the worst Chinese city when he has inspected Foochow; he is certain of it when he visits Ningpo, and doubly sure on arriving in Tientsin. Yet, after all, it will not be strange if he heartily recants when he reviews with candour and impartiality the claims of Peking!
The three points upon which the Occidental mind is sure to lay principal stress when contemplating the inconveniences of Chinese civilisation, are the absence of postal facilities, the state of the roads, and the condition of the currency. Private companies do of course exist, by which letters and parcels may be transmitted from certain places in China to certain other places, but their functions are exceedingly limited, and compared with the whole Empire, the areas which they accommodate are but trifling. Of Chinese roads we have already spoken, when discussing the absence of public spirit. There is a road many miles in length cut through a mountain in Shantung, which is so narrow that carts cannot pass one another. Guards are stationed at each end, and traffic is only allowed in one direction in the forenoon, and in the other during the afternoon! It is because the Chinese costume— especially Chinese shoes—is what has been described, and because Chinese roads are what we know them to be, that whenever the weather is bad the Chinese confine themselves to their dwellings. In Western lands we speak of an unintelligent person as one who does not know enough to go in when it rains, but in China one should rather say of such a person that he does not know enough to stay in when it rains. One of the most common characters in the Chinese language, used to denote imperative necessity, is composed of two parts, which signify "stopped by the rain." With the possible exception of official service, the idea that any human being has functions the discharge of which can be harmonised with the rapid precipitation of moisture in the outer atmosphere, is one that can only be introduced to most Chinese skulls by a
