To the student of the curious, a visit to the steamers bound for Ningpo just now, laden with panic-stricken Chinese refugees, affords a field of observation that has much in it of pathos as well us interest,' Through the courtesy of an officer on the steamer Pekin, of the C. N. Ca. our representative was, yesterday afternoon, enabled to view the Chinese refugees floving from what will probably be their own ill-founded fears. The Bund and approaches to the wharf were densely thronged with friends of those on board, hawkers of fruit and cakes, and a motley crowd of curious sightseers. On board the scene was one that beggars description, In the alleyways were Chinese of all classes, men, women and children, depositing their goods and household effects wheresoever a place could be found. The inevitable opium lamp and requisites were strongly in evidence, and in one place a devotes of the drug might be seen indulging in narcotic delight, while close at hand Jay a mother and her cluster of little ones, Pots, pans, kettles, the ubiquitous cha-hu, beds, boxes, stools, chairs and all the other furnishings of Chinese homes, one tumbled against everywhere. In some of the passages the visitor needed to step as high as a cavalry horse to avoid putting foot on the recumbent forms that strewed the decks. Those who have seen a crowded Irish emigrant ship loave for Castle Garden would have found the scene full of reminiseence, the utter helplessness of the women and children contrasting strongly with the warked indifference of their masculine relatives. Altogether something like 800 souls left by the Pekin and, but for the recent news from the North, she would have had a considerably larger complement. When she left here on her previous trip several disappointed ones booked for yesterday's passage but. they cancelled the booking, saying they no thinker trouble come Shanghai side this time." Amongst the articles noted on the wharf for shipment by the Pekin were two great heavy wooden coffins, black-painted and gilded, and destined for deposit in the old homes of the deceased.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.