20th September.
That the people of this country are having theft eyes opened, especially those of the younger generation, and are changing in many. of their manners, customs, and modes of thought, to which their seniors and ancestors have hitherto steadfastly clung, in favour of those of the West, must be plain to the most aval observer. That this change has petrated oven to those amongst the highest in the land who, sooing the approaching metamorphosis, so to speak, of the younger generation, have bent to the inevitable and are. also adopting more modern methods, may be perceived at least by the following two instances. In China, methods, of address between the higher and the lower are locked up in hard and fast rules. Students of the Chinese written language and of Chinese official customs and etiquette especially know this, avd it would take many columns of closely printed matter to ox-plain even superficially.
It is the etiquette and Royal prorogative to receive and accept everything as by divine right from a subject, and a Chinese Emperor merely orders in terse language -a gift to be handed back ta his subject if it be not acceptable, and there is an end to it. It came therefore as s surprise to many, we might even say to the whole nation, to learn that, when some time ago Viceroy Chang Chih-tung offered to give to their Majies ten thousand taels of his: annual sal to help in making some necessary its to one of the Imperial Pulacos, the Emperor, in refusing the offer, issued an Imperial Rescript. sincerely thauking" the Viceroy for it. A careful search into the historical records of this country have failed to give a similar instance of a soveroigi thanking x subject for anything. The next instance of the change that is coming over the land appears in a proclamation issued at Canton the other day, by Viceroy Tseu Ch'un-hsuan, with regard to the Boycott on American goods, calling upon the people of the province of Kuangtung to exhort each other to in from violence. In proclamations sort the custom from time im-
1 has been in addressing' the people to say "You are required to obey the instructions herein. given," ete. In the proclamation of Viceroy Tsen in question, his Excellency does not say you are ' required,'" etc., but "I thore-fore request the merchants, gentry and people of the whole province to obey," ete—a mode of address which also occurs for the first time in the history of this country.
The First Step towards Parliamentary and Municipal
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.