Cnia may justly be said, in many ways, to be tie country of pretensions. Thoro are fow things in which the Chinese do not claim pre-eminence, and it is this habit of self-complacency which renders them so very much averse to being enlightened on those points on which they habitually are found wanting. The belief in their own infallibility cannot but be a standing obstacle to the progress of the people in all departments where it prevails, and the difficulty of getting " Chinaman to acknowledge that he is beaten in an argument is but another phase of the same phenomenon, It is a sufficient answer, for him, that, however ageless or harlfal a given practice may be, it is the " custom" of the country and the belief that all the customs which have descended from generation to generation are, for that very reason, incapable of improvement, renders him a very hopeless subject to deal with.
A very fow illustrations will, we think, suffice to prove the justice of this remark. In no country, for inatance, are morals more highly esteemed. as a basis of public administra. tion and private coudact. Nothing could be more unexceptionable than the theories on which the Govern. mout of the country is professedly carried on, Foreign writers have over and over again applauded the Chinese for resting all their rales of life on right reason, and bringing to the test of principle, rather than to that of material welfare or advantage, their general policy of action. In spite of this, China is one of the most miserably misgoverned countries in the whole world, There is perhaps no place where peculation is rifer, or more uublashingly carried on. Considering, for instance, the unrivalled estimation in which literature and education are held by both governors and governed, it is astounding to read in the official gazette the gross impositions which are practised every yenr at the public examinations. Then the innocent are being constantly plundered by the rich and powerfal, and although false acousations, made with a view to extorting money, do sometimes recoil upon the guilty parties, it too often Lappous that the only recompense received by the victim takes the form of an honourable burial for his corpse. The high position accorded to agricul. ture in China might naturally lend us to look for corresponding results in the fruits and vegetables that are cultivated, and to some sound principles as actuating the Chinese farmer or market-gardener in hie work. Bat what is the state of matters here? China scarcely produces a fruit worth eating. The apples are soft and woolly, the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.