Heshing," "the Chinese gentleman in full native costume,' ""his Excellency the Mandarin," "the Chinese Commissioner, attended by his Secretary," "the Illustrious Foreigner," "the Representative of the vast empire of China," and suchlike grandiloquent and hypothetical titles. And yet we find one of these same leading morning papers commencing its notice of the Chinese department of the Exhibition with the self-satisfied assurance that "with no foreign country are the English more familiar than with China!" Truly, as saith the poet, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be

wise."

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Without stopping to depict the only other note-worthy specimens of the "Celestials abroad," with which we are acquainted-namely, to use the words of the Canadian Patriot, Chinese Lady, said to be the daughter of a Canton Mandarin of the third class, her maid-servant, her musical preceptor, and his daughter and son," who were being exhibited to large crowds, a few months ago, in the St Lawrence Hall of Toronto - who sang several songs in the Chinese language, and performed several pieces of music on a variety of Chinese instruments"-who had "learned to speak English sufficiently to make themselves understood," but had unhappily picked up "a low vulgar Yankee slang," doubtless from "the American gentleman who accompanied and described them," but a variety of whose statements were "not to be relied on." Without stopping, we say, to tell anything more about this interesting quintet, on the strength of whose appearance the editor of the Patriot proposed " to write two or three articles upon China," we think it time to conduct our readers to the home of this interesting people, and venture upon a word or two about the Flowery Land ourselves.

We

have seen its "blackhaired myriads" very eager and resolute in pushing their fortunes abroad, and it is not unnatural that we should now desire to see something as to how matters are going on amongst them at home.

As our remarks in this article refer only to the present, and not to the

philosophy of the past, it is needless for us to comment on the remarkable phenomenon which China exhibits in the history of the world-of a people working out for themselves, in the earliest times, a civilisation independent of all foreign aid, and adhering to it so steadfastly that, comparatively, at least, though not actually, it has remained unaltered until now. Whatever changes there have been in the political administration of the empire, there has been none in the theory of government, which regards the sovereign and people in the light of father and children. To do the Celestial Emperors justice, the great majority of them endeavour to fulfil their heavy parental duties to the best of their abilities. But only consider what it is to be the father of some three hundred and sixty millions of human beings! Such a potentate, we should think, can scarcely have a moment of even ordinary satisfaction. A deficiency of the circulating medium, a bad season, an inundation, an epidemic, and suchlike miseries, are ever turning up to disturb his peace of mind, and literally "set him to his prayers." Old Taou-kwang, the late Emperor, was quite a pattern in this respect. "He was absent on no festive occasion," says Mr Gutzlaff, * and in China festive and religious are synonymous adjectives; "and especially when threatened calamities seemed to be near at hand, he was very careful in the performance of his duties. If no rain had fallen for many months, he might be seen in sackcloth, like a common penitent, approaching the idols, imploring them to look down upon the nation for whom he interceded. He went through the regular fastings and preparations; and, not to be behind, he often appeared at the altar to perform the duties of a high-priest." One may smile at these things; but it is a lesson even for Christians of all degrees, to see a heathen potentate overwhelmed in cares, and burdened with the turmoil of a constant and all-important occupation, yet always finding time and heart for those rites and austerities by which he hopes to please heaven and benefit his people.

No one will wonder at the emigrating spirit now alive in China, when he is informed that the most common evils to which the Celestials are subject is that crowning misery, starvation. The population is extremely dense; the means of subsistence, in ordinary times, are seldom above the demand; and, consequently, the least failure of the rice-crop produces utter wretchedness amongst hundreds of thousands of the people. Dreadful disorders, in such circumstances, arise, which even the strongest Government would be inadequate to repress. A total change seems to take place in the peaceful nature of the people, and many a patient labourer turns fiercely upon his rich neighbour, to plunder his substance. No one," says Gutzlaff, * 66 can have any idea of the anarchy which, on such occasions, ensues, and the utter demoralisation of the people. Yet, as soon as relief is afforded, and a rich harvest promises fair, the spirit of order again prevails, and outrages are put a stop to. The people then combine, arm themselves, and proceed in thousands to catch marauders like wild beasts. No mercy is shown on such occasions, and the Mandarins, on account of their weakness, cannot interfere." This is just a very effective species of Lynch law; and it is not a little instructive to remark how this system has arisen alike in the United States and in China-amidst the youngest of the Anglo-Saxon, and the oldest of the Mongolian branches-from the same cause, namely, the weakness of the executive government.

Owing to the geographical peculiarities of China, one of the most frequent causes of famine is the overflowings of its great rivers. Three years ago, Mr Wade informs us,† the Yellow River and the Yangtse-keang burst their embankments, and inundated to a frightful extent the level country through which they flow, and which is the very garden of China. แ "The rains have been falling for forty days," says a memorial to the Emperor," until the rivers, and the sea, and the lakes, and the streams,

*Life of Taou-kwang, 113.

have joined in one sheet over the land for several hundred li, [three lis are equal to one English mile,] and there is no outlet by which the waters may retire." In the province of Hupih alone, says the Padre Marzetti, a district 230 miles long by 80 broad was under water, and in two of its larger cities the damage done amounted to between three and four millions sterling. Woo-chang-foo, the capital of the province, "fared no better;" while the smaller towns fared infinitely worse; ten thousand people were destroyed, and domestic animals drowned in untold numbers; crowds even of the first families were begging bread, and (horror of horrors to the pious Celestials!) coffins were floating about everywhere on the face of the waters. Thus the loss of lives in this single province was equal to that by which we purchased the immortal victory of Waterloo. Such an inundation is too stupendous for the European mind adequately to comprehend its extent, and is said to have exceeded any similar disaster in China within the memory of the present generation.

The Emperor and his court did their utmost to alleviate the wide-spread distress. Taxes were remitted, gratuitous distributions of grain made from the public stores, and subscriptions for the sufferers opened throughout the empire. Nevertheless these appliances fell far short of remedying the evils, and many governors of provinces sought to conceal their incapacity by a timely resignation. "Your servant," says one styled Woo-wanyung, in his memorial to the Emperor, "has set up altars in all places; and, followed by his subordinates, has gone hither and thither, sacrificing early and late, shedding bitter tears, and crying aloud for grief; but he has been unable to succour the afflicted." If he had been cutting drains and building dikes, it would have been more to the purpose. "Shuddering and bewildered," proceeds the luckless Governor, humbly speaking of himself in the third person, "at his meals, he cannot swallow his

food; during the night, as he hears the rain falling, he wanders about his dwelling. He knows not what measures to adopt, and beats his breast at his own incompetency." This is all very fine; but we think the rescript of the Vermilion Pencil must have astonished him. The Emperor very coolly writes back that "Woo-wan-yung's despatch is the extreme of stupidity, absurdity, and audacity! He has had the sense only to accuse himself of a fault, but has not thought of discharging his duty to the utmost. If, whenever there were a season of difficulty, all those upon whom devolves the personal charge of our dominions were to act like Woo-wan-yung, what would become of the misery to which the myriads and tens of myriads of the black-haired race are exposed?" The luckless Governor is then deprived of his button, but ordered to remain at his post-with the assurance, that if he is successful, he may yet in some measure atone for his transgression. “But if it again appears," says the Emperor, "that he does not know how to exert himself, and that his administration is, after all, so unsuccessful as to send the people wandering to the streams and ditches, [to drown themselves?] his crimes will of course be severely dealt with. When Our word has once gone forth, the law follows it; and We shall assuredly not allow the least mercy to be shown him. Tremble and attend! Respect this!"

Old Taou-kwang was a sad miser. He could never be got to put his hands in his own pocket to pay his expenses; and, among other similar eccentricities, he used to confer the repairing of his palaces, as a special mark of his regard, on some favoured courtier! Inundations, accordingly, and such-like costly disasters, grieved him exceedingly; so that he adopted the notable plan (but not very original one, either in China or in Europe) of raising money by sales of rank. The result of the measure has naturally been, to increase the evil it was meant to cure. Mercenary or incompetent men got into the Government offices, whose embezzlements rendered fresh sales of rank necessary; then more embezzlements; and so the mischievous system goes on. To

such an extent is this selling of rank carried, that, on an average of the seven years preceding 1850, the money thus raised in Cheh-keang has annually amounted to upwards of £93,000; while the whole pay of the civil and military officers of that province only amounts to £100,000; so that more than nine-tenths of its expenditure (exclusive, however, of the sums for public works) has been made up by riches unfairly reaping the rewards of merit.

"An

Incapacity is thus very prevalent among the Chinese officials; but, bad as this is, their corruption and corruptibility is a still more formidable evil. Their main science of government seems to be,-to give bribes to all above them, and to receive bribes from all below them. In truth, the Government offices, from Peking to Thibet, are one vast hive of peculators. Take one province and one excise department as a sample. In Shantung the salt-tax should yield a fixed revenue of £40,000; but the arrears in 1849 amounted to nearly £30,000, of which £22,000 was interest due on collections from 1844 to 1848. inquiry, under the auspices of a High Commissioner, resulted," says Mr Wade," in the arrest of the present governor of the province, four exgovernors, his predecessors, and eight ex-directors of the Gabelle, accused of collusion with the salt monopolists, and general abuse of their trust. The Minister of Finance was also implicated." The governor of Shan-si was exiled in the early part of the same year, on account of the extortion of a relative of his, and others in the province; but his misdeeds were so eclipsed by the rapacity of his successor, that he was recalled and promoted. Similar instances of peculation might be endlessly multiplied; and in a recent decree the Emperor even threatened to send his Lords of the Treasury" to the Board of Punishments, who will make strict inquiry, and, upon proof of the facts, award the proper penalties. Governors - general and governors guilty of previous connivance at, or subsequent suppression of, such acts, shall be treated with the utmost rigour." In China, not even a transit of Government goods from one place

to another can take place, without those in charge making the most of their opportunity. Thus we learn that the supply of copper for the Imperial mint, despatched in the beginning of 1848 from Yun-nan in the south-west, had not reached Peking by the end of 1849 !-the real cause of the delay being the avarice of the officials in charge, who profitably employed their leisure in laying fees upon such boats as they met or overtook, upon the pretext that they were obstructing the passage of the Government vessels. Indeed, so thoroughly national is this predilection for fraud and dishonesty, that an Imperial proclamation offering a reward almost always closes with the assurance that Government will keep faith-that it will not eat its words;" and the issue of licenses, or the payment of a sum, is usually guaranteed to take place in open court, "to prevent any extortion on the part of the clerks and runners."

Although the whole of this vast Empire uses the same character to express its ideas, and obeys the same Sage in its institutions, still there is frequent collision and rebellion. Foreigners, who know nothing about the internal state of the country, are apt to imagine that there reigns lasting peace; but nothing is more erroneous. Under the oppression of the greedy Mandarins, and other causes-such as dearth and demagogues-insurrections of villages, cities, and districts are of frequent occurrence, without in any great degree affecting the stability of the Government. In these cases, the destruction of property and the hostility of the people to their rulers (especially if these have been tyrants) is often carried to great excess, and instances are on record of the infuriated mob broiling their magistrates over a slow fire. On the other hand, the Government, when victorious, knows no bounds to its cruelty, and the treatment of political prisoners is of the most shocking description. Fear is the great parent of cruelty in all parts of the world, and it ought to be confessed that the Mandarins have good grounds for apprehensions.

There is an immense Chinese rabble ready to seize every opportunity to commit ravages upon industrious citizens, and to plunder the Governmental stores; and they never fail to do so whenever the attention of the Mandarins is directed to the defence of the country, or when they are beaten in the field. This was frequently exemplified during the war with this country; for whenever our troops took a city, the mob completely plundered the houses, taking away even doors and window-frames. In the capital, especially, there is an immense floating population of this abandoned character, which, like the classes dangereuses of Paris, require quite an army for their repression; and one of the greatest apprehensions of the Imperial Government, when the British fleet cast anchor in the Peiho river, on whose banks Peking is situated, was, that the mob of the city would profit by the confusion, and would rise en masse the moment our forces arrived in the neighbourhood. Another cause of alarm, doubtless, was, that the capture of the metropolis would have paralysed the whole machinery of Government throughout the empire. The political administration of China, like that of France, is a centralised bureaucracy; and the consequence in both countries is the same-the party in possession of Paris and Peking being the virtual rulers of the empires to which they belong.

The Chinese have a saying in their language, that "a mob of people is more dangerous than a troop of wild beasts;" and their manner of dealing with these popular demonstrations is very curious: the police have strict orders never to interfere, as they conceive that difficulties are more likely to arise from meddling, than benefits to accrue from suppressing them by force. "There was an extraordinary instance of this at Canton, only a few years ago," says Lord Jocelyn,*" when the opposition to the opium-trade first broke out. The people refused to admit the soldiers to search their houses, and, forming themselves into parties or trades, barricaded the streets. The

Government immediately gave in, and the military made no further attempts at the time." Everybody who has travelled in China," says Mr Fortune,* "knows that, whereever the natives are enterprising and bold, they set the Government at defiance, whenever it suits their purpose to do so. For example, what can the Government do, if the natives on the coast of Fokien-a bold and lawless race-choose to disobey its orders? Positively nothing. Even farther north, where the Mandarins are more powerful-in Shanghae, for example the Chinchew men, as they are called, often fight pitched battles, with firearms, in the streets and in the open day; and the Mandarins, with all their soldiers at their backs, dare not interfere. The system of apprehension and punishment in such cases is so curious, that I must not omit to mention it. The belligerents are allowed to fight as long and as fiercely as they choose, and the soldiers never interfere; but when the weakest side is overpowered, and probably a number of lives lost in the affray, they come down in great force, and seize and carry off to punishment the most defenceless; and, in circumstances of this kind, they are not over particular about seizing the most riotous, or those most implicated in the disturbances, provided those they seize are the weakest and least able to resist."

We learn from the posthumous work of Gutzlaff, already quoted, that the danger from these popular émeutes has greatly increased since the War. The attempts of the Government to replenish the exhausted exchequer, by imposing heavier taxes, encountered a most determined resistance from the people. The soldiers, who were ordered to enforce payment, were in most cases driven back, and the Government was obliged at last to hush up the matter by effecting a compromise. This disastrous attempt begat similar resistance in other parts of the country; and the comparative disrespect into which the Emperor and his Mandarins had fallen, in consequence of their defeat by the "bar

barians," greatly augmented the boldness of the malcontents. "Democratic assemblies, in which the rights of man were declared," rose in many parts of the country. "The elders and gentry took the lead in this matter, and demanded that, in all measures in which the happiness of the people were concerned, they should be first consulted. If there was anything that did not suit their wishes, they instantly remonstrated; and, if this proved ineffectual, they proceeded with an immense crowd to the Government offices, and carried by force what was denied to courtesy."

In Canton and its environs, a belief had prevailed that the populace could beat the Barbarians, and permission was accordingly given to wear arms and organise a numerous militia. The leaders of this movement, however, either were, or soon became, demagogues, and began to hold monster meetings for political ends. In this emergency the characteristic policy of the Chinese Government was manifested-which is, to adapt itself to circumstances, and to yield, rather than put the supreme authority in jeopardy by firm resistance. Seeing the impossibility of stemming the popular current, many Mandarins sided with the people, doubtless with the wise object of endeavouring to gain the direction of these dangerous movements. Every effort was made to rule by the masses, and to establish practically the truism, that the Government exists for the benefit of the people, not the people for the benefit of the Government. This warded off any direct collision between the State and its subjects, but, as was to be expected, much anarchy arose in consequence of the weakening of the Executive. In one case a prefect," says Gutzlaff, "having beaten an innocent man in the streets, the sufferer appealed to his fellow-citizens, collected a crowd of more than ten thousand, and proceeded directly to the establishment of the obnoxious Mandarin, which was burnt down, and razed to the ground; a declaration being made, that in such a manner would the sovereign people avenge themselves.

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