Aco ENTALLy, it would seem, and with. out realising its fall import, Mr. Medhurst drew ® contrast between the Museum at Hongkong and the Polytechnic at Shanghai. The former, he tells us in a letter read at the last meeting of the Shanghai Polytechnic, is crowded with Chinese visitors who take an intelligent interest in the specimens exhibited; the latter is practically deserted, or honoured at odd intervals by the visit of some passing stranger who, hearing of its high sounding name, has turned his steps thitherward to find empty halls and the incipient decay which seem to be the fate of all Chinese undertakings from their very commencement. Now it strikes us that, in the minutes of the meeting referred to, we have in a great measure an explanation of the curious contrast. They inform us that there are forty-two Chinese who pay annually the sum of six dollars each, and that this is the only regaler source of income of the establishment, Two hundred and fifty. two dollars a-year is no great sum to support an undertaking of the sort, but at all events it is something; and it might reasonably be expected that we should hear something of the opinions of the forty-two subscribers. There is committes composed of several foreign and Chinese members, which seems to exercise an unlimited power of inviting other people to join it; but with marvellous consistency the Chinese members are generally to be found conspicuous by their absence. The injudicious misrepresentations of the Committee invited in England to assist in furthering the objects of the institution, have no doubt tended largely to disgust both natives and foreigners with the affair, but are scarcely sufficient to account for the persistence with which the former hold aloof. When we come to look o little further into the matter, however, we seem to find rome explanation of this want of spontaneity. While, as we have said, we find no representation of the forty-two sub. scribing members, we do find H. Li Hang-chang appointing officials in connexion with the affairs of the institution—in other words, that it is being made of that curious net within which the Viceroy of Chihli is striving to enfold every interest in the Empire, To monopolise the carrying trade of the Empire at the expense of the trade pretended to be fostered, and to steadily repress all private enterprise in any form likely to confer " tangible good on the country, are not sufficient for the aims of the present party in power. Beyond these, it strives to attain to the same pre-eminence in matters intellectual, and as steadily to put down any attempt at freedom of thought as of freedom of trade or locomotion. The manner in which it deals with the Press is one instance of this, and we may add that the Polytechnic is another. The apparently arbitrary conduct of the Japanese Government with regard to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.