lady until he unlocks the door of the sedan chair in which she is brought home, the key of which is previously sent to him, he is of course very liable to have tricks played upon him.-For example, more especially as polygamy is allowed, a man may have a wife sufficiently young to be considered his daughter; should he want money, and the lady another husband (both very likely cases), or from any other reason should they wish to part, and think proper to act in collusion, she is sold as his daughter to another man, who is thus imposed upon by having a second-hand wife palmed off upon him, instead of a new one. The rigour of the law against offenders of this kind, which awards a very severe bambooing to all principals, aiders, and abettors, affords a proof that frauds of this descrip tion are not unfrequent.

With a people who still imagine the earth to be a plane, and China in the middle, with all her tributary kingdoms around her; who are equally uninformed with regard to astronomy; who, in the prohibition of the study of the human frame, preclude the attainment of the very basis of all medical knowledge; and who, in fact, in every branch of natural philosophy, are equally ignorant, and resolved to continue so; it is evidently impossible to connect the term science in any shape or manner.

The natural productions of the country, and their acquaintance with agriculture and the arts

(as far as they have been able to advance for that glorious edict which stamped them perfect, and commanded they should not proceed beyond the bounds of excellence), have already been (and probably may be again, with additional information) described, by those whose peculiar opportunities, as well as talent for observation, enable them to speak fully, and with precision, on those subjects.

The government of China, however plausible it may sound in theory, is, by all that can be observed in a transient view, and, by every concurrent testimony of residents in the country, most iniquitous and tyrannical in practice. The mandarins, and even the emperor, it is true, cannot boldly and openly chop off heads like a Turkish bashaw or the dey of Algiers: but they have the knack of rendering life very miserable, and assume the power of bambooing, torturing, fining (or squeezing), and every species of oppression short of death. The human kind can scarcely be more degraded than in China, for no where is power more diabolically perverted. Their laws, with the exception of some absurdities (such, for example, of visiting mere accidental homicide with the same punishment as the most deliberate murder), read very well; and, were they duly and impartially administered, might be found sufficiently adapted (as all laws ought to be) to the genius and character of the people they are formed for; but this is by no

means the case; bribery and corruption being so common, as scarcely to be the objects of indignation or remark.

A few years since an affray took place (as usual). between some of the seamen of the Indiamen who were at Canton on leave, and the Chinese mob, in which one of the latter by an unlucky blow was killed. The Chinese authorities demanded blood for blood, one of the seamen having been seized and detained in the factory: this, however, was not tamely yielded to (as in the case of the innocent gunner, who was sacrificed in so cowardly a manner many years ago), but was resisted on the ground either of the aggression of the Chinese, ár of a mutual inclination to fight, in which a man happened to be killed, without the least previous intention of murder. Fortunately the Lion, of 64 guns, captain Rolles, happened to be there, which probably gave some weight to these arguments; and the mandarins, having no objections to compromise the matter for money, proposed that a certain sum should be paid to them for the benefit of V the deceased's relations, and a slave could then be purchased of the Portuguese at Macao, who might be strangled in lieu of one of the sailors, and thus the law would be perfectly satisfied!

It may easily be imagined this proposal was not acceded to; and, at last, after much discussion, the

matter was arranged in some way or other with out resorting to this horrible mode of expiation*. It is lamentable to observe that the institutions

of

any nation should have the effect of deadening every feeling of sympathy, and of exciting, instead of discouraging, "man's inhumanity to man;" but such is the case in this country; and when any one is severely wounded by accident, or falls into a river, or other situation of danger, he is certain of receiving no assistance from the by-standers, who will most probably take to their heels, in order to save themselves from being the last person seen near him.

About midnight, some time in November, 1816, when the Alceste was lying at second bar, the shrieks of some people in the water were heard near the ship. The hon. Mr. Stopford, who had the watch, and another gentleman, collecting a few individuals who happened to be on deck, jumped into a boat alongside; pushed off to their assistance; and, directed by their cries, picked up, one after the other, three Chinese, who were plunging about in the river, which is here several miles wide.

*Related by J. Cotton, Esq., of the English factory at Canton.

It was a fine night, and a number of small junks were moving up under easy sail, several of whom passed within a few fathoms of these people who were bawling for help; and although they could, without the slightest difficulty, have saved the whole, they continued their course, the crews standing upon deck, and viewing their struggles with the most callous indifference.

On carrying the three men on board the frigate, it appeared they had been crossing the river at this place, in a little Sanpan, or boat; in which were, besides themselves, the wife and child of one of them; and that this boat had been run down by one of the headmost junks, which passed on without taking the least notice, and regardless of their fate, although they had occasioned the mischief; the others coolly following their example; when they were fortunately heard from the ship, and preserved by the boat. The poor woman and child, being unable to swim, sank, and were drowned.

Before day-light these people got a passage on shore by a boat which happened to be passing near the ship, and in the course of the forenoon one of them returned on board with a cumshaw, or present, of three wild ducks, which he presented on his knees to the gentleman who had saved him, stating that, by the junk running over their sanpan, he had lost his wife and a bull child (his only mode of expressing a boy), and must himself with the

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