Suanouar is not much addicted to the worship of heroes. The mind of the community may be said to be cast in a materialistic mould. We are apt to view matters in a practical way, and to care very little for the side-lights that are cast on common subjects by association and memory. The passion for looking at Royal. personages which has always characterized the Briton, was shown to exist in the breast of Shanghailanders when H. R. H. the Duke of Edinbugh appeared on our Bund, but it is unlikely that such a demonstration as that of 1869 will occur again for many years. It is pos. sible that a few loungers may go.out to stare at the Grand Duke Alexis, but in all likelihood His Imperial Highness will be allowed to follow his own devices, and will be unpestered by the mob of followers who dog the steps of titled personages in European and American cities. Now it cannot be denied that this absence of the quality which Mr. Thackeray used to call "(Snobbishness is a very good sign, and that it is probably owing to the Cosmopolitan character of the Settlement, and to the absence of those rules and restrictions which render Colonial life so vexatious and petty. On this remote mud flat are gathered the subjects of many ancient and aristocratic nations; and at Home. these persons would inevitably fall into the groove of tradition, and exhibit that warm interest in the Court newsman's reports of Drawing Rooms and Royal Progresses, which their un travelled re-natives display at this moment. But, out here, there is a thread of Republicanism running through our society and crossing it; and to this we owe the change in the texture of opinion and the general exemption from title worship which is so satisfactory a feature in Shanghai. It is
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.