In staying in country towns in China one isimpressed—well nigh overwhelmed—with the monotonous existence of the people. No postal system, no telegraph, no railways, newspapers, popular literature—or so much that to most of us seem necessaries of life. And ap they drag out an existence ae they have done for millenniums past, having no share "in the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shrike mankind." But occurs to me that this tame, even, uninteresting, unhopeful existence largely accounts for two of the chief vices of China—the use of opium and gambling. The hold they have and the terrible havoc they work can only be known by these who freely move in and out among the people. It may also help to explain the universal liking for gaudy ents. Life is plain and prosaic, they will brighten it with—clothes! But it requires a Carlyle to treat on the philosophy of clothes and I refrain. Tt surely is but human (not to say Christian) to seek to brighten the lives and give alittle hope for the future to some of these our brothers and sisters. For such they are, seek to ignore it as we may.
7th December.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.