OF THE CHARITY OF THE EMPEROR TO THE POOR.
I have told you how the Great Kaan provides for the distribution of
necessaries to his people in time of dearth, by making store in time
of cheapness. Now I will tell you of his alms and great charity to the
poor of his city of Cambaluc.
You see he causes selection to be made of a number of families in
the city which are in a state of indigence, and of such families some
may consist of six in the house, some of eight, some of ten, more or
fewer in each as it may hap, but the whole number being very great.
And each family he causes annually to be supplied with wheat and other
corn sufficient for the whole year. And this he never fails to do every
year. Moreover, all those who choose to go to the daily dole at the
Court receive a great loaf apiece, hot from the baking, and nobody is
denied; for so the Lord hath ordered. And so some 30,000 people go
for it every day from year’s end to year’s end. Now this is a great
goodness in the Emperor to take pity of his poor people thus! And they
benefit so much by it that they worship him as he were God.
[He also provides the poor with clothes. For he lays a tithe upon
all wool, silk, hemp, and the like, from which clothing can be made;
and he has these woven and laid up in a building set apart for the
purpose; and as all artizans are bound to give a day’s labour weekly,
in this way the Kaan has these stuffs made into clothing for those
poor families, suitable for summer or winter, according to the time of
year. He also provides the clothing for his troops, and has woollens
woven for them in every city, the material for which is furnished by
the tithe aforesaid. You should know that the Tartars, before they were
converted to the religion of the Idolaters, never practised almsgiving.
Indeed, when any poor man begged of them they would tell him, “Go
with God’s curse, for if He loved you as He loves me, He would have
provided for you.” But the sages of the Idolaters, and especially the
_Bacsis_ mentioned before, told the Great Kaan that it was a good work
to provide for the poor, and that his idols would be greatly pleased
if he did so. And since then he has taken to do for the poor so much as
you have heard.{1}]
NOTE 1.—This is a curious testimony to an ameliorating effect of
Buddhism on rude nations. The general establishment of medical
aid for men and animals is alluded to in the edicts of Asoka;[1]
and hospitals for the diseased and destitute were found by Fahian
at Palibothra, whilst Hiuen Tsang speaks of the distribution of
food and medicine at the _Punyasálás_ or “Houses of Beneficence,”
in the Panjáb. Various examples of a charitable spirit in Chinese
Institutions will be found in a letter by Père d’Entrecolles in
the XVth Recueil of _Lettres Edifiantes_; and a similar detail in
_Nevius’s China and the Chinese_, ch. xv. (See _Prinsep’s Essays_,
II. 15; _Beal’s Fah-hian_, 107; _Pèl. Boudd._ II. 190.) The Tartar
sentiment towards the poor survives on the Arctic shores:—“The
Yakuts regard the rich as favoured by the gods; the poor as
rejected and cast out by them.” (_Billings_, Fr. Tranls. I. 233.)
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[1] As rendered by J. Prinsep. But I see that Professor H. H. Wilson
did not admit the passage to bear that meaning.