On Wednesday evening, in spite of the bad weather, " good number of members of the Union Church Literary and Social Guild tume 0 hear Miss P. Ayrton lecture youths of History."
Dr, H. T. Hodgkin, who was in the chair, introduced' Miss Ayrton to her audience and expressed hi appreciation of the title of the lecture which had made him wonder if Miss Ayrton was going to play leap-frog from country to country and from century to century, and assured the lecturer that all her audience wore anxious to know said Prof, MacNair.
The: Ko-Hung where the bypaths would lead, merchants asked that the word Miss Ayrton, at the beginning of petition be, used instead of letter,|her remarks, 'a5 "lester" implied an equality acture, she which they felt could not exist [her by pat between a foreign barbarian and of history that through Chinese official. Napier refused the excavations is being more and more request and furthermore offended brought to light at the present tim: by. sending the letter to the city She commenced by reading extrac gate instead of through the Ko from cuneiform script dating as Hung as usual, acting on the far back as 4000 to 3000 B.C, and instructions of Lord Palmerston. from these inscriptions suggested Moreover instead of waiting at to her audience that in those far Macao he went at once to Canton distant days there were traces of fand entered after dark, thus giving very: early civilization and that the the Chinese a chance to say that. psychology of the people who lived the had "sneaked into the city by jin these times "was not very dif-night." ferent from our own psychology te-day. Extracts from legal -docu-Another instance of the strained ments which spoke of the punish feeling cited by the lecturer was ment meted out to faithless wives the "Battle of the Chairs," when the penalties that attended unskilful the Viceroy on Arranging a confer-attempts at surgery, and of advice fence had the chairs so arranged as ts husbands to do all in their power to give the British the places of to please and help their wives least importance. Lord Napier [showed that although legal purus! indignantly re-arranged the chairs ments were more severe than at and the dispute was continued for the present time, human nature wa: two hours. When the Ghines very much the same. finally arrived late, Lord Napier received them coldly and referred Miss Ayrton then proceeded to to the discourtesy of their tardiness, rive a very vivid description of the and the memory rankled on both civilization of ancient Crete, who sides. avery high stage of civilization The War of 1840 was reached in art while at the same time a very low state of After the death of Lord Napier brutality: existed in sports land intervening appointments, Cay After mentioning other countries (afterwards Admiral Sit Charles) the lecturer dwelt mainly on the Elliot was appointed superintendent ancient history of Babylonia and fof Trade. 'There were difficulties Egypt. She traced the influence of over his credentials, over the debts the remarkable line of kings and owed to English' merchants by queens that proceeded the king of bankrupt Chinese merchants and whom we hear so much now by the especially over the trade in opium discovery which had increased tremendously. few Officially forbidden, minor officials still continued to evade the law, but 1839 upon insistent pressure from the Imperial trade commi sioner, Lin Tee-ssu, Sir Charles Elliot agreed to give up all opium in the hands of Englishmen to the authorities and exacted a pledge from the merchants that they would not trade in the drug. His acquiescence led to further demands The Portuguese were ordered to expel the British from Macao, an faction which reacted like' a boomerang later on. H. M. S. Volage came out for the protection of British merchants in August of this yest. "In a riot between the sailors and natives, a Chinese mai was killed and the Chinese authoriies demanded some British life in exchange. Sir Charles refused to hand over any British subject. to the Chinese, although every effort was male to locate the offender and cal with him by British authori-more detail the life and work of Egypt's heretic king who introduced polytheism to what in its purest form had been a' monotheism, or at least a monalatey, and the life fof the great queen who reigned for 25 years bringing peace and prosperity to her country.
The whole lecture was full of interest from the beginning to the end for Miss Ayrton gave to her audience the results and not the details of her researches.
After a short discussion Mr.
Rowland and Mr. Hawkings moved la hearty vote of thanks to the lecturer which was carried by acclamation. ities, and money was paid to the family of the deceased Chinese. 'A fleet of Chinese junks made a demand -upon the Volage "for the murderer and was fired upon, and in 1840 wat was declared, 1
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.