CHINA AND ITS OPEN PORTS.
The standing military force of China consists of two great divisions, the first formed by the more immediate subjects of the ruling dynasty, the Tartars, and the second by the Chinese and other subject races. The first, the main force upon which the Imperial government can rely, form the so-called troops of the Eight Banners, and garrison all the great cities, but so as to be separated by walls and forts from the population. According to the latest reports, the Imperial army comprises a total of 850,000 men, including 678 companies of Tartar troops, 211 companies of Mongols and native Chinese infantry, a kind of militia, numbering 120,000 men. The native soldiers do not live in barracks, but in their own houses, mostly pursuing some civil occupation.
China proper extending over 73,093 geographical, or 1,534,953 English square miles, is divided into eighteen provinces, the area and population of which are given as follows in the most recent estimates, partly based on official returns :-
The above population, giving 263 souls per square mile throughout China proper, appears to be excessive, considering that some of the outlying portions of the immense territory are by no means densely inhabited. Nevertheless, other returns than those of the above tables, said to be official, give still higher figures. It is stated that in a censes taken in 1842, the population of China was ascertained to number 414,686,994, or 320 per English square mile, and that in 1852 it had risen to 450,000,000, or 347 inhabitants per square mile. But there is, probably, less accuracy in the given results of the latter enumerations than in the preceding estimate, as the power and authority of the government have been on the decline for more than half a century, and disturbed by constant insurrections, mostly spreading over large portions of the empire.
According to a return of the Imperial customs authorities, the total number of foreigners in China was 3,661 at the end of 1872. Among them were 1,771 natives of Great Britain and Ireland, 541 of the United States; 481 of Germany; and 239 of France, all other nationalities being represented by very few members. More than one half of the total number of foreigners, namely 2,047 resided at Shanghai, and 308 at Canton, the remainder being scattered, in numbers not exceeding 200, over the ports open to foreign commerce.
The commercial intercourse of China is mainly with the United Kingdom and the British colonies. To the aggregate imports and exports of China, in the five years