Population has been more than trebled, while an increase of nearly 100% is shown over the returns of 1854.
The numbers as given in several consecutive tables are for the past year 72,876, for the previous year 1854 - 56,716, and for 1848 - 23,998.
4. The still unsettled state of the neighboring Province is often the moving cause of this influx of people, and it is useful to state that during the past year the increase has been at about an equal rate.
5. A natural and necessary result of the increased population is the increase of trade which is admitted on all sides, though the Government is unprepared to form it by statistics, mainly due to the, in all other respects, wise and judicious absence of Custom House.
6. Several Merchants have, however, during the past six months, remarked to me on the large trade (and this of ready-money) springing up here, for which they are unable to account, and only yesterday a mercantile Gentleman informed me that just since last June he sold an entire cargo of piece goods to the value of $30,000 in the course of a single morning.
The Class of Chinese traders, notwithstanding its comparatively low state, and not very extensively developed as in other places, is convinced by import...
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