The Desk Hong List for 1878 presents no very remarkable features of variety from its predecessors, though the publishers have succeeded in devising two or three additions which will be found generally useful. First among these is a List of the High Provincial Authorities of the Chinese Empire, corrected to the Ist December Jast. It comprises the Governors-General, Governors, Tartar Generals, Treasurers and Judges of the eighteen provinces of China proper; and the Governors, Tartar Generals, Residents and Military Governors of the several provinces of Tartary and other aependencies.—A set of Exchange Tables, for the conversion of taels into dollars and vice versd, will also be found very handy by many persons who do not necessarily keep special volumes for the purpose at their right hand. The range, "which is from 70 to 75.9, might well have been extended a few decimals, and means will no doubt be found to do this, another year.—Lists of the residents at the new ports of Ichang, Wuhu, and Wenchow are also given, though these have not yet assumed very formidable dimensions.—The table of events has also been extended, and is gradually being made more useful for reference.—The signal card, with the list of the names and numbers of steamers, has been corrected to date by several erasures and interpollations; and lastly the main feature of the work—the Directory itself—has undergone the usual careful revision and correction.
Perfection has been frequently admitted to be beyond the scope of human ability and perfection in a directory is a thing that the most sanguine publisher would scarcely hope to attain. Errors and omissions there will be, even in places where the machinery for collecting information is better than we have available in Shanghai. Errors and omissions, therefore, we must expect to find here; and one omission suggests itself at a first glance through the present volume, which consideration of the proof sheets had evidently failed to detect. Detecting omissions in "a hong list by a course of study is, in fact, about as difficult as trying to prove a negative. Omissions suggest themselves when you are not looking for them, or when occasion arises for reference to the name which— alas!—is absent; but the process of thinking them out is one of the least satisfactory imaginable. On the whole, however, we believe the Desk Hong List for 1878 will be found well up to the usual standard.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.