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5 Jan 58 Peter Shanghai Mother 1, Hyde Park Place ______________________________________________________________________________________________
Shanghai
Jan 5. 1858
My dear Mother
I think I was most remiss in my letter of yesterday, so as it is pouring with rain & I can do nothing else, I take up my pen again today.
I did not tell you anything about China, for having only just arrived I have nothing to tell. But one little incident, startling as it is, I must not omit.
Just fancy arriving in the mouth of a river & finding seven trunkless heads in seven open wicker cages suspended on poles directly facing you. The chief punishments are cutting off their heads & tails (pigtails, I mean) of course. It is doubtful with a Chinaman which is the greatest. There were 30 of these gentlemen decapitated one fine morning for stealing & the heads were distributed about so that every one might have a look at them – & a charming sight it is.
Only Chinamen, like the oysters, are so accustomed to it that they think nothing of it. The tail is cut off first & after that the head. The culprit does not lay his head on the block but takes his seat comfortably – at least of that there may be some doubt – on a chair or stool, for I don’t think they muster chairs here & some one walks behind him & has it off before he is aware of it.
Their mode of burying the dead too is objectionable to say nothing of its being strange. If a man is poor, he just lays the body out anywhere, so that the country is covered with them in just rough coffins – on the ground, not underground. It is a great joke with some of them to place them near a Britisher’s residence & then he’s sure to pay for having them buried, as we do organ grinders to go away in London.
By the bye, I have just been reading a book on England where a German thinks barrel organs a great attraction & a most agreeable kind of music. The English have no taste for music.
When a Chinaman goes into mourning, he puts a white end to his pigtail instead of the usual black one. They don’t like going into mourning because it shows how much real hair there is in the tail, in which is concealed with the black crepe end, for however much hair a man may have, his pigtail is always the same length.
Then too, a pigtail has its use. They tie it round their hats on a windy day. A great hit – and a great saving in ribband [sic] – might not [I] think be taken into consideration with the fair sex at home. They find a difficulty more in keeping on their bonnets. You see huge pins that seem to meet in the cranium. Here is at once a remedy. See what you can do towards the unfortunates.
You seem to have had a pleasant tour in the mountains. It is astonishing, altho’ in China all the time, how near we must have been – for I too have been inspecting W(h)ales – only that I carried the point further & caught sharks.
I had a long letter for Mary, please to tell her, recounting all my adventures, but as I fear she cannot be in existence, at least not in this world, altho’ perhaps in the seventh Heaven, I have torn them all up to save postage which I fear will be large on this packet.
My Father says Helen ‘is really an interesting child’ as tho’ there would be any doubt on the subject & you say she is looking better for the sea air as tho’ she could look better.
P.G.L
Jan 6. 1858
Every one is busy today writing their letters for the mail goes tomorrow – so I must not be troublesome.
I neglected yesterday, when I wrote & told you about the decapitated Chinamen, to give you a small sketch of the figure they cut. For seven heads suspended to poles may be easily pictured – more easily than describing. I cannot pretend to enter into the characteristics & expressions of each countenance, for Chinamen’s heads at any time (particularly after they have been separated from bodies & tails) are uncommonly alike.
The seven gentlemen there who had seated themselves on their stools who had their tails cut off first & then bared their necks to the fatal stroke of the cutlass; who one moment were living mortals & the next bleeding corpses were exhibited thus;