We are reminded perpetually that the Chinese are an historic nation. When we venture to question their other titles to respect, we are silenced by reference to the hoar antiquity of the Celestial Empire. They were lis-toning to the grave wisdom of Confadus, clothed and in their right minds, when our ancestors were feeding on roots and painting themselves blue. We may inveigh against their supiueness, we may arraign their perfidy, we may deplore their corruption, but one point we mast concede to them. They are an ancient nation. Even Mr. Barlingame, a citizen of the country which is believed to have scanty res. pect for what is old, perpetually dressed up his speeches with a flowery compli. ment to China on the score of its venerable age. He delighted to describe him self as the messenger from the youngest Republic tothe oldest Empire. Of course there are evil-minded persons who seo very little to respecting age asmuch. They admit that "the hoary head is a crown of glory" if found where Solo. mon desired to find it, but not: else, This, however, is away from the ques. tion, China may have, and undoubtedly has, many claims on' the respect and consideration of other countries, but the one most frequently insisted on is her antiquity. This being so, it strikes us as remarkable that she should be so neligent of her historical monuments. It is the rarest thing in the world to find a public building of any sort in China in good repair. The weeds grow up between the slabs of their temple courts, The arches commemorating the valour of heroes and the virtue of heroines are allowed to decay and perish. This appears to us anomalous, We can account for the dilapidated condition of private houses and for the neglect of edifices that have no historic associa. tions, but that a nation which so profoundly reveres antiquity should habitually allow ancient monuments to go to wreck and ruin, seems on the face of it paradoxical, "A recent writer, referring to the practice of France and England in this regard, observes with some discrimination: "There was a time when we used to contrast, and with some reason, the comparative care taken of such treasures in Hugland with the utter neglect of them in France. Among ourselves, the only destructive tendencies to be combated wore those of neglect and ignorance, and of our fanatical respect for what are called the rights of property, entitling ® manito use that which is his with the most cynical disregard to -the feelings of his neighbours, or subject only to that kind of lynch law which we call public opinion, In France, in addition to all these evil motives, there was the genuine iconoclastic spirit—the spirit which the peasant hostile to the remains of antiquity simply as such, the remains of what he regarded as his long age of suffering and Now in this country neglect is not the child of ignorance, neither is it produced by any slavish respect for the inviolable sanctity of private property. It is still less traceable to a-hatred of the ancient buildings as the monuments of an iron age of tyranny and oppress: sion. "Phe ordinary Chinaman knows that certain monuments were erected in honour of defunct benefactors to the strict or the country. He devs not profess. to undervalue these men's worth, but he systematically lets the grass overgrow the stone, and the cement loosen, and the stractare tumble to pieces. It is no concern of his.
In viewing this phenomenon, two questions arise. Is this conduct part and parcel of the universal apathy which allows every institution in the Empire to fall to rain, or is it an evidence of the deep-rooted belief that the fame of China's Past rests Ton far more enduring "foundations
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.