Tree is something very Indicrous in the Taotai's fussy anxiety to preserve the morals of people living in the foreign Settlements from contamination by bands of strolling musicians. Dirty and offensive these vagabonds are no -doubt, and "depraved" probably also, but it is the depravity of their music rather than of their habits that strikes the foreigner who has not reached the lofty moral elevation at which alone a Chinese official can find air clear enough to breathe, We fancy we could point to at least half a score of police-protected institutions in the Settlements more dangerous to morality than the few bands of strollers upon whom the Taotai's fulminations have descended.
But as there is nothing so bad that its obaractor cannot be redeemed by imposing a tax on it, the remedy is obvious. An agreement between the Councils and the Taotai as to the levy to be made on these dismal serenaders is all that is necessary to transform them from dangerous ruffians into xospectablé members of the community, Iuueputety after the civil war in the United States, Dr. Da Costa, of Phil delphie, invented (in the sense of discovered) the "Irritable Heart." He found that men who had suffered from fevers or any debilitating disease, and at the same time had been on active service or oppressed by anxieties, were from that out subject to dizzins palpitation, and incapacity for exertion. Complete physical rest and abstention from any excitement, counted for mach in successful treatment. A lesson this for many mon whom the keen struggle for success and even for existence has Jed into overwork, and who are beginning to feel the effects of undue strain, in anxiety, indigestion or sleeplessness. The fact is we work now with our brains instead of with our muscles, and if we go on at the present rate, and transmit our habits and conditions to the next generation, the European Aryan of half a century hence will be a hysterical and pouralgio invalid ineapable of resisting the overpowering advenoe of the phlegmatic Mongolian, Tris od that we should be indebted to paper published in London for news about what is going on within a couple of thousand yards of the Bund, Yet, but for a paragraph in the Pall Mall Gazette, we should not have known that railway owned by Chinamen is now to be laid down" to replace the Woosung railway which, as "the property of foreigners, was torn up." This naturally implies that preparations are being made for this new Chinese railway, or-at least that the ground which is to be occupied by it is being carefully looked after, so as to avoid unueceseary expense when the line comes to be constructed. We omitted to chronicle this; we knew nothing of ity we are in doubt whether to dismiss with contumely our entire staff of reporters, or merely to reprimand them severely and strike our editorial breast before a generous and forgiving public. Too evidently we occupy the "uninformed quarters," which the superior person who writes the Pall Mall's Occasional Notes treats with so much an open cage, three feet square, in which he has to sit down. The character for this [A] is very expressive. These frequent executions at the provincial capital, to which all to be decapitated are brought, are largely attended.
23rd Nov. contempt. He has "repeatedly stated that the great body of Mandarin have no sort of objection to the uso of railways; on the contrary they fully appre. ciate their value, and are perfectly willing to adopt them on condition that foreigners shall have no interest in their construction," and, subsequently, in their working. "Facts are conclusive on this point," which indeed they are, though they do nob carry to our benighted intelligence the same conclusion that they have let in upon the Pall Mall Gazette. "The iron horse, now that it is untrammelled by foreign polities, may be fairly left "to win its way with the Chinese." It is a pity that the Pall Mall Gazette, like most other comic papers, despises the device of enforcing its telling points by illustrative cartoons. Otherwise we might have looked to it for a most effective picture of a locomotive already beginning to pant, though still tightly bound with knotted and sealed redrape, which surrounding crowds of enger Mandarins are rapidly cutting away from its wheels and machinery. A decrepit pagoda in the distance and a smashed-up wheelbarrow in the foreground might be thrown in at a trifling additional cost, and would help to give verisimilitude to the discovery that " the Government have already felt the want of railways, and are about to make them for themselves.'"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.