The whole eu tion of Chinese society, from foundation stone to turret tower, is at variance with our ideas of what society ought to be. When in whatever large Chinese city it may be our lot to habit, we perceive the existence of a class of beggars, who have riv homes and no lar food supplies of any kind, we recoguise that this fact is an instance of violence done to the laws of political economy, not to say an infraction of the principle of the Brotherhood of Man, When we learn that millions of persons are deprived of their homes and of all means of subsistence, by the irruption of an irresistible torrent, we recognise this ay an instance in which unau has failed to subdue material ces with mental forces, and in which, in proportion to the extent of the dang and the frequency of its repetition, mav deficient in civilisation, When we learn that throughout the greater part of the Chinese Empire, the mises of the people have no reserve capital of any kind, and are for that reason at the merey ut every change of fortune; that one efficient cause of this is the absolute scarcity of Jand, in other words the existence of a tov dense population, although there are other parts of the empire thinly inhabited, and in urgent need of labourers; that floods sant famines are constantly overtaking large parts of the empire, reducing countless millions to the depth of poverty; when we learn all this, we perceive that the rulers of Chin are hot competent for the work which is entrusted tu them. When we hear that prominent Chinese officials have been degrade ed from their posts, for not preventing the overflow of rivers which it was beyond hut wen power to restrain; when we are told in the tical Gazette of the empire, that old men and infants at the breast have been put to death on account of the perpetration by a member of the family to which they belong ed of a crime with which they had no cou nection and ut which they. were indeed totally ignorant; when we hear thi decide without hesitation that in Chine the doctrine of responsibility has been pushed to an extent which is wholly inharmonious with human instincts) an with reason. When we find grown ten constantly and consistently treated as children, for the sole reason that they happen to have fathers and uncles living with whose views the younger generation are not in accord; when we read that insane orsons are deliberately sliced to death cause in an accession of madness they have slain a parent; when we read reports of concubines who will endure avy amount of beating in open court rather than return, to a brutal husband, and of wives who swallow opium to avoid further subjection to the tyranny of the husband; it is not perhaps surprising if it is the instinct of some of us to write to the nearest foreign urnal, demanding that somebody should tell the savages that we won't have it." There are scarcely any limits to the particulars in Chinese life, to which we entertain strong objections. These objections centre about two local points, the duties
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.