its wild way now, its own good sense will teach it the true way when it comes to years of discretion. The poet Coleridge had a skeptical friend that was peculiarly an advocate of this idea. 'Don't,' said he, teach the child anything of God or religion; don't prejudice the mind; let the child be left to form its own course and own ideas.' "Most of the evils that come in upon the young are unheeded, from the false idea that no influences or evil effect can be seen. Because the evil tendencies of a bad book or of a night at the theater are not seen at once and tangibly, the mother ceases vigilance and banters any one that can to trace out the evil. These influences are Coleridge contended that it was a duty to culture in the child-heart whatever was desirable to be there. The friend oft combated this idea. One day the two were walking in Coleridge's garden. They came upon a place all overgrown with weeds. Why,' said the friend, Cole-like enlarging rivers. Stream after stream ridge, do you suffer the weeds to grow here?' 'O,' rejoined Coleridge, "I am experimenting a little. I did not wish to prejudice the soil in favor of flowers. I thought perhaps the ground would get tired of its everlasting weeds, and some of these summers produce, without any care of mine, a fine parterre of flowers?" The friend was beaten; and so, too, from this little allegory, should every parent take warning. If we wish the flowers of virtue to spring up in the child-heart there must be planting and culture. Only let the child alone and weeds of error will grow fast enough! Our John Randolph said he should have been a French atheist had not his mother taught him to say 'Our Father who art in heaven.' "But the most forceful argument against letting the young pursue the way of evil, is the fact that though they reform they will find the influences of evil following them ever after. It is one thing to turn from a thing, but another to have all the sad memories blotted out! Pardon me, ladies, but this very day I was reading an incident that illustrates this point. A young man sent back the letters and keepsakes to one to whom he was betrothed, saying: 'I restore all; and now everything will be as we were before we were acquainted.' To which she made answer: To be sure you have sent back the letters and the trinkets; but can you restore the fond endearments I have lavished upon you? Can you restore the holy hopes I had centered in you? No! I have all these gifts, but my heart is breaking! So the young may be severed from the gay round of follies, but the warm, impulsive, innocent emotions of the young heart will be lost in those giddy mazes never to be regained! "An enemy wished to injure his neighbor, and with a great price he rented a piece of ground on which he was to have the privilege of raising one crop. He sowed thistles! Give up the young heart to the enemy and it will take years to eradicate the evils sown there. comes into the flowing Amazon, which lose their waters in the general flood. There is no perceptible change in the river; but the accumulated streams make the river after all. So the tide of life from infancy gathers in its influences. A mother's frown, a sister's smile, a tiny book, a scene of wickedness, a place of prayer, all yield their unperceived impressions, and the sum of life will be in accordance with the surrounding impulses. If good influences have preponderated their impress will be left; and it is most bitterly true that evil will leave its murky stains! You may cover the grass with linen, and pour on clear water for days, and though the sun will dry up the water as fast almost as you cast it on, and no perceptible result be seen, yet the linen by the process will become white as the driven snow. The most obdurate heart-even that of a bedlamite-may be tamed and made mild by the dews of kindness and the sunshine of smiles! "It is a serious thing, Mrs. Bantam, to have the molding and modeling of a youthful heart and mind! and with that remark I shall go my way for this time." "I promised, Mrs. Bantam, to give you, at some convenient time, my notions of doctors of medicine, and now, while our Dr. Budlong is out, will be as good a time as any. About eight years ago it was my lot to reside for a year or two in a very sickly region. Where the carcass is there will the eagles be gathered together,' and this aforesaid region become the resort of all the quacks and new-beginners of the country. There were men of all' schools,' and amid the plenitude of afflictions none of them wanted for patients. But, alas! no matter what the disease, it was as good (or rather as bad) as death to be taken sick. "Circumstances led me often into the sick-room, where I found opportunity to take note of the multitudinous practice of those who in this region were trying an apprentice hand at mending the human system. O, it was pitiful to see the people die where seemingly there was very little danger of death! From that time I was down on the whole generation of doctors, from the Homeopath man to the man of steam! To help on the aversion I began to entertain, I was taking the then popular Water-Cure Journal. "In falling out thus with physic I was pushed to the furthest verge of folly, and bid farewell to all medicine; I adopted the following very truthful ditty as my medical creed. With some abatements I have since made, there is a great deal of wisdom in these doggerel lines: "SENSEOPATHY. "Take the open air, The more you take the better; To the very letter. "Let the doctors go To the Bay of Biscay; Let alone the gin, The brandy, and the whisky. Keep your spirits cheerful; Make you over fearful. "Eat the simplest food, Or at least you ought to. "But it is one thing to defy the doctors when well, and another to be helpless on a bed of pain. A time of sickness a few years ago brought me near the doors of the other world; all my fine notions of physicians fled; I cried lustily for help! It was no time to dally with old opinions when the pains and groans of my fevered body were like the anguish of one on an inquisition-rack! The doctor came. He was a man of sense, and skillful in his business, notwithstanding his attachment to the calomel practice. Help! help! that was what I wanted, calomel or no calomel! I found cause to love the man who watched over me so assiduously; and from that time I have had a great respect for sensible M.D.'s. "And as to the 'school' of practice, Mrs. Bantam, all things being equal, I prefer the eclectic; but I have found one truth underlying all systems, and over and above all schools,' that ought, I think, to bear rule in this whole matter: Your quack of any school is a nuisance; but almost everything depends on the good sense and skill of the men: on their knowledge of disease and the human system. I never stay now to ask whether my physician be allopath, botanic, or eclectic; old school or new school; but first of all I want to know whether he understands his business. "I have in other times said many hard things about these medical men, much of which I am now ready to recall. Just opposite my room Dr. Hewitt keeps his office. I see him driving out in the rain storms and in the blustering snows; hear him leaving his warm abode at midnight hours, and see him returning chilled and water-soaked only to meet a message from miles away for dispatch in that direction. And if he happens to be called, as too often happens, when all other remedies have failed, and the patient dies, it is all laid to his want of skill. I have come to think that even our every-day physicians are living martyrs to the cause of our suffering humanity. I now say, let them have their fees, round as they are; and more, the sympathies of the people who have their portion of the 'ills flesh is heir to.' "By the way, I think this word 'heir' is in most cases out of place. It intimates that disease comes as inevitably as fate or the decrees. We bring upon ourselves by our own folly most of the 'ills' that flesh is pestered with. Living in malarious regions will bring agues; giving way to continual melancholy will bring on consumption; and they who fare sumptuously every day must expect to know what pains dyspepsia can conjure up; and they that will walk on paper-soled shoes will have colds; and colds are the progenitors of almost every kind of disease. "I have a notion to deliver a set lecture some day on the Laws of Health. I shall hope, Mrs. Bantam, to have you in the audience." needs write up the list of that great paper.' I said The great monopolizer.' "Once more, page 344: Pickwick set him up notes which came near laying him over.' I said, Pickwick set him up; Nates came near laying him over.' But these are trivial. Some one-the reporter, the editor, or the printer-deserves great credit for the accuracy of our table-talk as printed. It is no fine thing to be mangled in print. Let all concerned beware." THE CHINESE CHARMS. HE admiral of the British fleet, previous to the bombardment of the city of Canton, announced his determination to discountenance and prevent all looting or plundering, both as demoralizing and as subversive of the discipline that is essentially necessary to success. Yet, with becoming deference to the humane intentions of this general order, seamen, soldiers, and officers of both services will loot, and most probably the highest functionary on the spot, down to the lowest camp-follower, did loot. Were there not so many ten thousand dollars, and so many bars of silver, carried off in triumph (as prize) for her majesty's coffers ? Be this as it may, both officers and soldiers on the spot managed to pocket a variety of little curiosities, many of which must be explained to them under the ambiguous heading given above of Chinese Charms; for, in all probability, up to this hour they are ignorant of what those valuable knickknacks really are. It is a well-known fact that there are official astrologers, appointed by the court of Pekin, to divine as to the fit time for marriage, shaving, bathing, or starting on a journey, etc., and to notify them in each year's imperial almanac. It is not surprising, then, that with such august encouragement given to soothsaying, there should be found in China myriads of men and women adopting this as their profession, who are paid by the people for their advice as to the daily routine of life, the result of business speculations, the success of medical prescriptions, and so forth. And, of course, it will follow that the Chinese public of all classes put trust in auguries, and place an enormous value on magical spells and charms. This credulity of the populace is not connected with one special form of religion more VOL. XII.-38 than with another; for, from direct contact with the people, it will be found that Taouism, a native religion of China, and Boodhism, a foreign intruder into China, both have contributed their share to pamper that passion for mystery, and that belief in invisible powers, by which the ignorant seek to explain inexplicable phenomena, and to frame excuses or to seek consolations for their individual misfortunes. But the tangible charms which, we presume, among other Canton prizes have fallen into the hands of our brave countrymen, may probably be arranged under two classes-the precatory, and the deprecatory. Of these, the latter is the more popular. They include every variety of magical invention for warding off sickness, disease, calamity, fire, and demoniacal possessions. We can select only a few, substituting English names for Chinese, with a word or two in explanation. "The cash-sword" is made of a large number of old copper coins, strung together in the shape of a rude sword, and kept straight by a piece of iron running through the whole length. It is supposed to have great effect in frightening away ghosts and evil spirits, and in hastening the recovery of sick people. It may be found chiefly in houses where persons have suffered violent deaths, or have committed suicide; and not unfrequently it is hung up by the bedside of inner-rooms. As the copper coins may have been cast under the reigns of different monarchs, it is imagined that the presence of the several sovereigns will afford a guarantee against misfortune of any kind. "An old brass mirror" may often be observed in the chief apartments of rich people; standing there for the purpose of enticing away foul and malignant demons. The notion prevails that it has the virtue of healing any one who may have become mad at the sight of a fiend. The demoniac has only to look at himself in the brazen mirror, and he is immediately cured of his ailment. There is also "the Han jade-stone." Of this the story goes that, under the Han dynasty, (that is, about the opening of the present era,) when a wealthy person died, each of his mourning friends dropped "a jade-stone" into his coffin: and, at this date, should any one be fortunate enough to obtain one of these rare buried jades, he may consider himself secure from the old age, are worn as charms for longevity; power of devils and the fury of fire. "The jade-stone seal" is something analogous; but is used principally as a guard against sudden fright. Very frequently it is worn by infants as frontlets or armlets, to show if the child be well or ill; the former being indicated by the clean appearance of the stone, the latter by a dark shade. Short, pithy sentences are sometimes cut upon them. There is also "a peach charm." On the first of the new year a sprig of peach blossoms is stuck up over the door of the house, saying to the vile spirits that roam about creation," Hitherto shall ye come, but no further." Yet one of their own poets has said: "If your own thoughts be free from impurity, of what need is this peach-charm?" "The tiger's claw," real, artificial, or pictorial, is another common charm against sudden starts and frights. "A three-cornered spell" is a paper with magical letters fancifully written upon it, folded in a triangular shape, and sewed on people's dresses, to ward off sickness and spirits. Every temple has a good supply of this cheap article, and there is a great run upon it. The paper generally is yellow; the writing is of red ink, and, to add due importance to the fragment, it is stamped with the temple-seal. Many are used as cures for the sick, by being burned and having the ashes thrown into a medical liquid, which compound draught is quaffed by the patient. It has been said above, that they have also appendages of a felicitous or hopeful class. Such is "the Hundred-family Lock." A father has a son and heir born to him, and his best wish for his offspring is, that he may enjoy a long and a happy life. So he goes the round of his personal friends, to obtain from one hundred separate individuals, each three or four small copper coins, called cash. With this collection he purchases a neat lock, which he hangs round his child's neck, for the purpose of locking him to life; and it is presumed that these one hundred contributors will stand security for the child's reaching a good old age. There is the "neck-ring lock," likewise used for the same object, both by grown women and children. Gourds made of copper, or of the wood of those people's coffins who have attained the former are slung round the neck, the latter round the wrist. This fancy is traced to the tradition that, in ancient days, gourd-bottles were carried by old men on their backs. In Chinese houses, in collections of old furniture, in their carvings, and in then pictures, the peach figures very prominently. It is another charm for long life, called "Longevity peach." A fabulous animal, which goes by the name Ke-lin, is believed to have appeared at the birth of Confucius and other sages. The body resembles that of the deer, the tail that of the ox, and it has only one horn; but its nature is said to be tame and kind. An image of this fabulous creature, or its picture, is worn by children as a bespeaking of great and good luck. Often a figure or painting of this unicorn is met with, presenting a child. This form is particularly respected by married people who wish or expect to be blessed with clever children. Phylacteries are in common use with the more religious orders. These consist chiefly of tiny girdle books, and slips of paper, which are stitched up in different parts of the dress, or slung on the belt, or pasted on the walls and doors. They seem to contain Sanscrit or Thibetan words, much in use in Buddhist writings. Besides these talismans in writing, there are different forms of the three characters which the Chinese use to represent the grand total of good luck; Fuh, family increase; Luh, official emolument; Show, long life; to carry either or all of these about the person, or to have them in the house in pictures and wall-scrolls, is considered remarkably lucky, and predicative of certain felicity. Such superstitious and romantic notions have their counterpart in the absurd and grotesque fancies that still lurk among the people of Great Britain; for example, the finding and nailing up of a horse-shoe, etc. And, as to the practice of divination in China by the Fung-shuy, or wind and water doctors, their functions differ little from those of the witches and wizards who, to this day, are not without influence in the ruder districts of Great Britain, and whose supernatural knowledge of events is firmly believed in by a considerable portion of the agricultural population. |