Directory_and_Chronicle_1845 — Page 233

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say, the whole city is like a great junk: the two pagodas are her masts, the five story house (which rises on the hill close by the northern wall,) her stern-sheets! The Hwátáh was built more than thirteen hundred years ago; it has nine stories, is octagonal, and 170 feet in height. The Kwangtáh was built in the time of the Táng dynasty, which closed a. d. 906. It is broad at the base, and slen- der towards the top. Its height is 160 feet. Anciently it was sur- mounted by ‘a golden cock, which turned every way, with the wind ; but that was broken down and carried off to the capital, and its place afterwards supplied by a wooden one, which long since disappeared. Trades of Canton.

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There is

The manufactories and trades of Canton are numerous. no machinery, properly so called, and consequently there are no ex- tensive manufacturing establishments, similar to those which, in modern times and under the power of machinery, have grown up in Europe. The Chinese know nothing of the economy of time.--Much of the manufacturing business required to supply the commercial houses of Canton is performed at Fuhshán, a large town situated a few miles westward; still the number of hands employed and the amount of labor performed here, are by no means inconsiderable. There are annually about seventeen thousand persons, men, women, and children, engaged in weaving silk; their looms are simple, and their work is generally executed with neatness. The number of persons engaged in manufacturing cloth of all kinds, is about 50,000; when there is a pressing demand for work, the number of laborers is considerably increased; they occupy about 2,500 shops, averaging usually twenty in each shop. We have heard it said, that some of the Chinese females, who devote their time to embroidering the choicest of their fabrics, secure a profit of twenty, and sometimes even twenty-five dollars per month. The shoemakers are also numerous, and they support an extensive trade: the number of work- men is about 4,200. Those likewise who work in wood, brass, iron, stone, and various other materials, are numerous; and those who engage in each of these respective occupations form, to a cer- tain degree, a separate community, and have each their own laws and rules for the regulation of their business. The book trade of Canton is important; but we have not been able to obtain particulars concerning its extent.

The barbers of Canton form a separate department, and no one is allowed to discharge the duties of tonsor until he has obtained a