from the retarding influence of cultured prejudice, which characterises the Chinese "literati." It is to this humbler section of the race, engaged in trade, and tillage, that one is forced to look for the ultimate regeneration of China, rather than to the accomplished followers of Confucius. It is within my knowledge that some of these emigrants and their descendants, the latter having been trained in foreign schools, have risen to opulence and launched successfully, on foreign lines, abroad and in their own country, commercial undertakings of great magnitude and importance. In the hands of such men as these, perchance, lie the destinies of China, which must either move forward, or drift and be dismembered by powers over which she has no control. The experience of the last quarter of a century, and especially the results of the last war are far from reassuring, and do not encourage the hope that China at the eleventh hour will "set her house in order." She would have to re-organise her whole system of administration, excepting her Imperial Maritime Customs under Foreign Commissioners, which might well serve as a model, or an honest foundation upon which to rear the new fabric of government. In regard to the pressing necessity for reform of a drastic type, the reader may draw his own conclusions from a perusal of the recent "Times" correspondence, or still more recent British Consular Report, on "The Revenue and Expenditure of the Chinese Empire." The political as well as the fiscal outlook are there set down in the most sombre colours. Will China face the position boldly and at once? A native scholar once remarked that it takes more than a thousand years to introduce a new tone into the Chinese language. Should this estimate afford some clue to the ratio of political and social progress, it is difficult to limit the time required to cast off the chrysalis
