In calling special attention to. Mr. Theodore C. Chen's letter Africa, their work is understandable and appeals to the vast reading public of all nation3. The psychological novel, or the fiction which relies on style rather than on plot, must of necessity appeal to a much nai rower circle of readers, sin what is plain or of interest to one class, community, or race is obscure or uninteresting others. The mentality of some of the heroes of the great Rus sian novels may' appear grotesque to an Englishman, but let the same hero commit a murder or burglary and have th? sleuths of the law upon his track, then whether the reader be black, white, yellow, or brown he is gripped by the incidents of the plot. Certain aspects. of human nature are to jhe found in all parts of the world, and the novelist who which, appears elsewhere in these columns, we have no desire to appear to quarrel with Chinese who defend their country or who dislike what they usually call "destructive criticism." But there are phases of Mr. Chen's Jetter which require specidil attention because he apparently misunderstands the attitude of foreigners living in China towards his people and the institutions of his country, There is no foreigner in China of any responsibility who does not believe that the day is approaching when extraterritoriality, for instance, should and. will -be abolished. There {s no import ant foreigner who does not sympathize fully with the aspirations of the Chinese people for an equal position among the nations. But there is this difference between Mr. Chen's paints these traits in vivid colours is pretty sure of a wide public. It seems certain, therefore, that as the barriers that separate the-nations re-remoyviews and those of the foreigners: Mr. Chen would have-everything changed apparently speed. ily. and"completely without gard to special conditions, tothe, oe
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.