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    594 The Leader and Saturday Analyst. [Ju...

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    CORRESPONDENCE.

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    THE OPERATIVE BUILDERS. To the JStlitor ...

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    * Memtlloetlum Of Jjamn «•«>»' Jsmbassy ...

    formances were frequent . The Audacieuse started a rival company . Commissioner Yeh having refused to come to terms , hostilities commenced . Canton Was subjected to bombardment and capture . The description of' the Tatar soldiers is interesting . They amount to six or eight thousand menj and are Chinese by female descent . They have been settled for six or seven generations at Canton , and have exchanged the courage and vigour of their ancestors for that want of firmness and promptness to turn and run which characterizes the Imperial troops of China . There is nothing to distinguish them from the Chinese soldiers . They carry the same arms which belong to primitive times , and recall the period of Genghis Khan and Timour . They wear a round hat , a breastplate , a cartridge-box , after the Circassian fashion , at their belts , a long musket , arrows , and a flag , which they wave about to rouse

    their courage . Some trace of the Tatar descent they do preserve . They are stronger , bigger , more broad-shouldered , and not so dark in the complexion as the ordinary Chinese . But now , let us improve the . situation , and moralise the song . A subsequent examination of the scene of battle afforded opportunity for this . Our author , passing-the Hall of Examination , noted the cells of the litterati . Wide avenues , planted with trees , and elegant porticoes , give a very handsome and even noble appearance to this building . But , adds the marquis , it presents only another proof of the present decline of China . Literature , he tells us , " is certainly not now held in high esteem , nor can it be considered to flourish , if we are to judge by the nettles and parasitical plants which grow in unweeded luxuriance in this sanctuary of the muses . We counted the number of cells . There was . accommodation for 7000 students .

    If the great soul of Confucius could revisit this sublunary sphere , with what sadness would that spirit contemplate the manners of this degenerate age . The children of the Land of Flowers now worship mammon . They are absorbed in the race after material wealth . To the computation of filthy coppers / they have turned from the contemplative study of the sacred book of changes . In China there is a general break up of the old system ; the great administrative machine is getting daily more and more out of gear ; It is kept going ^ merely in virtue of old habits and prejudices . All its wheels are warn down . 'It v is gold now , and not knowledge , which obtains the diploma necessary to preferment . Why , then , should a man now shut himself up in a hole four feet square , to write his thesis ? It is more to the purpose to insinuate a hand-« ome bi-ibe into the pocket of a rapacious and powerful mandarin . "

    —We suspect that this is a hasty and one-sided view ; There is , however , some truth iu it . Especially significant was the fact , that they who were then sauntering over the northern rampart , were the first : of barbarians whohad ever passed within the sacred enclosure . A dozen corpses of Tatars were still lying about , who had been , precipitated over the edge at the point of the bayonet , or had fallen froih it in their flight ; and their arms were lying near them on the ground . They had been tall , stout , dark-complexioned men , and ' were frightfully mutilated . One was half consumed by a shell that iad burst near him . The following is well pictured : ^—' " We were accommodated separately in the different pagodas dnrihg—the-ujght . some sleeping on tables , others on the floor ,

    rolled up in a blanket , and all surrounded , like saints ltTit ^ ietUTeTWith a gloryi formed in our case of mosquitoes , which effectually drove sleep away . There was the greatest stillness in the town . Although the terror was general , the authorities in their impenetrable pride would as yet give no acknowledgment of their defeat . We heard only from time to time the distant howling of the Tatar dogs , the sputtering of some shouldering fire which had gone ablaze again , the call of the sentries , and the occasional discharge of ' musketry from the distant outposts . The appearance of the camp was very picturesque , ' and such only as an Asiatic war can exhibit . Long spears , arrows , red and yellow banners , were lying about on every side . The wardrobe of the mandarins had been well ransacked by bur seamen , and with What result was everywhere apparent . ' The altars had been converted into sleeping bertha , while the cloaks of the Chinese ladies supplied nightgowns . Every where there wore gilded Buddhas dragged from their niches , by one to be employed as a pillow , and by another to be used as a lamp-stand . The' abdomens both of the human figures and the horses had been broken open , the English soldiers recollecting- that in the first war large sums of money were found in this way . Every one ate and drank out of China-ware , bat as the only dishes in use jirithe country were cups and saucers , soup , beef , and cheeso were eaten off them . Propped against a fierce-looking dragon , or seated upon a moral maxim , we laid into the good cheer of the ^ mandarins ; In everything there was an indescribable mixture of the comic and grotesque . "

    The author ridicules the Chinese militia . Two regiments of Chas * deurs , he says , and two regiments of Zouaves , would suffice to conquer China ; Its inhabitants are not soldiers , but labourers j- —the ' country ikagreat workshopr ' ahive of bu « y bees . The . capture , and behaviour of Yeh is described at full ; but wo must refer the reader to the book . The state of the town is moat picturesquely described There is alBd an interesting account of Fo-Kien , where the people speak a different dialect from' the rest of China . At . Arnoy , too , there are distinctive peculiarities ; here are many Englitm residents . Amoy is the only place in China where the English Indies' visit the " ^ CluneserliTdTearan" F 3 e 6 ive cnlls fro m them in return . Jn Shang-^ hai there is a college' under the direction of Jesuits . It has been in existence seven years , and numbers a / hundred pupils . The influence ' of the French , moreover , is great at Shanghai . Of the manners nnd customs of China , tho Marquis dilutes at

    lar ^ e , devoting a chapter to the discussion of the subject . He found everything reversed in China . The East was in . all respects the opposite of the West . English writers have long been aware of this fact ; but it appears to have had a novelty for the French . All Europeans settled in the free ports' of . China ^ willingly bear testimony to the honourable manner in which business on a great scale is conducted by Chinese merchants , In Mongolia there were from 8 , 000 to 10 , 000 Christians , but they are all Chinamen . Opiumeating and smoking is , with the Chinese , an ineradicable habit ; and , indeed , is only curable at a risk of life , for the stomach , whea deprived of its sustenance , Contracts , and suffers acute agony . The picture given of the habit is full , and with much detail , which it is impossible to follow . The author adds : —" It is humanitarian England—so noisy , vigilant , and susceptible about the negro slavetrade- —which unscrupulously causes all this misery . " " O that some power the gift would gie us , To see ourselves as others see us I " We must now pay some attention to Japan . The Marquis speaks in high terms of the beauty of the country , aud the cleanliness of the people . The women are not shy , and the men of the poorer classes are simply arrayed in a wide dress with a belt , every part of it being exquisitely clean . In tlieir manners , he noted every sort of little refinement of luxury anil elegance . The bazaar was crowded with marvels of taste ; and the crew spent at Simoda about £ 1200 in the purchase of lacquered articles exhibited . Their intercourse with the inhabitants was familiar , and they were frankly received everywhere . The Japanese are anxious to get instruction . In Yedothey resemble in their manners the Chinese ; the authorities

    , seldom making their appearance among the people , and then only in full dress and accompanied by a cortege . " Accordingly , " says the writer , " the Japanese could scarcely believe us when we told them that the Emperor Napoleon III . went out every day in a phaeton without any attendants , driving the conveyance himself ; that he rode through the streets on horseback attended only by an aide-decamp ; and that lie spent his time in attending to public business . The idea of a prince moving about familiarly among his sub j ects was altogether at variance with their prejudices , but the fact of a sovereign being hardworked in the administration of state affairs seemed to them , to be altogether absurd . They remarked ingenuously , that it must be more tiresome than pleasant to be taicoon of the French . "

    Such a remark will strike-the thoughtful reader as evidently suggestive . Baron Gros named our author his secretary in Japan . Great was his surprise when , as such , he attended a public meeting , to'find that , a functionary who never opened his mouth during an animated discussion , was the most important personage in the assembly ; his title was that of imperial spy ; and that was his office too , for espionage is a mode of gpvei'nment in Yedo . "It may be said , without exaggeration , that one half of the population of Japan are employed as spies to watch over the other half . Oar one hundred iacounin , or men with two swords , were pleasant fellows

    enough , no doubt , but , for all that , they kept jotting down upon their fans all that took place , however trivial , while we were walking or talking in our rooms , to give An account of what had taken place , doubtless , in the proper quarter . But the iacounin had to be

    watched themselves , so we Rail six new periroHar ^ added-to-our-guapd to look after them , and see how they conducted themselves towards us . They were , in short , spies upon the spies . " There is much good information compressed into a small space in the Marquis de Moge's book . Tims we learn' that the importance of the trade between China and Japan has been very much exaggerated , and that thero ia scarcely any intercourse between the two countries . Thero is a freshness nnd originality also about his book which , to us , is very attractive , und we commend it earnestly to serious perusal . .

    594 The Leader And Saturday Analyst. [Ju...

    594 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ June 23 , I 860 .

    Correspondence.

    CORRESPONDENCE .

    The Operative Builders. To The Jstlitor ...

    THE OPERATIVE BUILDERS . To the JStlitor of . Tub Leader and Saturday Analyst . Sib , —Your able advocacy of those noble-minded workmen , who have merited well of all their fellow citizens , whether laboured for or labouring , induces me to tender for your ben evolent and enlightened pages a word on their behalf . At the commencement of tho winter , tho rigour of which those men , with such a scarcity of means , so heroically endured , I attended their meetings in St . Martin ' s Hull , and on one occasion I was invited by their secretary to preside . Conceiving that their proceedings would be more efficiently conducted by themselves , I preferred supporting them simply by being present on tho platform , with the able secretary and his well-chosen staff of speakers . I can , however , truly declare that I never came in contact with Mr . Potter , . .. ojp ... tho other leadera of their Society , without being impressed with the proofs of integrity nnd '' ltnio' 1 Foftrne 8 s ~ 6 f '" 8 oUt' \ viitch '" : t . hese : Tepresentatiyes of the body continually exhibited . Surely , Sir , had amy suoh sentimonts been found among the masters , they never could have conceived and bronghl ) forth such a contemptible as well as unconstitutional production us the " Declaration ; " nay , could they We lmd an idea of the " stumor stuff" of which those men ' s souls are constituted , they would never have darod so far to bravo their resolution . But let us look at this limitation of the hours of labour for which ( hey are still so valiantly , but so peacefully withal , contunding 1 . Oho , of tho grounds upon which they make the request is , " that tho less skilled of their brother operatives would tlioreby

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 23, 1860, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23061860/page/14/