2nd Aug.
Men seek retreats for themselves in the country, on the sea-shore and mountains, and wre wont to desir such things very much.—Marcus AURELIUS.
Nove of the classical authors wrote with greater appropriateness to the conditions of modern life than the second Antonine, and assuredly the fine old imperial stoic never wrote a truer sentence than when he indited the above. The Romans seem to have been the only antique people who found the stress of city life too great for continued health; they constantly sought for change and relaxation by little trips into the country, by a sojourn at this or that Sabine farm, Campanian spa, or pleasure resort, and above all by frequenting places where they could disport themselves in merry bathing parties, ran nantes in gurgite vast. The Japs among the sta Eastern nations and the English-speakers among the Western seem to have been, until the last fifty years, their only followers in this respect. With us it began in the early part the eighteenth century. Doubtless continental Europe would have followed earlier had communication been easier. The modern European looks upon an annual change of habitat as an urgent necessity of life, and probably is not far wrong. Change of air and regimen, if not too violent, are good for man at most times; they become imperatively necessary when his lot is cast ina trying climate or in a harassing business environment.
Until the last few years, one of the worst features of life on the China littoral] was the impossibility of this change; a jaded individual could get a sea trip, but an enervated family had only the alternative of gain home or romaining on. Tneveased shipping facilities at length brought some relief to those in easy circumstances; Chefoo, Japan, the Pacific Slope, and even Australia came within the ken of those who were shaking the pagoda tree with any success: but the rank and file were still fixed in the tabernacles of Kedar. Local energy seems to be the coming solvent of the difficulty; within the last four years the River-port folk have established Kuling; the Tientsin and Peking people have settled in still talks of the Saddles, and New-force at Peitaiho; Shanghai chwang looks forward to a five-hour railway-journey to Talienwan. We have little doubt that one of the first things done by our Southern neighbours in their new territory will be to choose a breezy beach where ihe foreigners of Hongkong and. small in nmmber—the feeble whom ton may get the ozone of the the doctors imperatively send; the China Sea without an expensive: fortunate who have hospitable friends voyage or journey. We have entire! in the North; and a few well-to-do confidence that private initiation, families to whom expense and time whether - individual or corporate, is' are minor considerations. If Peitaiho the only way these things can be? has an interest for us generally, it is effected: but, unfortunately, under; that of an incentive to do as much the peculiar conditions of foreign life th the material at our own door. in China, where lay settlement is heartily congratulate our Tientsin restricted by Treaty, this initiative "neighbours that' they have so hand: is not always possible without somely worked out their own sanitary the previous effort and assent of salvation. officials, both foreign and native.
As we have already emphasised more than once, the Saddles
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.