For the present, we will refrain from making either favourable or adverse comment on a scheme which, it is said, has been already propounded for a Shanghai International Exhibition, because it cannot have attained more than rudimentary form, and we have no means of ascertain of great, value to Chinn, We can ensily show that the time is becoming opportune for an Internation Exhibition. The countries that suffered most in the terrible rebellion, have recovered all or nearly all their former prosper wleroommunication has be. come ensy, if comparison is made with former years, nnd there would be a common benefit if the revived arts and trade could-be stimulated and whether there are reasons for trusting to any support in this country, or in Earope and the United States. But we chu aay, with trath, that suggestions have been made to us, that we should bring the question of an exhibition and its advantages before our readers.
The country around Shanghai has now recovered from the ravages of the Taiping rebellion, and has again become settled, populous, and prosperous. The famous cities, Nanking, Hangchow, and Soochow, like the Inrge walled towns of the tea and silk producing districts, were twenty years ago mere heaps of ruins in which few and miserable people lived. But, for the most part, the cities and towns have been rebuilt, and, in many cases, the new buildings recall and rival the splendour of ihe ancient fanes and halls and yamens that were destroyed by the Taipings. In the valley of the Yangtaze, on the banks of the Poyang invigorated by a gathering together of new works as well as old and precious-examples of the products of past years. For instance, to speak of a fow things only, an exhibition of both national and international interest and value could be made by selections from the artistic and useful manufactories anton, in which busy ancient city there are hundreds of handicrafts carried on, many of them of high and peculiar excellence. Then, there is the special art of Amoy; the filigree, the carving, the stone-cutting, the needle. work of Foochow; the woodwork, the embroideries, the sucendes, the silk, the metal work, the implements, of Ningpo; the numerous arts and trades of Hangchow; the many beautiful and artistic fabrics and products of Soochow, and of the restored cities near to it. Then there are the fictile arts of the Poyang districts, their porcelain, their faience, their work in terra. cotta, &e.; and from the northern
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.