We find persons frequently speaking of Shanghai as if it were a place of dismal banishment, and hopeless exile. There are of course those who exaggerate its attractions, and find magnetic influence in circumstances and conditions that have a tendency to repel the majority of reflective and reasonable beings, but on the other hand we meet not seldom with melancholy and atrabilious Christians who regard the amusements and engagements of the place with feelings of profound dissatisfaction, and who are perpetually sighing for a world where, the conditions of existence would be easier, and who cherish a hatred against the natives, and the climate, and the water, and the drainage, and the Municipal Council and Society in general, that would be edifying if it were not monotonous, and respectable if it were not indiscriminate.
In one respect however it must be conceded that the foreign residents in Shanghai are not altogether martyrs. We refer to the matter of "creature comforts." To confirm our opinion, we respectfully request any anxious parent who has a son in China, and who fears that he may suffer grievous bodily harm from the tainted air and the absence of the appliances which civilization provides, to peruse a small neatly printed volume which has lately been published by Messrs. Hall and Holtz, entitled "The Sportsman's Reminder of Necessaries for and Access. sories to an Up Country Shooting Excursion in China." In this well printed and comprehensive little man. ual we find that the necessaries for an Up Country Trip comprise inter alia Pickles, Jams, Marmalade, York Hams, Bacon, Soups in tin, Oxford Sausages, Cambridge Sausages, Ox Tongue, Pork Pie, Veal and Ham Pie, fresh Salmon, fresh, pickled, and kippered Herings, Haddocks, Sardines, and pate de fole gras. Now really, when these modest requirements are considered, it is nob easy to think of the Young Briton in China as a being to be compassionated on the score of physical discomfort, The inner man is certainly provided for in a place where an excursionist is reminded in the most natural and easy way, when about to "rough it," thath> must in no wise neglect his pate de fole gras!! Lord Lytton remarks in Harold, "Four meals a day, nor those sparing, were not seemed too extravagant an interpretation of the daily bread for which the Saxons prayed." It seems that Anglo-Saxons in the Flowery Land, though centuries separate them from their full-fed sires and many leagues of land and water from their homes, are not degenerated in appetite. The subject of intoxicating drinks is to be approached in this age of Temperance Lectures with much fear and trembling. It is apparent that the doctrines of the Shantung Road have not yet penetrated to the creeks and the Grand Canal, for the work before us comprises a list of liquors quite as formidable as the catalogue of eatables. No less than five sorts of whiskey, Islay Malt, Thorne's Blend, Campbelltown, Kinahan's L.L. and Dunville's Old Trish are regarded as needful to fortify a man who entrusts himself to the perils of a Boat Trip, and the lighter and more effervescing stimulus of Krog's, Jules Mumm's, or Louis derer's Champagne is not considered a luxury, but a necessary by those who go up country in China.
We are profoundly impressed by a perusal of this little volume, and we trust most earnestly that it will be largely diffused at Home as well as in this country. We have only to take up the ordinary English ma-gaziness to see that erroneous notions prevail about China. Ina recent num ber of Temple Bar, a popular writer put Pagodas on the Bund of Shanghai, and enlarged upon the danger residents and visitors are subject to from Pirates. The prevalent impression beyond China circles, is that we live in a semi-bar-barons region, and are strangers to comfort, much less to luxury. It is probable that the perusal of the little book before us would disabuse the solicitous parents and guardians of Chaaszes and Book-keepers of various
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.