17th Nov. Wauen first the character sketches so widely known as Chinese Characteristics appeared in our columns, the author was careful to disclaim avy intention on his part of presenting a word picture of "the" Chinaman, In fact he seemed. to be of opinion, an opinion' with which all who know China widely will agree, that "the" Chinaman has, never yet been depicted and in all human probability never will. He is: too self-contradictory, too one-thing-to-day-and-another-thing-to-morrow, too provincial, too variable altogether to be fitted into one mould, Wingrove Cooke gives it as his experience, and sinologues agree with him, that a conception' of the Chinese race as a whole is an impossibility. "These difficulties," he writes, "occur only to those who know the Chinese: practically; a~smart - writer,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.