Norsme, perhaps, can be adduced as a more cogent illustration of the paternal character of the Chinese Government, than the minute interest which the Emperor is made to take in matters affecting the very humblest of his subjects. Occurrences which in Europe would never attuia greater celebrity than may be connected with a police-court are constantly brought before the notice of His Majesty, and pablished to the world at large in the calamus of the Imperial Gazette, A recoat number of this must auique journal contains the particulars of a cage which affords a very curious insight into the life of a dus of por-sous who, though the lowest of the low, form a distinct community, governed by its own laws and code of honour, and by no means devoid of interest to those who are fond of sin dying human nature in the Middle Kingdom. We refer to the numerous and in certain respects important race of Beggars. There is no viler set of people in Chinn than these. True, they thave our pity, when we watch them naked, filthy, and almost starving, upon the streets of Poking during the rigours of a Northern winter, The relief afforded them by the authorities of the Cupital goes a short way towards mitigating their miseries, but only a short way. A bowl of t wretched slops known as congee provided for all who apply at the soup. kitchens and so-called warm refuges, but this is cold comfort at best, and the authorities seem utterly blind to the fact that the proper way to deal with the swarms of mendicants who infest Peking is to force them to work, and then pay them properly for their Jabours. Beggary is an actual profession in China as it is elsewhere, and the beggar is not only the most immoral bat also the laziest of human beings. It is difficult to feel entire sympathy with a creature who prefers to starve and shiver rather than exert himself to work, and we believe it is only this inveterate laziness on the part of beggars which prevents them from being a distinct and positive anger to avy'city in which they may abound. That they are occasionally guilty of grievous crime a recent Memorial from the Viceroy of Chibli clearly proves, There was a beggar named Chang, who, one day, fell in with two others of his profession, an old mau and a blind woman. These wei thought to be man and wife; but whi ever may have been their relations, a partnership was entered into by the three, who agreed to have a commer fund. Some days after, they arrived at the Boll Temple village near Peking, and lodged in a hut in the neighbourhood of a threshing-floor. Then came a split in the camp. The beggar Chang went out next day to beg, and returned very unsuccessful and in a proportionately acrid humour. He found that his partners had been luckier than he, and hud devoured everything they had collected without waiting to share it with him. To his abuse of them for want of good fellowship the old man retorted by accusing Chang of an inordinate appetite, and not bringing in his share to the common stock. This led to farther recriminations, daring which the old man kicked over a bow! containing sume rice-soup, which Chang intended to warm up for his own supper. Then Chang fell upon both his partners and murdered them in cold blood as they slept that night, As soon as they were dend, he took the bodies and fang them into un old vegetable pit, where they were discovered shortly after by a passer-by. The mur. dorer was immediately apprebouded and sentenced to be decapitated. The words with which the story is concluded in the Peking Gazelle are almost amusing. His head is to be exposed; he should, by rights, forfeit half his property, but, being n beggar, lio has none." It is almost surprising that occurrences of this natare are not more frequent than they are, Nothing, to our mind, shows more coi ingly the shortsighted: of the Chinese authorities in de with societ abuses than their policy towards this worthless and most pestilon tial class. here is not a respectable shopkeeper in Peking upon whom some blackmail, of greater or smaller atoant, is not levied by professional beggars, The miserable object goos slowly along the street, stopping regularly at every shop, in front of which he keeps up an intolerable whining until the shopman throws him a cash or two to take himself off. Some times a shop will be besieged by a band of beggars, and this we believe is the penalty incurred by all who refuse to give in the regular way to individual cormorants. But many merchants now buy themselves off by subscribing periodically to the beggars-guild, much in the same way as travellers la disturbed districts pay commutation-foe to the head of a robber-band and are unmolested in consequence. That such a state of things should exist and be connived at by the authorities is discreditable in the extreme. There is no city in the Empire where there are not roads terribly out of repair, buildings tumbling down, and dirt, decay, and neglect everywhere apparent. If mendicancy were punished as crime, and the beggars forced to earn their living by honest labour for the public good, Chinese cities would be rather less barbarous than they are, and the public be relieved from the extortions of a demoralised and loathsome crew.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.