k.

The mandarins (or rulers of towns) often sentence offenders to lie upon
the ground, and to have thirty strokes of the bamboo. But the wooden
collar is worse than the bamboo stick. It is a great piece of wood with a
hole for a man to put his head through. The men in wooden collars are
brought out of their prisons every morning, and chained to a wall, where
everybody passing by can see them. They cannot feed themselves in their
wooden collars, because they cannot bring their hands to their mouths;
but sometimes a son may be seen feeding his father, as he stands chained
to the wall. There are men also whose business it is to feed the
prisoners. For great crimes men are strangled or beheaded.

CHARACTER.--A Chinaman's character cannot be known at first. You might
suppose from his way of speaking that a Chinaman was very humble; because
he calls himself "the worthless fellow," or "the stupid one," and he
calls his son "the son of a dog;" but if you were to tell him he had an
evil heart, he would be very much offended; for he only gives himself
these names Thai he may _seem_ humble. He calls his acquaintance
"venerable uncle," "honorable brother." This he does to please them. The
Chinese are very proud of their country, and think there is none like it.
They have given it the name of the "Heavenly or Celestial Empire." They
look upon foreigners as monkeys and devils. Often a woman may he heard in
the streets saying to her little child, "There is a foreign devil (or a
Fan Quei"). The Chinese think the English very ugly, and called them the
"red-haired nation."

It must be owned that the Chinese are industrious: indeed, if they were
not, they would be starved. A poor man often has to work all day up to
the knees in water in the rice-field, and yet gets nothing for supper but
a little rice and a few potatoes.

The ladies who can live without working are very idle, and in the winter
rise very late in the morning.

Men, too, play, as children do here; flying kites is a favorite game.
Dancing, however, is quite unknown.

The Chinese are very selfish and unfeeling. Beggars may be seen in the
middle of the town dying, and no one caring for them, but people gambling
close by.

The Chinese have an idea that after a man is dead the house must be
cleansed from ghosts; so to save themselves this trouble, poor people
often cast their dying relations out of their hovels into the street to
die!

But in general sons treat their p