Cotoen Yule some years ago pointed out that a curious anomaly in China is the vast growth of population, in spite of political and social decay. Tt is a recognised commonplace to speak of the "teeming millions" of China, but indeed the phrase expresses a fact that it is always wise to keep in our recollection. It seems next to impossible to prevent the population of China from increasing beyond all precedents of multiplication. One is reminded irresistibly of the remark of Voltaire—There were very few caterpillars in my canton last year, and we killed nearly the whole of them. God has rendered them this year more numerous than the leaves. Is it not nearly thus with other animals, and above all with mankind? Famine, Pestilence, and Death... destroy the inhabitants of a province, and we are surprised at finding it abound with people an hundred years after. wards." The somewhat crude wonder of Voltaire has been superseded by the Darwinian doctrine of the "the survival of the fittest" and the struggle for existence." Still, China's growth of population, like everything else in China, is a riddle. Now a scientific man, free from the inconvenient vice of sympathy, may contemplate the removal of the savage American Indians from the face of the earth with satisfaction, or at least with calmness; but it is a serious thing to contemplate the wholesale destruction of millions of industrious and peaceable Chinese, who really seem to fill their place in creation very well. They are no doubt an unclean people; but then, as some people are fond of reminding us, so were our ancestors three centuries ago. They are untrathfal also, which happily our ancestors were nob; as Kingsley points out in Hypatia, the word of a Northman was always credited, even long before the doctrines of Christianity came to influence him. But if we can avoid allowing the odour of their personal filthiness to come between the wind ud our nobility, we must accord Chinamen the possession of some active and many passive virtues. They are thrifty, they are docile, they are cheerful, they are patient. These qualities go far to account for the fact that they are tolerated as colonists, even by populations who heartily dislike them in other respects; and though their growth alarms the inhabitants of California, the latter are compelled to allow their ability, perseverance, and economy. Yet in the face of all this, it seems to be inevitable, in obedience to "a Higher Power than we can contradict," that they must be reduced in numbers. At present there are signs not to be mistaken, of a visitation of Famine. The news from the North speaks of failure in the crops; and we know by sod experience how inefficient are all the precautions of the Executive to meet so dreadful an exigency. Chinese officialdom will be powerless to cope with this crowning trouble; and in the present state of the country, the scourge will fall with aggravated cruelty on the masses,. We fear that the present rulers will be tried in the balance and found wanting, in a manner that even experienced observers do not contemplate, All nations find the difficulty of meeting with efficiency the extra calls on their exchequer, and the endurance which a famine entails; but the China of to-day is in a Jamentable state of unpreparedness. Now the sins of the mandarins will find them out.
Their greed, and corruption, and ex-tertian will be found to have destroyed all the fiscal and legislative machinery that might have alleviated the calamity. The bad governors will feel the effect of their bad government; and they will learn too late the truth of the saying of the writer we quoted before—The principal object, however, is not to possess a superfluity of mop, but to render such a8 we have as little unhappy as possible." There can be no doubt, in fact, that the Government is in a most critical position. It is assuming a braving attitude to foreigners, which is as foolish as it is perilous—while it is menaced by two great dangers within its own borders, viz., Rebellion and Famine.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.