Changing China

e in China I had the honour of meeting a Mr. Ede, who had just returned from distributing food in a famine-stricken district, and his descrip

hey have rainy weather in Thibet or the sun shines unduly on Himalayan snows-this sand is carried along with the water, and it is asserted indeed that the river consists more of sand than of water; as the river slackens the sand is deposited and the bed is filled up, with the result that the next flood, taking the Chinese unawares, overflows its banks and reduces a huge district to poverty; they cannot sow their fields because they cannot see them. Of course the authorities should not be taken by surprise and the banks should be made up, and canals should be cut to take away the

st advocate of Tariff Reform would hardly like to see introduced into Europe; these custom-houses are called "Likin," and are a source at once of a great deal of profit to the provinces and of irritation to all traders. The Chinese used these custom-houses to engineer a corner in rice by which the area of scarcity of food was enormously increased and several officials amassed consid

steamers, might excite the hostility of the population; they were courteous, they were diplomatic, but they were obstructive; and so it came about that while there was a famine in one district of China, in the other districts there was a very heavy surplus, of which they had difficulty in disposing. All this did not create the slightest surprise in

nt in thought. While on the other side of the globe civilisation has been handed from nation to nation, and a civilised race has become barbarous and a barbarous race civilised, the Chinese, without making any very great advance, have steadily proceeded along a path of progress, and at the present time they possess a very carefully organised system of society. On paper the whole thing is perfect: the Emperor at the top, the Viceroys over each province, under them the Prefectures, and so down to the village community in the country or the trade guild in the town. The system of government is so perfect that they claim that they are abl

etween England and Ireland. I do not for a moment mean to say that there are no differences between the Chinese-that would be untrue; but you will not find such a difference as one might expect from the diversity of geographical conditions. The civilisation is essentially similar. It is a civilisation with great merits. The populatio

at numbers of them are very loyal to their employers. But when this much has been said, the dark side of their civilisation must be added-it is essentially corrupt and cruel; the ideas of hon

ants, an honourable, pure, and merciful man. The Chinaman will be in his element in the factory; the long hours of monotonous toil will not be unpleasant to him; he is always sober-in fact, he is by nature and culture the ide

he being a European should be captain of a ship that was owned by Chinese, and largely used by them. He told us that the Chinese merchants had once tried to have a Chinese captain, but the moment the ship reached the first port of the Yangtsze, the custom officers were on board rummaging here and rummaging there. Very soon a large amount of contraband was found on the ship, put there with the knowledge of the captain. The consequence wa

diary coinage, and this was the common currency in all the ports until a few years ago; but when the Chinese began to Westernise they considered it inconsistent with their dignity not to have a coinage of their own. Led by the Japanese, and assisted by several firms whose speciality was the erection of mints and mintage machinery, they started mints all over the country, and they have kept these mints busy with the most funeste results. To begin with, they coined a dollar in imitation of the Mexican dollar, but even in this the mints did not agree. Some dollars are very light, some slightly below value, and some are nearly true. The first experience of the traveller is that he possesses in his pocket a set of coins which no one will accep

nt values. And now I hear that they have begun to make money by debasing the old silver shoe coinage, which, though it is sold by weight, used to have a certain standard of purity, and they have issued cash which have no intrinsic value at all, and that do not represent the fraction of a coin having any intrinsic value. The result of this currency "Rake's Progress" has been to produce what

en as his bed for his midday siesta an ordinary piece of granite curbing; and as you go along in the train every freight car that you pass has some one sleeping on it to protect it from robbery, and a truck of coals or a load of stone is obviously regarded as a most comfortable resting-place. Some of the doctors maintained that this was the case throughout their nervous system-they were insensitive to pain; others said that pain, like everything else, is a thing to which you can get accustomed, and that pain has played so large a part in their lives that they are accustomed to it, and are not therefore afraid of it. Take, for instance, the foot-binding of the

r not I cannot say. A man was being bambooed for an offence, and astonished the officials by laughing all the time; the more he was flogged the harder he laughed, till at

ter he was seen hanging about the ship, and at night they found him lying between some bales. He was turned out, but he constantly crept back, first to one place, then to another, till at last the sailor came to know his face quite well. One day, as the sailor went ashore, he was attracted by a little crowd looking a

ed to one or two men and asked them to help him to carry this poor sufferer to some house near, but they could not or would not find a house to keep him in; and so in the end Dr. Macklin determined to take him straight back to Nanking, which he did. There he administered a very heavy dose of quinine hypodermically, with the result that the man soon showed signs of returning consciousness. It was a case

S BAD SIDE-AN OLD BEGGAR

eard were up river. One came from the country of the Lolos. The Chinese were going out to fight the Lolos, and the missionary saw them carrying a handsome young man bound on a plank so that he could not move-so bound that his head was thrown back. After certain ceremonies they cut the man's throat, and scattered the blood on the flags; it was a sort of human sacrifice. Another story we heard from some devoted Franciscan Sisters up at Ichang. They assured us that if a mother