THE FOREIGNER IN FAR CATHAY.f [SECOND NOTICE.]

PASSING from the political to the social aspect, we find much which, if not altogether new or original, has the rare merit of being perfectly true ; and to the majority of readers who have never been in China, a great part of what Mr. Medhuret has to tell them will, we imagine, have all the charm of novelty. When he takes us through the streets of a Chinese city, translating as he goes the quaint titles and advertisements inscribed in gold characters On the signboards and silk banners of the shops, it is impossible not to feel both interested and amused. From the Restaurant

• Fleurange. By Mrs. August= Craven. Translated by Emily Bowles. 2 vols. London Smith, Elder, and Co.

t The Foreignerinlirr Cathay. By W. H.Medbnrst, tier Britannic Majesty's Consul Ehanghai. 1 vol. London:f Edward Stanford. advertising " Limitless production and feasts prepared rl ler Tartare or a is Chinoise," or the delicacies of the season, " Bea- slugs smothered in vermicelli and trimmed with finely-shred ham," we pass on with a faint shudder to the next announce- ment of further luxuries in " famous wine from over the seas,"— 'I Champagne," no doubt warranted to be effervescent, and " Sherry" which never saw Spain ; while the next shop offers " drugs from every province in the Empire,"—as an antidote, it is to be hoped, to both. The kinship of the whole human race receives fresh, evidence in the family likeness of the advertisements put forth by the Chinese, and especially in the way which quacks and vendors of specifics adapt their promises to the weakness and gullibility of their victims.

Advertising, we are told, although very generally had recourse to in China, is confined to different classes of business, such as- those of druggists, eating-houses, lodging-houses, doctors, theatrical companies, lecturers, and fortune-tellers. In fact it is not con- sidered quite the thing to advertise, on the principle that "good wine needs no bush." The exceptions, however, to this rule appear to be numerous. One concern, styling itself a "benefit to society," undertakes to prescribe gratis for those who are poor and feeble, and promises to attack all kinds of diseases with suc- cess in an inconceivably brief space of time, provided always that the afflicted will swallow the drugs and pills dispensed by the concern. Another druggist invites the public to swallow "pills manufactured out of a whole stag slaughtered with purity of purpose on a propitious day." Second-sight also finds its professors, and the circular mirror is called into play precisely as it is among the modern Egyptians. Lecturers give readings— not generally from their own works, however—but from the history of the "Three Kingdoms," a chronicle of a favourite era in the Chinese history, which teems with martial and romautie incident. Such scraps of the ancient history of the country, rendered piquant by the insertion of comical and often indelicate passages in the story of the heroes and heroines, form favourite sub- jects for the drama in China. Decidedly there is nothing new under the sun,—and all mankind are brothers, with but one stock of ideas both for East and West. There is a sad want of origin-

ality and variety in the vices as in the virtues of different races,

however widely separated by time or space. Mr. Medhurst gives us a glimpse into the opium-smoking dens, and forthwith we are

tusked to look to our own beershops and gin-palaces, and mark the similarity of vices and their consequences. Here is the Chinese presentment :— "The dens in which the drug is doled out to its victims, although numerous enough in every city, are not wildly distinguishable, its vendors not having yet got over the fear of penal consequences, which, until the import and sale of opium were legalised, always attended any connection with the traffic. The vice, therefore, has not the concomitants of glitter and gewgaw to assist in attracting its victims, which are found assooiated with the similar bane of drinking in our own country Although situated in a main thoroughfare with pretentious shops and buildings on either hand, the opium den is usually remarkable for the mean filthy front which it presents to the street, and the only sign or mark whicla betokens its existence to the uninitiated is a diminutive dirty paper- lantern over the doorway, bearing the inscription 'As you like it,' or sometimes the announcement 'Foreign Earth' is ventured upon in small characters upon a card stuck in a window. A step further over the threshold reveals a dilapidated paper screen or two, placed athwart the room so as to cut off the interior, as far as possible, from outer observa- tion. On the other aide of these screens, in a murky dark atmosphere, lie the smokers stretched upon a dozen wretched platforms, in all stages. of indulgence, whilst two or three foul, ragged attendants stoop in corners over pans of the seething mixture preparing it for consumption. When ready for use it has the appearance of treacle, and is of the con- sistency of melting india-rubber. In this condition it is presented to the who with the end of a silver skewer twists up a small quantity about the size of a pea, which he places in the minute aperture on the top of his pipe-bowl, and then, holding it to the flame of the lamp, he sucks up the fumes The effect upon the individual, when indulged in habitually and to excess, is certainly debasing, and there is,. perhaps, no vicious habit from which complete recovery is more diffi- cnit. At the same time I would caution the reader against an unquali- fied acceptance of the tales of horror one hears and reads of in connection, with opium-smoking in China. How that, for instance, every fifth, or tenth, or twentieth, or even fortieth man in the empire is a victim to. the habit ; how that the opium hells are as abundant as the provision shops, and crowded day and night with hundreds of infatuated wretches. hurrying to their ruin ; how that skeletons haunt the streets, and whole families, beggared by drugged husbands and fathers, may be seen dying in the highways and fields; and so on. There are opium dens no doubt, and quite numerous enough to sadden the philanthropic observer, and the victims which the drug drags to misery and death are also, alas beyond all counting. But what is the vice, or where the country, of which the same may not be said with equal or approximate truth? Indeed, were I asked to state candidly in which part of the world I thought the effects of vicious indulgence are more outwardly observable, socially speaking, I certainly should not name China. Statistics on the subject cannot be relied on. It is known to a chest how much Indian- grown drug is imported into the country, but there is no means of estimating the quantity of native opium produced, and I do not believe

that there is any person sufficiently informed on the subject to be able to state, with any approach to accuracy, what proportion the smokers of the drag bear to the general population. The most that can be asserted with truth, is that the vice is a general one, more especially prevalent in districts near the sea-coast and great commercial centres, that a con- siderable proportion of its victims indulge to an excess ruinous to health and prospects, and that it haa been gaining ground upon the people with rapid strides during the past few years. It is, at any rate, a matter of congratulation that a Chinaman confines his indulgence to opium- smoking, and that drink does not add to the vicious chains by which he is enslaved. A. ray of hope, too, for the Chinese may be found in the fact, which I have before stated, that the indigenous cultivation of the drug is gaining ground, for the material being much inferior to that imported from India, it is just possible that the depreciation may have the effect in the end of decreasing the taste for the article, or that the more general use of it that must ensue may rouse the public to a more earnest sense of the ruinous results attending its indulgence, and, as a consequence, to a determined effort of resistance to its seductive influences."

We consider this a very truthful and correct estimate, and a fair summary of the whole question of opium versus tobacco, intoxi- cating drinks, and all the hundred other forms in which narcotics

and stimulants combined, lend their influence to debase and brutalise mankind. In passing our condemnation upon all excess, however, it is not to be forgotten that stimulants and narcotics as a class must meet some common want of our nature, and must, therefore, serve some useful end. It is impossible otherwise to believe that the Creator would have not only sown broadcast over the earth the plants from which they come, nearly as plenti- fully and quite as widely scattered over the globe as articles of food —due regard being had to proportional quantities required—but have given to man the faculty of discovering, by the most recon- dite processes, how narcotic and stimulant principles may be pro- duced from plants otherwise innocuous or simply poisonous. The only inference is that they meet a common want, and have preserva- tive and sanitary uses as well as capacities for evil in their abuse,— as certainly as oil which fatteneth and wine which maketh glad the heart of man. In one form or other, in beverages and infusions innumerable, in substance and in smoke, to be eaten, drunk, or inhaled, where are they not to be found ? From the thorn-apple of the Andes and slopes of the Himalayas, the coco-leaf of Peru—the tobacco of Central America, the hemp and the betel-nut of Eastern

Asia, the pepper-plant and kava of the South Sea Islands and the Eastern Archipelago, the narcotic fungus of Siberia, the sedum of Northern Europe, have been supplied by nature with inexhaustible abundance. And they have been discovered by man, however cunningly hidden under protean forms, in every quarter of the globe, and by men in every stage of civilisation, as far back as history or tradition extends. The Kanaka of the South Sea Islands' in all his primitive simplicity, as we are told by the

Earl and the Doctor,' has solved the great question of how to get drunk on a piece of dry wood, without any foreign teaching or scientific culture. Whether there be anything essentially dif- erent from the rest in opium, leading to the conviction that this is the especially unclean thing, as we often see it represented —which, like pitch, no man may touch without being defiled, —without moral pollution and physical degradation—may safely be left to the common-sense of mankind to determine. Of the Chinese as a race numbering by every estimate some 300 or 400 millions, and covering a third of Asia for 20 degrees of latitude, under every climate from the Tropics to the Siberian Steppes, it may be truly averred that they are the most temperate and sober yet known. Until within the last century and a half, when the poppy first began to be cultivated for other than medicinal purposes, and to be imported later still from India, they seem to have known no stronger stimulants or narcotics than tobacco of the mildest kind, and tea—Samchu, a distillation from rice which is in common use, need hardly be classed, so rarely is it ever con- sumed in excess, even in the North, where in Europe, in similar parallels of latitude, drunkenness is the besetting vice of whole populations. To this our author bears ample testimony. He says :-

"It has been observed that drunkenness is nets Chinese failing; on the contrary, I am happy to be able to bear witness that John China- man is a most temperate creature. During the whole course of my many years' residence in the country I do not remember to have seen a dozen instances of actual drunkenness. They do imbibe spirituous liquors manufactured out of rice and other cereals, but it is only occasionally at family gatherings, periodical festivals, friendly dinners, and such like occasions, and then they seldom get beyond flushed faces, and cheerful clamour. They seldom seem to take to drink as a habit. There are exceptions of course, but these are rare. A. public-house is an institution unknown. Weak tepid tea without the admixture of milk or sugar is the prevailing beverage of all classes, and teapots are placed within reach everywhere to gratify this habit at frequent intervals daring the day. This is especially observable amongst mechanics, with whom, be the circumstances what they may, the teapot may be seen as a never-failing companion. Open tea-houses, somewhat on the principle .a the Continental restaurant, abound in every street and public garden, and these are frequented not only by the thirsty passers-by, but by persons wishing to have a half-hour's friendly or business chat. In some of these public readers or lecturers may be found, for the attraction or amusement of customers. In the summer months wealthy folk cause huge pans of ready-made tea to be placed at the corner of streets or in crowded thoroughfares, for the convenience of the poor ; very much as permanent drinking-fountains are now erected in our cities."

Would that the same could be said of Christian nations of Europe !—that they seldom take to drink as a habit, and a public- house is an unknown institution."

In perfect accordance with these facts is the character Mr. Med- hurst gives the people for many of the virtues which popular opinion in Europe is most prone to deny them, misled by the cur- sory surveys of visitors, many of whom do not extend their field of observation beyond two or three seaports considerably deteriorated by European contact and the drunkenness of the sailors. Sobriety, honesty, intelligence, and genuine fidelity to engagements and the obligations of trust and honour, such as their own code imposes, are common characteristics. The description we here find of the servant class is one to make European householders, and those in this country more especially, perhaps devoutly wish that an importation of a few thousands with their native virtues could be obtained for home consumption. Indeed, if we may take Mr. Medhurst's thirty years' experience as our guide, the capacity of the Chinese to play a part in the labour question now distract- ing European communities is by no means doubtful, or the possibility of a recourse to such a reserve force altogether so visionary as at first sight might appear. We are told that,— " The phases of character in which the Chinese possess the most interest for us Western peoples are those which so peculiarly fit them for competing in the great labour market of the world. They are good agriculturists, mechanics, labourers, and sailors, and they possess all the intelligence, delicacy of touch, and unwearying patience which are necessary to render them first-rate machinists and manufacturers. They are, moreover, docile, sober, thrifty, industrious, self-denying, enduring, and peace-loving to a degree. They are equal to any climate, be it hot or frigid ; all that is needed is teaching and guiding, combined with capital and enterprise, to convert them into the most efficient workmen to be found on the face of the earth. In support of these assertions it is only necessary to refer to our experience of them in America, Australia, India, and the Eastern Archipelago. Wherever the tide of Chinese emigration has set in, there they have proved themselves veritable work- ing bees, and made good their footing to the exclusion of less quiet, less exacting, less active, or less intelligent artizans and labourers. Even in China they have already proved their worth by helping to construct, under foreign superintendence, men-of-war of first-class workmanship and formidable proportions ; and their artificers are daily acquiring increased skill in the arsenals now in active work at Tientsin, Shatighae, and Foochow. The marvellous energy of which they are capable as mere labourers is moreover constantly exhibited at the port of Shanghae, where th ey have been known to accomplish the discharge of a ship in less time, as I have been assured, than can be effected by dock-labourers at home, even with all the appliances of cranes and otherwise which these latter have at disposal. This remarkable aptitude shown by the Chinese for skilled as well as physical labour is worthy the serious attention of both employers and workmen in these days of strikes in every depart- ment of British skill and industry. If the Chinaman can that; compete with our artizans and working men in his native country, notwithstand- ing the many disadvantages which must attend the exercise there of his intelligence and strength, what will he not be able to accomplish when encouraged and taught to rival a foreign antagonist on his own ground, and at a more moderate rate of remuneration than the latter can afford to demand ? Should matters go on as they are now doing in England, the labouring and mannfacturing classes must not wonder if they find themselves ere very long displaced and distanced by the hitherto des- pised, but none the less practical, useful, and labour-loving Chinaman."

In bringing to a close our account of Mr. Medhurst's work, which will be found both instructive and amusing, if not either profound or exhaustive, we may say that we have been the more willing to draw attention to it at some length, because it is rare to find a work so unpretentious, both in form and substance, yet conveying so much valuable information,—free alike from exaggeration and error, and in a field where hitherto those have been most frequent characteristics. We should have been glad to devote more space to Mr. Aledhurst's chapter of "Con- cluding Remarks" on foreign relations with China and the policy hitherto adopted in dealing with it. They are well worthy of atten- tion, as the result of long experience and the intelligent study of a people too far removed from us by diversity of race and distance to be very fairly judged by the majority of Europeans who can have no opportunities of personal observation, and are constantly liable to be misled by prejudiced misrepresentations and the flippancy of superficial writers. We would especially recommend to all who take any real interest in the present state of our relations with China, and the policy to be pursued, the sensible and temperate exposition of the actual position of affairs and the prevailing tendencies of the Chinese. It is the more worthy of attention, because whoever reads Mr. Medhwrst's little volume will see that he is no undiscriminating admirer of the Chinese as a nation, and still less is he either a partisan or apolo-

gist, making light of their inherent defects or slurring over the vices of their ruling classes,—which as a body must be considered antagonistic to all progress, and implacably hostile to the foreigner.