U.1:11N.A. MOBILIZED.
AMONG us there are strange events; Continental revolutions, the ups and downs of empire, the flight of vast numbers across the Atlantic and Pacific in search of gold : but an event stranger than these is passing nearly unnoticed in the Eastern hemisphere. We are amazed at the exodus from Ireland—the going out of the Celtic population; but what is that to the going out of the Chinese peo- ple? The stationary empire in motion at last; the populace of the Celestials moved by a common impulse swarming into the gold-bearing regions of the outsidest barbarians? Nearly a hun- dred years ago, Goldsmith treated the Town to the imaginary ex- periences of a Chinaman in England : had he lived in our day, he might have learned the actual impressions of a son of the Flowery Land ; and Montesquieu might have personally tested the truth of his own remark, that the Chinese are "le penple le plus fourbe de la terre." It is no longer a miracle to see a Chinaman of " breezy breeches " in any latitude. They have broken the bonds of habit and gone forth, and are now in every land. They swarm in the islands of the Pacifi'
c . they serve in Australia; they sit down in the cities on the Western coasts of South America ; they colonize portions of California ; ajunk has even anchored in the Thames, and a live Mandarin figured at the Great Exhibition. A few facts will illustrate this notable migration of a people who have been singularly home-keeping.
Hitherto, according to Mr. M'Culloeh, Chinese emigration has been mainly, from the province of Fo-kien, opposite Formosa ; and has consisted more of exploring and trading parties than perma- nent absentees. Thus the Chinese for several centuries worked the silver and diamond mines of Borneo and visited Celebes. BLit now the sources of the emigration have extended, and embrace the neigh- bouring province. It was remarked by Mr. Asa Whitney, in ex- plaining his projected railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, that the islands in the latter ocean afforded a vast outlet for the surplus population of China ; and he expressed his belief that the Chinese would swarm out and occupy these islands. They have outstripped the expectations of Mr. Whitney; they have occupied California with detachments of their myriads. Four years have sufficed to bring nearly thirty thousand Chinamen to San Fran- cisco ; to find them writing letters to the newspapers, and raising villages named after the chief towns of their native land. In 1848, there were in San Francisco only two men and one woman from China ; by the end of 1849, these had increased to nearly 800 men and two women ; in 1850, they numbered upwards of 4000 men and seven women ; in 1851, this number had increased to 7500 ; and by August 1852 there had arrived altogether in that year 20,000 Chinamen, making a grand total in California of 27,500; but allowances for deaths and further migrations reduced these to 27,058 men and twenty women. These emigrants come from the Canton river, and the rising port of Shanghai. They live and work together, chiefly in the mines ; showing that their old habits of acting as commercial middlemen have been broken through.
This enormous Chinese migration is a portentous sign of the great activity of the world. Here is the reign of Confucius coming to an end ; here is a Mongol element to mingle in the composite Yankee character; here is an active, enterprising, astute popula- tion for Polynesia opening up endless vistas for future commerce. The Western Pacific will yet see a great historical people on its shores.
The share of England in this striking change—in this mobiliza- tion of China—is obvious. We have not only opened the Canton river for ourselves, but for the Chinese. Macartney, Amherst, Pottinger, have delivered the people from the bondage of the ages ; and, like ;ill other nations, the Chinese are consciously mingling in the march of the world towards unknown and unlooked-for desti- nies. The Americans have continued what we began ; they too are visiting China, but as friends, not coercers ; and, however any Chinese philosopher might mistrust the race which entered Texas in such friendly guise, he would find some difficulty in persuading his countrymen to give up the golden intercourse, on the ground that at no distant date China might prove to be to America what India is to England.
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