No respectable Chinese family would think of allowing their son to go on the stage.

As a natural consequent the members of the Chinese stage have, as a rule, been men who were as much below the level of moral respectability as conventionalism had already adjudged them to be below the level of social respectability.

Regard anyone as a mirror with a cracked face and he will soon justify your opinion of him.

If the morals of Chinese actors will not bear investigation it is probably due to the social ostracism to which they have always been subjected.

The same phenomenon may be seen in connection with Buddhism.