i;8  THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE
profitable  to  the  Chinese,  and  were  not  molested  so  long
as  they  were  law-abiding,  but  law-abiding  in  the  sense  o
abiding  by  the  law  of  China.  It  was  irksome  to  them  to
have  no  lawyer  to  instruct  them  in  the  law  of  the  land,  to
have  no  fixed  and  certain  law  to  appeal  to,  to  be  doubt  u
of  the  application  of  the  law  to  any  particular  case,  and  to
have  no  doubt  whatever  on  the  course  likely  to  be  followe
by  the  administrators  of  the  law  ;  but  this  was  all  an  inciden
of  their  position,  and  the  rapid  accumulation  of  fortune
enabled  them  to  shake  the  dust  of  the  country  from  then
shoes  after  a  very  short  stay.  So  the  position  was  endure  ,
and  the  lex  loci  submitted  to,  probably,  from  what  we  know
of  the  English  and  American  character,  with  many  nun  murs
but  without  overt  opposition.
It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  describe  the  state  ofte
prisons  of  China  or  the  methods  by  which  testimony  an
confession  are  elicited,  nor  to  demonstrate  the  insisten
need  to  the  Chinese  people  of  the  article  in  King  John  s
Magna  Charta,  “  lo  no  freeman  will  we  deny  or  sell  justice.
The  incompatability  of  laws  based  on  diverse  civilisations
is  nowhere  more  marked  than  in  China.  There  no  bankruptcy ­
  law  is  possible  :  if  a  debtor's  own  estate  will  not
suffice  to  pay  his  debts,  the  deficiency  must  be  made  good  by
his  father,  brothers,  or  uncles  ;  if  a  debtor  absconds,  #
immediate  family  are  promptly  imprisoned  ;  if  the  debtor
returns,  he  is  put  in  prison  and  kept  there  indefinitely,  so
long  as  he  can  find  money  for  his  daily  food,  until  released
by  payment  in  full  or  by  death  :  this  is  the  law.  When
in  1895  Admiral  Ting  found  himself  forced  to  surrender
Weihaiwei  and  his  fleet,  he  committed  suicide  ;  by  this
courageous  step,  technically  dying  before  surrender,  he
saved  his  immediate  family—father,  mother,  sons,  and
daughters—from  decapitation,  and  their  property  from
confiscation,  the  penalty  when  a  commander  surrenders  an
Imperial  fortress  :  this  is  the  law.  When  in  the  old  days
an  English  gunner  caused  the  death  of  a  Chinese  by  firing
a  salute  from  a  cannon  from  which,  by  oversight,  the  ball
had  not  been  removed,  he  was  seized,  tried,  and  executed  ,