ed him

Yet there is no sense of crime as we of the West understand it, and
nothing is feared from the Chinese law. A man kills a slave, tortures
him to death, and when the Chinese mandarin is appealed to, if he is at
all, he looks wise and says, "I quite see your point, but I can do
nothing. The murdered man was the landlord's slave," and, with a gentle
wave of his three-inch finger-nail, he explains how a man may kill his
slave, his wife, or his son--and the law can do nothing. That is, if he
compensates the mandarin.

A Nou-su looked upon a girl one day, when he was out collecting tribute.
She was handsome, and he instructed his men to take her. She refused. A
sum of one hundred ounces of silver was offered to anyone who would
kidnap her and carry her off to his harem. Eventually he got the girl,
and had her father tortured and then put to death because he would not
deliver his daughter over to him. Yet there is no redress.

Nou-su women, their feet unbound, with high foreheads and well-cut
features, with fiery eyes set in not unkindly faces, tall and healthy,
would be considered handsome women in any country in Europe. They rarely
intermarry with other tribes. A good deal of affection certainly exists
sometimes between husband and wife and between parents and children, but
the looseness of the marriage relation leads to unending strife.

Many Europeans, travelers and missionaries, have been murdered in the
country inhabited by the independent Lolo people. Although I have not
personally been through any of that country, I have been on the very
outskirts and have lived for a long time among the people there. I found
them a pleasant hospitable race, fairly easy to get on with. And it must
not be averred that, because they consider their natural enemy, the
Chinese, the man to be robbed and murdered, and because they kill off
their fellow-landlords in order the more quickly to get rich, that they
treat all strangers alike. Among the Europeans who have suffered death
at their hands, it is probable that in some way the cause was traceable
to their own bearing towards the people--either a total lack of
knowledge of their language or an attitude which caused suspicion.

Among the Nou-su, strong as this feudal life still is, the Chinese are
fast gaining permanent influence. Their dissolute and drunken and
inhuman daily practices are tending to work out among this people their
own destruction, and in years to come in this