these were to be seen on sale. Inquiries among the piece-goods merchants elicited the information that there is a larger demand for black Italians than for any other class of the higher quality cotton goods; but I was also told that there was a very considerable demand for a thin striped material of Japanese make. This is much worn in summer and is cheap, a retail merchant only asking me 70 cash a foot, this being also the price of the lowest quality Manchester grey shirting sold.
In one of the busiest parts of the town many new and commodious shops were just being completed. A fire had burned down a whole district during the previous summer, and, surrounded by the new buildings, one site remained a charred and blackened rubbish-heap. It was here that the house in which the fire originated had stood, and a rubbish-heap it would remain, for public opinion—a force far stronger than any law—demanded that this should be so, as penalty for the cause of so much damage.
I left Chia-ting Fu on December 22nd, and,
