Ie October issue of the Asiatic Quarterly, a magazine of real value as well as interest to all residents in the East, devotes an unusual amount of space to China. Mr. E. H. Parker, who has developed prodigious literary activity since he left the Consular Service, while the wont of his colleagues lis to retire on their pensions to a superior watering-place and cultivate a pet disease, sends a paper on "The Conscience of Corea," in which he accounts for the fact that "though there may now be Russian parties, Japanese parties, and even English parties in that distracted country, these are only a fin-desidcle excrescence, and it is certainly a fact that the widest-spread substratum of popular feeling is an almost instinetive desire to nestle under the imperial wing of China." We should be inclined to say that our representative at Seoul has always effaced himself so carefully that there never has been an English party; Viscount Miura effectually extinguished the chances of the Japanese party; and if the corean capital is rapidly becoming Russian, this is deservedly due to the quiet, steady, and unostentations influence exerted by Mr. Waeber, the correctness of whose attitude throughout all the chances and changes of the last few exciting years has been unimpeachable. No man could be less of the " prancing proconsul" than Mr, Waeber, and no man could have done better or more solid work for his country. But to return to Mr. Parker. He shows that the devation which China's vassals have always shown to their suzerain is due to the fact that "Chinese nominal overlordship leaves to vassal populations the maximum of liberty with the minimum of injury to the pocket, China has always been willing to grant the kernel of home-rule, including taxation, if only her imperial pride were fully gratified with the gilded shell of tribute and nominal subordination." Another reason is the. fascination that the splendid literature of China, equally readable in Corean, Japanese, Aunamese, or Loochoan, excites in the bar-parian mind; but chiefly the " dog-like fidelity" of the Coreans is due to the generous and considerate behaviour of their Manchu conquerors, and the assistance China gave Corea against the ruthless Hideyoshi.
An article by "ex-Officinl," headed "Hongkong," gives a sketch of the colony from the official point of view and shows with all the cocksureness and superiority of the Juck-in-office, that in the demand of the colonists for local representation "there is a vast amount of clap-trap and private axe-grind and very often all about nothing." tells us that High life' at Hongkong may be @efined as the Club, atid 'Society' may be said to consist of the Club and its wives. The Club consists of say a hundred merchants and brokers, few bankers, the navy and army men (a mere handful), a small group of Government officials, globe-trotters, consuls and merchants from outlandish forts (sic) who have come up for.an airing, a few select skippers who can keep their A's fairly straight, and that is all." The community has yo real grievances whatever; they can well afford to pay the military contribution; the so-called Customs blockade does no harm at all, and the Commis-sievers "are in reality amongst the most influential residents of Hongkong and " it is to be hoped that the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.