Courarattveny little is known by foreigners of the details of the industrial arts of China, partly because of the secluded mode of production, bat mainly because the appliances are of so rade and antiquated a nature that, except to the curious or the archeologist, they. offer little interest. Processes long since extinct in other countries, are still, in Ching, carried on as they were twenty centuries ago; and, as repetition is not conducive to high excellence, with tendency rather towards do-generation than progress. The hand mill, the quern of the rade Celt; the plough consisting of little more than a crooked bough shod with iron; the cotton gin and spinning wheel, the intter of which has not even yet attained to a sufficient developement to be worked by a treadle; the rude irrigating pump, tances of the survival of a state of civilisation some two thousand years old, Even in the higher arts the same stagnation is to be noted; the loom of the Chinese peasant, as he laboriously picks up his threads and sways his shuttle from side to side, is on a par with the other processes mentioned above. It produces for him indeed a strong though coarse fabric, and as time is of little value to him, and the political economy of the empire leaves no chance of amassing money, he makes use for his immediate wants of what he finds at his door. It is thus that, though at one time China was able to a limited extent to export her cotton cloths, she is now compelled to import in continually increasing quantities. The great demand for cotton in China, and the comparatively limited produce of the raw article except in certain localities, as about Shanghai, peculiarly fitted for its growth, will probably always be effectual in preventing the import being changed into an export, In other fabrics China could, however, had her people the aptitude or her Government the energy to improve present methods, take a high stand. Silk, hemp or flax and paper goods are p haps the most noteworthy of these. It a trange that the country which 80 largely exports silk of the highest qualities to Europe, should be so backwardinits manipulation—that the trade in silk goods with the suine countries 80 small as it is. Yot we believe that the rudeness of the process, and ita consequent want of finish and excessive cost of production, are the great bars to consumption, The same applies to hemp and its allied fabrics; for the Production of the raw material China is admirably suited, yet see how small is her export of grass-cloths. While, however, such is the general character of the Chinese manufacture, there are even still some of th recesses in silk trid grass-cloth weaving from which inactive lessons might be learn possible that the. want of curiosity induced by the little reward to be obthined by its exercise, still leavesns comparatively ignorant of some of the products of Chinese looms. Many of thetine gauze silks of the Chinese are excellent both design and execution, andasastep in the history of the art are well worthy of more study than they have received. The wild silks of Szechuen are worked into a variety of fabrics of different descriptions, unknown or unthought of. tis, however, true that in the manufacture of silk we are ourselves more or less bound down by precedent. It seems as if the price of the article were too high to try experiments on, and while the manufacture of every other species of textile goods has made great progress, that of silk seems in Europe to remain in statu quo. Possibly were Szechuen, with its wealth of wild sill thrown open to trade, a sufficient i ducement would be offered to foreign enterprise to improve in some measure the manufacture of inferior qualities of silks, so as to afford a material for dresses at once beauiifal, reasonably cheap and lasting. All efforts hitherto made to render practicable, on a large scale, the manufacture of China grass, have been more or less unsuccessful. The Indian Government has gone so far as to offer pecuniary rewards, but we have not learnt that success has yet been attained. Here also some investigation into native methods, however >ade, might afford the hint required. in the manufacture of paper the Chinese are, if possible, still more backward. Acquainted with this valuable article possibly even before Europe, their efforts have confined themselves to the utilization of but one source, and that about the least useful. Practically, it may be that all the paper in China is made from bamboo shoots, for although other materials, such as straw and the bark of various trees, re for some of the coarser desis, such as that to mix with lime in forming plaster for walls, bamboo shoots are the main article from which the paper of commerce is made. The visitor to the valleys of the Ping-shui strict may here and there come across rade paper mill; an_ overshot wheel, catching some mountain stream in its fall, lifts by turns a series of wooden mallets which fall alternatel: into a rude stone trough. This trough kept supplied with young bamboo twigs, which gradually become reduced to coarse pulp; this Inter is poured out by hand over a series of sieves and left to dry in the sun, the result. being the paper of commerce. It possesses little consistency, and not being sized is of course utterly unfit for European use. It varies in quality, bnt the best, beyond their suitability for taking colour, compare but ill with the commonest European fabric. At home, the supply of suitable materials for papermaking has been for years a matter of importance, and in connection the Annual International Exbibition of 1872, a special memorandum has been issued, suggesting collections of paper from all parts of the world, China amongst the number; the erronn that the "rice" paper of Canton is really made from rice, finding place in the circular. The above remarks will show that little of this nature is to be expected from Chins, though there are, there is no doubt, many plants suited for the.purpose. The finer varieties of urtica, which yield material for the grass-cloth of China, would no doubt be admirably suited for the purpose, if procurable sufficiently cheap, but we are not aware of any trial having ever been made. We draw attention however to the fact, as also to that of the less known textile fabrics of the empire as being worthy of attention, since admission to the Exhibition for the forthcom. ing year can only be obtained for textures or other goods arriving eatly in the month of March.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.