MODERN CHINA.

CHINA is rather a vast field to cover in a single article, and I cannot pretend to do more than touch upon a few prominent features of that hoary and time-honoured country. A land which contains at the least computation some 250,000,000 of the human race must surely be destined to play no unimportant part in the history of the world. China is no longer the isolated nation she once was, and now that she has frequent communication with Europe, her people may hope to be better understood in the West. Until quite lately everything Chinese was the butt of ridicule: a nation whose mourning garb was white, whose books were read from right to left, and whose every action was almost the exact opposite of ours, was naturally considered somewhat eccentric. Closer acquaintance has, however, gradually removed earlier impressions, and Europeans are now beginning to realise that in the far East there exists an empire which was civilised when their ancestors were rude savages, and whose language, civilisation, and morality, surviving the wreck of centuries, have still much that will bear comparison with modern Europe. It is only within the last forty years that our knowledge of China has attained any degree of accuracy. For a century or more before that a sort of desultory intercourse had been maintained with Southern China, but the movements of Europeans were so restricted and hampered that there were few opportunities of acquiring knowledge. England's only representatives were the members of the East India Company who lived and traded in Canton, while France had her missionaries in Peking, and to the latter we owe almost all we know of China before 1840, the year of our first war with China, the war which Mr. Justin McCarthy calls the Opium War, but of which opium was only one of the many causes. English bayonets soon gained what years of diplomacy had failed to attain, and China consented to admit Europeans on terms of equality with her own subjects. Twenty years passed away, and in 1860 we were again involved in a war with China. With the help of the French we reached Peking, and, striking a blow at the very heart of the Government, we sacked and levelled to the ground one of the most magnificent palaces in the world, and concluded a treaty which still forms the charter of all our privileges

in China. Since then things have gone on fairly smoothly, and China's respect for Western nations, especially the English, has considerably increased.

That China did not receive us at first with much eagerness is scarcely to be wondered at, nor is it strange that she still at times shows a desire to revert to her former state of isolation. China produces in abundance all that its people require; the Chinese are of an eminently conservative turn of mind, and for some three thousand years they had got on tolerably well without us. Dynasties had been overthrown and revolutions often attempted; emperors had passed away by the score, and rebellions past number had swept over the face of the country, but still their old institutions, their moral codes, their language, and their habits of thought had scarcely been affected all through the centuries. All at once they found the European trader obtruding himself with his go-ahead notions of material progress, and saw looming up in the distance visions of the steam-engine, the electric telegraph, and all the other accompaniments of modern civilisation. All these things jarred sorely with their ideas of a philosophic life. Confucius, who lived 500 years before Christ, and whose teachings and precepts form the Chinese Bible, held worldly advancement of little account, and sought to attain rather the moral than the material elevation of mankind. Even now, few Chinese will admit that the European standard of morality is equal to their own.

Christianity they consider to be a good enough religion in as far as, like Buddhism and other native cults, it teaches men to do good, but they cannot see that in practice it has made much impression upon the nations of Europe. Their own country has seldom waged an offensive war, while all Europe appears to them an armed encampment. England prides herself upon her religion and her big ships of war; France sends her missionaries far into the interior, and her torpedo boats cruise round the coast and sink all the unoffending junks that come in their way. This is, of course, the unfavourable side of European character as it presents itself to the ordinary Chinaman. He does not, however, fail to discern our good as well as our bad points. That we are truthful he knows well by experience, and that no bribe will ever tempt an Englishman is a thing he often regrets, but never fails to admire. Though he does not altogether accept our ideas of progress, still he is willing to adopt some of our inventions. Steamers are rapidly supplanting the clumsy junks, and one very large and flourishing line is entirely supported by native capital and conducted by native talent.

Telegraph lines connect the principal cities in the Empire, and even Peking itself now condescends to hold communication through this medium with the rest of the world. To the introduction of railroads, however, China has hitherto offered a most decided opposition. Their history in China is a brief one, but not without interest

One was constructed about ten years ago from Shanghai to Woosung, a distance of about eight miles. The land was purchased by a British firm under the pretext of making an ordinary carriage-road, and the goodwill of the local officials having been secured, the railway was in working order before the Peking authorities got wind of what was going on. When it became known that the fire-carriage' was actually running and puffing on the Flowery Land, and that natives were flocking from all parts to have a ride on the mysterious flying coach, the indignation of the Peking Government passed all bounds. Efforts were made to move the British press on the subject, and a Chinaman having been killed on the line, it was suspected that he had been induced by the payment of a sum of money to his family to forfeit his life for the purpose of involving the company. Human life is, it must be remembered, sometimes a marketable commodity in China. At all events the British engine-driver was indicted for manslaughter, and at last things became so bad that the British company consented, on the payment of a heavy indemnity, to give the line over to the Chinese Government. The latter no sooner assumed possession than they tore it up and carted away all the material. It now lies. crumbling to decay in the forests of Formosa, and the track is only frequented by wheelbarrows and pedestrians. Such is the history of the first and only passenger line of rail that has yet existed in China.

The Chinese are by no means blind to the advantages of railways, but they see many obstacles to their introduction at present. Foreign engineers and foreign capital would be required for the purpose, and they prefer to wait until they are in a position to command the men and money themselves.

The water communication is excellent in most parts of the Empire, and the sudden introduction of railways would, they imagine, throw a vast number of people out of employment, and cause an economic shock which might lead to a general rebellion-a comparatively frequent occurrence in China.

There are silent influences at work which impel China onward in the path of progress, and foremost amongst these in the future will be the teaching of the native press. As in most other things, China is a standing anomaly in the matter of newspapers. She can boast of having the oldest paper in the world, and altogether she has only three at the present day-the Peking Gazette, which was first issued nearly eight hundred years ago, and two papers published at Shanghai, both of which are of very recent origin. The Peking Gazette, as it is called in Europe, can scarcely be considered a newspaper in our modern sense of the term. Like the London Gazette, it is purely an official publication, containing little but imperial decrees and memorials from the high provincial authorities on State affairs. It is the source from which we get our most reliable knowledge of the working

of the national machinery, of the financial condition of the country, of the movements of officials, and of the whole government of China. As all the documents it contains have been presented to the Emperor, its phraseology is extremely stilted and formal. The first two or three pages generally open with Court announcements and Imperial decrees which are couched in a very commanding and majestic tone, for the Emperor does not spare his abuse in dealing with his servants. The highest Viceroy in the Empire may rise one morning and find that his imperial master has decreed his removal from office, or some obscure country girl may learn with surprise and pleasure that imperial honours have been showered upon her for having tended her aged parents during a long illness. Her name will be handed down among the brilliant examples of filial devotion, and no young lady in this country could be prouder of her university degrees than her Chinese sister is of this mark of imperial favour. In times of national calamity the Emperor often issues a special decree, dwelling upon his own shortcomings and the great crime he has committed in failing to secure the favour of Heaven for his suffering people. Despotic as the Chinese Government is, the right of freedom of speech is well recognised, and there is a class of officers stationed at Peking whose special duty it is to keep watch over the doings of the Emperor and all his Court, and their representations seldom go unheeded. Foreign affairs rarely find any mention in the Gazette, and all secret documents are carefully excluded from its pages. Of late, however, the Gazette has been less reticent than usual, and during the recent crisis with France the Emperor frequently used it as a medium for letting the French know his opinion of them as a nation. When Mr. Margary was murdered in 1875, the British Government made it a condition of the settlement of the case that the apology tendered to the Queen of Great Britain should be inserted in the Gazette; and no more effectual means could have been taken of informing the Chinese people of the humiliating position their Government had been obliged to assume.

About ten years ago an enterprising Englishman in Shanghai started a newspaper with the object of educating the Chinese on European matters. The experiment proved a decided success, and has now become a very valuable property. This paper has its correspondents and agents in most of the principal cities of the Empire, and for variety of information and curious details respecting the life of the people it is a mine of wealth to the foreign student. Its publication is, however, a thorn in the side of the official classes, for it often contains disclosures of a nature little complimentary to them. The Empress is said to peruse its columns daily, and to learn therefrom a deal about the conduct of her servants in the provinces. No other publication has done so much to stir up the inert mass of Chinese indifference. The Shênpao and the Hupao, another native

paper recently established under still more favourable auspices, stand alone as the pioneers of journalism in a country whose population numbers nearly a third of the human race!

It is now perhaps time to glance at the social life of the people, and here our knowledge is necessarily very scanty. The separation of the sexes is rigidly maintained in China, and no Chinese gentleman would ever dream of introducing his wife or daughters to his most intimate male friend. That would be a shocking breach of etiquette which no respectable family would tolerate. When the last Chinese Minister to the Court of St. James, H. E. Kuo Sung-t'ao, returned to his native country, it was made a serious charge against him that, while in Europe, he had allowed himself to be photographed, and had encouraged his wife to move in the society of barbarian lands. Every house in China has a special wing called the inner hall, which is exclusively appropriated by the ladies. Here they spend their days in such occupations as become their sex, and nothing more shocks a Chinaman's sense of propriety than to see a foreign lady dancing a quadrille, mounting a horse, riding a tricycle, pulling an oar, or even playing an innocent game of tennis. Europeans, with their deference to the weaker sex, seem to them to be the slaves of their women. Despite the drawbacks attending their sex, Chinese women occasionally display remarkable ability, and some of the most accomplished minds the country has produced were among the female sex. At the present moment the destinies of the Empire are guided by the Empress Dowager, and few women have shown greater skill in statecraft. a rule, however, girls are supposed to make better wives without any training, except in needlework and housekeeping.

Marriage is a very important element in Chinese family life, and is arranged in a manner which would scarcely satisfy European notions. Lovers' sighs, hidden interviews, and all the other preliminaries which go to swell the romance of courtship in more civilised lands, are quite unknown in China. A very prosaic arrangement takes their place. In every village and town there is a class of women, generally widows, who act as intermediaries in these delicate questions. A girl generally gets married about seventeen, a man about twenty. A father, for instance, has a son whom he wants to see settled in life; he looks around among his acquaintances, and comes to the conclusion that So-and-so's daughter would form an eligible partner. Etiquette forbids him broaching the question directly to the girl's parents, and so he employs one of these lady intermediaries to undertake the task. She is furnished with full particulars in writing of the boy's antecedents and prospects, and, armed with these, she goes to the young lady's parents, and presses the suit with all the persuasion that long practice in such matters confers. If successful, the parents meet and arrange the details, and the parties most interested in the whole affair generally see each other for the first time on the wedding-day, to live,