Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 128

1830.

Men and Things in Shanghái.

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ART. IV. Men and things in Shánghái: number and character of its population; tything system; taxation; sickness, and pauperism ; distribution of food; use of opium and prospect of the traffic being legalized; increase of the general commerce; the number of foreign residents; new churches dedicated; converts to Christianity; com- mittee of Delegates for revision of the Old and New Testaments in Chinese. From a Correspondent.

DEAR SIR, With your permission, I propose to notice briefly, some topics and events, which perhaps may not be without interest to your readers. For aught I know, all the inhabitants of this great empire are at this moment enjoying the most profound peace, and all its millions are free from the scourge of war. Indeed the people of this land are not prepared for, are not in a condition to experience, such revolu- tions as have shaken all Europe during the last year. Intelligence here moves slowly. Weeks and months are required for what on the other side of the globe, would need but hours or minutes. Repeatedly, du- ring the last year, forty days and more have elapsed without one line reaching us from Hongkong or Canton, a distance of only about a thousand miles. Information comes equally slow from Peking, and other parts of the empire. At present, stagnation—" rest," if his majes- ty please so to call it, prevails in all the provinces. While European states have been dashed one against another, in a manner ill-befit- ting Christian people, the peaceful sons of Hán have had rest—rest, however, which it is feared, by many, not without reason,

will prove, like the sullen calm that precedes the tyfoon, the precursor of dread- ful conflicts. We know what former civil and revolutionary wars have been in China; we know how they have swept over the land like the besom of destruction. Many intelligent Chinese think their country is on the eve of change, and they fear for the consequences. And well they may. However, they may be wrong in their predictions. Time will show. Come what will-what God ordains-and for one,

I can console myself in the belief that it will all be for good, and for China's good. Better be torn in pieces by the hurricane, than to die by inches in a calm, expiring for want of air to breathe!

The more foreigners become acquainted with the Chinese, the more extensively does the opinion obtain that the population of the empire, as given in modern statistics, has not been overrated. Recently, and on the best authority, I have heard it said that the population of Shang- hái is kulf a million of souls! From others, equaily well informed,

VOL. XIX, NO. 11.

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