On one occasion a physician of the Presbyterian Mission was carefully picking his way in the rainy season towards one of the Legations where he was to address a meeting. Suddenly he disappeared into one of these monstrous drains.
He contrived te emerge from this cloaca. maxima but was satur at {with filth, Fortunately he was able find a friend in the neighbourhood in whose borrowed plumage he was lable to make his oratorical flight. The sloughs in the main streets wore of incredible dimensions, and what lis now called Legation Street was as bad as any other. It was an ascertained fact that a mule had been drowned in one of the worst pits. Every spring the great dreing were opened up at the intersection of the main streets, and the accumulated muck was removed. To prove that this had actually been done an official was sent in his cart to inspect. If the sewer was cleared \as far the next opening a man could crawl through. A man was serut in to make this excursion. After the proper time had elapsed man emerged at the place expected, a mam soaked in fragrant mud. But the man that came out was not the man that went in, but one who had been lying in ambush for the purpose. But the inspector had inspected: the contractor got his heavy payment, and nobody (not even the two coolies) was any the worse. This proceeding was a8 far as the Chinese of that un.ophisticated period had advanced in <Gnternal improvements." At night no one went abroad unless he was obliged to do so, and then always with a lantern. The streets were indeed lit (except on moonlight nights) by a small oil lamp (or perhaps a candle) in a paper lantern, mounted on a_ curious framework several for from the ground and at extended intervals, serving but to make the darkness more visible.
At infrequent intervals were s0- \called police stations, where the various instruments of punishment used in yamens were standing in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.